Since tomorrow was a travel day, Norkelus ordered the entire inspection team to have dinner at the hotel and refrain from “partying.” While his decree drew snickers from the senior scientists, junior technical members and staff were shuffled upstairs immediately after dinner to pack “and get a head start on sleep.”
Evora winked at Thera, signaling that she should sneak out and join him and the others, but she decided it was better to avoid temptation and went upstairs. After packing, she and her roommate flipped through the channels for a while without finding anything interesting in English. Thera started to read; within a half hour, her eyes were drooping. She put down the book and turned off the light, falling asleep within a few minutes.
Come on, Cinderella, your pumpkin’s waiting.”
Thera woke with a jerk, only to feel herself pushed back down into the bed. She tried to scream, but a hand was clamped firmly on her mouth.
“It’s me,” whispered Ferguson, standing over her. “Come on. Before Rankin climbs into bed with your roommate.”
Rankin was standing on the other side of the bed, holding a small mask over Thera’s roommate’s face. A squeeze bulb was connected to the mask; he’d just finished spraying a mild sedative to make sure she remained sleeping.
“What’s going on?” Thera whispered.
“Sshh,” replied Ferguson.
Thera slipped out of bed, grabbing for her clothes on the nearby chair.
“You don’t have to get dressed,” Ferguson told her. “We’re not going very far.”
Suddenly self-conscious, Thera pulled on her jeans over her pajamas and grabbed for her sweater.
“No feet?” Ferguson pointed at the pajama bottoms, which were covered with miniature ducks.
“Very funny.”
“I always figured you for teddy bears.”
“They didn’t have my size.” Thera sat at the edge of the bed. “We can’t go out in the hall. They may see us.”
“We’re not going in the hall.” Ferguson pointed to a sliding door at the other side of the room. “We’re in the room above. Come on. This won’t take long.”
A rope dangled at the side of the balcony. Thera leaned over, making sure no one was on the nearby terraces, then hoisted herself up to the next floor. Guns—Jack Young, the other member of the team in Korea—was waiting on the balcony. He helped her over the railing.
Ferguson came up next, followed by Rankin.
“Have a seat,” he told her, gesturing at the bed. Ferguson stared for a brief, brief moment at her black curls and green eyes, thinking she really was Cinderella, or the next best thing. Even with a baggy sweater and jeans, she was hard to resist.
“I need a map of the spots where you put the sensors,” he told her. He reached over the waste basket, where he’d stashed a notebook and pencil earlier.
“I have twenty minutes. Then I turn back into a mouse,” he added, “Rankin turns into a cockroach. You don’t want to see that.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No way. If you’re caught, the whole mission collapses. Besides, you’re leaving for North Korea first thing in the morning. It may take us a while to get back.”
“I can do it, Ferg.”
“Come on, Cinderella, the map. I’m already getting a hankering for cheese.”
Thera took the pad and began sketching the general outline of the base.
“They’re taking attendance downstairs,” said Guns, who was watching a feed from the wireless video cam they’d placed in one of the lighting fixtures. It showed Norkelus walking down the hall, knocking on the doors. He was two rooms away from Thera’s.
“Get Cinderella back to the ball,” Ferguson told the others, pulling off his black cap and sweater. “Bring her back up once the coast is clear.”
“Never going to make it.”
“She’ll make it,” Ferguson told him running to the door.
The tenor’s song, drunken but perfectly on key, exploded from the elevator as the door opened.
“ ‘And it’s no, nay, never, no nay never no more, will I play the wild rover, no never, no more.’ ”
Ferguson kicked the volume up a notch as he stepped out into the eighth-floor hallway. The rogue’s lament captured Norkelus’s attention just as he knocked on Thera’s door. Ferguson stopped walking but not singing, belting out the chorus as he put both hands on his fake glasses and pulled them from his nose, as if trying to get the hallway into focus. Then he started walking again, holding them in front of his face as he approached the bewildered scientist. When he got to within three feet, Ferguson stopped singing and concentrated on angling the glasses to get a proper perspective of the scientist.
“Who are you looking for?” demanded the scientist.
“ ’Tain’t but lookin’ for a soul,” said Ferguson, slurring his words into a drunken Irish brogue. “But I am lookin’ for me room. And if you could point it out to me, laddie, I’d be much obliged.”
“You’re on the wrong floor.”
“Eight.”
“Nine.”
“Eight.”
Ferguson staggered back a step. “This is nine,” he insisted.
“Please go to your room, or I will call security,” said Norkelus.
“You’re a man who knows his numbers. I can see that.”
Thera’s door opened and her face appeared in the crack. She was back in her pajamas. “What’s going on out here?”
“Nothing,” said Norkelus. “Go back inside.”
“Is this eight or nine?” said Ferguson, bending so that he was eye level with her.
“The is the eighth floor,” she said. And then she added something in Greek, which he didn’t understand, though he guessed the drift: Go back to bed, you dumb lout.
“Eight, not nine. A thousand pardons, miss. And sir.”
Ferguson bowed, then turned and went back to the elevator. While he waited, he decided the night needed a triumphant air and began singing “Finnegan’s Wake.”
Rankin, back pressed against the side of the building as he stood on the narrow balcony, listened as Thera told Norkelus that her roommate was “dead out.” The scientist grunted but apparently didn’t believe her; the light flicked on, and Rankin saw the curtains flutter. He grabbed hold of the rope and put his foot on the building, ready to climb if he had to.
“Yes, then, good. I will see you in the morning,” said Norkelus gruffly. The light flipped off; Thera appeared.
“Wait,” whispered Rankin.
“Why?”
“Case he comes back.”
“He won’t.”
“Wait.”
Thera scowled but then disappeared. Rankin squatted, waiting. He’d heard a bit of Ferguson’s act through the door. It was vintage Ferguson. The CIA officer had a gift for bullshit; he’d seen him talk his way into and out of dozens of tight places, blustering and cajoling and always ladling on the crap.
It was part of the game, a tool, but it left Rankin vaguely uneasy. One of the things about Special Forces was that the people you worked with didn’t bullshit.
Except for officers. Officers were always full of it.
Guns stuck his head over the railing above and whistled, signaling that the coast was clear.
“Come on, Thera,” whispered Rankin. “Let’s get this done.”