by Larry Bond
Middle-class opulence in Kyrgyzstan was still a work in progress and, like most other city residents, Sheremetev hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it. His front room looked like a combination bedroom, den, and storage area. A small TV sat on a pile of books perched between two bookcases on the right. A daybed with tangled sheets sat opposite it. There were some paintings on the wall — Kandinsky as drawn by a five-year-old. Tall piles of newspapers and magazines sat against the rear wall; one of them had a lamp on it.
Ferguson walked toward the open doorway at the back, stepping over a pair of pajama bottoms on the floor.
The next room was a kitchen. Sheremetev sat with his back to him, head slumping over his chest as if he were dozing.
“What the hell, Sheremetev, sleeping off a drunk?” said Ferguson, stepping into the room.
It was only then he realized there was a pool of blood on the floor. Sheremetev had been shot once in the back of the head, slightly off center.
“Shit,” said Ferguson.
He might have said more but there was a knock on the door.
* * *
Hugh Conners and Stephen Rankin sat in the front seat of the van, Conners sipping tea from his thermos and Rankin sliding his thumb obsessively back and forth against the trigger housing of his Uzi pistol. They’d lost track of the CIA officer after he started playing with the kids and had circled around to Sheremetev’s apartment just in time to see a black Vax-21063 Zhighuli — better known as a Lada — pull up in front. Two men had gotten out and gone to the front door.
“Got a walkie-talkie,” said Rankin, pointing out the man waiting at the front door. “Think they’re cops or mafiya?”
Before Conners could answer, the man at the door knocked, then stepped back and drew a Makarova from a holster beneath his coat. Then he shot through the lock and rammed inside the apartment.
“Shit,” said Rankin.
Conners grabbed him before he could jump out.
“He’s out already,” said Conners, pointing at the small LED screen propped on the transmission hump. “Relax.”
Conners flicked the key and started the truck.
“Siren,” said Rankin.
“Yup,” said Conners.
“He fucking likes to cut it close.”
“That he does.”
As the siren grew louder, Conners reached down next to the seat and located his Beretta. He was just about to suggest they get out and take a look when something in the mirror caught his eye. In the next moment the back of the truck flew open.
“About fuckin’ time,” said Rankin.
“Relax, Skip,” Ferguson told him, closing the door behind him and coming forward in the open van. “Dad, get us the hell out of here.”
“Good idea,” said Conners, putting the car in gear. He saw a flashing light behind him as he pulled out; one of the men from the Lada jumped into the roadway, his hand out to halt him.
Conners stomped on the gas pedal. The man in the road was obviously rather thickheaded, for he blinked several times before ducking off to the side, barely missing getting run over. Conners wheeled the van down a narrow street to the left, then screeched his wheels on the hard pavement of the main drag. There was a knot of traffic ahead, so he slapped the van down a side street, taking out a clothesline but emerging on the cross street otherwise intact. He took a right and managed to get two more blocks before running into a dead end and having to turn around.
“We’re going back the way we came,” Ferguson told him calmly as he turned.
“That’ll confuse the shit out of them,” said Rankin.
“Let’s just drive to the Fiat,” said Ferguson.
“You really think that’s necessary?” said Rankin. He hated the little car.
“Yeah.”
“Cops,” said Conners, as a car with the light and siren passed on the street. Its driver immediately hit the brakes and pulled into a 180, slamming against a car that had been following.
“Guess you’re right,” said Conners. He started to turn down the next block, then saw that there was an intersection with a traffic light ahead; he feinted right, then went straight through, barely missing two cars in the intersection.
“They’re coming for us. Gonna have to clip ‘em,” said Rankin, looking back.
“Hate to do that,” said Ferguson.
“Gonna have to.”
“We won’t make the Fiat, Ferg,” said Conners.
“All right, the dump then,” Ferguson said.
“Place smells like hell,” said Conners.
“The rest of the town doesn’t?”
