“You’re not as dumb as you sound, Ciello. I didn’t know you knew Russian.”
“Just curse words.” He’d made a study of them several years before; they helped break the ice when dealing with Russian UFO experts about the so-called Siberian Series Sightings.
“Piss off yourself.”
Ferguson laughed. “Talk to you later.”
7
Thera hesitated before getting out of the cab, scanning the block in front of the hotel for anything suspicious.
“Maybe I’ll just go to bed,” said Rostislawitch, getting out on the other side.
“How about dinner?” Thera asked. “Are you hungry?”
Rostislawitch looked across the roof of the taxi. She was beautiful and concerned, and despite the difference in their ages — despite the fact that he knew, knew, that she would not be interested in him sexually — he wanted badly to make love to her.
Even acknowledging the thought to himself felt awkward. And yet many older men had younger women. Many. Why was he different?
They were handsome, and rich. He was neither.
“Professor?”
“You should call me Artur,” said Rostislawitch. “Artur is what friends call me. And I have never liked to be a professor. Research has been my true calling.”
“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting.”
“You deserve dinner for rescuing me. Let’s have something nice. Yes,” said Rostislawitch, suddenly sure of himself. “Come on. Let us see what we can find in the hotel restaurant. It is supposed to be very good.”
Ferguson moved the binoculars slowly, scanning the street. There were two Italian surveillance teams on the roofs near the hotel, and one more on the top floor of the hotel itself. But no sign of Kiska, or the Iranian.
“Thera’s on her way in,” said Guns, who was on the street a few yards behind her.
“Got it,” acknowledged Rankin, who was in the lobby
Ferguson continued to scan the buildings after Thera and Rostislawitch went inside. He assumed that T Rex would know by now that he — or she — had missed. Would the assassin try to finish the job quickly, or wait until some of the heat died down? Ferguson could make a good argument either way.
But Kiska Babev as T Rex? That still didn’t quite fit, despite what Ciello had found, and even though Ferguson had seen Kiska’s alabaster face, her thick black lips, and the cell phone: a bomb detonator. Or maybe just a cell phone.
“They’re going into the hotel restaurant,” said Rankin over the radio. “Maitre d’ is talking to them, I assume telling them they’re closed until seven. Going to the bar.”
“Give her some space,” said Ferguson.
“No shit.”
Guns checked in; Ferguson told him to circle the block a few times and then head over to one of their safe rooms and grab a nap: he decided T Rex would undoubtedly need some time to reload as well as let the pressure die down. If he’d been thinking of striking right away, he would have gone to the hospital.
Or she.
Ferguson was thinking about whether he might take a rest as well when his sat phone began to buzz.
“Yeah?” he said, making the connection.
“No funny jokes this time?” asked Corrine Alston.
“Lost my sense of humor when I crashed the Ducati,” said Ferguson. “Beautiful bike. Seat was a little uncomfortable, but I could live with that.”
“Are you OK?”
“Corrigan didn’t tell you?”
“No. Are you OK? What happened to you?”
“One of the spokes went through my liver,” said Ferguson. He picked up the field glasses and went back to scanning the street.
“Ferguson, are you pulling my leg?”
“I’m fine, Counselor. What’s on your mind?”
“I want to know what’s going on. Is the Russian agent T Rex?”
“What Russian agent?”
“Corrigan said you guys are looking pretty hard at a Russian FSB colonel as T Rex.”
“Corrigan wouldn’t know a Russian FSB colonel from his mother-in-law,” said Ferguson. Stinking Corrigan had a big mouth. “I saw a Russian op on the street just before the explosion. It doesn’t mean she’s T Rex.”
“Where is she now?”
“We’re working on it. The Italians are helping. Or we’re helping the Italians, depending on your point of view.”
“Do you think the Russian FSB wants to kill Rostislawitch?”
It was a possibility, but Ferguson didn’t think it was likely — they would have had a much easier time bumping Rostislawitch off in Russia. If Kiska was T Rex, this was a freelance assignment on the side.
In that case, the last place she’d want to clip him would be in Russia; there’d be too much potential to link it to her.
“I really don’t have enough information to get into theories right now,” Ferguson told Corrine.
“You thought the Iranians wanted to kill him. Could that theory still hold? Does this mean he’s given them something, or won’t cooperate with them? What does it mean?”
A cab pulled up front of the hotel. A woman got out, a blonde.
Kiska Babev.
“Ferg?”
“The answer is ‘D: all of the above,’“ said Ferguson. “I’m going to have to get back to you.”
8
Corrine hung up the phone. She was used to Ferguson’s quick hangups by now and knew it was usually because he was working. Still, it was clear he was holding something back.
Of course he was. Ferguson never told the whole story about anything.
Her intercom buzzed. “The chief of staff just called. The President wants to move the two o’clock up to twelve fifteen and make it a working lunch,” said her secretary, Teri Gatins. “I ordered you a Caesar salad. OK?”
Corrine glanced at her watch. “It’s twelve thirty.”
“He said he was running fifteen minutes late.”
That was
Secretary of State Jackson Steele ran his fingers through his curly white hair, pushing it back on his scalp. It was thick and so bright that it reminded people of the cotton his ancestors had once picked, and Steele sometimes wondered if the Lord had given it to him as a warning not to forget his humble beginnings.
“All I’m asking for is a week. Less. We’re almost there. The Iranian ayatollahs have already signed off on the