picked the lock, lifting the lid cautiously; there was nothing inside except an undersized spare and some crumpled plastic grocery bags.
Ferguson pulled the small bomb sniffer out of his pocket. The “sniffer” would react to the chemicals used in plastic explosives, such as Semtex, by sounding a tone and lighting a red LED on the outer casing. The light stayed off.
Ferguson slammed the trunk closed.
“Guns, why don’t you circle the block, get out of here,” he said.
“What?”
“Just go. This may be some sort of trick to flush us out. That or Rankin got his underwear twisted again.”
9
The alleyway was dark, and Rostislawitch tripped over a small pile of boxes as he strode toward the street. Thera grabbed his back and steadied him, helping him oat to the light. A fire truck was just turning up the block; they watched it veer left and right as the driver overcorrected, its bumper barely missing the cars parked on either side of the street.
“What’s going on?” Rostislawitch asked.
“I don’t know,” said Thera.
“Did Atha send you?”
Thera considered saying yes, but was afraid he’d catch on if she bluffed. Better to play it straight, she thought.
“Who’s Atha?” she asked.
“Who sent you?” demanded Rostislawitch.
“No one sent me. I’m from the University of Athens. I’m a post-doc student. I thought I might come here and see what chances I had of getting a job. I’m not sure whether I want to teach or just do pure research. It might be selling out.”
“Oh, Athens.” Despite her claim, Rostislawitch was now convinced that Thera was in fact working for the Iranian, probably checking him out before the meeting.
“You’ve been to Athens?” asked Thera.
“I’ve stopped in the airport a few times. Never in the city.”
“A shame,” Thera told him. “There’s so much history there, in the countryside. The city itself is like any city, unless you have family. But the ruins, those are impressive.”
“I see.” Rostislawitch stepped back as another fire engine roared around the corner.
“Would you like to get something to eat?” asked Thera.
“Yes,” said Rostislawitch. “I am a little hungry.”
Among the many lessons Ferguson’s father had taught him was always to look as if you belonged where you didn’t. A slight frown, a firm glare, and a determined stride were far more valuable than an identification card — though he could have produced a card showing he was a police investigator had anyone stopped him as he strode into the art building.
“Ferg, what are you doing?” Rankin asked over the radio.
Ferguson ignored him. Spotting the suitcase, he walked to it and pulled it from under the table.
“Ferg!”
Combination locks on either side of the suitcase held it shut. Ferguson placed his thumbs on them, then pushed the levers simultaneously. The loud clicks echoed against the high ceiling.
“Jesus, Ferg,” said Rankin.
“I don’t see the big guy here.” Ferguson pushed the lid up. The suitcase was filled with pamphlets.
“You see this, Rankin?”
“Yeah, I see it, Ferg. What the fuck do you want me to say?”
“Something along the lines of, ‘I screwed up big-time,’ would do it.”
“Like I’m supposed to have X-ray vision? The guy acted exactly as if he was planting a bomb. I didn’t want Thera to get killed. I thought it was T Rex.”
Ferguson straightened. A pair of firemen came through the door; one of them had an axe.
The firemen rushed toward the hallway. Ferguson took out his small bug finder and scanned the room, looking for bugging devices. He smelled a setup — someone must be watching, and now knew they were there.
“Maybe you ought to get out of there, don’t you think?” said Rankin.
“I’m already burned as it is,” said Ferguson. He was in no mood to realize he’d made a pun, let alone laugh at it.
“The guy with the suitcases is coming in,” said Rankin.
“Maybe I’ll arrest him. I noticed a spelling mistake on the brochure.”
10
They spent the next few hours trying to figure out if they had been watched. Rankin was mad at Ferguson for saying he’d screwed up when really he’d done the most logical thing under the circumstances. Ferguson was mad at himself for not having realized that it might be a trap. Guns, who’d cycled back around the city and was watching Thera, wasn’t quite sure what either of them was angry about, and tried to ignore the sniping in his headset. The only person completely focused on her job was Thera, who’d bought Rostislawitch dinner and listened to him talk about how much he missed his wife. It was a touching story, heartrending in a way, and not the sort of thing she’d expected from a man who according to the Cube had spent his life working on efficient ways of killing large numbers of people with microscopic bugs.
When Rostislawitch went back to his hotel to go to bed, Thera planted a video bug outside his room, then went downstairs and tapped into the phone interface unit in the boiler room. Ferguson, meanwhile, rented a suite on the second floor that they could use to watch him if necessary. After checking the room, he went down to the lounge to check it out and wait for Thera. Afraid to drink because he was so tired, he ordered a bottle of Pellegrino and sat at a booth that gave him a good view of the doorway.
Had T Rex really snookered him, or was he just thinking too much? Did they even have the right target in the first place?
By their very nature, First Team missions tended not to move in a straight line; if figuring out who T Rex was and grabbing him was an easy job, someone else would have been assigned to do it. But difficulty wasn’t an excuse, Ferguson thought; they’d botched it this afternoon, and it was his fault, not Rankin’s.
Ferguson’s body felt beat to piss, and his mind wasn’t sharp. He told himself it was because he hadn’t slept much and hadn’t had much of a break between missions, but he couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that something else was going on.
Maybe the cancer was sucking energy out of him, draining him like a short circuit in a car battery. There was going to come a time when he couldn’t do this job, where he’d be a second too late to react, and that would get not only him but the rest of the team killed.
Thera was the one in harm’s way right now. If she died because he couldn’t figure out what was going on, he couldn’t live with that. He just couldn’t.