They took a corner a little too tightly, making one of the leaning telephone poles lean a little farther. Conners pushed the van left down a long dirt road, dust whipping behind them. The entrance to one of the waste areas was ahead, but they’d noticed yesterday that there was no fence and no attendants farther down the road. Inside the waste area they took a sharp turn past a stack of boulders, zigzagging down a hill constructed of treated ash from the furnaces. The police siren had begun to fade, though all three men assumed it was still in pursuit.
The road led down to the main area of the dump, where a pair of forklifts were heaving masses of compacted waste from one pile to another. Behind them, smoke curled from a ribbon of smoldering flames. A large orange dump truck blocked their path, spreading ash either to extend the road or smother the fire.
“This is where we get out,” said Ferguson, at the back door.
Conners grabbed his gun and the ruck holding their small laptop computer as Rankin and Ferg jumped out the other side with their own gear. Someone shouted something, but they didn’t stop to listen, running toward the front of the dump truck. Conners, called “Dad” because at thirty-five he was the oldest of the group, fell in at the tail end of the formation as they climbed across a pile of trash. His stomach turned over three or four times with the stench before they reached the far side.
A flock of birds — they looked like vultures, only uglier — swirled a few feet over the surface. Garbage stretched halfway up the ravine on the left, but to the right was an administrative building and then an abandoned factory shed, which was where they had put their second hideaway vehicle, a 1986 Honda Accord.
A large excavator threw its claw around the base of the refuse heap so close that Conners ducked to the right. He immediately lost his balance, tumbling into the decomposed household waste. Choking, he felt himself lifted up and for a moment thought the claw had him — but it was only Ferguson, pulling him from the muck.
“Not the time for a swim.” The CIA officer pushed him upright, steering toward the administration building.
Two workers stopped and stared at them as they ran. Undoubtedly others had noticed them — it was, after all, the middle of the day, and they didn’t particularly look like they belonged. But no one bothered them, either out of sheer surprise or because Rankin and Conners both had their guns in their hands.
The shed had looked abandoned yesterday, but that was because they had come there early in the morning. Now it was late afternoon, and a crowd of men had gathered there to drink. Three or four men were leaning against the Honda, which was parked at the front of the shed.
As Rankin raised his gun to threaten them, Ferguson grabbed his arm.
“Not necessary,” he said.
The CIA officer had a wad of twenty-dollar bills in his other hand. With a flick of his wrist the money scattered across the gravel; by the time the first bill had been recovered, Conners was pulling open the door on the driver’s side of the car.
“No offense, Dad, but I’ll drive,” said Ferguson, already behind the wheel. “You already raised our insurance premium far enough today.”
3
KYRGYZSTAN
Six hours and several long showers later, Ferg and the two Special Forces soldiers sat down in a hotel room in Talas, trying to figure out who had killed Sheremetev. They were examining the digital photos Ferg had taken, which he’d loaded
onto their laptop. Copies had already been uploaded to the CIA for analysis.
“Professional job,” said Rankin, who had two towels on his head and a third around his shoulders. He’d stayed in the hot shower long enough for his toes to wrinkle. “Nothing to do with us.”
“Awful convenient timing,” said Ferguson.
“Guy was taking all sorts of bribes for signing his papers,” said Rankin. “Maybe he asked for too much. Boof, they take him out.”
“Boof, Skip?” Ferguson smirked. Rankin had worked with him on an assignment in Russia two months before. Ferguson had specifically asked for the weapons sergeant to be assigned to him on the mission, but Rankin nonetheless tended to irritate him. He was a middle linebacker type; Ferg had played quarterback in prep school and college. Defense and offense rarely mixed well.
“You don’t know boof?” said Rankin. “I thought that was one of those Harvard words.”
“Fergie graduated Yale,” said Conners. “Bitter enemies.”
“Summa cum laude,” said Ferguson.
“What’s that mean?” said Rankin.
“He screwed everybody in sight,” said Conners.
“Just the girls and the sheep,” said Ferguson.
