To while away the hours there were playing cards available, a few board games, and a collection of old magazines. Some of the group played poker until they got tired of Sarge Morris winning. Overmyer's hair-trigger temper had exploded a few times, once when Sarge's shaky right hand accidentally turned over his ace in the hole. Only Naji Abdalla seemed unaffected by the enforced idleness. For Palestinians, it seemed, life had always been a waiting game.
Abdalla was born on the West Bank of the Jordan, but his parents had fled during the Six-Day War in 1967. He had spent his formative years in a refugee camp in southern Lebanon, waiting patiently for the day when he would be old enough to carry a rifle and join a liberation band. "Freedom for our homeland" was the constant cry. Inshallah, it is the will of God. But it didn't take long for reality to set in. God had not endowed the leaders with great wisdom. Many were woefully incompetent. They wasted most of their energy and assets fighting among themselves. He shifted his loyalties from one group to another, taking advantage of the opportunity to learn from the best. One wizened militant had made him an expert with a rifle, another with the 9mm Walther pistol. A Russian advisor showed him the intricacies of the AK-47, while a crafty old Arab taught him to become a lethal extension of the curved Bedouin knife and other weapons of close combat. Finally, he had broken with the organized bands and established himself as a one-man guerrilla force, available to the highest bidder. The KGB had found his talents particularly helpful.
Abdalla no longer felt any burning desire to return to the West Bank. His parents had died; other relatives were scattered. He had lost faith in the PLO and its warring factions. He had also discovered a few previously unknown facts about his heritage. Now he moved at his own pace and took life as it came. A man of many faces, he doubted the current one was on file with any agency of the U. S. Government or its allies.
The storm let up enough by Wednesday afternoon for Jeffries to crank up the Cherokee and fly to Panama City to pick up a few supplies and the mail. The Lone Star Network address in Dallas was actually a secretarial service that provided a mail drop. Its meager contents were periodically bundled into a larger envelope and forwarded to a pickup point in Panama City.
When Ted opened the envelope that afternoon, he found what he had been waiting for. It was a letter from The Department of External Affairs in Ottawa. The Lone Star Network request to provide live television coverage of the American-Russian visit had been approved. Lone Star's request — drafted by Ted with assistance from Jeffries and typed on expensive, embossed letterhead — had pointed out that the President was a Texan, and that it supplied live feeds for independent stations across the state that lacked major network affiliation. The coverage would be provided by satellite transmission, the uplink generated from a transmitter truck that would be parked a few blocks from the Toronto City Hall. The request for press credentials for three staffers was also approved. They were to pick up their badges at press headquarters in the Metropolitan Toronto Convention Centre on Front Street. Included was clearance from the Department of Communications to operate the truck in Canada.
The letter of request had contained bogus identities for the team members, identities that would produce no questions in a standard national agency check in Washington. They would assume their new personas on leaving Oyster Island. Ted, who was a master of disguise, had been working with Overmyer and Richter to create new images that would ring no bells with security personnel. He went beyond facial changes, though, concentrating on modifications in stance and altering the overall silhouette.
After Ted had finished reading the letter to the group, Jeffries glanced up at the clearing sky. "The forecast calls for this front to move out tonight," he said. "The truck is about ready. Can we get the firing set up for Friday morning?"
Ingram nodded. "If we get sunshine tomorrow, it should dry things out."
"Excellent," said Goldman. "That will give us a final week to polish up our procedures, run a practice firing or two and get things closed down here."
Chapter 25
"Where is it you have to go?" Lori asked as they dodged their way through the crowded hotel lobby the next morning. It was jammed with noisy American tourists sporting colorful plastic badges provided by a tour operator. A harried Oriental guide was doing his best to explain to a small breakaway group why they couldn't visit mainland China today.
"I need to do a little banking," Burke said.
"Do you need money? I can let you have some."
"That's okay. Hang onto yours. We might need it later."
The doorman started to motion for a taxi, but Lori dismissed him with a shake of her head. "Let's take the Star Ferry. It's just a couple of blocks from here. If you've never been on it, it's a real experience. You didn’t have a chance to see Hong Kong island last night. The ferry gives you the best view for a first time visit."
They dropped their fares in the turnstile and walked up the ramp to where a green-and-white ferry boat was about ready to board. With one running every few minutes, there was never much of a wait. They found seats on a bench near the front and watched the spectacular skyline approach slowly across the harbor, a panoramic expanse of gleaming high rise office buildings and apartments stacked stair-step up the side of Victoria Peak.
Viewing this gaudy display of the trappings of wealth left Burke pondering the widely-held belief that money could buy anything. Or, more properly, everybody and everything had its price. Last night, Lori had asked if it were possible that the Bulgarians had some connection with the accident that killed Cam Quinn. He recalled having a similar thought when he had first heard the news in Tel Aviv, but that was before the drunk driving angle had come up. Still, could it be that someone might have been hired to engineer an accident for Cam? It was a distressing thought, but not a problem to which he was a stranger. At the time he had gone undercover for the FBI, he completely cut himself off from his ex-wife and son, knowing if the Mafia ever penetrated his cover, they could be expected to send a hit man after his family. The price would be immaterial.
Large clusters of cumulus hung over the bustling harbor like massive piles of shaving cream sprayed out by some waggish Oriental deity, temporarily masking the sun. And though the day was sure to be another scorcher, a cool sea breeze picked at Lori's long hair. In a short eight minutes they were thumping against the pier. The gates swung open, and they found themselves swept along as the scurrying passengers trooped ashore in the shadow of the giant Connaught Centre, where nearly two thousand round windows gave it the look of a tapestry of ship's portholes. Burke hailed a taxi in front of the terminal and directed the driver to the U. S. Consulate General on Garden Road. He dropped Lori there, then continued on to Queen's Road Central and the East Asia Bank.
At the Trustee Department, he asked for Mr. Luk and was promptly ushered into a small conference room. It was furnished with an oval-shaped teak table surrounded by plushly upholstered chairs. Moments later, a smiling, soft-spoken Chinese entered and gave a slight bow.