“Have you seen the news?”
“No. It’s my first real day off this month. I was avoiding the news.” She knew where Lucy was going and reached for the remote control to turn on the fifty-inch television, a set much too large for the room but still not large enough for J. J. He wanted a television he could live in. She pushed the power button and set the cereal down. “What’s up?”
“I saw it on CNN. There are riots in Kalickstan.”
“Kyrgyzstan, Lucy.”
“Isn’t that where . . .” Lucy went into stealth mode. “Isn’t that where the boys are meeting.”
Tess translated the phrase in her head as she switched to the news station: Isn’t that where our husbands are and are they in danger? She watched for a moment, sipping her coffee. “I’m not seeing . . . hang on. Here it is.”
The image of rampaging crowds, fires, and battles with police filled the screen. It looked like every other televised riot except it seemed to involve more of the city, at least according to the news report.
Tess chewed her lip. “Can you get a sitter?”
“Sure. My mother is staying with us while Jose travels.”
“Let’s meet at Bernie’s Beans. I could use some more coffee.”
“Decaf, right.”
“Yes, decaf.”
Tess hated decaf.
BERNIE’S BEANS WAS AN independent coffeehouse owned by a former Ranger who was injured in Iraq, an injury that took his left arm. He had adjusted to the artificial arm enough to be able to whip up fancy coffee drinks faster than any other place in town. The place differed from most coffeehouses in that it had several areas where small groups could gather and chat, usually soldiers or soldiers’ wives. Bernie understood the need for a place where conversations that few could understand could take place.
“You’re glowing,” Lucy said as she walked to an alcove table in the back. Several cushioned chairs dominated the space.
“I think I’m just shiny.” Tess rose and gave Lucy a kiss on her brown cheek. How a woman with four high-octane children could look so lovely this early was beyond her.
“Nonsense. Pregnancy suits you. And twins. Wow, what a blessing.”
“I don’t feel blessed in the early morning. I feel like throwing up.”
Lucy laughed. “I’ve spent my share of time staring down the toilet.”
“Tell me it ends.”
She sat and waved a hand dismissively. “Sure. Any day now.”
“Really?”
“No.”
Bernie approached. Tess had ordered an herbal tea for herself and a mocha for Lucy before she arrived. “Ladies, good to see you again.” Bernie held one cup in the pinchers of his artificial arm and the mocha in the other hand. “Can I get anyone a muffin? I’ve got some fresh blueberry.”
“Me, pick me,” Tess said. “I’m hungry—again. Let’s have two of those.” She looked at Lucy. “You want one?”
“Just one apiece, Bernie. She’s kidding about eating two.”
“I am?”
“Yes, you are.” Lucy sounded firm.
Tess sighed. The moment after Bernie brought the muffins on a plate, Tess shifted to face Lucy better. “Okay, what’s on your mind?”
“You saw the video of the riots, right.”
“I did but I don’t think that affects our guys. They’re there on a training mission and to meet the two new team members. They’re coming home in a couple of days.”
Lucy didn’t looked convinced. “Jose told me there was tension in the country about the air base being there.”
“He’s right. It’s common knowledge. It’s not a new problem, Lucy. The debate about the U.S. base has been going on for years. We pay to be there. And by ‘we’ I mean the United States.”
“But what if they send them into the riots?”
“I don’t think that will happen.” She sipped her tea. Good but not as satisfying as strong coffee. Pregnancy changed her tastes. She wanted almost everything she couldn’t have: fish (mercury poisoning), soft cheeses, caffeine, and alcohol. The last one wasn’t a problem. She had never been a drinker.
“How can you be sure?” Lucy pulled a bit of the muffin from the top.
“Sure? Well, I can’t be sure, but I can tell you it is highly unlikely. Sending soldiers into Kyrgyzstan soil would be a problem. The riots are a problem for the Kyrgyzstan government. They have no reason to go in. No mandate. At some point, the United States may have to move out of the airport but that won’t happen quickly.
“Could the rioters, you know, attack the base?”
“That would be an insane decision. Who in their right mind would attack an Air Force base filled with soldiers and Marines? I really don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”
“Tess . . . I don’t know how to ask this.”
“Let me guess: You wonder if I’m telling you the truth. Right?”
Lucy looked into her cup. “It’s not that. I mean, I wouldn’t put it that way.”
A twinge of guilt pinched Tess. She hadn’t meant to sound accusatory. She patted Lucy’s hand. She understood the emotion, the hurricane of fear raging in every wife of a special operations member. The questions came unbidden to mind and could never be silenced no matter how hard a person tried: Will he come home alive and whole, or come home in a flag-draped box? Would all his limbs be intact? Would the stress and the sights wound his mind? Would he return home with a brain full of post-traumatic stress?
Tess knew the fears and since her relationship with J. J. began, knew them to the depths of her soul. J. J. had been captured, tortured, and wounded in a gun battle. When she closed her eyes she could see the healed leg wound, looking very much like a crater on the moon. It healed but Tess knew her husband could return home with more just like it. J. J. blazed through rehab so he could rejoin the team. She never said so, but a part of her wished he had been unable to do so. The rest of her knew J. J. found his meaning in life doing just what he was doing. The Army was his dream job.
