Angels of Wrath (63 page)

The Defense Department analysts brought in as consultants were having a field day poking holes in the theory that the SS-N-9 would be used in Iraq. The fact that the missile was a naval weapon seemed to them to rule out any possibility of its use on land. Admittedly, it was designed to travel at low altitude over open terrain, where it would have an unobstructed flight path, but it could be used over land, and Vassenka was supposed to be enough of an expert to make sure it would work. If the missile had been fitted with a GPS guidance system, it stood an extremely good chance of hitting its target. Whether it was the optimum tool for the purpose wasn’t the point. Vassenka himself would undoubtedly have preferred something along the lines of what NATO called the SS-12 Scaleboard, a large, liquid-fueled rocket with a range of roughly five hundred miles. Or for that matter a Scud, fitted with a similar guidance system.

Ferg thought that Vassenka might be able to fit the Scuds with GPS kits; along with alterations to the notoriously fickle steering fins and so-so engine, the improvements would make the missile considerably more effective than those Saddam had used during the first Gulf War. The location of these Scuds was admittedly a huge question. Most of the analysts doubted that the resistance could be hiding more than one or two, though they conceded that Vassenka might have been “retained” to supply some from Korea or elsewhere along with rocket fuel and his improvements.

In any event, with the rocket fuel confiscated and Khazaal dead, the Scuds no longer seemed to be a threat. Rankin and Guns were checking leads on who might be left in Khazaal’s organization, making sure they didn’t have the Scuds. It was a long shot, and this wasn’t their sort of work, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that they hadn’t turned up anything.

Which brought them back to the Siren missile.

“I’m with the intel guys on that,” said Corrigan. “You wouldn’t use it against an urban target. It flies too low.”

“For somebody like Vassenka, that’s not going to be a problem,” Ferguson told him. “If he can make a Scud accurate, he can make a Siren missile bit something in a city.”

“You don’t even know for sure that there was a missile.”

“Don’t start, Jack,” said Ferg.

“I’m just pointing out—”

“Let me do the thinking, OK? Birk doesn’t lie about what he’s selling,” Ferguson added, softening his voice a little. “Make sure Rankin knows I think the Siren might be a real threat. Tell him not to pay too much attention to the intelligence people. Not that he ever does.”

“There’ll be extensive coverage of the area where the missile could be launched from,” Corrigan said. “Even though they don’t think it’s possible, they don’t want to end up looking like fools. Predators, a Global Hawk, all sorts of aircraft will be overhead.”

“All right.”

“Airborne jammers will block the Glosnass and GPS satellites if there’s a launch,” added Corrigan. He was referring to devices designed to block the signals the guidance systems used to orient themselves. “A lot of systems are in place.”

“Didn’t the Air Force use a GPS bomb to destroy one of the Iraqi jammers during the war?” asked Ferguson.

As a matter of fact, the Air Force had, but jamming remained more art than science. Even if the GPS system was successfully blocked, the missile would carry a backup internal guidance system; the best defense was to find it before it launched.

“You going to Iraq?” Corrigan asked.

“I have some things to check out over here,” said Ferguson. “I don’t know at this point that I can come up with anything that Rankin or CentCom won’t.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

“You’ll give him a heart attack. Have you found
Islamic Justice
yet?” Ferguson added, serious again.

“Come again?”

“Birk’s yacht, the
Sharia?”

“We told you, it’s not in Syrian waters or anywhere nearby.”

“Is that a no?”

“Yeah, that’s a no.”

“I have a new place to look: off Israel.”

“Israel?”

“Fifty to sixty miles from Jerusalem.”

“Ferg, we have every available photo expert looking around Baghdad for the missile launchers.”

“Get me the satellite photos and I’ll look.”

“Ferg, to pick out a yacht that size ... All right. It’ll take a few hours.”

“E-mail them as soon as you can. I’m not sure where I’ll be.”

~ * ~

erguson found Thera waiting outside the secure communications shack.

“Dinner?” he asked.

“A little early.”

“Not by the time we get there.”

“We’re going to Iraq?”

“No. I think Rankin can handle that all right. I have another wild goose chase for us. Grab your gear. Pack some sensible shoes.”

“Always.”

“And a bathing suit.”

“I have my diving suit.”

“Bathing suit. It may come in handy.”

~ * ~

18

BAGHDAD

LATER THAT NIGHT …

The security people had already heard about the Russian missile and Vassenka by the time Corrine spoke to them. They were skeptical, especially when they heard that the missile had supposedly been delivered to Tikrit.

