by Tom Clancy
“So, if North Korea’s behind the kidnapping of Hayes and Stewart,” Redding said, “we have to assume she’s already there and that’s where Stewart is headed.”
“It would be best if that didn’t happen,” Fisher said. “If you’re right and Carmen is there, reaching her — let alone getting her out — is going to be tough. Grim, where’s the Gosselin right now?”
Grimsdottir used a remote control to power up one of the forty-two-inch LCD screens, then tapped a key. The screen resolved into a satellite image of Canada’s east coast: Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, including the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Gaspé Passage, where Fisher had boarded the Gosselin. A pulsing red triangle with the annotation GOSSELIN beside it sat in the channel between the Gaspé Peninsula and Anticosti Island.
“Still headed for Halifax, it looks like,” Fisher said.
Grimsdottir nodded. “If she stays on course and speed, she should tie up at Legard’s warehouse there in twenty-nine hours.”
“The beacon Fisher planted on him — still active?” Lambert asked.
Before leaving Stewart, Fisher had planted a long-range beacon on him: a fake, adhesive thumbnail with an embedded chip. The Voodoo Dust had neither the range nor the durability for their purposes.
“Strong and clear. He’s still aboard,” Grimsdottir answered.
Brave man, Fisher thought, recalling the transformation he’d seen Stewart undergo at the mention of PuH-19. He’d gone from a whimpering mess of a man to a determined mole in the space of ten seconds. Nor had Fisher forgotten his promise to go back for Stewart. What was in doubt was whether he could do that before Chin-Hwa Pak managed to spirit him away to North Korea.
Lambert turned to Fisher. “Sam, go home, get some sleep, then come back for prep and briefing. We’ll want you at Legard’s warehouse long before Gosselin docks.”
Fisher nodded and started to rise. The phone at Lambert’s elbow trilled. Lambert picked up, listened for a few moments, then grunted a “Thanks,” and hung up. To Grimsdottir, he said, “Give me MSNBC, Grim.”
She worked the remote again. The LCD screen beside the satellite image came to life.
“… now, reports are sketchy,” the MSNBC anchor was saying, “but it appears there is military activity taking place in Kyrgyzstan’s capital city of Bishkek. According to a BBC correspondent on scene, about an hour ago the city came under what appeared to be mortar bombardment. Do we have video…? Yes, I’m told we have video, courtesy of BBC news…”
The screen changed to a daylight scene of what Fisher assumed was Bishkek. The BBC cameraman was on a rooftop, panning across the cityscape, as the correspondent spoke. In dozens of places throughout the city columns of black smoke were visible. Sirens warbled in the distance, and car horns, both from anxious drivers and alarms, blared.
“These are very concentrated strikes,” the correspondent was saying. “Not your typical mortar barrage, I would say. I’ve been in both Afghanistan and Iraq during these types of attacks, so I’m certain what we’re seeing is in fact a mortar attack, but the precision is astounding…”
The camera continued to pan, then paused and moved back, focusing a half mile down an adjoining street where what looked like an armored personnel carrier sat burning, a geyser of black smoke jetting from its top.
“There… there’s an APC that’s been hit. Johnny, can you zoom in…” The camera zoomed in. “See there, no visible crater near the vehicle. That appears to be a direct hit.”
On the screen, a cluster of people, mostly women and children, dashed across the street in front of the APC and disappeared down an adjacent alley. Closer in, an open truck full of soldiers wheeled around the corner, swerved around the burning APC, then turned again out of camera range.
“Government troops are clearly scrambling at this point,” the correspondent continued, “but so far we’ve heard no sounds of small-arms fire, nor seen any close-quarters fighting. However…”
“Mute it,” Lambert said. Grimsdottir did so. “Here we go again.”
Since March 2005, when President Askar Akayev had been forced out of office, Kyrgyzstan had been a political powder keg as various factions, extreme and moderate, religious and secular, had fought for control of the country. As one of the Central Asian “stans” that sat atop what was likely one of the world’s greatest untapped oil deposits, Kyrgyzstan’s strategic importance to the United States was immeasurable, which was why in late 2005, after signs of the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan became undeniable, and a moderate government had finally taken control of the Kyrgyz government, the Bush administration had begun pouring money and resources into Bishkek.
