“Charming,” Kate said, and although her tone was jaunty, Ruslan could see that her face was flushed and her breathing was quick and shallow. She was scared. So was he.
“We revolutionaries have to be careful about cash flow. And Murzaev wanted a place that was both safe and low profile. He doesn’t care much about the niceties.”
“No,” Kate answered. “He certainly doesn’t.” There was something about the tone of her response that caught Ruslan’s attention, a negative reaction to the mention of Murzaev. But he sensed that she was in no mood to be interrogated.
“Let’s see if the spymaster remembered to stock the fridge.”
There were two things in the refrigerator, a jar of Chinese mustard and a bottle of Russian vodka. Ruslan found two glasses in a cupboard and wiped them clean with a hand towel.
“All of life’s necessities,” he said as he set the bottle and glasses down on the coffee table. He poured a stiff slug of vodka into the glasses and they toasted in the Russian style, looking each other in the eyes as they downed the shot in a single gulp. It was cheap vodka and it burned Ruslan’s throat on the way down. Kate coughed and her eyes watered.
“That’s awful,” she said.
“If it were good, do you think someone would have left it here?”
“Maybe it gets better as you drink it.”
“Everything does.”
The next thing he knew, Kate was in his arms and he was kissing her mouth and her neck and the hollow of her throat. The years that they had been apart simply evaporated. The sensation of touching her was simultaneously new and familiar. And it was intoxicating. She pressed her body up against his. She bit his earlobe gently and whispered to him with a fierce urgency.
“Put your hands on me.”
He did.
They undressed each other as they made their way slowly to the bedroom.
Tomorrow there would be a war to fight. And Ruslan’s own desires would be subordinate to the needs of those who looked to him to lead. But tonight belonged to him and Kate. And all they could do was make the night last for as long as possible.
Tomorrow would take care of itself.
20
Kate, he’d like to see you.”
Rosemary did not need to explain who “he” was. This was an embassy and he was the American ambassador.
“When?”
“Right now.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in thirty seconds.”
“No. He wants to meet in the Cone.”
“What’s going on?”
“Better you hear it from him.”
Every embassy had a secure room for sensitive conversations. And every embassy had its own unique name for it. In Cuba, it had been the Tank. Other missions called it the Bubble or the Star Chamber or the Bunker. Here in Bishkek, some long-ago officer had christened their room “the Cone,” after the Cone of Silence in the old Get Smart TV show. Its name aside, the Cone was almost indistinguishable from the Tank.
Kate was evidently the last to arrive. Arguably the four most powerful and influential people in the embassy had gotten there before her. The ambassador, Crespo, Ball, and the regional security officer, a one-time Chicago narcotics detective named Frank Barrone who saw himself somewhat dramatically as the last line of defense between a helpless embassy community and the rampaging Golden Horde of Batu Khan.
They were seated abreast on one side of the table. Kate’s seat was directly across from them. There was no uncertainty about what this was. An interrogation. That her inquisitors were all white middle-aged men in dark suits only made that all the more evident.
She looked to her uncle for some indication of what this was about. But he had a diplomat’s self-control and his expression was impossible to read.
Steeling herself for whatever was to come, Kate took the seat opposite the ambassador and folded her hands in front of her on the table.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” her uncle began.
“I didn’t know I had a choice.”
“You always have choices to make, Kate. We all do. The challenge is to make the right ones.”
There was something sad, Kate thought, underlying that statement, but nothing specific, nothing she could place. It was ineffable.
“We want to talk to you about Boldu,” Crespo said unnecessarily. What else could this be about? Kate’s progress to date in preparing the embassy’s annual labor report?
“Have you been entirely transparent with us about your interactions with the organization’s leadership?” Brass picked up from Crespo as smoothly as an Olympic baton pass.
“And have you reported on all your personal contacts with Kyrgyz nationals as required by the FAM?” Barrone added his voice to the chorus of accusation and innuendo, citing the provisions in the Foreign Affairs Manual that entitled the State Department to demand visibility into an officer’s personal life when stationed abroad.
“What are we talking about here?” Kate asked, genuinely uncertain.
Crespo set a plain buff folder on the table and slid it across. Kate had a reasonably good idea as to what was inside. She looked at it as she might a poisonous snake. Nothing good could come of touching it.
“Have you been following me around, Larry?”
“Should I be?”
Kate opened the folder and inside found what she had been expecting. Pictures of her and Ruslan together. Walking arm in arm in Ala-Too Square. Sitting side by side on the bench by the fountain. Kissing.
It was a profound violation of her personal space.
“Those were your guys,” Kate said, looking at the station chief accusingly. “Short hair. Black coat. And the pensioner with the kalpak. You set them on me like dogs.”
Crespo held up his hands as though warding off a blow. “Not my guys,” he insisted. “You’d never make my guys. They’re professionals.” The look he shot in Barrone’s direction was both fleeting and subtle, more an unconscious micro-expression than a considered response. It was enough.
“Your people then, Frank. The surveillance detection team maybe. Why would you do that?”
