Wade shook his head. “I’ve been taking lessons here, though. Every day.”
The big man nodded his approval. Once. “Well, ask the fellow here if he understands the tongue of his oppressors—or whatever’s the right way to go about it.”
“He probably speaks it fairly well. Most city traders do.”
“Good stuff. Okay, then ask what his tribe is.”
“Chechen,” Wade answered instantly.
Robards looked down on him. “You gonna let me talk to the man or not?”
“I can tell the tribe from his clothing,” Wade explained. “If you ask questions that you should already know the answer to, he’ll assume you won’t know the proper price of anything and charge you more. He will anyway, since we’re foreigners, but this would raise them even higher.”
“You know something?” Robards said. “I’m beginning to think that parson of yours is a purebred fool. How do you know all these things?”
Wade covered his embarrassed confusion with a glance at the stall’s wares. The splintered boards were covered with a vast array of tools. “I listen.”
“Then maybe you can tell me whether the Chechen is one of the tribes at war.”
“Yes. With the Ossetians and the Ingush. That’s why the Russian soldiers are here. The Chechen control a lot of the Caucasus highland south of here, and they are battling with the Ingush, the other hill tribe of that region. Then both the Chechen and the Ingush are fighting with the Ossetians, who are the only Christian tribe in the north Caucasus.”
Wade motioned toward the southern mountains rising through the afternoon dust. “Some of the Muslim tribesmen are fighting with the Abkhazi farther to the southwest. A couple of the bigger Chechen warlords have decided to join with the Abkhazian and Svaneti to fight for independence from Georgia.”
“The Chechen are Muslim, right?”
“Sunni,” Wade agreed. “And one of the most militant tribes.”
Robards turned his attention to the stallkeeper. The bearded man had followed the incomprehensible conversation with glittering black eyes. He was accustomed to long and bickering arguments over prices before money exchanged hands, and had the patience of one with nowhere better to go and nothing else to do.
Robards said, “Go ahead and give the gentleman the proper salute.”
Wade turned and bobbed his head. “Peace be upon thee and thy family.”
“And upon thee, stranger to our lands,” the man replied, clearly taken aback by the words coming from the mouth of one so alien. “This is indeed a day of miracles.”
“I apologize that I do not speak thy own tongue,” Wade continued in Russian, but using the formal tone of the Muslim tribes.
“It is nonetheless an honor to deal with one who has the gift of proper speech,” the tribesman replied. “And makes a change from the pestilent soldiers who surround us on all sides.”
Robards watched carefully, noted the man’s surprise, and knew he had gained an advantage. “Ask him if he’s got other goods for sale.”
“My friend wishes to know if all thou carest to share with us this day is here on display.”
The gleam sparked. “That would depend both upon what is sought and who does the seeking.”
“He says maybe,” Wade translated, not understanding the parley at all. “It depends on whether he trusts us or not. What is it you’re after?”
“Tell him I’m looking to keep my skin in one piece when we travel into the hills.”
“My friend wishes to know if he might acquire safe passage through thy homelands.”
The tribesman again showed surprise. “Thou goest into the highlands?”
“If thou and thy peoples might permit us, we would wish it.”
“Then make thy peace with Allah,” the tribesman replied with no malice to his voice, “for all who enter have great chance of seeing his face. Especially strangers.”
“He says we don’t have much hope of surviving,” Wade said, his pulse racing with fear and something more. There was the scent of adventure here. The touch of the unknown. The drug called danger.
Robards gave an easy shrug, as though expecting nothing more. He reached across the counter, plucked up a dark metal object from among the litter of tools. It was only when he held it up that Wade recognized it as a rifle clip, about fifteen inches long, curved like a saber blade, black and deadly.
“Tell the man that in that case, maybe we ought to buy ourselves a couple of passports.”
Wade could not help but glance up at Robards. The man’s face had undergone a sudden transformation, as though a mask had been set aside to reveal a brief glimpse of what lay beneath. The confidence of the man was no longer a calm and resting strength. The power was laid bare.
He found himself slightly breathless as he said, “My friend wishes to ask thee if perhaps articles such as this might assist us with our passage.”
The tribesman had also noted the change in Robards. Yet instead of alarm, there was only respect in his eyes. A recognition of something shared, something Wade could not fathom. “A wise man always trusts in Allah and then ties his camels carefully,” the tribesman replied.
“Kalashnikov AK-47,” Robards said, not waiting for the translation. “Probably the updated AKM version. Extensive usage of plastics and metal stampings to reduce weight. Nice to see you guys are using the latest in weaponry. Fires forty rounds per minute in semiautomatic mode, accurate to four hundred meters. Cyclic rate reducer and compensator, can be fitted with an NSP-2 infrared sight. One of the finest automatic rifles ever made.”
The tribesman nodded slightly as Wade translated loosely. “Truly your friend knows quality wares.”
