“I came for a refill,” said Karr, smiling and waving as the Burmese nurse appeared from the village. She was frowning; Tommy quickly gathered that she was suspicious of the soldiers.
As Karr started to explain why he was back, Chafetz warned him that the interpreter wasn’t translating his words properly. He dismissed the man and began trying to repeat what the Art Room Thai expert told him to say. But his pronunciation left a great deal to be desired, and while it greatly amused the nurse to be called “a young cake,” Karr realized after a few minutes that he wasn’t going to be able to talk to her this way. Finally he hit on a solution.
“You have a Burmese language selector on Speaker ID?” he asked, referring to the neural Net program that could translate intercepts in real time.
“Of course,” said Rockman.
“Why don’t you use it to translate my questions into her language, then beam the characters down to my computer?”
“I don’t know if that’ll work.”
“Well, find out,” said Karr, smiling at the nurse.
He gave up asking technical questions and started asking the woman about herself. Her face turned sad; she told a story about being chased out of Loikaw due to her husband’s profession nearly thirty years before.
“What was his profession?” Karr asked.
“He was a doctor,” the translator told him, relaying what she said. “Anyone educated, they were persecuted. The way she’s talking about him, he’s long dead.”
Karr nodded as the woman added details about her family and friends, all lost. He might not understand the words she used, but the meaning of what she said was clear, and even his naturally buoyant spirit was weighed down with the tragedy of a life torn to bits by a dictator’s paranoia.
“We got it,” said Rockman. “We have the character set and we can make it work. We’re just double-checking everything before downloading. You’ll have to put the unit down and walk away from it. Tommy? Hey, are you there?”
“I’m here,” said the agent somberly. “Go ahead.”
75
By the time Charlie Dean figured out where the back stairs were, Lia had already been packed into a car. He got out of the hotel just in time to see the vehicle, a small white Toyota, pull off. Dean ran after it like a madman. A motor scooter shot out of the intersection on his left as he ran into the street. Dean thought the man was coming to knock him down; by the time he realized he wasn’t, he’d already thrown himself at the bike. Dean, driver, and vehicle tumbled to the pavement. Dean grabbed the teenage boy who’d been riding the bike and tossed him away like a candy bar wrapper. Then Dean scooped up the scooter and took off in the direction of the car carrying Lia.
“Turn left at the second intersection,” said Rockman.
“Why did they take her?”
“We’re not sure, Charlie. It may be routine; it may be more interesting; we’ll have to see how things go. She’s not in any danger.”
“Bull.”
“Charlie, you have to trust us,” said Telach. “Just relax. Slow that bike down. You’re going to crash.”
“Screw that.”
“Look, we can see the situation from here. We know what’s going on. We’ll tell you where to go.”
“You think you can see better than I can? You think your satellites and intercepts and fancy gear tell you everything?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Part of him knew he was reacting emotionally — something that was not merely unprofessional but potentially deadly. If he’d still been in the service, a phalanx of Marine noncoms would have lined up to kick his butt. You followed orders; you stayed with the program. Otherwise, you died and your friends died.
On the other hand, his service and experience, in Vietnam especially, had taught him to be skeptical of superiors, especially ones who tried to micromanage situations. The Art Room was all about micromanaging, in his opinion.
He wasn’t in Vietnam. And Telach wasn’t a second lieutenant trying to make her bones.
Still. They trusted their technology too much.
And something else. He cared for Lia in a way that made him reckless.
Dean backed off the gas, slowing to take the turn through the intersection. A block later, he found the street blocked with traffic. It was a struggle not to go up on the sidewalk and whip through.
Yacoub seemed to be on very friendly terms with the people at the police station. The loyalties of the police were not in question — all were card-carrying Ba’athists, fervent followers of the Nazi-like prima donna running the country. Lia soon found herself sitting in a small room, flanked by a Syrian who obviously had a thing for garlic. Yacoub disappeared; Lia studied the picture of the Syrian President on the wall, wondering how he would look with devil horns.
“We’re with you,” said Telach in her ear. “Let’s see how far this goes.”
Just peachy, thought Lia.
A few minutes later, the door opened. A man in an army uniform came in and sat down. He gave her a grim look, introduced himself as Lieutenant Abbas, and asked in heavily accented French for her passport.
Lia took it from her pocket and threw it on the desk. The lieutenant scowled but picked it up.
“Welcome to our country,” he said in English.
“I don’t speak French very well,” he said.
“
The lieutenant smiled sympathetically. “We all do things we don’t like.”
“
“Which way now?” he asked when the traffic opened up.
“Take your next right,” said Rockman. “She’s in the police station.”
“Damn.”
“No, Charlie, it’s fine. We can hear what’s going on. Please — don’t attract attention to yourself.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Charlie. “Okay.”
“A French arms dealer in my city,” said the Syrian. “Why is that?”
“I like the beach,” answered Lia.
“The beach is thirty miles from here.”
“I was misinformed.”
“You are French? Or Vietnamese?”
“Does it matter?”
“Your passport says French.”
“Then I’m French.” Lia’s back story indicated that her parents had fled Vietnam shortly before its fall to the Communists, but that she had a wide range of contacts there. A small file on the Interpol network — compromised by the Syrians, though they did not appear to have real-time access to it — duplicated the back story.
“Are you here as a buyer or a seller?” asked the lieutenant.
“A trader,” said Lia.
The Syrian shook his head. “A buyer or a seller?”
“A buyer,” decided Lia.
