Death Wave (23 page)

“Or a ship,” Vanderkamp pointed out.

Inwardly, Rubens sagged. Technology had brought them
so
very far along on the trail of the missing suitcase nukes, but there was no way to follow the shipment further. Karachi was a frantically busy port, with hundreds of flights departing each day, hundreds of ships arriving and departing from the harbor.

“It appears, gentlemen,” he said quietly, “that from here on we do things the old-fashioned way.”

Bailey looked puzzled. “What way is that?” he asked.

“We’re back to Mark-One ears and eyeballs, going up to people and asking them questions.”

PLAYA SAN JUAN
ALICANTE, SPAIN
THURSDAY, 1615 HOURS LOCAL TIME

A low, rolling surf broke along the beach—endless, sweeping miles of golden-white sand facing east across the blue Mediterranean. Seagulls keeked and screamed overhead, floating on a warm breeze in a cloudless sky. Lia DeFrancesca tugged a little at the triangle of blue and black cloth covering her pubic delta, making sure it was in place, then strode out of the dressing booth and into the full blast of early afternoon sun. Besides the scrap of bright nylon, she wore a broad-brimmed straw hat and designer sunglasses, beach sandals, and a woven bag holding her street clothes.

She
was
still in touch with the Art Room. Her belt, with its concealed antenna, was still in her jeans, neatly folded in the bag. As long as she was within a couple of feet of it, her transceiver implant should keep her connected with the home office.

“I
do
wish we had a visual on you,” Jeff Rockman told her over the link.

“Wish all you want,” she told him. “Just don’t drool on your keyboard.”

“Maybe we can reposition a satellite.”

“I’d like to see the authorization request on that one,” she replied. Then the banter was gone and she became all business. “Okay. Target acquired. Feng is at a table on a restaurant veranda. Two people with him. One Levantine type … dark hair, olive complexion. Could be Lebanese. Could be Arab. The other is a male Caucasian. Light brown hair and a mustache. Northern European, I’d say. Here we go.”

“Copy that, Lia. Give us an image as soon as you can.”

She walked up to the group, smiling. “Good afternoon, Mr. Feng. I made it, as you can see. Thank you for arranging my flight.”

“Ms. Lau,” Feng said, looking up, sounding surprised. “I’m delighted you came. But … you’re not wearing all of my gift.”

“And why is it, Mr. Feng, that men never seem to be able to guess a woman’s bra size with any degree of accuracy? I
might
have squeezed into what you sent me, but I also like to breathe. Besides …” She gestured at the beach, where both men and women were enjoying the sun and sea air in everything from jeans and T-shirts to nothing at all. “Most beaches in Spain allow nudity, or at least permit women to go topless,” she told him. “I didn’t think you would mind.”

“Most certainly not! Western Europeans
do
seem to be somewhat casual about displaying their bodies. At least on the beach.”

She chuckled. “I once saw a couple on a street in downtown Madrid, both of them completely naked except for tennis shoes, and that’s three hundred kilometers from the nearest beach!”

“I
am
surprised,” Feng said, smiling. “Americans tend to be
so
conservative,
so
caught up in body taboos and modesty.” He grinned across the table at the dark-complexioned man. “Americans are almost as bad as Muslims when it comes to exposing their bodies!”

“True,” she said. “
Most
Americans, at any rate. A few of us are more … cosmopolitan.”

“I’m delighted to learn that about you, Ms. Lau. Please, have a seat. And permit me to introduce two of my business associates.”

The pale-skinned man had come to his feet as soon as Lia approached the table. “Herve Chatel,” he said, extending a hand. “
S’il vous plaît
. With Petro-Technologique.”

“Enchanté,”
Lia replied, accepting the hand. The man bowed with gallant flair and very nearly kissed her fingers.

“And this is Makhdoom Hussain Shah,” Feng said, introducing the other man, who had remained seated. “An associate with Saudi Aramco.”

“Pleased to meet you,” she said. The name, she thought, was Pakistani or, just possibly, Iranian. While she understood a fair amount of Arabic, she spoke neither Urdu nor Punjabi, nor did she speak more than a few words of Farsi, so she stuck with English.

Shah grunted in reply and looked away, staring past her at the sea.

Lia took the offered chair, crossing her long legs. The Frenchman was having trouble keeping his eyes above the level of her chest. Shah, on the other hand, seemed uncomfortable, angry, perhaps, at her presence. He wouldn’t look at her at all.

Well, a practicing Muslim
would
be offended by her current state of dress … or undress, rather. She wondered if this was another of Feng’s tests—and who was being tested, Shah or her.

“If you would excuse us,” Feng told her, “we were just discussing a drilling project in which COSCO is interested.”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” she told them. She pulled a small compact case out of the woven bag beside her chair and extracted a lipstick, which she proceeded to apply to her lips. “I’m
quite
happy here in the sun.”

“Of course.” Feng turned to the others and said something in Arabic.

Lia didn’t catch all of it, but she thought Feng said something like “This is the woman I told you about.”

“Very nice,” Chatel said in heavily accented Arabic, still staring at her.

Shah responded with a single word.
“Bintilkha-ta!”
It meant “fallen woman” and was the equivalent of calling her a whore.

“Now, Makhdoom,” Feng said, still smiling. “Other people, other customs, other ways of thinking. And she will be useful to me as COSCO expands its operational base.
Especially
in the United States.”

“She will be useful to you in your bed,” Shah replied. “You do seem to have a weakness for degenerate Western sluts.”