“And this,” Robards continued, fishing through the tools and coming up with a second, stubbier clip. “Druganov SVD sniper’s rifle. Best in the world. Ten-round magazine, fires long 7.62 millimeter rimmed bullets. Muzzle has flash suppressor and recoil compensator for a level second shot. Uses a PSO-1 sight with times-four power. Accurate to twelve hundred yards, in the right pair of hands.”
“It is indeed as he says,” the tribesman said, nodding to the words Wade was able to remember. “Of course, such items are outlawed in these quarters. The pestilent Russian invaders have orders to shoot an armed man on sight unless he is a licensed private guard and on private grounds.”
“Tell him we’d be happy to take delivery after dark.”
“The veil of night covers many transactions,” the tribesman agreed when Wade was finished. “Would it be possible to ask what takes thee along such an uncertain course?”
“We seek to deliver medicines to a clinic in the hills,” Wade explained.
The dark eyes turned blank. “One whose flag has a cross of blood upon a white surface?”
“Red Cross, yes,” Wade said, his pulse surging. “Thou hast seen them?”
“I have heard only,” the tribesman replied, his tone flat.
“We are concerned for their safety,” Wade pressed. “It has been too long since we had word from them.”
“Of such things I know nothing,” the tribesman replied. “I am a simple trader only.”
Wade turned to Robards and said disconsolately, “I think something’s happened at the clinic.”
“He tell you that?”
Wade shook his head. “He just refused to talk about it, like he knows something but doesn’t want to say.”
“Well, maybe you’re right,” Robards answered, not concerned by the prospect. “But worrying about it now won’t solve a thing. That news just makes it more important to get started.” He focused once more on the tribesman. “Tell him we’ll be back in touch about the goods.”
The tribesman saw them off with the three-pointed hand signal of the devout—first to heart, then lips, then forehead. When they had rejoined the crowds jostling good-naturedly down the rutted way, Wade asked Robards, “How can you trust him?”
“Only way you can trust anybody once you’ve left civilization behind,” R
obards replied, moving forward with deceptive speed. “By sleeping with one eye open and not ever trusting anybody completely. Come on, let’s go take a look at those trucks.”
2
The storm raged so hard the night of her meeting with the infamous Colonel Mendez that Allison could feel the entire United States Consulate building shake on its foundation. But she had no time to worry about her own safety. Papers representing a dozen different crises were spread across her desk, all screaming a silent warning of the coup that was about to happen.
Lightning blasted outside her window, illuminating the stark and frightened features of her two assistants. They stood helplessly, waiting for her to make her decisions and order them into action. But she could not focus. There was too much going on.
The phone rang. She picked it up. It was her boss.
“There’s been a cable from Washington,” he reported. “Your budget has just been cut by fifty percent. And your mother wants to know why you haven’t called her in almost a month.”
Allison struggled to keep her voice calm. She knew that it was important to remain calm in such circumstances. The examiners were always watching for the applicants who broke under pressure. “But I have a government to prop up here.”
“You’ll think of something,” her boss replied. “And call your mother.”
As she hung up the receiver, another lightning blast split the night, illuminating scores of dark-clad men scurrying under the trees beyond the consulate compound. They were all headed her way. They carried weapons.
“What do you want us to do?” her number one assistant whispered, fighting back panic.
“I want us all to stay calm,” Allison replied. Stay calm above all else, they had told her.
With a horrendous groan, a corner of the roof was lifted by the wind. A massive tree limb crashed through the window. Wind and rain whirled a maelstrom of paper around what before had been her office.
“It’s too late for that,” her assistant wailed. “Too late! Too late! Too late!”
Allison was just going to tell him that it wasn’t too late, she still had another twenty minutes before the exam ended, when she realized that the assistant’s chant had changed to, “Raggedy Ann, can’t keep a man...”
Then the intercom suddenly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have now begun our descent into London’s Heathrow Airport. We ask that you now return to your seats and fasten your seat belts....”
Allison opened her eyes and grimaced away the last of her dream. Four years since she had passed the Foreign Service Exam and entered the Commerce Department, and still she had nightmares over the high-pressure crisis control test.
She watched as the plane swept through the cloud covering and London appeared beneath them. It could have been worse, she reflected; at least the dream ended before she realized she wore no clothes.
To her everlasting delight, there was a uniformed chauffeur holding up a sign for her as she exited the customs hall. Allison walked toward him, very glad she had stopped long enough to repair her makeup. She felt as though every eye in the building was upon her.
“I am Allison Taylor,” she said.
One gray-gloved hand rose to touch the bill of his cap. “Good morning, ma’am. I am Jules, Mr. Price’s driver. May I help you with your luggage?”
“Thank you.” She let the chauffeur lead her around clusters of foggy-eyed tour groups who whispered among themselves as they tried to figure out if they recognized her. They walked down the passage toward the parking garage, then detoured by a guarded barrier and entered a signposted VIP lot. This is just too cool, Allison decided silently.
“Mr. Price has made a reservation for you at a rather pleasant establishment on the outskirts of Oxford,” Jules reported, once they were under way in a royal blue Daimler. “But I suppose you have already been informed of these arrangements.”
