Soul of the Assassin (59 page)

“It’s available,” said Ferguson. “Let us talk price.”

~ * ~

athaniel Hamilton pulled the rental car to the curb near the entrance to Laxy’s. The routine was getting old—go in, have a walk around, fail to spot Ferguson, leave. But the alternative was to simply sit in his hotel room and wait for Ferguson to send for him, as if he were a tart on call.

Oh, it was going to be so lovely to kill the son of a bitch. The money was almost not a consideration.

Almost.

Hamilton took out his satellite phone to call his room and check for messages before going into the club. As he dialed, a pair of black Mercedes drove up in front of him. The cars had plates from the Russian embassy.

A half-dozen people got out of the cars, five bulky men and a tall blonde. They looked up and down the block; then the men formed a wedge around the woman and headed into the building.

Clearly Russian agents, thought Hamilton. Maybe Ferguson was here after all.

~ * ~

hera slipped the headphones into her ears so she could hear the conversation between Atha and Rostislawitch. She could just barely see the stairs from her table. Green and Griffen, two of the Special Forces soldiers dressed in civilian clothes who were backing them up, were sitting at a booth catty-corner across from her. Another pair of soldiers were farther back in the club, closer to Ferguson.

Thera’s sat phone buzzed with a call. It was the Cube.

“Thera, Ferg’s not answering his phone,” said Corrigan.

“No kidding. Why are you calling him?”

“Ciello just worked it out—Kiska Babev
can’t
be T Rex. She was in Georgia when Dalton was killed. The stop in Paris was just to set up some sort of alias. Ciello has her credit card charges. She never left the city and was out of town long before Dalton got to France.”

“All right,” said Thera.

She pushed down the phone’s antenna. Before she could figure out a way of telling Ferguson, she saw Kiska Babev and five other Russians walking down the steps at the restaurant entrance.

~ * ~

wo million more, or there is no deal,” Ferguson told Atha.

“American dollars, of course.”

“I can’t do it,” said Atha. “I just can’t.”

“Call whoever it is you’re working for,” said Ferguson. “They’ll pay.”

“I am working on my own.”

Ferguson made a face to show that he didn’t believe Atha. “Well, then you pay. It’s certainly worth it.”

“No.”

“Then you won’t get the virus. The bacteria you have is worthless.”

Atha thought the minister might be willing to provide the extra money, even though he would grumble about it.

The alternative was to call the intelligence people at the Iranian embassy and get them to help him force the Russians to talk. But that might be tricky—too much force and everything would be ruined.

“If it is the office of the President,” said Ferguson, leaning forward, “I have a friend who works there.”

“It is not the President,” said Atha. “How would you have friends in Iran?”

“I have many friends. Even among the Revolutionary Guard. And the Education Ministry.”

Atha felt his breath choking. What if the Russian cut him out of the deal?

No. Impossible. He was the one with the camp.

“Let us say, for a moment, that we agreed on the price,” said Atha. “I would need the material quickly.”

“You’ll have it within twenty-four hours of payment.”

“Far too late,” said Atha, shaking his head.

As Ferguson shrugged, he noticed Kiska Babev heading a pack of FSB officers in his direction.

“What a pleasant surprise,” he said loudly in Russian, rising. “Colonel Babev, what brings you to Tripoli?”

Kiska glared at him.

“Artur Rostislawitch, why are you in Tripoli?” Kiska looked across the table at Atha. “You—who are you?”

“Doesn’t speak Russian,” said Ferguson, still speaking Russian.

“I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing,” she said to Ferguson. “But I don’t like it.”

“I’m not playing a game. I’m conducting a business transaction.”

“What?”

“The education minister of Iran has authorized this man to buy Russian germ warfare material.”

Atha didn’t understand a word they were saying, but he knew it was time for him to leave. He started sliding out.

“Sit down,” Kiska told him in Russian.

“Doesn’t speak Russian, remember?” said Ferguson.

“Sit,” she said in English. She emphasized the point by raising her hand, revealing the pistol she was holding.

~ * ~

amilton, at the door, saw the Russians standing around Ferguson’s table. Things looked far too placid for his taste, almost amicable.

He decided to remedy that. He took out his pistol and fired into the air.

The gunshot was like a switch, silencing the gentle buzz that had pervaded the place. For a moment, all of the patrons sat, stunned.

Then someone screamed.

People began running for the door. A man at a table in a corner— a member of Hamas who was meeting a financer—rose and pulled out his gun. He saw someone moving toward him; believing it was a Mossad agent, he shot him dead.

Ferguson pushed Rostislawitch to the ground. Atha tried to get by, but one of the Russian agents threw him down.

