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By Root 1417 0

and the elimination of his profession had not enamored him of the new political system which he'd been educated to despise. He'd lost his job, had never fulfilled his prime ambition, and was now being treated like an office boy by some pink-cheeked engineer's assistant from Gottingen. Worst of all, his wife wanted him to take the job in Argentina and was making a further hell of his life so long as he refused to consider it. Finally he had to ask his question. "Why are you here, Gunther? The entire country is looking for you, and despite that fine disguise, you are in danger here."

Bock smiled confidently. "Isn't it amazing what new hair and glasses can do for you?"

"That does not answer my question."

"I have friends who need your skills."

"What friends might those be?" Fromm asked dubiously.

"They are politically acceptable to me and to you. I have not forgotten Petra," Bock replied.

"That was a good plan we put together, wasn't it? What went wrong?"

"We had a spy among us. Because of her, they changed the security arrangements at the plant three days before we were supposed to go in."

"A Green?"

Gunther allowed himself a bitter smile, "Ja, she had second thoughts about possible civilian casualties and damage to the environment. Well, she is now part of the environment." Petra had done the shooting, her husband remembered. There was nothing worse than a spy, and it was fitting that Petra should have done the execution.

"Part of the environment, you say? How poetic." It was Fromm's first attempt at levity, and about as successful as all his attempts. Manfred Fromm was a singularly humorless man.

"I cannot offer you money. In fact, I cannot tell you anything else. You must decide on the basis of what I have already said." Bock didn't have a gun, but he did have a knife. He wondered if Manfred knew the alternatives he faced. Probably not. Despite his ideological purity, Fromm was a technocrat, and narrowly focused.

"When do we leave?"

"Are you being watched?"

"No. I had to travel to Switzerland for the "business offer." Such things cannot be discussed in this country, even if it is united and happy," he explained. "I made my own travel arrangements. No, I do not think I am being watched."

"Then we can leave at once. You need not pack anything."

"What do I tell my wife?" Fromm asked, then wondered why he'd bothered. It wasn't as though his marriage was a happy one.

"That is your concern."

"Let me pack some things. It's easier that way. How long ?"

"I do not know."

It took half an hour. Fromm explained to his wife that he was going to be away for a few days for further business discussions. She gave him a hopeful kiss. Argentina might be nice, and nicer still to be able to live well somewhere. Perhaps this old friend had been able to talk sense into him. He drove a Mercedes, after all. Perhaps he knew what the future really held.

Three hours later, Bock and Fromm boarded a flight to Rome. After an hour's layover, their next stop was Turkey, and from there to Damascus, where they checked into a hotel to get some needed rest.

If anything, Ghosn told himself, Marvin Russell was even more formidable-looking than he'd been before. What little excess weight he'd carried had sweated off, and his daily fitness exercises with the soldiers of the movement had only added to an already muscular physique, while the sun had bronzed him until he might almost have been mistaken for an Arab. The one discordant note was his religion. His comrades reported that he was a true pagan, an unbeliever, who prayed to the sun, of all things. It disquieted the Muslims, but people were working, gently, to show him the true faith of Islam, and it was reported that he listened respectfully. It was also reported that he was a dead shot with any weapon to any range; that he was the most lethal hand-to-hand fighter they'd ever encountered - he'd nearly crippled an instructor - and that he had field-craft skills that would impress a fox. A clever, cunning, natural warrior was the overall assessment.