There was a knock on the door. Ferguson took his P7 H&K pistol out and asked in Kirghiz what they wanted.
“Shit, don’t screw with me. I’m paranoid as it is,” said the man outside in English.
The others laughed. Ferg swung open the door and pulled Jack “Guns” Young inside the room. A Marine who’d been recruited by Ferguson primarily for his language skills, Guns had come to Joint Demands via Marine Force Recon. Though the unit was thought of by many as the Marine equivalent of Special Forces, its emphasis was actually very different; Recon lacked such traditional Army SF missions as foreign internal defense and wasn’t a career specialty like SF was in the Army. He felt a bit out of synch with the others, who bore a typical Army prejudice toward members of the more enlightened military brotherhood — namely, the Corps.
Guns carried two large canvas bags, which contained bread, several large paper-wrapped parcels, a jug of water, and two bottles of vodka.
“Party time,” said Rankin, handing the liquor to Conners.
“How’d we do, Guns?” Ferguson asked.
Guns — Young was a Marine sergeant who had achieved the E-7 rank, commonly known as “gunnery sergeant,” hence the nickname — shrugged. His accent might be perfect in five languages, but he wasn’t particularly adept at bargaining or currency conversion, and only the inherent honesty of the Kyrgyz shopkeepers had kept him from getting ripped off too badly.
The room rapidly filled up with the scent of the food. Ferg took a hunk of the lipioshka, a thick, unleavened bread that tasted a little like Italian peasant bread left in a cupboard with turnips for a few days. He ripped open one of the parcels, which contained charcoaled mutton, called shahlyk, and made himself a sandwich.
“Plov,” said Rankin, scooping up a bunch of the fried rice mixture with his bread. “Good for what ails you.”
“Yeah, if what ails you is your colon,” said Ferg.
“What’s this?” asked Conners, ripping open the last parcel. “Some sort of meat?”
It looked like a stew with a thick sauce. Guns told him the word quickly. Conners picked up a piece and plopped it in his mouth. “What’s that in English?” he asked.
“Horse meat,” said Guns, and Conners promptly spit it back into the pile.
“Horse is good for you,” Ferguson told Conners. “Plenty of protein.”
“You eat it then.”
Ferg got up and opened one of the vodka bottles. There were no glasses; he took a long pull, then set the bottle down. “How’d it look outside?” he asked Guns.
“Same as always.” The Marine had stayed behind in Talas the last two days, arranging for transport and poking around. He’d also met with a local police official who was on the CIA payroll, though there was some question as to the value of his information.
Ferguson glanced at his watch. He was supposed to call home for an update in five minutes.
“All right. Opinions,” said Ferg. “This is what I think — Sheremetev got bumped off because he knew what happened to the shipment, and he was going to tell us,” said Ferguson. “Police are involved somehow.”
“Why police?” asked Conners.
“Because the mafiya doesn’t drive Ladas,” said Ferguson.
“You’re a foreigner, and you beat the shit out of two guys in the restroom. One of them might’ve woken up and called them,” said Rankin.
“Those guys are probably still sleeping,” said Ferguson.
“Bottom line,” said Rankin, “we still don’t know shit, one way or the other.”
“Well duh, Skip.”
“Hey, if you don’t really want our fuckin’ opinions, don’t ask for them,” said Rankin.
“Sheremetev’s still our best bet,” said Conners. “We ought to concentrate on him, check him out, who he knew, who he didn’t know.”
Ferguson took out his phone. Each man carried one of the high-tech devices; though the size of cell phones, they connected to a dedicated and secure satellite communications system. The only giveaway was a tubular antenna at the side about the size of a fountain pen, which had to be extended to communicate. The phone included a GPS locator chip and a distress mode, which if activated would allow the folks back home to find the phone to within a tenth of a meter. It could also act as a modem for the laptop, and had two silent modes — a vibration alert and a blinking light, as well as associated voice mail.