And the stress. The team was almost compromised by a team member suffering PTSD. Things worked out and Jerry Zinsser overcame the disorder but it cost him his position on the team and in the Army. Now he spent his days working for USACIC—United States Army Criminal Investigation Command. He remained a family friend.
“Lucy, you’ve been a special ops wife a lot longer than I have. You know there is more they can’t tell us than they can. I’m in the same boat.”
“I just thought . . . Never mind. It’s wrong of me to ask.”
“No, it’s not. You have a right to know. So do I. That doesn’t change anything. We are kept in the dark.” Tess paused. “Look, I know I’m married to the team leader but that doesn’t buy me any more information. Stacy Moyer never knew what her husband was doing when he was team leader.”
“But you do have an inside track. I mean, you consult, right?”
Ah, so that was it. Tess leaned back. “True, I am a civilian consultant to several departments in the Army, but only if a mission touches on an area of my expertise, which is fairly limited.” Tess was an expert on suicide bombers in general and the growing number of women and children being used as walking bombs. She consulted with Colonel Mac, head of the spec ops division to which the team belonged. She lent an intellectual hand to help the team track down a group kidnapping families and forcing women to sacrifice themselves as bombers to save the lives of their loved ones. She was also called in to advise on a mission to recover a downed U.S. spy satellite.
Tess continued. “Lucy, I can tell you I haven’t been called in on this. I don’t think they’re on mission. J. J. told me they were doing training in Manas and picking up their new team members, nothing more.”
“But the riots—”
“Are a problem for the local gove
rnment, not the United States. It would not be in the Americans’ interest to send armed men into the streets of Bishkek or any other Kyrgyzstani city. I know enough to know the United States wants to keep the base they have and won’t do anything to endanger that.”
“Nothing?” Lucy looked up as if hungering for one more bit of assurance.
“It would have to be something especially unique.” She paused before saying, “Feel better?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“I’m glad I could be of help.”
Lucy grinned. “It wasn’t you. It was the muffin.”
CHAPTER 12
SARIEV DOOTKASY STOOD AT his office window and gazed to the heart of the city. He allowed himself a moment to feel like the king of his domain, although few kings would want what he was seeing. The seven-story, neoclassical, “modern-Stalinist,” mid-rise office building represented an era when Kyrgyzstan was a valuable part of the Soviet Union. Dootkasy was young back in 1991 when his country declared independence from the former USSR on August 31, 1991. It, like the other fourteen members of the Soviet state, started toward the new millennium with the demise of the communist state. It should have been a glorious time.
It wasn’t.
The single-party system of the old USSR was a hard taskmaster, one that kept a mud-laden boot on the neck of its many member countries. Freed, the once Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic looked to a bright future, but quickly learned that golden glow over history’s horizon was a mirage. Corruption remained. Poverty grew. Unemployment escalated. The economy was like an inverted pyramid resting on its point and waiting for a puff of air to send it toppling.
Such hardships rose and fell like a road through the valleys and mountains making up the country. More than once the people took up arms. The Tulip Revolution broke out in 2005. On March 24, 2005, those protests reached Bishkek, and tens of thousands of protesters congregated in front of the stately White House. Violence was unavoidable. Progovernment defenders clashed with antigovernment rioters. Police beat a number of youthful demonstrators near the front of the crowd in an effort to defend the government building and to make a lesson for the others to see.
The others did see but instead of dispersing, the crowd drew closer. Soon a number of protesters swept past and over the security teams. It took a mounted cavalry to disperse the crowd. It gave time enough for President Askar Akayev and his family to escape by helicopter and fly to neighboring Kazakhstan. From there, he flew to Moscow.
The thought of those days filled Dootkasy with a sense of pride. He knew the unseen leaders of the protests. He was one of them.
Promises were made; peace was restored—for a mere five years. The year 2010 brought more unrest, much of it centered on this building. That year the number of protesters was enough to crowd around the White House and fill Ala-Too Square a short distance away where there once stood a statue of Stalin, a spot now occupied by a statue dubbed “Freedom”: Erkindik.
“Freedom” might occupy a significant place in Ala-Too Square but in 2010 it didn’t occupy the hearts and minds of the citizens of Bishkek and other cities in the country. Dootkasy recalled it well. He was a member of the ruling minority party in the parliament and had left for the day. He left because he knew what was coming, as well he should. He planned much of it.
The police and government security stood their ground using tear gas and rubber bullets to keep the crowds away from the building but that changed when a pair of trucks rammed the front gate. Nonlethal weapons went out the window. Nearly fifty protesters were killed. Protesters overran the building, scattering government papers to the wind and setting fire to part of the building.
Hatred for the government and deteriorating economy turned to bigotry with Uzbeks and Kyrgzi clashing in the southern part of the country. Fires were set among the minority Uzbeks. Over a 100 people were killed, thousands wounded, and 75,000 people were displaced.
Dootkasy studied the city from his window, his attention fixed on the number of fires burning in the streets. Kyrgyzstan was a barrel of gunpowder and there were many people with various goals holding matches.
