In his mind, as Ayat's arms closed around him, Dastgerdi rejoiced. All the onlookers would remember his reception. They would tell others. After the rocket attack, the embrace of a Syrian colonel by an Iranian functionary would be one more link in the damning chain of evidence.

They entered the embassy.

"That was Colonel Dastgerdi!" Desmarais exclaimed, pointing at the limousine entering the gates of the Iranian embassy.

"Take a picture." Zhgenti kept his hand on the pistol in his pocket. He knew the woman hated him. Perhaps she hoped to trick him. Forcing her to service him had been unprofessional and self-indulgent. For the thrill of car-seat sex, he must now watch for her revenge.

"The Americans will be here soon. They probably followed him. In Mexico, they used directional finding devices. They may or may not attack the embassy, but they are close. I am sure of that."

"Stop talking and go. Go!"

Without another word, Desmarais stepped into the frigid predawn air. Zhgenti waited until she had walked a hundred meters, then stepped out into the cold. He took a few deep breaths to clear his wits. Then he opened the driver's door and sat down behind the wheel. The interior of the Zil limousine stank.

Zhgenti started the engine. He watched Desmarais pause and look up and down the dark avenue. She fitted a flash unit onto the camera, then retreated to the shadows to await the Americans.

Does she think she can escape when the Americans come? Will she, Zhgenti wondered, tell them about Soviet foreign operations in exchange for escape?

Gunning the engine, Zhgenti waited and watched. He put the Uzi submachine gun on the seat beside him. He would not let her escape.

That trick she would not repeat.

Eleven kilometers from the Iranian embassy, Powell signaled the drivers of the cargo trucks to stop. The heavy trucks and trailers parked along the shoulder. Last in the convoy, the driver of the troop transport set the lights blinking.

As the military traffic continued past, Lyons and Blancanales ran forward to Powell, their Soviet greatcoats catching the wind. Gadgets stayed to monitor the conversation in Dastgerdi's limousine.

Powell spread a map of Damascus on the hood of the Land Rover. With a compass, he plotted the direction to the Iranian embassy.

"This stretch isn't dead on," he told Lyons and Blancanales. "But ahead, before we get to Dadsaya, the road's got the correct orientation."

"What's the distance from ground zero?" Lyons asked.

"By this map, ten... maybe ten point one clicks. Better to be short than long, right?"

"I guess. All this traffic..." Lyons glanced at the passing transports. "One truck stalls, it's going to delay the launch."

Blancanales looked at the hijacked diesels. "Why is there a difference if they're in motion or parked?"

"The tops, man. If..." Powell started. Taking out his hand-radio, he buzzed Gadgets. "Mr. Gizmo. Think it makes a difference if the trucks are moving when the rockets take off ? "

"Why?" Gadgets asked.

"Yeah, why? Forget it, gentlemen. The Red Army parks their rocket launchers, why not us?"

"I only figured on a moving blast-off because the crazies planned on that," Gadgets said. "Why don't we pull off the lids? If the road ain't right, it's park and shoot."

Powell nodded. "You got it. What're you monitoring?"

"They're in Damascus. Don't know exactly where or doing what. Akbar's listening in. But it's all Ruskie talk."

"We'll pull off the tops as soon as..."

"Hey!" The hand-radios carried Gadgets's enthusiasm to them. "Akbar says they're talking Arabic. They're in the Iranian embassy. Undo those wing nuts! It's blast-off time!"

"The Wizard does it again," Lyons commented.

"What?" Blancanales asked.

"All those bolts and nuts?" Lyons looked at the roof of the nearest truck. "In this cold, we work with the hardware while the Wizard listens to his radios."

Then Lyons climbed onto the truck and twisted off the first fastener. All the other men joined him, working quickly in the cold before dawn.

The first light of dawn glowed in the east. In the office of Mohammed Ayat, Dastgerdi and Suvorov, the latter maintaining his role of French diplomat, examined the ten homing-impulse transmitters. On the polished walnut top of the desk, beside the intricate silver repousse of the lid of an ancient Persian dish, the black plastic units looked futuristic, alien. "So small!" Ayat mused. "Are you certain..."

"I am certain!" Dastgerdi stated. "I have no doubts. The design incorporates the most modern technology available. Every component has been tested and retested. Giraud's agents need only activate the transmitters and wait..."

"For death." The Iranian flicked the switch of a unit. The red light came on. He flicked the switch off. "How simple. They do not even know of their martyrdom. Very simple. Eliminates the necessity for the indoctrination required in our efforts. Very tiresome, the endless lectures and prayers that the village boys of Iran require before they embrace the concept of martyrdom. Your way is much more expedient."

"From the first," Dastgerdi explained, "I have known that we could not plan on volunteers — expendables — to carry the transmitters. Not volunteers who knew their purpose."

As he spoke, he returned the units to the cut foam, adjusting and readjusting them. After this meeting, the homing-impulse transmitters left his possession and became the responsibility of Suvorov, alias Giraud, who would transport and distribute them in Washington, District of Columbia.

"That is because, first, of the relations between your nation and the United States. And second, I could not depend on a volunteer. Volunteers can change their minds, lose their faith."

He touched an object between the foam and the plastic shell of the carrying case, and by touch discerned its form: a disk of metal, with the diameter of a coin but several times the thickness. He bent back the foam and glanced at the disk. One side had a smooth surface, the other coarse, like the covering of a...

Microphone.

"Yes," Ayat remembered. "We had that problem with the driver of a truck into the Marine barracks. He remained fervent in his desire for martyrdom until the time came for his drive to Paradise. In that case, we resorted to drugs. That is, I am told: of course, I know nothing of that. It was the action of the Islamic Jihad..."

For Dastgerdi, the Iranian's words receded, as if he had spoken from a great distance. The words, the project, the plot meant nothing now.

Without emotion, from a gray place of training and intellect, Dastgerdi contemplated his defeat.

Somewhere, somehow, the Americans or the KGB had infiltrated his project. But where? The checkpoint. There, nowhere else, could they have placed the microphone.

His mind turned, methodically analyzing this revelation. Touching the microphone, his hand covered by the foam padding, he considered his options. Immediate flight? No. Soviet or American, they would be near. Destroy the microphone?

But as he touched the microphone, he realized the plot had not yet failed. He had worked with all the spy devices available to Soviet agents. Soviet technology offered KGB agents nothing so small, so ingenious.

Americans had manufactured the device and placed it.

Americans now listened to Ayat brag of murdering hundreds of United States Marines.

Though the rockets would never rain down on the inauguration, agents of the CIA would be waiting when Palestinians and Nicaraguans transferred the rockets to an American ship crewed by American black nationalists. An army of FBI agents would wait for the couriers to pass the homing devices to the ten expendables with invitations to the inauguration.