Ferg keyed in the combination for the special operations center in Virginia known as the Cube, where a mission coordinator — the title sounded more dignified than “gofer” — was on duty twenty-four/seven while the Team was deployed. Unlike a traditional case officer or control arrangement, the coordinator was subordinate to the head of the operation, which was always the officer in the field. The desk handled support, which could literally mean anything; most often it came down to sifting through intelligence and making sure money and cover stories were in place.
Technically, orders for the SF units backing up the Team passed through the desk to the DDO, who then issued them to Van Buren, the head of the SOF group supporting the field operation. In reality, Ferguson and Van Buren generally short-circuited the procedure by speaking directly. While the Team was deployed, an SF unit — generally though not always two ODAs, commonly known as A teams — along with supporting assets — were standing by to bail them out if things got nasty.
“What?” asked Jack Corrigan as the connection snapped through.
“What yourself, Sunshine,” Ferg said.
“It’s fuckin’ two o’clock in the morning,” said Corrigan. “You want cheerful, call back in twelve hours.”
“You got anything for me?” asked Ferg.
“Yeah, you’re off the hook — bullet was definitely a.22 or thereabouts.” Corrigan had had the photos analyzed by an FBI lab.
“Well thank God, because I thought I was a murderer,” Ferguson said. “Who killed him?”
“You’re going to find this hard to believe, but I haven’t a clue.”
“We’re counting on you, Jack.” Ferg reached over and took a swig from the vodka, which burned slightly as it went down his throat. “You think the police down there know?”
“NSA intercepts say they’re looking for you guys as primary suspects. Driving a van, right?”
“Yup.”
“Ran through a garbage dump?”
“Rankin got homesick.”
Corrigan snorted. “They have some sort of Russian investigator coming down to their office.”
“Yeah?” Ferg sat down on the edge of the bed, then lay back. “What’s it all about?”
“Damned if I know. But he’s not police. FSB.”
FSB — the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti or Federal Security Service — was one of the successor agencies to the KGB.<
br />
“What division?”
“Antiterrorism. Rock your socks?”
“Right off. So the murder had to do with the waste?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Your guy was into everything. Mafiya might just have gotten tired of paying him off.”
“Maybe we can liaison some information out of them.”
“Oh yeah, right after we turn you over to be arrested,” said Corrigan.
Ferg rolled off the bed. “I can bug the police station down here. Maybe the Russians know more than we do.”
“Set up a tap on the line,” said Corrigan. “Easier.”
“Yeah, but the conversations inside the office are going to be the real thing. He there yet?”
“Not until tomorrow night.”
“Great. Can you work it out with the NSA?”
Corrigan didn’t say anything, but Ferg could picture him leaning back in his black vinyl armchair away from the computer screens and looking up toward the ceiling. “Working it out with the NSA” meant setting up a special channel to capture and analyze the links, and even under the best circumstances it could be a bureaucratic nightmare. These wouldn’t be the best circumstances, either — there were very few Kirghiz language specialists at the NSA. In fact, Ferg knew of only one — a rather curvaceous beauty with too much overbite but a darling accent.
“I guess,” said Corrigan finally.
“Talk to you when it’s done.”
“Look, Ferg, this is probably just another wild-goose chase of yours. The DDO has been asking—”
Corrigan probably said something else, but Ferguson had slapped off the phone before he could hear it.
4
KYRGYZSTAN, THE NEXT MORNING
It was Conners who started the singing.
They were on the road from Talas, driving in two cars — a car and a truck actually, the first another Honda Accord, the other a Zil, a large truck that had once belonged to the Soviet army. Roughly equivalent to an American 6x6, it easily held the Team’s gear as well as extra gas. Since many were owned either by mafiya members or ex-soldiers with heavy connections, it was a relatively safe vehicle to drive. The only problem for Guns, who was at the wheel, was the clutch. It caught only at the very bottom of the floor when it decided to work at all, and he ground the gears on every second or third shift. Rankin groused every time he did, but didn’t take up the offer to change places.