Soul of the Assassin (51 page)

Could he hold his temper on the phone? Perhaps not.

Still debating, Atha signed into the message service. There were several unread messages—including one that claimed to be from Dark Bear: Rostislawitch’s code name.

An old one, Atha thought, scrolling through the others in queue. But then he realized that it had been sent only a few minutes before.

Most likely he’s wondering what happened to me, thought Atha, selecting it to read:

You have taken the suitcse. I was afraid you were not honest. As a precaution, I kept the phalange vrs necessary to convert DNA. The price is now twice, and two EU psprts. In Tripoli at the Alfonse Hotel this evening. I est virus will survive for another 24 hs. . . .

The message was so long it spilled into two screens. A second text message added Web sites explaining the science.

Atha jumped out of his chair to get Dr. Hamid.

~ * ~

10

NAPLES, ITALY

As soon as the text message was sent, Ferguson had Corrigan send two more cars of Marines to the computer café.

“Go to the navy base. Get over to Tripoli,” Ferguson told Thera as he pushed her into the car after Rostislawitch. “Wait for me.”

“What about you?”

“I have an errand to run here.”

“Ferg—”

“I’ll see you in Tripoli.” He hesitated, then leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then he banged on the top of the car. “Get going; go,” he said, backing away.

The narrow street went straight up the side of a hill so steep that much of the sidewalk had been laid as steps. A worn metal pipe rail protected the street side. A good number of the storefronts had been converted into cheap apartments; the rest sold mostly secondhand items: books, clothing, even used plumbing. Above the stores were more apartments, their inhabitants a mixture of poor immigrants and young people who styled themselves bohemians and frequented the basement cafés that lined the block and the nearby avenue.

Ferguson crossed the street and forced the door on one of the buildings, trotting upstairs to the top floor. Seeing that there was no door up to the roof, he opened the window on the landing and found a fire escape ladder; it ran up as well as down. In a few seconds, he was walking across the roof’s sticky tar to the front of the building, where he had a good view of most of the block.

Someone had brought a beach chair up. It was weather-beaten, but it was better than sitting on the tar. Ferguson carried it to the edge of the roof and sat down, feeling a little like he was at a baseball game.

Not the Sox. No one ever got a quiet seat like this at Fenway.

He peered over the side, watching the street. He shouldn’t have kissed Thera, he thought. It was a distraction and a mistake.

But now that he had, what was he going to do next? What was he going to tell her? That he loved her?

The truth was, he played the rogue so much that being honest felt strange. He wasn’t even sure how to phrase it.

I love you.

He didn’t need anything else.

What he couldn’t say was,
I have cancer. Maybe I’m going to die.

Maybe not. The doctor seems pretty positive. Most people with thyroid cancer live.

Of course, usually it was caught a bit sooner. Usually it didn’t come back. You could read the statistics any way you wanted.

Ferguson remembered he’d forgotten to take his pills that morning.

He reached into his pocket for his pillbox. A cab was just driving up the street. He slipped down near the edge of the roof, lying flat. A woman got out of the taxi, a blonde.

Kiska.

Ferguson rose and began trotting back to the fire escape.

~ * ~

iska brushed past the attendant and walked through the long, narrow room, surveying the patrons at the computers lined against both walls. Rostislawitch wasn’t among them.

An alcove sat at the very end of the room. Kiska leaned forward, poking her head across its threshold and spotting a staircase. The steps were blocked off by a folding gate, the kind used to protect toddlers and infants from a fall.

She walked to it and pulled it out of her way.

“Signora!
Scusi,”
said the attendant. “Ma’am, excuse me. You cannot go up there.”

Kiska was already on the stairs, which turned after five steps. She heard something scraping above, then a yap—a little dog appeared at the top when Kiska turned the corner. It was kept there by a gate similar to the one below. The room was a kitchen—one that didn’t appear to have been cleaned in months.

“Nice puppy,” she said, looking around.

“Signora!” The attendant had followed her up the stairs. “There are no computers up there. It is my apartment. Please.”

The attendant was a young man in his early twenties who looked the perfect computer geek; Kiska sized him up in an instant and decided she would have no trouble tossing him down the steps.

“I’m looking for someone,” she said, and she pushed aside the fence holding the dog in. Freed, the animal scampered past her, and past the swooping grab of its master.

“Madonna,”
said the man, adding more serious curses as he followed the dog.

Kiska walked into the kitchen, turned the corner, and surveyed the apartment’s two rooms. Clearly Rostislawitch wasn’t here.