All that changed the following spring with a grassroots rebellion fomented by the Hizb ut-Tahrir, in which an extremist Rasputin-like Uygur warlord named Bolot Omurbai seized power and declared Kyrgyzstan an Islamic republic. Omurbai’s rule, which almost immediately returned Kyrgyzstan to a Taliban-style country, lasted less than a year before a moderate rebel army, backed by U.S. and British materials, money, and advisers, toppled Omurbai and sent him and his army running for the mountains. Omurbai was captured three months later, tried, and executed; his army scattered.
“If the BBC guy is right,” Redding said, “and that was a mortar barrage, someone needs to hit the panic button. There’re only a few ways they — whoever they are — could get that accurate: eyeballs on the ground to measure and map target points and/or satellite-linked, computer-controlled mortars.”
“Bad news, either way,” Grimsdottir agreed.
If rebels had in fact infiltrated the Kyrgyz government so thoroughly they had perfectly pinpointed targets in the capital, the government’s underpinnings were already crumbling. Worse still, if Redding was right and the rebels had gotten their hands on sophisticated weaponry, it was likely they had more at their disposal than precision mortars. It meant they had money, resources, and a sponsor interested in seeing the moderate Kyrgyz government gone. And the United States, still deeply entrenched in Iraq and Afghanistan, was in no position to help. The good news was, most of Central Asia’s oil reserves had yet to be exploited, so there was little infrastructure with which the Kyrgyz extremists could meddle and no oil flow they could garrote. However, that wasn’t true in all the neighboring stans. One of the West’s greatest fears was a country like Kyrgyzstan falling to extremists and then setting off a domino effect in the region.
“Well,” Lambert said, “right now, that’s someone else’s bad news to address. For us, PuH-19 is still missing. Sam, let’s have you back in here in fourteen hours. You’ve got a ship to meet.”
17
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA
With time to spare, Fisher took a commercial shuttle flight, the last one of the night, from Boston to Halifax and touched down shortly after midnight at Stanfield International Airport. As he walked off the Jetway, he powered up his cell phone; there was a text message from Grimsdottir: CALL ME. URGENT.
Fisher dialed, and she picked up on the first ring. “Change of plans,” she said without preamble. “The Gosselin made a sudden stop off Michaud Point — the southern tip of Cape Breton Island.”
“And?”
“And they’re moving Stewart. Looks like a small boat’s taking him ashore.”
Damn. As the crow flew, Michaud Point was one hundred sixty miles north of Halifax; by road, probably another fifty on top of that. “We have any assets there?” Fisher asked.
“One, but he’s just an information resource. An old friend, in fact.”
“Any airports or strips nearby?”
“Strips, but mostly for puddle jumpers and inland charters. If they’re going to get Stewart out, they’d have to do it by boat again or get him to an airport proper. I’m putting both Stewart and Pak on the watch list — observe and report, no apprehension unless directed. If they make for an airport, we’ll know it.”
“Good.”
“How soon can you—”
“Bird and Sandy are en r
oute. There’s an airstrip at Enfield, a few miles north up the One oh two. I’m on my way.”
GRAND RIVER, CAPE BRETON ISLAND, NOVA SCOTIA
By the time Stewart’s tracking beacon made it ashore and finally came to rest at what looked like the middle of nowhere on Cape Breton’s rugged southern coast, dawn was only a few hours away, so at Fisher’s suggestion, Lambert scrubbed the mission. Before Fisher could track down Stewart and Pak and find out what they were up to, he needed to get the lay of the land. According to Fisher’s map of Cape Breton, there were no towns or villages to speak of between Grand River and Fourchu, some thirty miles to the north.
Grimsdottir’s contact, an old college friend turned history author named Robert A. Robinson — RAT — as Grim called him, lived in Soldiers Cove not far from Grand River with his wife of thirty-five years, Emily.
Robinson, a Middle East policy expert kept on a consultant’s retainer by the CIA, was also, despite being Canadian neither by birth nor citizenship, the foremost expert on the obscure subject of Cape Breton Island history.
