The only problem was that she wouldn’t know in advance which card was which; she’d have to test them all.
“Hallway at the back?” she asked, packing up. “Are you going to show me?”
“I have to guard this room.”
“That’s what you should do,” said Lia. “Don’t be offended, but I have to take my laptop with me. Those are the rules that I have.”
“Of course.”
“Tommy’s moving to the back of the room to cover you,” Rockman told her. “Are you really that thirsty?”
“Oh, parched,” she whispered as she walked down the hall.
93
The Art Room arranged a hotel room in Lima where Dean could take a shower and shave. He even managed a nap. The nap might have been a mistake, however: it left him feeling as if he had a hangover.
His new clothes were stiff, and while they fitted perfectly, they weren’t exactly his style — a dark black suit with a crisp red shirt, fancy brownish shoes, and socks so thin they felt as if they weren’t there. At least there was no tie.
Two Heckler & Koch P7 pistols had come with the clothes. They were easier to hide than the bulky Glock pistols he’d been carrying, but as he stepped into the terminal at Lima’s Jorge Chavez Airport, Dean suddenly felt as if everyone were staring at the barely perceptible bulges at his ribs. He took careful note of the security people scattered around as he walked briskly toward the new arrivals board. And he made sure confusion registered on his face as he looked at it.
Ambassador Jackson had flown into Bolivia a few hours before. There he’d caught a flight bound for Lima on a commercial regional carrier for a modicum of cover. Peru’s state-owned airline was not renowned for being on time, and the plane was reported fifteen minutes late. Dean folded his arms, made a show of looking put out — this wasn’t hard — then went in search of coffee. He downed his first cup in a quick gulp, then ordered a second and found a small table to sit at. He took out his satellite phone, pretending to use it as he checked in with Rockman.
“The plane’s about five minutes out,” the runner told him.
“That’s good.”
“How you doing? You sound like you have a cold.”
“Just tired. I’m all right.” Dean took a nonchalant glance around him. Two men in brown suits were watching him from across the terminal. They’d be Peruvian intelligence agents. “How’s Lia?”
“Sandy’s running her,” said Rockman, referring to Sandy Chafetz. “She’s fine.”
“I thought you always got the hot jobs.”
“I do.”
Dean glanced at his watch, a bit of stage action for the spies. “I thought this was a piece of cake.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not important.”
“Yeah.” He drained the last of his coffee. It hadn’t made a dent in his fatigue. He decided he’d get another cup and rose. “Listen, I’m going to get some more joe. Anything is up, give me a shout.”
“I don’t think mineral salesmen use the word ‘shout.’ ”
Jackson’s plane had landed and the passengers were just starting to clear customs by the time Dean ambled over to the gate area. Even though he’d only been given a verbal description, he had no trouble picking out the ambassador. Besides being a good ten or twenty years older than the other passengers getting off the plane, he wore the casually dressy clothes Dean associated with prep schools and the foreign service — a two-buttoned blue blazer, slightly rumpled khaki pants, and well-worn loafers.
“Ambassador?” said Dean, approaching him as he walked onto the concourse.
“That was a long time ago,” said Jackson.
“I have an uncle who’s a painter.”
“One of the great masters?”
“Yes,” said Dean, completing the authentication process.
“Mr. Dean?”
“Charlie,” said Dean, taking the ambassador’s hand. The spotted fingers clasped his in a firm grip. “Have a good flight?”
“Yes, I did. It’s been so long since I was in an aircraft, I’d forgotten the pleasure of flying.”
“We have a car this way,” said Dean, taking his bag. He noticed the brown-suit pair watching across the way. “A lot of eyes are watching us.”
“I would imagine there would be. Peru has always been known for its secret service. Very obtrusive. But I guess you get used to that sort of thing if you live here.”
94
Karr walked around the outside of the building, toward a window he thought would give him a good view of the hallway that led to where Lia was going. He guessed — as Rockman clearly hadn’t — that she was going to take the cards out of the envelope before swapping them. The guard was obviously standing over her shoulder making the swap difficult.
School was out today, but there were plenty of people inside. A nurse was holding some sort of clinic at the back of the first floor. As Karr watched through the vertical blinds, three people entered the room — a young girl, seventeen or eighteen at most; a nurse; and a well-dressed man whom Karr took to be a doctor. They closed the door, blocking off his view of the hall.
As Karr pulled back from the window, he saw the doctor take what looked like a pair of small balloons from a drawer at the side. His imagination stuttered; he couldn’t quite piece together what was going on.
When he saw the girl take one of the balloons and hold it to her mouth, Karr finally got it — the kid was being prepped to take drugs to smuggle north to the U.S. The actual drugs weren’t handed over here; it was more on the order of a job interview, with the applicants being screened.
Beautiful world, he thought to himself, moving on.
95
General Tucume did not like the news. Members of the general staff had spent the night calling every officer in his command, some four or five times, reminding them where their ultimate duty lay. As far as he knew — and Tucume had spoken to as many men as he could — no one had actually accused him of plotting a coup, but these sorts of calls were the first step; no one who had lived through the confusion and madness of the nineties could see it otherwise.
In today’s Peru, to be accused of plotting a coup was a great slander. The new generation of military men — Tucume’s generation and the colonels and majors they led — had grown up on the model of the U.S. military. They’d also learned from the failures of the past. His opponents were clever; he had anticipated jealousy but perhaps not with this vehemence.
Tucume had assigned one of his colonels to liaise with the U.S. Delta Force people, who were ostensibly here to help look for rebels. This was a major problem for the officer, since he had to check and double-check everything with the general staff. Tucume had no doubt that the U.S. soldiers’ real aim was to be close to the bomb, though so far they had not made a request to see it — or rather, if they had, he had not been informed of it.
The U.S. had aircraft flying over the units guarding the weapon, and other airplanes were steadily
