But a very pretty woman. And willing to do things of interest to a man. A shameless woman. He had seen what she did with that rich Arab, that Muslim warlord with a limousine.

Now Zhgenti had a limousine. Would she do the same for him? He hadn't had a woman since last week in Bulgaria. That woman had been an honest whore, but not very attractive, exhausted by years of caring alone for her children after her husband was executed by the KGB. Rejected by her family, the widow had turned to part-time prostitution to buy her children a few hard-currency gifts — good shoes, textbooks, a few tins of meat for the holidays.

An honest prostitute. But not as pretty as this woman who sat with him now.

"Frenchie," Zhgenti said to Desmarais. "How did you get away from the Americans? Show me."

"What?"

"It will pass the time."

"What are you talking about?"

"Like in that other limousine..."

Desmarais reached for the door handle. Zhgenti grabbed her arm and jerked her closer. His thick lips touched the smooth, soft skin of her face.

"You want a bad report to our superiors? You play a very tricky game, my little Canadian. All your lies, all your ways of lying. Perhaps they will terminate your contract. Perhaps they will issue instructions for me to terminate your contract. Or perhaps I will terminate you immediately, and then explain. You have your choice. Do like you did for the Arab."

She did.

As the night unfolded, Zhgenti enjoyed her three more times. Finally, exhausted, only one eye open to watch her, his right hand secure on the pistol in his coat pocket, Zhgenti compared the technique of the Canadian to the pleasures of the middle-aged Bulgarian prostitute.

Rather automatic and mechanical and cold.

Like her lies.

18

"I thought that diplomat was French!" Gadgets shouted over the wind and engine roar in the back of the Mercedes troop transport.

After the hijacking, Gadgets had returned to his equipment to find ten minutes of Russian on his voice-activated cassette recorder. The conversation between the French diplomat and the Syrian colonel began in Arabic, went to French, then turned exclusively to Russian.

Now, huddled amid crates of ammunition and contraband, Gadgets monitored Colonel Dastgerdi and the French diplomat as they conversed in Russian on the road to the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Five kilometers behind their limousine, Able Team and the Shias followed in a convoy of military vehicles and four hijacked cargo trucks. Other convoys jammed the highway as the Syrian army rushed wounded soldiers from the Bekaa Valley to Damascus in empty munitions trucks. Trucks laden with weapons and munitions labored in the opposite direction to resupply the forces still fighting in the Bekaa.

Desperate to expedite the flow of men and munitions between the several rebellion hotspots, the Syrian army waved Able Team's convoy through checkpoints after only quick glances at the drivers and their documents. Following the limousine of Colonel Dastgerdi, Able Team maintained a relentless pace to Damascus.

Gadgets shouted across the back of the troop transport, "Didn't Mr. Marine say that the diplomat in the limo had French identification?"

"I'll check." Lyons took out his hand-radio.

Gadgets continued monitoring and taping the dialogue in the limousine. Though he did not understand the Russian, he would save the tape for translation.

"Yeah!" Lyons confirmed. "A French diplomat. Works for UNESCO. Name of J. P. Gee-Road."

"Oh, man, this shit never quits."

"What?"

"Use your radio!" Gadgets yelled, holding up his hand-radio. "I want Mr. Marine to monitor this jive. Beep-beep, come in Cowboy Radio Network, this is the Wizard broadcasting another mystery."

"What're you talking about?" Powell, riding at the head of the convoy in the Land Rover, had to shout over the road noise.

"This is it," Gadgets began. "We got a mystery. It ain't a Syrian and a Frenchie in that limo, it's two Russians. In..."

"How do you know?" Powell asked.

"They're talking Russian. Now listen, in Mexico City, Illovich of the KGB didn't know nothing of the Iranians and the rockets. Then Desmarais — if we can believe anything she says — told us that a KGB kill squad had been assigned to track us down and wipe us out. And since Desmarais knows we came here to hit the gang making the rockets, we can assume the KGB knows what we came to do. So here's the question. Who are those Russians in the limo? If they were KGB, the KGB wouldn't have a kill squad chasing us. They'd have gone out to that factory base and waited for us to show up. They're not KGB because Illovich in Mexico would've known — or could've found out — all about what's going on. So who are they?"

Blancanales joined the electronic conversation. Sheltered by boxes of Italian designer jeans, he spoke into his radio." What do you think?"

"Me?" Gadgets answered. "Me, think? I don't know what to think! That's why I'm asking the questions!"

"Marine?" Blancanales used Powell's informal code name despite the encrypting circuits of the NSA hand-radios they used. "Do any of our Shia friends speak or understand Russian?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then save the tapes, Wizard." Blancanales concluded. "We'll know later."

"I hate the suspense. Could be something important to the..."

"Forget it," Lyons interrupted. "Those two in the limo are dead. What they say is history."

Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers controlled every major intersection in Damascus. In the limousine, Dastgerdi and Suvorov looked out at streets and boulevards populated only by soldiers. No citizens risked the streets.

Soldiers at checkpoints stopped the limousine every few blocks. After the third checkpoint, to save himself the bother of continually opening and closing his window, the driver left the window open and held the necessary papers. Officers glanced at the documents, then peered at the Syrian colonel and French diplomat. The succession of checkpoints enraged Dastgerdi.

"These Syrians! Searching my car, checking my papers! Do I look like a mullah?"

Finally they drove through the tree-lined avenues of the French colonial quarter to the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. There, at the ornate wrought-iron gates, Revolutionary Guards stopped the limousine.

"This completes our plan," Dastgerdi said to Suvorov. "From embassy to the factory to the rockets, the trail of evidence is complete. We will visit with our friends, then be gone. To watch for the televised glories of our achievement."

Half-asleep with fatigue and vodka, Suvorov only nodded.

A bearded, tangle-haired Guard motioned for Dastgerdi to leave the limousine. Cursing under his breath, the colonel opened the door. He presented the handwritten note from Mohammed Ayat with the seal of Iran identifying him as one of the faithful.

The Guards glanced at the note. Talking to one another and staring at Colonel Dastgerdi, they opened the gate. Inside, Dastgerdi saw bumper-to-bumper limousines on the driveways. Islamic militiamen slept on the immaculate lawns. At the front of the old French mansion, mullahs and diplomats and functionaries crowded the entry and reception room.

"How long shall I tell the attendants that we will be here?" the driver asked.

"Stay with the car," Dastgerdi told him through the intercom. "We will leave soon. I will take my case, my friend Giraud."

Suvorov, returning to his role as the French diplomat Jean Pierre Giraud, paused to straighten his clothes. Colonel Dastgerdi took the suitcase containing the ten homing-impulse transmitters from the limousine's trunk.

Revolutionary Guards and soon-to-be exiled mullahs of the defeated Muslim Brotherhood stared at the hated uniform of Syria that Dastgerdi wore. But then one of the elegant Iranians, Mohammed Ayat, attache of the faithful, rushed out and embraced Dastgerdi.