“He can brief the hell out of you, make a laser out of your cell phone, and recite obscure sci-fi trivia until you bleed from the ears,” Grimsdottir had said.
“A jack of strange trades,” Fisher said.
“And he knows how to keep his mouth shut. You can trust him.”
Fisher’s first impulse was to simply follow Stewart’s beacon and do his own surveillance, but Stewart and Pak seemed to be going nowhere for the time being and, as Fisher had learned the hard way over the years, the six Ps were unbreakable laws of nature one didn’t taunt: Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance. Better to know where he was going before he dove in headfirst.
Fisher found Robinson’s home, a three-story Victorian that backed up to horse pastures on two sides and a creek on the other, on the outskirts of Soldiers Cove, population 101. It was eight in the morning, and mist still clung to the grass and low-lying bushes. He pushed through the gate in the white split-rail fence and followed a crushed shell path to the front door. It opened as he mounted the porch steps.
A man in a wheelchair, his lap covered by a red argyle blanket, wheeled onto the porch. “Don’t tell me: You must be Sam of the no last name.”
Fisher smiled. “I must be. And you must be Robert the R AT.”
“Ha! I see Anna’s been telling tales out of school again.” Robinson had a genuine smile and booming laugh. “Come in, come in. Coffee’s on.”
Fisher followed him down a hardwood hallway into a country-style kitchen complete with a wood-burning Napoleon stove. Robinson wheeled through the kitchen and bumped the chair down two short steps into a four-season sunroom. Fisher took the indicated seat.
To the east, the sun was rising, a perfect orange disk suspended over the horse pasture at the rear of Robinson’s property. A cluster of horses were standing near the fence, chewing grass, their breath smoking in the air.
“Not a bad way to start the day, is it?”
Fisher took a sip of coffee and shook his head. “Not bad at all.”
* * *
“So,” Robinson began, “Anna told me you were a grim fellow, that I shouldn’t for any reason cross you if I value my life.”
Fisher stared at him. “No, she didn’t.”
“No, she didn’t — but she told me to say she did.”
“She’s a card, that Anna.”
“She is indeed. To business: You’re looking for a man; he’s somewhere around between here and Fourchu. Can you show me where, exactly?”
Fisher pulled a Palm Pilot from his pocket, powered it up, and pulled up the map screen. Stewart’s beacon was marked as a tiny red circle. He showed it to Robinson, who frowned. “Latitude and longitude, please?”
Fisher tapped the screen with the stylus, changing the map’s overlay.
“How precise is this beacon — I mean this spot, on the map?” Robinson said with a sly grin.
Doesn’t miss much, Fisher thought.
“Give or take three feet.”
“Ah, the joys of technology. It’s all about physics, you know, all about physics.”
“Pardon me?” Fisher said.
But Robinson was no longer listening. He had pulled a Gateway laptop from his chair’s saddlebag and was powering it up. Muttering the latitude and longitude coordinates to himself, he called up Google Maps—“The bane of the National Reconnaissance Office, you know,” he said to Fisher. “Now everyone can play their game”—then punched in the coordinates and studied the satellite image there.
“Just as I thought,” Robinson said.
“What?”
“Your quarry, Sam my new friend, is in Little Bishkek.”
Bishkek. Robinson’s mention of the word was so unexpected it took Fisher several seconds to process what he was hearing. “Bishkek. As in Kyrgyzstan’s capital?”
“Yes, sir. That Bishkek. The same Bishkek that is, as we speak, in the midst of yet another civil war. Are you a big believer in coincidences, Sam?”
“No.”
“Me neither. But that’s not even the worst news. Your little red circle there — if the coordinates are accurate — is not just in Little Bishkek, it is inside the walls of Ingonish.”
“Which is?”
“The home — a castle slash fort, really — to the mayor, general, chief enforcer, and king of Little Bishkek, Tolkun Bakiyev.”
“You’d better back up,” Fisher said, “And give me a little history.”
