by Greg Rucka
Satisfied, she let him go.
“Do I get a turn now?” Charles asked.
She continued to ignore him, moving to the desk, pulling out the chair there. She motioned for him to sit in it, and after a second, he complied. From the bed, she picked up the wallet and searched through it.
“Charles Riess?” Chace asked.
“Yeah. But I would have told you that if you asked.”
Chace tossed the wallet back to him, picked up the camera. “Why this?”
“I thought you might like to see some faces.”
Chace considered, then tossed the camera to him as well. He caught it as he had the first, but with a little more distress.
“Easy!”
“Show me.”
Charles Riess stared at her, then turned his attention to the camera in his hands, switching it on and then turning it, showing Chace the display window, offering it back to her.
“First picture is of Ruslan Malikov,” he said.
Chace took the camera again, peering at the tiny screen. The color and resolution were both good, the image clear, if small. The picture of Ruslan Malikov was a headshot, apparently taken from another document, rather than of the man in his actual life. It gave no sense of scale, no hint of the man’s height, but based on his face alone, Chace knew she would recognize him if she saw him. He was rectangular-faced, brown eyes, black hair cut short but well styled, with a strong jaw and a strong nose. Chace read him as more Russian than Uzbek, with no obvious Asian influence to his features.
“The next one is his son, Stepan,” Charles Riess said.
Chace pressed the button beside the screen, scrolling from one image to the next. Unlike the first one, the shot of the boy was of poor quality. The best Chace could tell from it was that Stepan was a toddler, with dark hair and dark eyes, and he owned a T-shirt with a happy bulldog printed on its front.
“Anything else?” Chace asked.
“Yeah, two others. Sevara and her heavy, Zahidov.”
The third headshot was of a beautiful young woman, her hair immaculately styled, her eyes almond-shaped and so green that Chace suspected contact lenses. In the picture, Sevara had her hands steepled, and her nails were long and lacquered a light tan. She wore jewelry, a necklace of precious stones, and earrings that matched. Unlike with her brother, Chace could see the Uzbek influence in her features.
“Same mother as her brother?”
“So we’ve been led to believe. Ruslan looks more like his father, obviously.”
Chace nodded, and scrolled to the last picture, the man named Zahidov. Like the pictures of Ruslan and Sevara, this one, too, was taken from a file shot, and was another headshot. Perhaps because Riess had described him as Sevara’s “heavy,” Chace had expected someone who appeared bigger and older, and it surprised her that the man she was looking at seemed to be no older than his early thirties, and, at least from his features, quite slight. His hair was brown, brushed back over a high forehead, and he wore glasses, and behind the lenses his eyes were brown as well. His mouth was small, his lips thin.
Chace looked at the picture of Zahidov for several seconds, then scrolled back, slowly, taking her time with each face, before handing the camera back to Riess.
“On the map.” Chace pointed to it on the desk behind Riess, and Riess turned in his chair to see what she meant. “Find Ruslan’s house and mark it. Mark Sevara’s as well, and this Zahidov fellow’s.”
Riess nodded and turned around in the seat. Chace took the complimentary hotel pen from the complimentary hotel notepad on her nightstand and handed both to him, then stepped back, watching. Riess unfolded the map and quickly marked four locations, then, using the pen, pointed each out to her in turn. She was pleased to see that he’d only circled the locations, making no other notation.
“Ruslan lives here, on Uzbekiston Street, number fourteen.” Riess moved the pen. “Sevara’s house is here, on Glinka; it overlooks Babur Park. She shares it with her husband, Denis Ganiev—Ganiev is the DPM in charge of the Interior Ministry. The marriage is for show, she’s rarely there.” He moved the pen again. “Mostly, you can find her here, on Sulaymonova—she’s got the penthouse suite.” He moved the pen a final time. “And Zahidov has an apartment here, on Chimkent, but as I understand it, he’s never there.”
“Why not?”
“He’s screwing Sevara, so mostly you can find him at the suite on Sulaymonova. Either that or at the Interior Ministry, where Zahidov seems to do his best work.”
“He’s NSS?”
Riess set down the pen. “Yeah, inasmuch as he uses his position at the NSS to support Sevara. It’s one of the things that’s made her so powerful. She’s got the secret police on her side.”
Chace nodded, picked up the map from the desk, studying the locations.
“There’s something else you should know,” Riess said.
“Hmm?”
“Malikov’s dying.”
Chace lowered the map. “What?”
“He had what appears to be a stroke before dawn this morning. He’s in the hospital, and the prognosis isn’t looking good.”
“A stroke? Is that likely?”
“I’d have thought a heart attack, but a stroke seems reasonable.”
“What was he doing when he had the stroke, do you know?”
Riess shook his head, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Was he alone?” Chace asked.
“There’s a rumor that he was with one of his mistresses.”
“He’s sixty-seven?”
“Sixty-eight, officially. Maybe as old as seventy-two.”
“There you go.” Chace refolded the map, dropping it back onto the desk. “It was an assassination attempt. Someone upped his Viagra dose, tried to give him another heart attack. Got a stroke instead. Messy.”
“And difficult to prove, if you’re right.”
