"Any other information?" Dastgerdi asked.
His companion glanced at the predominantly European passengers around them, who would be seeing only two Middle Easterners chatting about music before their respective flights. Then he spoke in a low voice.
"Fascist contrashit the port. Choufi is dead, Gabriel is dead. But there has been no compromise of the mission. The Nicaraguans drove away the fascists and annihilated them in the mountains."
The news seemed to disrupt Dastgerdi's equanimity; in fact, only by the strength of his years of training could he mask his rage and panic. With a false smile he asked, "They attacked, therefore they know. But how— if there has been no compromise? How did they know?"
"The Nicaraguans say there are many attacks on the coast. The fascists kill Cubans and Soviets and Sandinista leaders. It was only bad luck for your men. If the fascists knew of your mission, they would have taken Choufi and Gabriel as prisoners, not killed them."
Dastgerdi nodded. "True..."
A public-address voice announced the departure of the flight to Syria. Dastgerdi rose, discreetly waved to the informant and disappeared into a crowd of embarking passengers.
Despite their precautions and belief that they had not been noticed, the meeting of Dastgerdi and his informant had indeed been studied with interest. Across the lounge, a French counterintelligence agent noted the number and destination of Dastgerdi's flight and continued to watch his unidentified contact.
As Dastgerdi flew to Damascus, the French counterintelligence office transmitted his information to an Agency contact in the United States.
4
Rock and roll blared from the television. Dancers kicked and spun as a singer postured. Colored images exploded through galactic space.
Sprawled on the hotel bed, Gadgets Schwarz drained another can of beer, aimed the empty at Carl Lyons's head and threw. The can hit its target, bounced off, then disappeared out the window. Lyons leaned over the railing to watch it fall through the canyon between the high rises.
Lyons dodged as Gadgets opened another beer and motioned to throw it through the window.
"Don't! You'll kill someone down there!"
"Never!" Gadgets gulped the beer, belched and continued, foam spilling down face and neck. "I'll never throw away a full beer!"
He took a final slug, and tossed the empty. Lyons caught it in midair. He crushed it in his fist and sighted on his partner's face.
Gadgets dived from the bed. The nightstand fell. The lamp crashed. Lyons held his throw and maneuvered for an unobstructed line of fire.
Dodging around the bed, he prepared to throw. A blast of beer foam sprayed him. Gadgets jumped up, shaking a beer can and jetting foam. Holding another can in his left hand, he lifted the pop-top with his teeth. A can in each hand, he drove Lyons from the room.
"And don't come back without your own six-pack!"
After Lyons threw it, the crumpled can ricocheted off the closing door. He heard Gadgets shriek as the can scored. "Got him!"
"Deescalate, jokers," Blancanales said from a doorway across the corridor. "You'll have the police up here."
Wiping beer from his face and sport shirt, Lyons crossed to Blancanales. "He's having a one-man party in there. Any news from D.C.?"
"The interrogation's continuing." Blancanales looked up and down the corridor, saw no one. "Go ahead, take the day off. Get a six-pack. Get six six-packs. They'll call when they know where we're going."
"Lebanon?"
"Wherever that Iranian went."
"Yeah, wherever that is. Later."
Lyons returned to his room as the phone rang. The desk clerk told him: "A Mr. Randall and a Mr. Lloyd are here. Shall I send them up?"
Lyons recalled the two men from a manufacturing shop in Baltimore — an Agency shop for the manufacture and maintenance of special weapons. "Put Randall on the phone."
A moment later a voice came over the receiver. "Hey, man. You're living in style here."
"All day. Maybe tonight. Then we're gone."
"Yeah, I know. I got some going-away presents for you."
"The Company send them?"
Randall heard the suspicion in Carl Lyons's voice. "Lloyd and me only work forthem, you know? We used to work withAndrzej. There's a difference. You know what I mean?"
"Come on up. You want drinks, food? Tell the desk to send up whatever you want."
"There in a flash."
Lyons keyed the numbers for his partners' rooms, told them some Company guys were coming up to visit, and to listen for any problems.
A knock sounded within minutes. Lyons took his Colt Python from his suitcase, set it on the dresser and covered it with a shirt. Then he opened the door.
Randall was a wiry, conservatively dressed, middle-aged black with short hair and a mischievous smile. In both hands he carried a large, plainly wrapped box. Behind him, a beer-bellied Anglo with thinning blond hair stood with a long, flat box under his arm. Unlike Randall, Lloyd wore work clothes — boots, jeans, plaid shirt, denim jacket.
"Glad we caught you before you left," Randall told Lyons, handing over the box. "Here's your surprise."
Lyons almost dropped it. "What is this? Feels like..."
"Kalashnikov mags. With a total of three hundred rounds of 7.62mm ComBloc ammunition. Hand-loaded with absolutely exact charges and hollowpoints for accuracy and impact that you got to see to believe."
"Hollowpoints?"
"Wipeouts," Lloyd said.
"Wish you had time to come down to the shop." Randall opened the box, removed one of the curving magazines, thumbed out a cartridge. Holding up the stubby ComBloc round, he pointed to the bullet. "You fire this little thing into a ten-pound block of wet clay — which happens to have a mass and texture remarkably similar to meat — and you got ten pounds of clay everywhere but where it was."
"But I don't use an AK," Lyons told them.
"You will where you're going," Randall countered.
"Where's that?"
Randall looked at Lloyd; they laughed.
"Really, I don't know. Do you?"
"If you don't," said Lloyd, "we can't tell you. Maybe you don't have clearance. Company policy. But here's something for when you get there."
He opened the long box to reveal a battered, scuffed Kalashnikov.
Lifting it, Randall pulled out the magazine and jerked back the cocking handle several times. "Looks like shit," he said. "But it's special. Check it out."
Pulling back the cocking handle once more to confirm the empty chamber, Lyons touched the trigger. It snapped without the usual long travel. He tried the other mechanisms. The safety-selector lever moved without the standard AK "clack." The magazine release had no sharp edges. The rear tangent sight had been delicately filed to a perfect fit. The meter scale had been touched up with white. A second flip-up sight with two small white dots had been added. Lyons cupped his hand over the sight and saw the glow of tritium dots. He examined the front sight. The protective ring had been cut to wings to allow faster aiming. A small flip-up sight completed the night-sight modification.
"Like a Galil..."
"You got it."
Lyons closed and opened the folding steel stock. It locked and unlocked without wobbling. He cocked the rifle again, sighted on a distant roof, squeezed off an imaginary shot at a pigeon. "Perfect."
He tried the rifle in his hands, jerking it repeatedly to his shoulder. It felt right. He closed the steel stock and studied it.
"It's longer — it's the right size," Lyons raved. "Where'd you get this?"