Things worked his way. It was his match setting things blazing again.
“Mr. Prime Minister?”
Dootkasy turned from the window to see his chief of staff Apas Isanov. “Yes, Apas, what is it?”
Apas closed the door to the large, well-appointed office. “The lights are off.”
“You have always been observant, my friend.” Dootkasy closed the curtains to the window. “It is not wise in such a situation as ours to stand at a well-lit window. You may turn on the lights now.”
The aide did. “The people love you, sir.” He carried something in his hand.
“At a distance a silhouetted figure like mine might be confused with that of someone else, say, a gunman perhaps. Besides, in any large protests there are two sides: those against something, and those who support the very thing the others hate.” Thanks to the paranoia of the Soviet-era leaders, all the windows in the building were bulletproof, but Dootkasy didn’t get to this level of power by being undercautious. Paranoia could be a useful ally. “You bring news?”
“Yes, sir. I—”
“The situation in the streets?”
“As expected, sir. Police are keeping the crowds at a distance for now. The military has shown itself but has not engaged the citizens. They’re leaving that to the police. Security for the building is in place. Sir—”
“The complex?” Dootkasy knew what few did. A complex of tunnels and rooms existed beneath the White House—again, thanks to the Soviet need to be prepared for attack. The tunnels led to Ala-Too Square. One of several escape routes out of the building. All were improved since the 2010 revolution.
“It is as it should be: safe and secure should it be needed.” Apas waited a moment before saying, “There is something you should see.” He held up a thumb drive.
“What is it?”
“Best for you to see it for yourself, Mr. Prime Minister. There’s been a stumble in your . . . in the plans.” He moved to Dootkasy’s desk and activated the prime minister’s laptop, a computer used only by him. Apas put some distance between himself and the device, giving his boss the necessary privacy to enter his password, which he did.
Apas was one of the few men Dootkasy trusted. In the alchemy of loyalty, Apas had just the right amount of dedication, idealism, trust, and fear. Early in his life, Dootkasy learned there were many types of men in the world but two interested him most: those with money and power, and those who found fulfillment helping the first group achieve their goals. They were willing sacrificial lambs who preferred to stand in the shade of great men rather than strive for greatness themselves.
“Shall I, sir?”
Dootkasy nodded and moved to the side so Apas could insert the thumb drive in the laptop. “I’ve had the file encrypted.” He tapped the keys, stood erect, and turned to pull the desk chair close.
Dootkasy sat and turned his attention to the screen. A woman reporter appeared on the screen. She spoke English and looked into the camera. Young, pretty, lively eyes, hair parted down the middle. In some ways, she reminded him of his first love. As he listened his eyes danced around the screen, taking in the rising columns of smoke a short distance away and the crowd of protesters a block or two away.
He then saw a familiar red car. Saw a white van. Watched an abduction attempt. At first he felt nothing, but when the silver sedan returned after speeding through the intersection, a stab of anxiety pierced his gut. When he saw the car plow into one of the gunmen and send another to the ground, his apprehension grew. When the target of the abduction jumped in the second car and the driver ran over a second gunman, Dootkasy stood. A third gunman, one with a machine gun, fired on the fleeing vehicle. One of the rounds hit the reporter in the head.
Dootkasy turned away, not from the gore but from the realization that there was now a big hole in his plan. “This was recorded in daylight. Why has it taken so long for me to learn of it?”
“The reporter, as you can see, Mr. Prime Minister, is a foreigner. The video was not broadcast over our television stations. The reporter and her cameraman were doing a live report through a satellite uplink. It was broadcast in the United States. It’s only a matter of time before it makes it here.”
Dootkasy put his hands behind his back, squeezing them until he felt pain. “Where is she now? Where is Jildiz?”
“On the run, Mr. Prime Minister. The third man—the one with the machine gun—attempted to chase them. He caught up with them but someone overpowered him.”
Dootkasy turned. “Overpowered him? Jildiz overpowered an armed man?”
“No, sir. The person with her. Another woman. We think they’re hiding in the central city.”
“I want her found.”
“Yes, sir. I assumed that and gave instruction. Nasirdin had already called in reinforcements.”
“You’ve spoken with him?”
“Yes, sir. I wanted to bring you a full report.”
“It’s dark outside. This should have been brought to my attention sooner.”
“Yes, sir. I made that clear. You were, however, meeting with the president and advisers when the event happened. Still, Nasirdin should have made contact sooner. I can only assume he was pursuing the target.”
“Who is this woman who overcame a trained operative?”
“He didn’t know, sir. She, um . . . They fled into a restaurant and into the kitchen. She somehow managed to trap him in a large freezer. I’m afraid I don’t have many details about that part of the story.”
“This is awkward. Very awkward.” Dootkasy paced the room. “Finding her in the dark could be a problem, especially if she has help.”
“Yes, sir. We know they’re on foot.”
Dootkasy thought for a moment. Scenarios streaked through his mind. “Another woman risked her life to help Jildiz?” He returned to the window as if he could see through the drawn curtains. “You don’t suppose . . .”
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