A Libyan who’d been hired as a bodyguard for the Hamas member began firing a submachine gun. One of the Russians returned fire; then the rest followed suit. The bullets flashed over the banquette and couches, ricocheting with bright sparks off the stone walls.

Ferguson took hold of Rostislawitch and pulled him with him as he scrambled out into the aisle between the tables. He kicked a smoke grenade behind him to cover their retreat, then pushed Rostislawitch down, low enough to evade the gunfire.

“No, Ferg, you’re not going anywhere,” said Kiska, pointing her gun at his face.

“The Iranian is the one you want,” Ferguson told her. “He stole the bacteria with the help of the
mafiya.
Your scientist has been helping us get it back.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“That’s why he didn’t go to you in the first place,” Ferguson said. “Because you thought he stole it.”

“You’re lying.”

“Better grab the Iranian before he escapes,” said Ferguson, pointing behind her. “He’s got the material with him.”

Thinking Ferguson was simply trying to divert her, Kiska hesitated before turning around. By the time she did, Atha had nearly disappeared into the smoke.

“Grab him!” she told the others. “Go.”

As soon as Kiska turned, Ferguson pulled the scientist with him back into the smoke billowing from below the table. They crawled past a row of couches into the kitchen. An alarm began to sound over the gunfire and screams outside.

“You with me, Rosty?” Ferg asked, pulling him to his feet near the table used to prep salads.

“What are we going to do?” asked the scientist.

“The back door’s this way,” said Ferguson. He’d used it before. “But get down!”

Ferguson pushed Rostislawitch down as a spray of bullets from an AK-47 ripped through the kitchen door, clanging against the hanging pots and the stove. Flames leapt from a damaged burner, and within seconds the stove and a nearby work counter were on fire.

“We’re going to have to go back out the front,” Ferguson told Rostislawitch. “Sorry. I didn’t think we’d be having this much fun.”

Rostislawitch gripped the pistol in his pocket as Ferguson pulled him back toward the doorway. They hit a thick patch of smoke and he began to cough. Ferguson and Rostislawitch crawled out of the kitchen and down the side of the room near the bar. The gunfire had mostly stopped, but now pieces of the place were exploding or crashing to the floor as the fire gathered force, feeding on the flammable sound insulation used on the ceiling and some of the banquettes.

Ferguson ducked down toward the floor, avoiding the worst of the smoke as he got his bearings. The lights shut off; the flames behind them tinged the darkness red.

A face loomed out of the blackness.

“This way,” said Nathaniel Hamilton, holding a handkerchief to his mouth and nose. “Out the side.”

“I hate going out the servants’ entrance,” said Ferguson.

“Suit yourself,” said Hamilton, raising the pistol in his hand.

~ * ~

36

NORTHEASTERN SUDAN

Rankin put his foot down on the gas, accelerating as the first bus in the convoy started to move. The road was wide enough for two cars to pass; the shoulders were deep with sand. If he could crash into the bus before it got too far from the others, he could jam them up temporarily, slow them down long enough for the soldiers to arrive. But he was a hundred yards away, much farther than he’d hoped. Not only might the lead bus separate from the others, but it would have plenty of time to pick up speed.

Ferg would just plow right into the bus, and somehow walk away. That was Ferg, larger than life, completely invincible. The luckiest SOB on the planet.

Unlike me, thought Rankin. He pushed his head down closer to the wheel. The truck bounced on the hardscrabble road, threatening to jerk out of control. His left arm was worse than useless, throbbing with pain.

The bus driver began to veer to the left, toward the soft dirt at the side of the road. But he was too late—Rankin yanked the wheel hard, spinning the truck into a one-eighty and piling into the front quarter of the bus.

Behind him, Guns spun his truck ninety degrees across the roadway, skidding into the bus immediately behind the one Rankin hit. The bus’s back end fishtailed across the road and tipped down, wedged against the pickup.

Rankin, stunned by the impact, sat dazed in his truck, his whole body now wrapped in pain. I have to get out of here, he thought to himself, but he couldn’t move.

Guns jumped from his truck, the AK-47 in his hand. In the flickering torchlight he saw two men running toward him. Something blinked red from near their midsections. They were shooting at him.

He fired a burst from the gun and both men went down.

Rankin couldn’t move, and couldn’t figure out why. Finally he realized he still had his seat belt on. He pulled it off, then reached for the door. It wouldn’t open.

It would open for Ferguson, wouldn’t it?

Rankin was obsessed with him; they all were. That’s why Rankin was so pissed off at Ferguson—he was lucky and sarcastic but, most of all, good at what he did. Better than Rankin would ever be.

Better.

So what?