First Team (32 page)

“Jesus, Guns, I got a fuckin’ headache, and I feel like I’m being jerked around on yet another wild-goose chase. What the hell you want me to do?”

“Your problem is you need to get laid. I’ll tell you, at the infirmary, I met this nurse. First thing I did . . .”

“Oh Christ,” said Rankin, leaning his head back against the rest.

~ * ~

5

BAKU, ON THE CASPIAN SEA

Baku was an oil town, the center of one of the most prolific producing areas in the world outside the Middle East. It was also a place where other things could be had and arranged; the Caspian washed its shores with the rhythmic sound of possibility, and if a foreigner didn’t find hospitality there, it was surely because he wasn’t trying hard enough.

Ferg and Conners sat at a table overlooking the sea, waiting to meet Ferg’s contact, who was running about an hour late. Rahil—Rachel in English—was a raven-haired beauty, the daughter of a smuggler who had inherited the business from her father. Ferguson had had occasion to do business with her once before, and so he wasn’t surprised or disappointed by the fact that she hadn’t yet shown up at the cafe. He nursed a coffee while Conners sipped at a vodka, staring through the yellowed plastic panel at the edge of the porch.

“My darling, you are here already,” said Rahil. She floated to them across the porch, her hand trailing across Ferguson’s shoulder. He rose; she kissed him. Four men in black pants and sweaters fanned out across the room behind her—the family business had not thrived for three generations without taking certain precautions.

“Your friend?” Rahil said.

“Dad,” said Ferg, pointing to him.

“Your father? But he’s so young.”

“Just a nickname.”

“Ma’am.”

“You must watch Mr. Ferguson,” Rahil advised him. “He will go light on the paycheck.”

“We merely deducted for expenses,” said Ferg. She was referring to their last encounter, which had involved smuggling a set of hard drives out of Russia. The disks had “been damaged—probably because Rahil had tried to have her people read them— and Ferg’s supervisors had insisted on delivering only partial payment.

“You will make it up today?”

“Maybe.”

Rahil let a waiter pull over a chair for her, then ordered champagne. She began telling Ferguson about how beautiful the sea was this time of year—how beautiful it was at all times of year.

Conners sipped his vodka, taking in only enough to sting his lips. Rahil looked to be about thirty, though like a lot of women he’d seen there she put her makeup on so thickly it made her look older. She had a thin body, but she moved it the way a dancer would, thrusting it around as she spoke. Her bodyguards eyed them jealously, and Conners guessed that she herself had at least two weapons, including a barely concealed pistol at the belt of her flowing skirt beneath her black blouse, which was not tucked into the waistband.

“I’m going to Groznyy,” said Ferg

“Yes?” she said. The waiter arrived with the champagne, a Tattinger brut, 1995.

“I’d like to stay in a convenient place there,” said Ferg, who took a glass of the wine.

“There are many hotels,” she told him.

“You know my tastes.”

“Expensive.”

“Not necessarily. Just discreet.”

“As I said, expensive. The authorities.” She shook her head. “Groznyy is not a nice place these days.”

“When was it ever?”

“True. The Chechens are a dirty people. Why go there? Stay here with us. Baku is a very rich place.” She turned to Conners. “You are not drinking my champagne?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Ferguson is paying.” She laughed.

“Thanks anyway,” said Conners.

The waiter reappeared. Rahil called him over and ordered some blintzes, then told him to see to her men. There were three dozen tables on the veranda, more than half of them occupied, but the waiter had no trouble figuring out whom she meant.

“So, a place to stay. That’s it?” said Rahil. “The CIA needs my services as a travel agent?”

“I’d like some contact among the rebels.”

Rahil shook her head. “No.”

“No one who owes you a favor?”

“These sorts of favors would have me dead in a week,” she said. “We do not deal with the Islamic madmen.”

“They’re not all mad, are they?”

