“No. He’s wanted for murder here. He’s still on the FBI’s hit parade.”
“Oh, yes, the young agent,” Ryazan murmured. “A terrible thing.”
“Add that to the bombing, and Vorsalov’s body count for U.S. citizens is six.”
“I can count, Richard.” Ryazan was silent for a few moments. “And in return for our cooperation?”
“You would have my thanks.”
“I will require more.”
“Such as?”
“If you come to possess Colonel Vorsalov, he will be returned to us in a timely fashion.”
“Define timely.”
“Five years.”
“Valerei, he’d get life in prison for the agent’s murder alone. Besides, I don’t have the authority to—”
“Oh, Richard. You have the authority. Just as I have the authority to do this highly irregular favor for you.”
Checkmate, thought Mason. By first tipping them off to Vorsalov’s Khartoum meeting and then by ignoring a chance to capture him, Ryazan was taking a big risk. Though the name had changed, the FIS was no less vengeful than its predecessor when it came to dealing with traitors, especially ones like Vorsalov, whose many clients included guerillas in Chechniya and Kazikstan.
Mason considered the deal. Either way he went, they lost something. Justice for a decade-old murder or capturing those responsible for the Delta bombing?
“Deal,” Mason said.
22
Kemal and Panos were unlikely partners. Kemal, a Turkish Cypriot, and Panos, a Greek Cypriot, had once been enemies and had in fact anonymously exchanged Molotov cocktails across Nicosia’s Attila Line in 1981, six years after the failed Colonels Coup sundered the country.
While burdensome for the average Turk or Greek, this decades-old conflict makes Cyprus a paradise for terrorists and criminals, both of whom find life easy as the military and the police are focused on the ever-present threat of civil war.
Each mistaking the other for a compatriot, Kemal and Panos met in a Nicosia pub and by the time they discovered they were enemies, they were both thoroughly drunk and had realized they shared a passion stronger than their hatred.
And so, almost ten years after their first meeting, they were still in business, having graduated from pickpocketing to robbery and murder. Unknown to them, one of their frequent employers in the early eighties was the KGB. Sometimes it was a burglary, sometimes a murder, and sometimes, like today, they were simply to follow the man and gather information.
After spotting the target at the Larnaca airport, they followed him into the city proper. When the taxi took its third turn in as many minutes — this time toward the Acropolis — Kemal pushed their rickety yellow Renault to maintain the 200-yard gap.
“No ordinary tourist, this one,” said Panos. “He’s acting like he knows he’s being followed.”
“The driver is conning him,” said Kemal. “Taking him for a ride.”
“We’ll see.” Though neither of them were NASA material, Panos was the sharper of the two, Kemal the tougher.
The taxi wound its way through Larnaca for another twenty minutes before swinging back onto Grigoris. “He’s heading for the marina,” said Panos.
As the taxi turned right past the Swedish Consulate, Panos said, “Keep going, keep going! We’ll catch him coming the other way.”
Kemal frowned, confused. “But—”
“Just do as I say! Go around the post office.”
Three quick right turns brought them to the waterfront. They pulled to the curb just as the man was paying off the taxi.
Panos studied the man. Something about the face bothered him. The eyes. That was it. They were a flat, expressionless blue. Panos had seen such eyes in other men, and they were usually men best left alone.
The man walked into the green-bricked ferry office.
“Wait here,” said Panos, climbing from the car. He returned five minutes later. “He bought a ticket for the Beirut ferry.”
“Beirut?” Kemal said. “Stephan said nothing about Beirut. What do we do?”
“We follow him.”
“To Beirut? Stephan said nothing about Beirut. Why are we—”
“Kemal, just do as I ask. If we don’t follow him, we don’t get paid. Go park the car, and I’ll get the tickets.”
Panos and Kemal boarded just before departure, found the man sitting on the bow deck, then climbed to the upper deck where they could watch him. Panos took the first shift and sent Kemal down to the car deck to wait.
Two hours after leaving Larnaca, the man still hadn’t moved. He sat reading a magazine and watching the ocean. Panos was about to slip away to the bathroom when another man came strolling along the deck.
This one was an Arab, with a handlebar moustache and a newspaper tucked under one arm. He lit a cigarette, then turned and gestured to the bench. The man shrugged, and the Arab sat. After a few minutes, the Arab laid the newspaper on the bench, tossed his cigarette, and left.
Panos kept his eyes on the target. Finally the man stood up, slipped the newspaper under his arm, and walked aft.
As the sun dipped toward the horizon, Beirut’s skyline rose from the horizon. Panos could see the city’s artillery-scarred buildings jutting from the landscape like denuded trees on a battlefield.
He’d followed the man to the rest room, where he entered a stall, remained inside for five minutes, then emerged without the newspaper. Panos found it behind the toilet stool; a section had been torn from an inside page.
Panos met Kemal where they could watch the passengers disembark. “Are we going to follow them into the city?” Kemal asked.
“No.” Stephan could not pay them enough for that. “There is one more ferry going back tonight; we’ll follow if he takes it.”
As night fell, the ferry nudged alongside the pier. The mooring lines were secured to the bollards, and the gangway was lowered. Under the glare of spotlights, Lebanese Forces jeeps patrolled the marina, and at the head of the quay stood a roadblock of armored personnel carriers.
Panos could see lights winking in the foothills, followed seconds later by a crump crump crump. Artillery, he thought. The fighting could be between any of the dozens of factions in the city. What a horrible place. The skirmishes along Cyprus’s Attila Line could be fierce, but never like this. In Nicosia it was Turk against Greek; Greek against Turk. Here it was everyone against everyone.
“There, is that him?” Kemal asked.
Panos looked. The Arab was among the first off the gangway and into the customs building. He came out the other side, walked through the blockade, and climbed into a waiting blue Volvo.
The target followed ten minutes later. A second Volvo, this one gray, was waiting for him at the head of the quay. As he approached, an Arab climbed from the front seat and held open the door.
“Bodyguards,” Panos murmured.
The Volvo sped away and disappeared into the night.
Yuri Vorsalov hated Lebanon. He hated its smell, its sounds, the grime it left on his skin. But most of all, he hated its ceaseless violence.
His twenty-two years in the KGB had taught him the value of violence. But, like any tool, violence is best applied with discipline. With its ancient hatreds, ridiculous factions, and never-ending wars, Beirut was a cesspool of base savagery. Any idiot can throw a grenade. It takes vision to apply violence as a means to an end.
Early in his career Vorsalov had urged Moscow to take a more active role in the Mideast The average Arab nation was too entrenched in tribalism and internecine warfare to understand, let alone formulate, cohesive long-term strategies, he’d argued. Pan-Arabism was a pipe dream. Alas, his assessments were overtaken by history as the fifties saw the United States rallying behind Israel. Domination, the Kremlin decided, would best be achieved through the slow and steady spread of communism. Patience, they said. America hadn’t the stomach for a protracted nuclear stalemate. A good joke, Vorsalov thought. Now, instead of ruling the world, Mother Russia struggled to feed her people.