“Because I asked him to,” Brass said, his voice cold and sharp.
“To what end?”
“I had reason to believe that there were things you weren’t telling us about your involvement with the leadership of Boldu. That for whatever reason, you knew more than you were willing to say.”
“You are aware, Ms. Hollister, of the regulations in the Foreign Affairs Manual describing your responsibilities to report any and all close and continuing contact with foreign nationals?”
“I am.”
“Would you say this qualifies as close and continuing?” Barrone stabbed a long, crooked finger onto the picture of Ruslan kissing Kate on the mouth.
“Not yet,” Kate said defiantly.
Barrone reached into a briefcase sitting on the floor next to his chair and pulled out another photograph. This one was the apartment building where Kate and Ruslan had spent the night together. Apparently, they had not been as successful in shaking their tail as Ruslan had thought.
“Do you want to reconsider that answer?”
“No.”
“Are you involved in an intimate relationship with a foreign national? And is there a reason you neglected to report that information to my office?”
The ambassador made a quick cutting gesture with his right hand, silencing the RSO.
“Kate, who’s the man in the photograph? Is he Boldu? Is this Seitek?”
If her uncle had asked her when they were alone—as family—she might have told him the truth. She wanted to tell someone, to unburden herself of what she was being asked to carry. But with Brass, Crespo, and Barrone lined up across from her, worming their way into her private thoughts, there was only one possible answer.
She laughed.
“Is that what you think? That I’ve fallen under the spell of the Great Seitek and I’m ready to play Bonnie to his Clyde. Helen to his Paris.”
“The thought did cross our mind,” Crespo said dryly.
“You’re the one who told me that there was no Seitek, that he was a composite rather than a man.”
“There’s always an element of uncertainty in intelligence,” Crespo replied. “I like to hedge my bets. Assuming Seitek is a single individual—and I’ll grant you that seems increasingly likely—then I want to know who he is. And I want to know if our interests overlap enough that we can be of use to each other. So, the question is, do you know more than you’re telling us?”
“I’ve told you everything I know about Boldu,” Kate insisted. “The man in the photograph is an old boyfriend. We have renewed our . . . friendship. And before you ask, Frank, yes, I am familiar with the reporting requirements in the FAM and the definition of close and continuing. If I sleep with him once, it’s none of your business. If I sleep with him again, I have to fill out your damn contact reporting form. If it becomes necessary, I assure you that you’ll be among the first to know. And I hope that will satisfy your somewhat prurient interest in my social life. Maybe you should get out more. Voyeurism is really something of a disorder.”
Barrone’s face turned bright red with suppressed anger. Kate knew that what she had just done was stupid, and she would do it again in a heartbeat.
“You’re quite sure about that answer?” Crespo asked. “That the man in the photograph is not connected to Boldu?”
“Quite sure, yes.”
“That’s interesting, because I had our people do a little drill down into that building. Most of the apartments are deeded to families. All simple and normal. But one of them—number fourteen I believe—is registered to a shell company based in Dushanbe that is little more than a post office box. The ownership structure of the company is opaque, all of it drawn up by some clever lawyers. Who does that kind of thing, Kate? In my experience, it’s a pretty short list. Mafia bosses, big-time narco-traffickers, and spies occupy the top spots. I read your report about your meeting with the Boldu leadership. Askar Murzaev is a name we know. He would be more than capable of setting up a shell game like this. Seems like quite a coincidence.”
Kate was silent.
“Who is the boy, Kate?” the ambassador asked gently. “What’s his name?”
Kate would gladly surrender what was left of her career before giving Ruslan’s name to the three-headed monster her uncle had brought to the meeting. She did not at all like how easy it was becoming for her to lie, but one falsehood seemed to require two or three more to sustain it. Her father had warned her about that. It would be best, she understood, to stick as close to the truth and to say as little as possible.
“His name is Grigoriy Vetochkin,” Kate said. “We dated briefly in high school. He left for Moscow to go to university. I didn’t realize he was back in Bishkek. Mutual friends put us back in touch. We had lunch. And I had sex with him.” Kate was looking daggers at Barrone. “Three times that night if you’re curious, Frank, so maybe I should have filled out your form after all. Sorry about that.”
The stricken look on her uncle’s face made Kate feel guilty for the way she had twisted the knife, but the RSO had it coming.
“What does the virile Mr. Vetochkin do for a living?” Crespo asked her.
“He has a law practice in Moscow. He’s here looking at the possibility of opening up a branch in Bishkek.”
Kate wanted to keep her answers short and simple. She was making this all up as she went along and she would have to remember the lies. There really was a Grigoriy Vetochkin. He had been a year ahead of her at ISB. And he had had an unrequited crush on Kate. She remembered that he had gone to Lomonosov University to study law. Elements of the story at least would check out if Crespo decided to investigate. It was the best she could do.
“What kind of law?”
“I don’t know. That wasn’t really what we were talking about.”
There was an awkward silence as her inquisitors looked for a face-saving way to end the second interrogation she had endured in the last three days.
