She nodded.
“We’ll be there,” said the scientist.
Thera took the phone and hung up. Laxy’s was an exclusive club on the waterfront that had been used as a meeting place by gunrunners and similar businessmen since it had opened in the late 1990s. Libya’s rapprochement with the West had cost it some of its sparkle, but its reputation was still sufficiently tattered to draw a large and disreputable crowd.
It was also one of several places in the city the CIA had bugged. Ferguson had worked there before, so he was familiar with the layout.
“You have to wear the bulletproof vest,” Thera told Rostislawitch. “The sport coat and shirt will be brought from the embassy in a few minutes. They’ll go right over it.”
Thera helped him put on the vest. Her touch felt good against his arms and sides, reassuring, as if she were taking care of him.
“Atha will shoot me?” he asked as she stepped away. It was funny — he didn’t actually feel afraid. If he was shot, then it was only justice.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, Artur. Atha will probably threaten you. Don’t worry. You tell him that your associate has the virus and will handle the business from now on. Answer whatever technical questions you have to, then leave to let Ferguson handle the arrangements.”
“All right.”
“When the meeting’s over, we’re going to go to the embassy, OK? It’s the safest place for you. Then you can decide what to do.”
“I want to go home.”
“That might not be wise.”
“What else can I do?”
He meant it as a rhetorical question — Rostislawitch was resigned to his fate; whatever happened to him, including death, was simply his penance for taking the material, for being willing to let so many innocent people die. But Thera interpreted the question literally, and told him that he was bound to be in demand with drug companies and large food concerns, or he could get a job teaching at a university. The CIA could help.
“A man like you has so much knowledge,” she said. “There will be many offers.”
She was such a good girl, he thought. So optimistic.
“I think I would rather go home,” he told her.
“It’ll be up to you,” said Thera, disappointed. She picked up her sat phone to call the embassy “Let’s get through this first.”
29
The pilot of the MC-17 laid out a course that would get them over the southern Libyan desert without their being detected by the Libyan radars; they weren’t worried about being shot at, but wanted to avoid any possibility that Atha might be on the lookout for an American combat transport. To get around the radars, the big plane flew at tree-top level for about a hundred miles, executing a number of tight turns along the way. Finally, as the sun was just going down, the pilot began climbing to a higher altitude. Colonel Van Buren looked out the window on the flight deck and watched the sunset; from where they were, it looked as if they had flown over it.
With the possibility of a long night ahead of them, Van Buren decided to go down and talk to his men. The bio/chem protective suits weren’t particularly comfortable to sit around in, and the colonel decided it was important to emphasize to each man how important the suits were to avoid contamination. The officers and squad leaders had gone over this, of course, but Van Buren sensed that a personal word from him might carry a little more weight, and possibly prevent unnecessary casualties. He made sure his own suit was zipped tight except for the headpiece, then went down and began talking to the elite teams sitting in the hold of the plane.
Van Buren was about a third of the way through when he was called back upstairs to the command center. Corrigan was on the line.
“Ferg says go as soon as you can,” said Corrigan.
“We’re on our way. Should be a little over two hours.”
“Godspeed.”
30
After an hour of driving around Tripoli, Hamilton realized he was unlikely to find Ferguson this way. There were simply too many choices, and Hamilton didn’t know the city well enough, let alone Ferguson, to narrow them down. Finally he pulled into a parking lot near the water and tried to come up with another plan. He called Ferguson’s number and got his unctuous assistant, who assured him that Ferguson would contact him “when the time is right.”
“Is there a special hotel I should stay at?” Hamilton hinted. “Or one to avoid?”
“Up to you.”
“Oh, quite,” said Hamilton, hanging up. Then he realized that ignorance was often a very valuable weapon.
And where did one find ignorance, if not in the intelligence community?
“I say, this is Nathaniel Hamilton. I’m in town on some company business,” he told MI6’s top resident Tripoli officer over the phone a short time later. “Looks like I may have to deal with some Americans. What is their favorite hotel?”
“The Hilton, Libya Regal, the Marriott. Not in any order. Any place with a good bar,” added the resident. He offered to drop around for a few drinks and give Hamilton a backgrounder on the city if he wanted, but he didn’t have time for that.
“I’ve been doing a good deal of traveling, so I’m going to check in and tuck myself in for an early night,” he said. “But maybe tomorrow. I’ll come round the embassy at noon or so. We’ll have lunch.”
“Very good.”
“While I’m thinking about it, are there any other places that the Americans like to, uh, do business at? I’d like to scope them out beforehand.”
“What sort of business?”
The resident had committed a faux pas, asking the sort of question one never asked of another officer on assignment, since of course it could not be answered truthfully. Hamilton ignored it, commenting instead on how difficult it could be to work with the Americans.
Realizing his mistake, the resident told Hamilton that he’d personally seen the Yanks use a number of places, including a club named Laxy’s that was a hangout for the gunrunning crowd, and a small hotel lounge on the south side of the city called the Oasis.
“Very good,” said Hamilton. “Well, then, I’ll just be ringing off. Make sure to keep lunch open tomorrow. It’ll be on my expense account, not yours.”
“Very good.”
“Oh, one more thing — I would like to pick up a weapon if possible. I feel rather naked without one.”
“Do you really feel that’s necessary?”
“One never knows.”
“I don’t suppose it will be a problem. Would you like me to bring it tomorrow?”
“I’ll just pop around and pick it up. Then it’s off to bed. Remember — lunch tomorrow.”
“Looking forward to it.”
Obviously a man who had been out in the boonies too long, Hamilton thought as he hung up the phone.