“Back in the seventies, a group of enterprising Kyrgyz families that specialized in crime of the organized variety, started feeling unwelcome in Bishkek. Back then, before they went into Afghanistan, the Soviets got serious about injecting their proletariat gospel into the stans, including Kyrgyzstan, by helping the Bishkek government crack down on the working-class-unfriendly Mafia. Bosses, henchmen, and sundry thugs began disappearing and dying left and right.
“Knowing they couldn’t fight the Soviet bear, and being more interested in profits than in principle, what was left of the Kyrgyz Mafia struck their tents and emigrated for greener pastures. Some went to Europe, some Australia, some America, but one family — the Bakiyev clan — came to Nova Scotia. The other families failed, broke apart, or were otherwise destroyed by local organized crime or law enforcement, but the Bakiyevs played it smart. They found a rundown and mostly uninhabited village on the coast of Cape Breton, moved in, took up the local trade of fishing, and just generally worked at fitting in and making babies for six or seven years, all the while attracting other wandering Kyrgyz.
“Once the elder Bakiyev — Tolkun’s father — thought their group had properly assimilated, he quietly turned the town back to its old ways of organized crime. Now they specialize mostly in smuggling black market goods, from fake iPhones to Gucci knockoffs that they ship into the United States. No one really knows how much influence Tolkun has outside Little Bishkek, but since the town’s founding, not a single outside land developer has managed to make any inroads there. It’s a tight-knit community, Sam, and they’re not the welcoming sort. You’ve seen those westerns, where a stranger walks into the saloon and the music stops and everyone just stares at him?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what it’s like driving through Little Bishkek. You stop for a cup of coffee, and you’ve got a hundred pair of eyes watching you until you hit the town’s outskirts again. They’re not unfriendly, exactly, but it’s pretty clear that if you’re not Kyrgyz, you don’t want to be shopping for apartments.”
“I understand.”
“I truly hope so, Sam. If you’re planning on getting him out of Little Bishkek, and they’re not willing to part with him, the odds are stacked against you.”
Fisher, staring at the horses cantering through the pasture, nodded slowly, then turned to Robinson and smiled grimly. “I love a challenge.”
18
LITTLE BISHKEK
Two hours after dusk, as night fully closed in over the coast, F
isher turned south off Cape Breton’s main southern coast road, the St. Peters-Fourchu, onto a winding dirt track that took him to the beach. He rolled to a stop in the gravel parking lot in the lee of a sand dune and shut off the headlights and engine. He sat quietly for few minutes, listening to the engine’s tick tick tick as it cooled and watching the clouds gather over the sea. The rain would be here in less than an hour, and while its coming would present its own challenges for the mission ahead, the rain would dampen sound, deepen the shadows, and the clouds would cover the full moon, which had been his biggest worry.
His cell phone trilled. He checked the caller ID screen, then tapped the CONNECT button on his Bluetooth headset. “Hi, Grim.”
“I’ve got the colonel on as well, Sam.”
“Evening, Colonel.”
“I understand you’ve managed to find yourself a tough nut to crack.”
“It’s a gift I have.”
Between Robinson’s own maps and books and firsthand knowledge of the area and Grim’s computer research, they had over the last ten hours built an impressive profile on Tolkun Bakiyev’s home, the fort known as Ingonish.
Ingonish, named after the city on the northern tip of the island, was built in 1740 by the French and changed hands half a dozen times over the next eighteen years as the French and British fought first the Seven Years’ War, then the King George’s War. Intended as a siege fort to guard what was now the Grand River Estuary, Ingonish never saw battle and as such never gained a place in the history books, earning in the mid-nineteenth century the nickname, the Forgotten Castle.
Upon leaving Robinson’s house, Fisher had immediately called in to report the Kyrgyzstan connection. Like Fisher, Lambert wasn’t a believer in coincidences, and he immediately tasked Grimsdottir and Redding with finding a connection — any connection, no matter how slight — that might explain a link between Carmen Hayes, the hydrogeologist; Calvin Stewart, the particle physicist; Chin-Hwa Pak, the North Korean RDEI spy; and the PuH-19 that had killed Peter. All were pieces of what appeared may be the same puzzle, but there was so far not even a hint of what bigger picture they might form.