“I wasn’t told anything,” Allison replied. “Everything was so rushed.” There had been a mere forty-eight hours between notification and departure. Not that she was complaining. The offer of a three-month assignment in Europe had come at the perfect moment, as both her personal and her professional lives were in a major slump. “I just hoped somebody would see to things on this end.”
“Indeed he has, miss. Mr. Price has given his personal attention to your needs.”
Allison tried to recall what she could of her father’s old friend. Cyril Price held some important post with the British government, but exactly what she did not know. When she was younger, he had been a top-ranking official at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. Since his departure, his visits had been infrequent and consisted mostly of being closeted away with her father for long and serious discussions. Still, whenever his attention turned her way, Cyril Price had always displayed great charm.
An hour later, the car scrunched down a graveled path and halted before a vast ivy-covered manor house. Allison rubbed the sleep from her eyes, took in the diamond-shaped lead-paned windows, the dual turrets, and the liveried doorman hurrying toward them.
Once Allison had been bowed through the registration process and shown upstairs, the chauffeur busied himself at the telephone while Allison admired her two-room suite. “Miss Taylor?” The chauffeur offered a telephone. “Mr. Price is on the line.”
Allison accepted the receiver. “Cyril?”
“Hello, my dear Allison.” The familiar upper-crust voice brought back a flood of memories. “I am terribly sorry not to have been able to greet you myself, but something rather unexpected came up this morning.”
“Your driver has taken the very best care of me.”
“Splendid. I do hope the accommodation is up to your standards.”
Allison glanced around the palatial suite, and replied, “It’s almost enough for me to forgive you for forcing me to come.”
“Not force. Please. Nothing so drastic as that.”
“I don’t know what else to call it, when I’m ordered to drop everything and fly to England for a conference with you.”
“Call it the application of appropriate pressure,” he replied smoothly. “Unfortunately I could not spare the time for lengthy and roundabout requests.”
“So what is this all about?” Allison gave a little wave as the driver tipped his hat and bowed himself from the room.
“Perhaps it would be advisable for you to enjoy a rest just now,” he countered. “I shall join you in three hours, if that is suitable. We shall then discuss all matters great and small over dinner. Is that acceptable? Splendid. Until then, my dear.”
The dining chambers were straight from the tales of King Arthur—forty-foot ceilings, Cotswold stone walls, medieval tapestries, paintings of grim-faced royals, vast chandeliers, candles everywhere. Allison felt like a little girl playing grownup as she sat across from Cyril and listened to him discuss their orders with three hovering waiters.
“I think a claret would be best with the duck,” Cyril had decided. “Would that be acceptable, my dear?”
“Perfect.” Allison glanced about the room, immensely glad she had decided to bring her only formal dress.
Once the serving entourage had departed, he said, “Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself all these years.”
“Nothing could be more boring. I assume you’ve heard that I work with the Office of Export Administration. Talk about a snooze.”
“On the contrary, I am positively riveted.”
She smiled at a sudden memory. “Pop always did say you could charm the pants off the prime minister.”
“What a horrid thought. I’m quite sure he said no such thing.”
“I was actually supposed to be somewhere else, but the export people were tremendously understaffed. Commerce assigned me there ‘temporarily.’ ”
“I see. And that was...”
“Three and a half extremely long years ago.”
“Once they realized just how good you were at your job,” Cyril interpreted, “they insisted on keeping
you.”
“Until now. But with all the budget cut-backs, the entire staff is suddenly looking for new jobs.” Allison met him with a steady eye. “But you know all this.”
Cyril’s cool aplomb was momentarily shaken. “I beg your pardon?”
“You wouldn’t have brought me over without first having checked me out.”
“I must remind myself not to allow your attractiveness to blind me. You are more like your father than I first thought.”
She gave him a look developed during years of sorting through Washington baloney. “And just what special ability am I supposed to have that no one else does?”
He collected himself. “An ability to adapt to the unforeseen. The very same ability which, within six months of your arrival in this horrid dead-end position, caused you to devise a computerized interagency tracking system—”
“How did you hear about that?”
“—A system which proved so successful that you were then seconded to three other agencies to adapt the same system to their needs. All the while you were still held on to tightly by the Export Administration, who by this time had awakened to the fact that they had stumbled upon a real prize.”
Allison did not contradict him. “So how did you pry me loose?”
“By appealing to a higher authority,” he replied. “Much higher, as a matter of fact. One which had the clout to order this agency to finally relinquish their most beautiful charge.”
Her host paused as the wine waiter arrived and presented the bottle to Cyril. While the wine was being opened, tasted, and poured, Allison caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror hanging on the opposite wall. She was tall and slender and crowned with abundant red curls. In her younger days, tall and slim had meant skinny and gawky. She had learned not to smile. She had learned to bend her legs and crouch slightly when standing in line so she would not be taller than everybody else, including the boys. She had learned not to lie out in the summer, since fifteen minutes, even with sunblock, was enough to turn her lobster-red. She had learned not to pay her hair any attention at all. She had learned to retreat into her books, staying at the top of every class. She had learned to keep her loneliness hidden deep.
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