pawnbroker in the old part of the city. The man closed his eyes when he saw the stones; Ferguson pulled them back across the counter.
“How about these?” he said, taking out two of the diamonds.
The man considered them. “Twenty Euros apiece.”
“Come on, they’re worth more.”
“Your accent is Egyptian,” said the man. “But your clothes tell me you are from Europe.”
“Ireland. I grew up in Cairo. Will that get me a better price?”
“Fifty Euros would be the best I could do. They are decent but not real.”
“What about this?” said Ferguson. He took out the bracelet that had fallen on the ground the night of the operation. The man’s eyes and greedy fingers told him immediately it was real.
“For this—” started the merchant.
“Don’t even tempt me. It’s not for sale,” said Ferguson, pulling it back.
Of all the covers Ferguson had ever adopted, playing a doctor had to rate among the best. It wasn’t just that people seemed to easily accept it; they became positively voluble, offering all sorts of information. And so Dr. Ferguson not only gained a great deal of insight into the autopsy procedures at the university hospital but was also treated to a full tour of the area where corpses were held. In the course of this tour, the assistant to the assistant head pathologist revealed that they had handled an important case just that morning, working on a body that had unfortunately met its demise by coming too close to a hand grenade.
Dr. Ferguson recalled experiences with mines in Bosnia as a young intern volunteering his time. This pressed the cover story to the limit. Ferguson was actually too young to have been there in the time frame when it would have taken place — but the assistant assistant wasn’t keeping track of dates. Ferguson moved on to a discussion of plastic surgery, a specialty he had not indulged in but often wondered about. The conversation flowed a crooked road of techniques and wounds and reconstruction, until at last Ferguson found himself staring at the face of Jurg Vassenka, who was not Jurg Vassenka.
They’d been had. The Russian had managed to slip away.
4
The U.S. Navy had special teams trained to board and inspect ships on the high seas, and Rankin was content to ride shotgun with one as it approached the
The freighter had started its journey not in North Korea as Ferguson had originally suspected but the Philippines, where it had docked not far from one that had recently come from North Korea. This was all documented in the papers the captain presented to the ensign in charge of the boarding party, as were the stops it had made in the Middle East. It hadn’t docked in Tripoli or Latakia, but Rankin already knew from Thomas’s work that there was enough slack in the ship’s itinerary for it to have lingered a few hours offshore, presumably to get a payment or for instructions. In any event, the papers weren’t what he and Guns had come to see.
“We want to look at the cargo,” he told the ensign.
The ship captain’s English, which just a moment ago had been perfect, suddenly became strained. He managed to communicate that he had nothing but televisions and cooking oil aboard, and was already overdue.
“Then you better help us take a look quickly,” suggested the ensign, “or you’ll be even later.”
Rankin gripped his Uzi as they went down the ladder to the forward cargo spaces. There were shadows everywhere, and while the destroyer they’d come from sat less than a hundred yards away, the boarding crew was very much on its own amid the shadows and cramped quarters below deck. They went to the stacked boxes of cooking oil; the crew directed one of the skids to be opened for inspection. The captain asked if they wanted it done there or above on deck.
“Neither,” said Rankin. “Where are the televisions?”
The ensign shot him an odd look. The captain’s English once more failed. The boarding crew, however, had already located them in the next hold; the crates were arranged so that they would be easily unloaded.
When they finally reached them, the captain began to protest that an inspection would make them even later.
“Tell you what then,” said Rankin, raising his Uzi, “I’ll just fire at random through them. What do you say?”
Guns grabbed the captain as he jerked away and threw him to the ground. The sailors who jumped on him grabbed a small pistol from his pocket.
The first set of boxes they opened contained thirty-two-inch televisions manufactured in South Korea. The second set seemed to as well, until the picture tubes were examined more closely. The flimsy cardboard that protected the rear of the TV sets covered a large plastic piece at the back of the picture tube. The first sign that it was different from that on the legitimate sets was the fact that it screwed off rather than pulled. The second sign was the kerosenelike stench that quickly spread through the hold when it was off. Rankin put the cap back on gingerly.
“Better get this place vented,” Rankin told the ensign in charge of the boarding team. “This stuff catches fire pretty damn easy.”
5
Thera got back to the hotel just as Monsoon and Grumpy were taking their gear out to the van that would run them over to the British military airport at Akroti. A jet there would take them to the States, where they would have a few days off before rejoining their units. Surprised and disappointed that they were leaving, Thera tried not to show it. She kissed Grumpy, which surprised him, and then kissed Monsoon, which didn’t.
“I hope I see you again,” she told him.
“That’d be nice.”
“You have an e-mail address?”
“Sure.”
Upstairs, she tucked the address into her wallet, then went to take a shower. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she undressed, she saw a woman with drooping eyes and a puffy mouth: an old, tired, lonely woman.
Exhausted by the last several days, feeling the aftereffects of the pill she’d taken to keep herself going last night, she burst into tears.
6
“The problem with you Americans is that you think you don’t have to get your hands dirty. You think you can deal with a problem by talking about it rather than taking action, when only action will solve it: strong action, eradicating action. You would have kept Khazaal and Meles alive, risking their escape. We have dealt with them efficiently. We have provided you a solution to the problem which you did not have the stomach to take.”