Chace shrugged, turning back to the bed and sitting on the edge. The fatigue of the trip returned, sliding down her shoulders like oil.
Riess was looking at her, trying his best to not appear curious.
“I’m going to need weapons,” Chace told him.
The curiosity vanished into something close to mild panic. “That’s not my thing, I’m sorry—”
“No, not from you,” she interrupted, annoyed. “I’ll get them myself. Just tell me where I can make the buy.”
She watched his eyes widen slightly with understanding. His eyes were green.
“There’s a place west of here, about one hundred and fifty kilometers, north of Lake Aidarkul.” Riess hesitated, whether because he was uncertain or simply trying to recall, Chace couldn’t tell. “You go north from there, there’s a little village just south of the border with Kazakhstan. It’s all frontier, there’s nothing out there. I was out that way about three months ago, before the chilla hit. We were getting reports of a market, I flew out with some of the CT guys.”
“The chilla?”
Riess grinned, apologetic. “Uzbekistan doesn’t get that much weather, but in the winter, there’s about six weeks of fucking cold, called the chilla.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, sorry. Anyway, this market, it was anything goes. Weapons, drugs, livestock. Other things.”
“Sounds ideal.”
Riess grimaced, showing his teeth. “I don’t know. Western woman heading out there alone, they may try to put you up for sale.”
“They might.” Chace gave him her best smile. “Last question, Charles. Where can I get a car?”
“Rentals are hard to come by. You could go back out to the airport—”
“No. I’ll need to buy it.”
“Yeah? Huh. Best bet, then, I’d find a car you like on the street and ask the owner how much he wants for it. You’ve got cash, I assume?”
“Enough to cover expenses.”
“That’s what I’d do. That way, you’d be sure to get one that runs.”
“Very well.”
Riess open
ed his mouth to add something, then closed it, then opened it once more. “Is that all?”
“For now.”
“I’m not sure meeting a second time would be that wise.”
“No?”
“The NSS has been watching me.”
Chace stared at him.
“Not tonight, I made a point of losing them tonight,” Riess added quickly.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“How’d you come here tonight?”
“Metro.”
“How many times did you change trains?”
“Six. Why do you think it took me two hours to get here?”
“You’re State Department?”
Riess hesitated, then nodded.
“You’ve had basic tradecraft, then?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about that.”
Chace looked at him, for a moment unable to believe what she’d just heard. “I’m sorry?”
“We’re not supposed to talk about that kind of thing.”
“You know who I am?”
“Well, I know why you’re here, if that’s what you mean, yes.”
She shook her head, amused, then looked him over a second time, reappraising. He was charming, in a way, and reasonably handsome.
“I don’t know if you’re naïve or cute or both,” Chace said.
“With those choices, I’d rather cute, if you don’t mind.”
Chace stared at him a moment longer, recognizing a desire she hadn’t felt in what seemed like a very long time. She hadn’t had sex since she had been with Tom, and thinking of it, it seemed both ages ago and only yesterday.
She got up from the bed, crossed over to where he was sitting, and took his chin in her hand. She kissed him, and after he recovered from his surprise, he returned it.
She broke it off.
“I’m going down to the gift shop,” Chace said, “where I hope they will sell me a package of condoms. If you like the sound of that, be in the bed when I get back.”
She took her key and headed out of the room, riding the elevator down to the lobby. The gift shop was still open. After she made her purchase, she stepped back into the lobby, then crossed it to the restaurant, a small café called the Brasserie. She ordered a glass of beer, drank it sitting alone at a table, watching the lobby, and by the time she’d emptied the glass, she was as certain as she could be that Charles Riess had not been followed to the Hotel InterContinental.
He was waiting in the bed when she got back.
CHAPTER 12
Uzbekistan—Tashkent—182 Sulaymonova,
Penthouse of Sevara Malikov-Ganiev
17 February, 0008 Hours (GMT+5:00)
Zahidov collapsed onto Sevara, breathless, spent, and as happy as he had been in weeks. He kissed her neck and tasted the perspiration there, moved his mouth along her shoulder, drinking her sweetness with his tongue, feeling the warmth and smoothness of her skin, the life of her. She shuddered again around him, ran her nails up his back, and then let out a long sigh of contentment, giving voice to everything he was feeling.
For a while then, he drifted in languid thought, feeling Sevara’s heartbeat slowing, feeling his own matching pace. She kissed his shoulder and his neck and then his mouth, each tenderly, then let her leg slip away from him, freeing him. Zahidov took the cue, reluctantly rolling off her, the bedsheet clinging to him. When he was on his back, she curled against him, resting her head on his chest.
“Do you think he’s dead yet?”
“No.” The stroke had been unexpected, not the result they’d been after, and it complicated things, though not as much as he had first feared. “The doctors say he’s stabilized.”
Sevara readjusted her position, making herself more comfortable. Zahidov felt her nails traveling lightly over his belly, up his chest.
“You’re disappointed,” she said softly. “Don’t be, Ahtya.”
“I don’t like him lingering.”
