“That way,” said Guns, seeing the sign for Mesopotamia Express, the name of the company that flew the aircraft Thomas had tracked. The macadam road turned to concrete; the company’s building sat to the left, in front of a large ramp area. A four-engined aircraft sat in the back. After spending much of their day yesterday tracking down useless leads about people who might have been connected to the shipment of the rocket fuel, this felt like they were really on to something. Even though Guns realized it was unlikely they would find Vassenka or the cruise missile Ferguson had told them about here, he checked his M4, making sure it was ready for action.
“Let’s check the plane first,” said Rankin.
They drove over and parked alongside. There weren’t any guards or even employees nearby. A high-winged design that looked like a slimmer version of the American C-130, the Russian-made An-12 dated from the late 1950s. T his particular plane had been around since the mid-1960s. After serving in the south of Russia for more than a decade, it had been transferred to Iraqi military service. It was now on its third owner, a company run by a pair of former Iraqi pilots, one of whom had received a bonus from the dictator after the first Gulf War for running to Iran with his MiG. The plane had been well maintained mechanically but looked a bit of a hodgepodge on the outside, with the remains of old paint schemes and even different ID numbers littered along its fuselage. There was a door on the pilot’s side beneath the high wing. This was generally reached with the aid of an exterior ladder. There were no ladders nearby, and the wheel fairing made it difficult to climb high enough to get a foothold, but Rankin got enough of a foot- and handhold to reach the recessed handle.
The freshly risen sun streamed shafts of light through the windows into the long, bare interior. Ropes lay scattered around the tie-downs, but otherwise the cargo bay was empty.
The warehouse doors at the rear of the company’s building were closed, but the front door was open. Rankin, Guns, and James walked past the small reception area into the back, Rankin thinking of what Ferguson would have done in this situation, the others glancing around warily. Guns held his M4 at his side, as if there were any way to be discreet when carrying an automatic weapon into a building.
Two panel trucks that looked like downsized UPS vehicles sat to the right. Assorted pipes, small boxes, bundles of Arabic-language newspapers, old wooden crates, and a pile of rubber mats were arranged opposite them. None of the boxes was big enough to hold a surface-to-surface missile or its related hardware. Rankin was just going around to check the trucks when a fat man in mechanic’s overalls came out from around one of the vehicles and demanded to know what they were doing there.
“Looking for someone?” asked Rankin in Arabic. The phrase came easy on the tongue; he’d said it a million times in Iraq. “What are you doing?”
“You’re the intruder,” said the man, switching to English. “What is it you want?”
Rankin took a step toward the mechanic, who made the mistake of starting to square off as if to punch him. The American’s reflexes kicked in, and within a split second he had the Iraqi on his stomach, arm pinned behind his back. Rankin drew his pistol and pointed it at the man’s face, though given the fact that he hadn’t been intimidated by Guns’s rifle this was probably a useless gesture.
“I think we’d all be better served if we asked a few questions calmly,” suggested James. “I doubt there’s much here for anyone to get very upset about, much less shot.”
He repeated the words in Arabic. The Iraqi, somewhat more subdued, shrugged. He said that he worked on the trucks and knew nothing about the aircraft.
“We don’t want to know about the aircraft,” Rankin said in English, letting James translate. “We’re looking for a very big package.”
“A package that was supposed to go to us but didn’t,” added James when he translated, adding justice to their claim for information.
Guns went over to the desk near the window and rifled through the drawers. He found a strongbox with some bills and a notebook, and a larger ledger divided into columns. The writing was in Arabic. He held it up.
“Hey, James, can you read this?”
The journalist came over and struggled through a few lines. They were cities and what he thought were the names of the drivers or the person responsible for the delivery.
“Let our friend here read it,” said Rankin.
He jerked the mechanic to his feet. The man stared at the ground.
What would Ferguson do? Rankin asked himself.
Probably be able to read it; the SOB seemed to know every stinking language going. But if he couldn’t, he’d bribe the man to get him to help.
Unlike Ferguson, though, Rankin didn’t travel with a wad of counterfeit local currency. He reached into his wallet and took out fifty dollars American, half of the money he had.
“Read it for us,” he told the mechanic, holding the money toward him. But Rankin hadn’t handled the exchange deftly enough; the incident became a matter of pride for the Iraqi, who would have refused a bribe of a hundred times that amount. Rankin, angry at himself as well as the man, tossed down the money. “Take the books. Let’s get out of here,” he said.
They found a schoolteacher to translate the ledger books. The woman thought they were a bit eccentric until James explained that they had found the books along the side of the road and were trying to figure out where they should be returned. The deliveries were to cities and towns within a hundred-mile radius. There was no information on what was delivered.
All but one of the deliveries had been made to the south, in the direction of Tikrit.
“The thing’s range is what, a little better than fifty miles?” said Guns. “So they’d have to drop it off, then take it farther south.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” said Rankin. “From these books, the deliveries could be envelopes. Neither of those trucks was big enough for a Siren missile.”
He glanced over at James as he said that. James shrugged. He’d already figured out what they were looking for, more or less. As far as he was concerned, knowing the name of the missile wasn’t much of a big deal, unless he had to write about it.
Rankin called Corrigan and gave him the information. Corrigan told him they were already alerting the Iraqi authorities as well as U.S. forces about the possibility that the missile had been brought into the area.
“What about the Russian?” Rankin asked. “Can you check the hotels?”
“I doubt he’d stay in a hotel,” said Corrigan. “Besides, we don’t have unlimited manpower.”
“What’s Ferg think?” asked Rankin. “Did that Birk Ivanovich or whatever sell them the cruise missile for sure, or is this still a hunch?”
“I don’t know. Ferg’s out of communication right now.”
“What do you mean, out of communication?”
“He was being chased last night near Latakia, offshore. Van Buren ordered a diversion, and he seems to have gotten away. He called in from the city a while later, but he got separated from his sat phone. We don’t know what’s going on.”
Rankin stared at the phone. “He’ll turn up,” he told Corrigan finally.
15
Ferguson felt something brush against his leg.
Still half-sleeping, he thought it was a dog, and twisted his head to see what was going on. He couldn’t see anything, and it was only when he curled around for a better view that he realized it was the Mediterranean, lapping against his body; the copse he’d found to hide in was on the sea, and at high tide the water covered what he’d thought was dry land. He rolled onto his haunches, rubbing the crust from his eyes and trying to get his bearings. It was past three o’clock in the afternoon; he’d slept for close to twelve hours.
Brushing the sand and dirt from his face, Ferguson pulled off his shoes and borrowed pants, stripping to his bathing trunks. Then he waded into the surf, splashing water on his face and hair, shaking his head like a St. Bernard clearing its water-logged coat. It was an overcast, muggy day; insects buzzed around him. He reached into