“If you’re going to see this guy again, you’ll have to come by my office and fill out the proper forms.” It sounded terribly lame and Barrone knew it.
“Sure thing, Frank. We all have our job to do.”
—
Kate needed to get a message to Ruslan. Fortunately, before they had said their good-byes in the predawn light two days earlier, Kate had insisted on having her own channel. She did not want to communicate with Ruslan through Val and she did not want to wait for some nine-year-old to show up at her apartment with a handwritten note that asked “u awake?” She was nobody’s booty call.
Ruslan did not use a phone or e-mail or anything that left electronic footprints. Murzaev knew what the GKNB was capable of, and he insisted on this precaution. Boldu preferred couriers and dead drops, and the movement had friends and supporters in the most unlikely places. There was a newsstand a block and a half from Kate’s apartment that was run by an elderly couple who had lost a son to one of the regime’s periodic crackdowns on suspected dissidents. A message given to them would move through Boldu’s courier system, a branching capillary-like network that ensured the channels of communication remained unpredictable. Ruslan, similarly, could get messages through the kiosk to Kate.
It was not fast, but it was secure.
Kate stopped by the kiosk on her way home from the embassy. She picked a copy of Chui Baayni, a weekly newsmagazine with a pro-Eraliev slant, off the rack and dropped two one-hundred-som notes on the counter. The wife was on duty that evening, a heavyset woman in her early sixties with a perm and eyes set so deep in their sockets it was a wonder she could see. They exchanged a few pleasantries, and Kate watched as the woman extracted the folded blue notecard from underneath the bills, slipping it into the front pocket of her apron with the practiced finesse of a stage magician. On the card, Kate had written only: “Need to see you soonest. important.” The blue card—which came out of the political-section supply cabinet—meant that it was from Kate and the lower case i in important meant that she was not under duress. There was no way of knowing how long it would take the message to reach Ruslan and how long it would be before he could respond. Ruslan had told her that he thought it would take less than forty-eight hours, but there were too many variables to be confident about that.
Back at her apartment, Kate changed from a suit to a black cocktail dress. She picked out a gold bracelet and a necklace with a ruby solitaire from the modest collection of jewelry she had brought with her from Cuba. After a moment’s reflection, she matched her outfit with a pair of Jimmy Choo pumps with three-inch heels. The Swedish ambassador was a tall man and she wanted to equalize their height to compensate for their unequal rank.
Kate checked herself out in the bathroom mirror. The dress was low cut, a little on the risqué side for a diplomatic function, perhaps, but only enough to draw attention rather than criticism. She freshened her makeup. The scar on her temple was now little more than a thin white line, a reminder that she would carry forever of a particular choice, one she did not regret. A little foundation hid it reasonably well.
In her clutch, Kate carried her embassy ID, a hundred dollars in Kyrgyz som, and the engraved invitation to a reception at the Swedish residence. She had met the ambassador a week earlier at a roundtable on press freedom organized by a Kyrgyz human rights group. Anders Larssen had seemed quite taken with her, and the woman who had organized the meeting later warned Kate that the ambassador was a notorious skirt chaser.
The invitation to the Swedish reception had arrived by courier the morning after the roundtable. It was a perfect opportunity to make good on her promise to Ruslan.
The cab dropped her off in front o
f the residence, an elegant villa in one of Bishkek’s most upscale neighborhoods. It was a warm evening and the party spilled out of the house into the gardens where the guests clustered in small groups drinking and smoking and gossiping. Gossip was the fuel of the diplomatic engine. Almost by definition, it was more valuable than news, which belonged to everyone. Gossip was personal and private, and the race to know something first was the way that diplomats kept score.
The crowd was a mix of internationals and Kyrgyz, with the local guest list seeming to favor independent journalists, academics, and activists of various stripes over government officials. It was a fair enough reflection of Swedish foreign policy. There were also a number of attractive young women with long legs and short skirts. Here the connection to Swedish national interests seemed somewhat tenuous.
Ambassador Larssen noticed her almost as soon as she stepped into the foyer, and Kate thought he seemed very much like a leopard springing out of the tall grass onto an impala. An ambush predator. Inside of thirty seconds he was standing just a little too close to her with a glass of prosecco in each hand.
“So very glad you could make it this evening, Ms. Hollister.”
Kate took the glass he had extended to her.
“Thank you for having me, Ambassador. You have a lovely home.”
“Please call me Anders.”
“And I’m Kate.”
Kate let him chat her up. Anders Larssen may have been a rogue and a womanizer, but he was charming and witty. And while he was about twenty years too old for her, he was not unattractive. The ambassador had been in Bishkek for more than two years and he was knowledgeable enough about currents and tensions within the Eraliev government to be interesting. Kate let him lead, but she was looking for an opening as well.
“Eraliev certainly seems to fear Boldu and the ever mysterious Seitek,” Larssen said about ten minutes into a conversation that was closer to a monologue. “But he has no real reason to. Boldu’s greatest victories have been little more than university pranks. The security forces are loyal, and there’s no threat to his rule as long as he maintains their backing.”
Enemy of the Good Page 21