“But it doesn’t hurt us. I saw him at the hospital this evening. The whole side of his body is useless, his face is sagging like melted wax. I talked to him for almost half an hour, holding his hand. He couldn’t even move his fingers, he couldn’t even speak. The doctors say it’s unlikely he’ll ever be able to again.”
“Unlikely isn’t the same as certain.”
Sevara rolled, propping herself up on her side, smiling down at him, reassuring. “It doesn’t matter. He won’t be recovered by tomorrow, love. He won’t be recovered in a week, or even a month. It gives us time. He remains President in name, and you and I, we simply move in and take control. We can keep working on the Deputies, making certain they know how things are going to be. And when everything is right and in place, we announce my father’s illness, his subsequent retirement, and that I will be acting in his stead until elections can be held.”
Zahidov stared at the ceiling, the shadows cast by the candles burning on the bureau beyond the foot of the bed.
“Time is to our advantage,” Sevara told him.
“To your brother as well.” He turned to look at her, brushing hair from her cheek with the back of his hand. “It’s to his advantage as well, Sevya, and he will do exactly what you are doing.”
“Ruslan’s got no support from the Americans, you said so yourself. They know he’s not strong enough to hold the country together.”
“He might be able to change their minds.”
Sevara laughed, kissed his hand. “When has Washington ever changed its mind, Ahtya, especially with the current American President? No, Ruslan will try, but he’ll need the DPMs, and the DPMs will already belong to us. I’ve spoken to Urdushevich and Tursunova already, and they’ve told me what I’ll hear from all of the rest. Not one of them wishes to lose what they have. And they know that should Ruslan become President, the first thing he’ll do is get rid of them all and claim he’s fighting corruption. None of them will ever lift a finger to support him.”
“It makes me uncomfortable,” Zahidov insisted, and he met her eyes, but didn’t say the rest.
Sevara threw back the covers and swung herself out of the bed, cursing him. The candlelight turned her skin to gold and shadow. He watched as she opened the closet, pulled on her robe. It was silk, green and black, one he had purchased for her on his last trip to Moscow, and he liked the way it clung to her, and he thought it made her even more desirable than when she wore nothing at all.
“I know what you’re thinking, Ahtya,” Sevara said. “The answer is no.”
“Why not? Because he’s your brother?”
“Precisely because he’s my brother. Think of how it will look, if nothing else. First his wife, then Papa, then my brother?”
He sat up in the bed. “It can be done with subtlety.”
“No, it can’t, my love, really, it can’t. Even were he to die of natural causes tomorrow it would not be subtle enough, not so soon on the heels of the others. It becomes overt—worse, it becomes obvious, and that would force Washington’s hand, because the media would report upon it, and they would have to respond to that pressure. Right now, they can suspect, they can even know in their hearts we’re responsible for Papa’s illness. But if we kill Ruslan, it takes things too far.”
“It’s not like you to be sentimental about family.”
Sevara returned to the foot of the bed, tying the sash of the robe about her waist with a jerk, and Zahidov knew he’d made her angry, even without seeing the expression on her face.
“He’s my brother,” she said quietly. “He is the father of my nephew. We helped my father along because it was his time to go, because his end was inevitable, and because he blocked our way. Ruslan has no power, Ahtam. He has nothing. No support, no funding, no connections, no allies, nothing. We don’t have to be savages.”
Zahidov leaned forward, matching her tone, speaking just as softly. “As long as he is alive, he will oppose you, Sevya. That makes him your enemy, and that makes him dangerous. You and I
have enough to worry about already. Why allow for one more factor we cannot control?”
“If that is your concern, then control him. But that does not require killing him, Ahtam, and I will not allow it.” She ran a hand through her hair, pulling the strands in frustration. “Put him under guard, under house arrest, whatever you want to call it.”
“For how long? A week? A month? The rest of his natural life?”
She glared at him. “Until the announcement. Keep him in his home for the next two, three weeks, that will be long enough. By then, it will be too late.”
“Assuming everything is in place by then.”
“Everything will be.”
“I don’t like it.”
Sevara mounted the bed once more, walking to him on her knees, straddling him over the sheets. She put her hands on his shoulders, and he felt the thrill of her touch again, and again wondered how it was she could make him feel that way every single time her skin touched his own.
“You don’t have to like it,” Sevara told him. “It’s what I want. It’s what is best for us, Ahtya. Just like you, everything I’m doing, I’m doing it for us.”
If the words had come from any other woman, he’d have dismissed them utterly as fiction. But from this woman, he knew it was the truth, and Zahidov put his hands on her hips, feeling the warmth of her skin through the silk, pulling her down on him more firmly.
“I worry,” he said. “Because I love you.”
She smiled, her upper lip curling with mischief, and unfastened her robe.
“Show me,” she said.
CHAPTER 13
London—Hyde Park—Lover’s Walk,
Park Lane Entrance
17 February, 1114 Hours GMT
Julian Seale was waiting for him, the CIA Station Chief holding a black umbrella large enough to shelter a family of three. Crocker saw him, stepped across a puddle, and offered his hand. Seale shook it firmly once, then released, and Crocker wondered how many more times they’d begin their meetings with a handshake before they were comfortable enough with each other to dispense with the pleasantry.