“It’s well out of range,” an Air Force major told her. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“The idea was that they would move it,” she said. Corrigan had arranged for Rankin to give her a briefing an hour before. They were following a lead on Vassenka, though she had gathered from Corrigan that it was a long shot.

“We’ll have coverage around the clock,” said the major. “If they come out to set it up, we’ll see them. It won’t be a problem, believe me.”

“I’d like to,” said Corrine.

The others looked at her, waiting for her to add something optimistic, but she didn’t.

~ * ~

19

TEL AVIV

The marina where Thatch’s credit card had been used catered to very well-off locals and a few extremely wealthy tourists, providing general services and specializing in week-long rentals of cabin cruisers. From the amount of the charge on Thatch’s card, it appeared that the account had been used for one of the latter: a deposit equivalent to a thousand dollars had been charged, along with a fee close to five hundred entered separately.

Ferguson wanted more information than the simple line in the account would give. When he and Thera arrived, the marina’s business office had just closed, which was perfect, actually.

“How do you figure that?” asked Thera as he walked back up the road toward their rental car.

“I am pretty hungry,” he told her. “Let’s go have some dinner and come back later.”

“Later?”

“I prefer to do my breaking and entering at night.”

A half hour later, having not only talked his way into the exclusive Ile de France restaurant several blocks away but also secured a table with a superb view of the Mediterranean, Ferguson ordered a bottle of Les Bressandes, a Burgundy red that was both obscure and
très
expensive. He was not quite the wine snob that the choice implied; he chose the wine as well as the restaurant primarily because of the price. He watched Thera as she studied the menu, trying to gauge her reactions to the place, the prices, and the ambience. He was back to looking for context, though he remained aware that there were limits: a person might be comfortable with wealth or uncomfortable, envious or indifferent; none of those things made him or kept him from a being a thief. Or her, in this case.

“Here’s mud in your eye,” said Ferguson, clinking glasses with Thera after the wine was poured, scandalizing the overly pretentious wine steward who had hovered nearby.

“Wow, this is good,” said Thera, taking a sip. She looked around the restaurant. “You eat in places like this all the time?”

“When the job calls for it.”

“And it does here?”

“Absolutely.” Ferguson picked up the menu. “I’m going to have a lot of food: soup, salad, the whole nine yards. Get a good feed bag going.”

Thera saw the look of disdain on the waiter’s face as he overheard Ferguson’s American slang. But when he asked Ferguson in a rather forced French accent whether
Monsieur
was prepared to order, Ferg ripped off his order in French so rapid and fluent that the man—who came from the Ukraine, not France—was lost.

“You love doing that to people, don’t you?” Thera asked. “You just love riding them.”

“He was pretty pretentious.”

“But you would have ridden him anyway.”

“Probably.” He reached into his pocket and took out the bracelet. “Look what I found on the beach.”

Thera took it. “Wow.”

“You can have it, if you want,” Ferguson added.

“Where’d you get it?”

“Told you. I found it on the beach.”

She took it in her hand, unsure exactly what to say. “Ferg . . . Listen, Bob, I don’t want to be part of this.”

“Part of which?”

“Part of whatever it is you’re doing. You’re skimming money, right?”

“What if I were?”

“God, you can’t. That is so—” She folded her arms in front of her chest, surprised that he was so blatant about it. Then she worried what he might do.

“That’s from the briefcase, isn’t it?” she said. “And you didn’t turn the money in from the car in the desert.”

“Why would I take money?” he asked her.

“You tell me.”

“Why would you do it?”

“I wouldn’t.”

She’d been a little too loud. From the corner of her eye she saw heads turning in their direction. Thera reached for her glass and took a slow sip.

“You think I held that money?” he asked her. The idea that someone might question
his
honesty had never occurred to him.

“Yes.” Thera stared at his eyes, trying to decipher what was going on. Was he testing her?

“Why would I hang on to that? It was counterfeit.”

“No.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“Really?”

“Check.”

“Should I call Corrigan?”

“Corrigan wouldn’t know counterfeit money if he printed it himself. Call Van Buren. We’re due to check in anyway. Give him our location and say ‘Oh, by the way, that fifty g’s Ferguson found in the desert. . .’”

“But maybe you lied to him.”

“I guess. And I swapped it out with counterfeit money I just happened to have with me.”

“I will ask him.”

“You should.”

Their dinners came, and they ate in silence. If she was giving him a performance, Ferguson thought, it was a world-class one.

So who took the jewels?