“You said it. I didn’t,” said Bellows, leading her to the cars as a swarm of bodyguards followed.
Two years after the formal turnover of government to the Iraqis, the city remained pockmarked and battered from the occupation and the continuing struggle with a hodgepodge of insurgents. The Iraqis were clearly making progress, and in fact two-thirds of the country was arguably as calm as any place in the Middle East. The area around Baghdad remained the exception; while it wasn’t anywhere near as dangerous as it had been even a year before, Americans were still targets here. A sizable portion of the remaining U.S. military presence was concentrated in and around the capital. American troops and dignitaries traveled in convoys whenever possible, their routes never announced in advance.
But Bellows seemed jubilant and even carefree as they rode from the airport and toured the sprawling city. He spoke in glowing terms of a new housing development that, in Corrine’s eyes at least, already looked rundown. From there they drove to a new shopping mall outside of town. Corrine realized that the ambassador wanted her to be impressed, hoping that she would interpret what she saw as a sign that normalcy was returning to the country.
The empty shelves and idle clerks in the mall had the opposite effect. There were at least three dozen Iraqi government soldiers in the building and another dozen Americans, outnumbering the shoppers nearly twenty to one.
Iraq might be on the road to democracy, but it was a long road, with many twists and turns, and it would be years before the country rose from poverty, let alone began to live up to its economic potential. In two months, the bulk of the remaining American troops were scheduled to withdraw. Corrine couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when they were gone. Besides reducing security, their removal would hurt the local economy, which was benefiting from cash payments for bases as well as from the GIs’ personal spending.
Bellows shrugged off the question.
“A few hiccups, nothing more,” he said as they rode back to the embassy. “I have a few meetings I can’t duck. Should we get together after dinner? Late? I’d love to catch up.”
“Sure,” said Corrine. “That’d be good. I have a few things to do myself.”
The embassy complex — it had been built at the end of the occupation, one more spur to the economy — was so new that it smelled of plaster as well as fresh paint. There were three small dormitory-style residence buildings for VIPs. Though Bellows suggested she take a room in the ambassador’s residence near him, Corrine demurred; she planned on using the secure communications facilities, which were located in the basement of the largest of the VIP buildings (the Yellow House, so called because of the exterior color). Staying there would make it easier to come and go. She also wanted to keep a little professional distance between herself and Bellows, though she didn’t tell him this.
Like its predecessor, the embassy had extensive secure facilities manned twenty-four hours a day and located in an elaborate bunker. Corrine found her room, then went down and checked in with Teri, her secretary at the White House. Teri ran through a long list of calls and then demanded to know if the rumors were true that she had been shot at.
“No. There was some sort of fracas in a nightclub, but my bodyguards hustled me out before things got too crazy,” said Corrine, crossing her lingers in front of her.
“Is that really what happened?”
“Would a lawyer lie?”
“Ha.”
After she managed to allay Teri’s fears, she phoned Corrigan to see what was up with Ferguson. The First Team leader wanted to talk to her, Corrigan said. Corrine kicked off her shoes and curled her legs up in the chair as she waited for the connection. The long day had her tired out already, and she was a little disappointed by the ambassador; he hadn’t taken her questions seriously.
Or maybe he had, and that’s why he was putting a smiley face on everything.
“How do you like sunny Baghdad?” said Ferguson cheerfully when the line connected.
“It’s all right. What’s going on?”
“I know where Khazaal is staying, a mosque in town.”
The word
“I didn’t say I was going to. Can I make the arrest without a replacement for Fouad?”
“Go ahead, but don’t do it in a mosque. Not in a mosque.”
Ferguson said nothing.
“Unless you really have to,” she added finally.
“I don’t think I will. I’ll talk to you.” He snapped off the line.
Corrine rose and went upstairs in search of a shower.
24
As it turned out, Khazaal left the castle around the time Ferguson was grabbing Guns from the riptide. Meles, meanwhile, didn’t go there, visiting a small cottage a mile outside of town, apparently to see another delegate to the upcoming conference.
The flies Ferguson attached to the Imam’s son’s clothes yielded nothing except for a few jokes at the old man’s expense. Good fodder for the CIA Christmas party, but of dubious intelligence value.
The flies that Guns tossed in the boat, however, provided several interesting tidbits when the boat returned from a trip to the port area. According to the transcript Corrigan forward to Ferguson:
sbj a: [garbled]… Tomorrow night
sbj b: All of them?
sbj a: As many trucks as you can get, yes. And brothers who are trustworthy.
sbj b: The Yemen? [series of individuals named by pseudonyms or nicknames, none
identified as yet..]
“Which you think means what?” Ferguson asked Corrigan.
“Thomas thinks it means the meeting is set for tomorrow. He’s found an airplane that was leased in Turkey a week ago with money from Morocco that came from Iraq. That airplane has a flight plan filed for Latakia tomorrow night. That jibes with what your source told you.”
“The airplane is going to pick up Khazaal?”
“That’s Thomas’s theory. It landed somewhere in Lebanon a few days ago, but then flew back to Turkey.”
“Near Tripoli?” That would have made sense if the men they had apprehended were to meet Khazaal there.
“I asked Thomas, but he accused me of jumping to conclusions without facts. It seems logical, right? But those guys you grabbed still aren’t talking. Slott won’t send them over to Guantanamo and Cor — Ms. Alston won’t approve, uh, coercive methods.”
Ferguson’s plan, still vague, was to grab the Iraqi as he came out of the meeting. That was problematic, however; Khazaal would be on his guard, and once the attack started he’d fight to the death. The plane represented a better opportunity, but by then Khazaal might have completed whatever deal the jewels were intended to cement. The trick was to think of them as separate events.
“Tell Thomas he did a good job,” Ferg told Corrigan.
“I’m afraid to encourage him. He has yet another UFO theory.”
“Hey, I have some of those myself. What does he think the jewels are supposed to buy?”
“Just the usual: weapons. I have a theory,” added Corrigan.
“Fire away.”
“I think it’s mercenaries. They’ll bring in suicide bombers from Hamas or something.”
“They have plenty of whackos in Iraq already,” Ferguson told him. “Iraq is a net exporter of crazies. Just like guns.”
“I think you’re wrong. It’s not easy to get people to blow themselves up, Ferg.”