“The crazy ones are the sanest. Of course they’re mad. They’ve been mad for centuries. But now they are worse. In the past two years…” She waved her hand in the air, as if brushing away smoke. “Drink more champagne, Ferguson. Drink, drink.”

“They may have something I want to buy,” suggested Ferg.

“Such as?”

“Things,” he said.

“Stay away from them. Better to deal with the Russians.”

“I deal with them all the time.”

“See? I knew you were a wise man. Here, let me write you an address that may come in useful.”

~ * ~

nteresting woman,” said Conners, as they rode in a taxi toward the dock. Ferguson had hired a boat to take them north to Machachkala, where they’d hire a car to go to Groznyy. They were supposed to be German representatives from an oil company, though it didn’t seem as if anyone particularly cared. “Pretty, too.”

“Drug smugglers usually are,” said Ferg.

“We going to stay in her hotel?”

“Nah.”

“You wanted the guerrilla contact?”

“No.” Ferguson pointed out the dock and had the driver let them off. When the car had pulled away, he told Conners to grab his bag and follow him.

“Where?”

“There’s a ferry we’re taking. It leaves from that pier up there.”

“I thought you hired a boat.”

“I did,” said Ferg.

“You sharing information these days?”

“Only on a need-to-know basis.”

“What do I do if you get shot?” asked Conners, serious.

“Cash in the plane ticket in your pocket and go home.”

“Ferg.” Conners grabbed his shoulder. “You’ve been taking some awful chances lately.”

“Name one.”

“Walking into that police station, the DVD operation in Iran ...”

“It’s okay, Dad. It’ll all make sense eventually.” Ferguson adjusted the shoulder strap on his leather duffel bag and started for the ferry.

“That I doubt,” said Conners.

~ * ~

erg waited until they were about halfway to Machachkala to call Corrigan. By then the clouds had thickened, and it looked as if they were sailing toward a storm. He stood out on the upper deck, wind whipping against his face as the call went through.

“Where you been?” Corrigan asked.

“Pulling my pud,” Ferguson told him. “What do you have for me?”

“The guy Kiro sent a message to is named Jabril Daruyev. You can download the full dossier anytime you want.”

“And the FSB investigator?”

“As far as we can tell, he’s back in Chechnya. I can’t run him down definitively.”

“You have him definitely ID’d as Kruknokov?” asked Ferg.

“If you had given us a better picture, I could be definitive,” said Corrigan. “But there’s a Kruknokov who was in Kyrgyzstan, then went to Chechnya. I have a picture and it looks like your guy. I see a yellow sports coat.”

“That’s got to seal it,” said Ferg.

He was being serious, though Corrigan thought he was making fun of him.

“Don’t you bust my chops,” said Corrigan.

“I wasn’t. How are Guns and Rankin making out with the Dragon Lady?”

“She’s not
that
bad. No worse than Slott.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Please stop busting my balls.”

“When I go online, am I going to have all that data on the prisons?”

“It’s waiting for you.”

“Fair enough, Corrigan. I take back everything I said about you.”

“What a guy.”

Ferg snapped off the phone.

~ * ~

6

NEAR ORENBURG, RUSSIA—THE NEXT NIGHT

Rankin reached over the seat, fishing for the bottle of water in the back of the car. He hadn’t screwed the top tightly enough when he’d put it on, and the carpet of the Fiat was soaked; worse, he had only a few small gulps left. Even though the train carrying the waste material had parked for the night on a siding, they’d have to stay there watching it, and that meant he wouldn’t be able to restock for another six hours, until Conners and Jack Massette took over. His few days in the Middle East had left him dehydrated, maybe permanently; he felt as if he could drink several gallons of water and not quench his thirst. Holding the bottle up in the dim light, Rankin gauged that there were four gulps’ worth left. He decided he’d have to parcel them out, a gulp an hour. Postponing the first gulp, he tightened the cap securely and rose in the seat to place the bottle more carefully against the transmission hump. Their gear was on the seat at least, and so remained dry.