always left around four — excuse herself to go to the restroom where the bug was located, replace the unit, then leave.
Dean would back her up. Depending on the situation, he might take a look around the office of the fake charity group. The NSA was interested in collecting possible bank account numbers to track money the organization spread throughout the world. But that task was secondary to Lia’s. He wasn’t to do anything that would make them suspicious, let alone tip them off to the bug.
Missing the plane now would set everything back by at least a day and possibly a week, depending on the schedule of the charity organization they were using as a pretext for entering the building. Morocco might be nice, but Dean didn’t particularly want to spend a week there, especially that close to the Algerian border. He pulled out his satellite phone and leaned against the wall in a hallway, pretending to use the phone while he spoke to the Art Room.
“So where is she?” he asked Rockman.
“They’re just taxiing up now,” Rockman told him. “You should be able to just make it. Wait out in the main terminal. Don’t sweat the schedule. It’ll work out.”
Lia clutched her cany-on tightly as she headed down the hallway, cleared through Customs quickly with the help of the timely arrival of an airport manager — undoubtedly at the Art Room’s prompting. She noticed Dean approaching on her left and quickened her pace toward the other terminal.
“What’s up?” he asked, falling in beside her.
“Nothing.”
“How was the flight?”
“Lousy.”
“We’re running late.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“They update you on the situation?”
“Pretty much.”
“How was Korea?”
“Garden spot of the world.”
“That what happened to your eye?”
An urge came over her suddenly: turn and run out of the terminal, take a taxi into the city, go to a hotel — any hotel — and quit, just totally quit.
But she didn’t. She quickened her pace, following Rockman’s directions in her ear as they made her way to the other terminal building.
“We’re supposed to be on that plane,” said Dean to the clerk at the boarding gate.
The man looked up from his terminal. “Oh. Hold on. There’s some sort of computer glitch.”
“You sure?”
The clerk glanced down. His terminal was working again.
“Lucky thing for you,” he said. He found them in the computer and called over to the plane, which had experienced problems of its own and hadn’t pulled away yet.
“Nice to have friends in high places,” said Dean as they walked down the tunnel.
“Right,” said Lia.
Dean had known Lia long enough to realize she wasn’t the effusive type, but he expected a bit more of a hello. He stowed his bag in the overhead rack and sat next to her. Lia kept her head turned as if there was something interesting to see through the window.
“Hey,” he said softly. He reached to touch her shoulder gently; she jerked away.
He felt as if he’d walked in on the middle of a movie that was hard to follow. They’d spent a week together on the Maine shore after their last assignment — long, languid days steering a friend’s sailboat offshore and cool nights in the seashore village near the borrowed house. He’d loved the unhurried rhythm and casual intimacy.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
“I’m fine, Charlie Dean,” she said. “Just fine.”
“That’s a good makeup job on your eye.”
“I suppose you’re an expert on makeup.”
“I’ve had a few black eyes in my day. What happened?”
“I walked into a door. What do you think?”
“You’re all right?”
“Peachy.”
All right, he told himself. Give her some space. He turned and leaned his seat back, closing his eyes as if there were actually a possibility he could relax enough to nap.
29
The chemist’s house was a small brick building close to the road and bordering on a large farm. The field of sunflowers had been harvested very recently, perhaps that morning, and Karr found that the smell tickled his nose in an unpleasant way. He started to sneeze as LaFoote unlocked the door to let them in, and then stood in the foyer sneezing.
The sneeze probably saved their lives.
As Karr reached for a handkerchief, he saw a thin thread strung across the bottom of the doorway to the left. He grabbed the Frenchman, pulling him down just as the back of the house exploded, showering them with debris. Karr pulled the old man with him as he crawled out. Just as he reached the path there was a second explosion, this one much louder and so violent that it rolled them into the nearby roadway. A fireball shot into the air. Large pieces of wood and stone began falling around them; a piece of brick about the size of a fist bounced off Karr’s shoulder, and an even larger one flew by as he got up.
LaFoote was breathing all right, but he was dazed, and it took Karr a good two or three minutes to get him back to full consciousness. By then, Telach had started screaming in Karr’s ear, asking what was going on, and there was a siren in the distance.
“I think there was an explosive rigged to ignite the gas main,” said Karr, speaking to LaFoote as well as the Art Room. “Or something. There was a thread on that inner doorway.”
“It wasn’t booby-trapped last week,” said LaFoote, coughing.
“All right, time for us to retreat if we can,” Karr said.
“Why?”
“Because my French isn’t up to an eight-hour workout with the police,” said Karr. “Come on.”
30
Mussa’s phone rang just as he was about to board the airplane. He hesitated before answering — if he used the phone, his self-imposed rules called for him to dispose of it, and that would mean that he would have no way of communicating before evening.
However, if he did not answer it, he would have lost whatever opportunity this information provided. So he pulled the phone from his pocket and stepped aside.
“Yes?” he answered cheerfully.
“The farmhouse has exploded.”
Mussa knew which farmhouse was being referred to — the chemist Vefoures’—but was nonetheless surprised. Of course, being surprised and showing it were two different things.
“A shame,” said Mussa. “We should do something for the family of the man who was sent to disarm it,