“I prefer to think of it as my hobby.”

“Nice work, when you can get it,” Chatel observed.

Lia was amused by Chatel’s interest. Europeans—especially the French—thought of themselves as sophisticated and adult; casual social nudity on the beach or in the hot tub would never fluster them. Judging from his reaction, Chatel clearly wasn’t as sophisticated or adult as he might like others to believe, however. He was being careful now to keep his legs crossed.

For her part, Lia wasn’t bothered by nudity one way or the other. Skin was skin. It was the person inside who was important, not the packaging.

Lia finished touching up her lips, then set the compact and the lipstick on the table in front of her.

“Okay, Lia,” Rockman whispered in her ear. “We have a good shot of Chatel. Rotate the camera just slightly counterclockwise, please.”

The men continued speaking in Arabic, more quickly now, and she was having trouble following the conversation. No matter. The microphone inside the lipstick tube would transmit every word they said back to the Art Room for analysis. Casually, she played with the compact, turning it slightly to point a small glass decoration on the lid in Shah’s direction.

“Okay, Lia. We’ve got ’em both. We’ll run them through ID and see just who we’re dealing with here.”

Feng turned suddenly to face her. “I wonder, Ms. Lau,” he said in English, “if you would go get us some drinks?”

She considered telling him politely that she was a consultant, not a coffee wench, but decided it would be best not to make waves. “Of course, sir.”

“Fruit juice for Mr. Shah. A piña colada for me. And for Mr. Chatel?”

“White wine. Whatever they have.”

“And something for yourself, of course,” Feng told her. “Have them put it on my tab.”

“Yes, sir.” She stood and strode off toward the bar at the back of the beach veranda.

She could feel all three men staring at her back as she walked.

ART ROOM
NSA HEADQUARTERS
FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
THURSDAY, 1030 HOURS EDT

Marie Telach looked up at the big screen, where lines of type were appearing letter by letter. The three men on the beach in Spain were continuing their conversation in Arabic. As the transmission came through the Language Department, though, Arabic-speaking personnel were typing the consecutive translation, the words appearing on the Art Room screen, complete with identifier tags.

SHAH
: I do not like this slut here at the table with us, Feng. You risk operational security.

CHATEL
: She’s harmless, Shah. Take it from me. I do admire your taste in women, Mr. Feng.

FENG
: She is pleasant to look at. However, I expect to use her to open certain opportunities for COSCO, once the operation is successfully complete. American men will make concessions to a beautiful woman, where, with a man, they would be sidetracked by trying to compete, trying to show how strong they are. She also has considerable experience in public relations.

CHATEL
: I’ll bet that’s not all she’s experienced in.

FENG
: That is irrelevant. If she does consent to share my bed, that will be most pleasant. As I said, it is my preferred hobby.

“Are you picking it all up?” Lia’s voice said, coming through the speaker in the ceiling.

“Loud and clear,” Telach told her. “They’re discussing you right now like a piece of meat.”

“Let them. Anything useful?”

“Not yet. No … wait. They’re talking about ‘the project’ now.”

FENG:
What progress at the drill site?

SHAH
: Slow. Slow.

FENG:
You are a week behind schedule. Why?

SHAH
: We are drilling through solid basalt, not sediment or sandstone. It takes time.

CHATEL
: We’ve also had to order more replacement drill bits from Dhahran. If they arrive within the next day or two, I expect that we shall be at the five-hundred-meter level by the middle of next week.

SHAH
: The Jackal told me to ask you. When can he expect the special packages?

FENG:
They are en route as we speak. You tell the Jackal that he must have the boreholes complete by next week.

CHATEL
: That will depend on the rock. Basalt is very hard.

FENG
: Tell him. (
Strong emphasis
.) If they haven’t reached one thousand meters, they’ll have to go with what they have.

SHAH
: We have also had inquiries from Dhahran. Concerned inquiries.

FENG:
About?

SHAH
: When Operation Wrath of God is complete, the Saudis will have lost one of their major trading partners. Mr. al-Khuwaytir is worried about the effect on the global economy.

FENG:
When Wrath of God is complete, the People’s Republic of China will be more than able to step into the vacuum. Mr. al-Khuwaytir should keep in mind that the People’s Republic owns over one-eighth of their foreign debt. Have faith in God.

SHAH
: Do not mock me.

FENG:
I’m not. Do not muddy the water with minor concerns. At this point in time, all of our attention must be focused on completing those boreholes. Your compatriots in Jerusalem are impatient. They want to carry out Operation Fire from Heaven quickly, but they must not, must not, act before Wrath of God is complete. If they do, they risk everything we’ve worked for. Am I understood?

SHAH
: You are understood.

FENG:
And there is another matter, Mr. Shah. I received a message early this morning from one of my sources on La Palma. It seems your people have been conducting intelligence work, wet work, in fact, on your own, without clearing it with me first.

SHAH
: What do you mean?

FENG:
I think you know what I mean. Pender? In the United States?

SHAH
: That was necessary. Pender and Carlylse are too close, they know too much.

FENG:
Killing Pender called attention to him. That was dangerous.

SHAH
: It is not an issue. Pender’s death looked like suicide. Carlylse is on La Palma now, according to our sources. The Jackal will take care of him as well, and it will again look like suicide.

FENG
: Just so the Jackal knows that he must not call attention to Wrath of God in any way. Pender and Carlylse are unimportant. Their books may even help us in the long run. Do not call undue attention to them, or we could lose the, the psychological effect you are looking for within the Muslim world.