By this time, Ferguson had come down from the roof and crossed the street. He was just opening the door to the Internet café when he was met by a speeding ball of fur, which propelled itself through the open space and out into the street. The attendant, cursing at him for letting the animal escape, tried to pass as well. But the store was so narrow that there was room in the aisle for only one person at a time; he bounced into Ferguson, who threw him out of his way.

“Kiska!” yelled Ferguson. “We have to talk.”

He drew the Clock from his belt, holding it behind his back.

“Jesus!”
yelled the attendant, scrambling to his feet and running outside. One of the three people in the café using the computers threw himself to the floor; the other two, not entirely sure what was going on, stared at Ferguson as he walked past.

Upstairs, Kiska heard Ferguson yelling. As much as she liked the American, his interference tended to be annoying, and she didn’t care to discuss anything with him right now.

“Kiska!” Ferguson yelled as he reached the archway. He glanced back at the people in the store, staring at him in unbelief. “Good time to run,” he told them. “Remember to save your work.”

He waited until they were in the street, then put two hands on the Glock and threw himself across the space in front to the stairs, rolling over and expecting to be ambushed.

Nothing.

Jumping to his feet, Ferguson yelled for Kiska again, then took the steps two at a time, right shoulder against the wall, gun ready to fire.

“Kiska, we really have to talk,” he said in Russian. “Tell me what you know about dinosaurs. T Rex, in particular.”

The landing was clear. He started up, knowing she had to be close.

“T Rex, Kiska. How familiar are you with T Rex?”

Ferguson paused at the entrance to the kitchen. He couldn’t hear anything, but from the layout he gathered that the rest of the apartment was around the bend in the wall. He tiptoed toward it, then saw a small metal toaster on the counter back near the door. Retreating, he grabbed the toaster, holding the gun toward the passage to the rest of the apartment.

“I have some questions about where you were at certain times. One of those has to do with a CIA officer named Dalton. If it weren’t for him, honestly, I could blow this all off. You know, bigger fish to fry.”

He put the toaster down and slid it across the floor. The other rooms were reflected on its side.

“Kiska? Would it be easier if I spoke English?”

He saw something moving in the reflection. Ferguson threw himself on the floor, rolling across the space, gun up, ready—and aimed right at a curtain at the far side of the apartment, fluttering in the breeze.

He ran to it and looked down. There was a fire escape that led to an alley, no trace of Kiska.

Ferguson climbed out, then jumped down into the alley. It took a second before he saw the low fence that led to the street behind the building. He ran to it and hopped over, just in time to see a blonde getting into a cab a block and a half away.

It was too far to tell for sure if it was Kiska, but Ferguson had no doubt it was. He watched as the car drove off.

“Just as well,” he muttered to himself. “Just as well.”

~ * ~

11

NORTHEASTERN SUDAN

“I’m just not sure,” said Dr. Hamid, looking up from the computer. “These Web pages Rostislawitch referred you to give the general procedure for using a type of virus to modify bacteria. The procedure is common, but that’s not a guarantee. It may be a bluff. It may not. He doesn’t give real information about the virus or the bacteria. I have no way of telling.”

“Examine the bacteria then,” said Atha. “See if they are dangerous.”

“They are a type of E. coli. It is in the family that he was working on, according to the papers that we have. But to know whether it is specifically the type that he developed as a weapon—I would need much more information. It’s very active, and its genetic structure is unique. But the only way for me to really tell would be to infect someone and see what happens. And that could take several days.”

“If he does have a virus, will we be able to change these germs?” Atha suddenly saw his fortune evaporating.

And then his life.

The minister still had not answered his query. Another problem. But this had precedence.

“I think we can follow the procedure, if it is straightforward,” said Dr. Hamid. “But we were set up here to replicate the bacteria, which is relatively easy. Beyond that—”

“Yes, I know. No guarantees.”

Atha needed to think. He stepped outside of the hut, wanting to walk, to move. Some of the refugees, anxious to be moving on, had gathered nearby. They saw him, and began cheering.

Atha put up his hand in acknowledgement. If he didn’t let them leave soon, they’d probably riot.

It might very well be just a bluff. Rostislawitch was probably angry that he had been cheated and was fighting back.

He couldn’t afford to take a chance, though, could he? Traveling to Tripoli, as annoying as it might be, was possible—Ahmed had the plane fueled and ready to go.

Dr. Hamid had turned off the computer and stepped outside the cottage. He was looking forward to the end of this. He’d been in the Sudan for nearly three months getting ready.

“I will go to Tripoli,” said Atha. “Prepare some of the drinks with the bacteria, and get people ready to leave. Because it may just be a trick.”

“Yes, that makes sense.”

“Good. I’ll call as soon as I know something.”

~ * ~

12

OVER THE LIBYAN DESERT, APPROACHING SUDAN