Private Wars

by Greg Rucka

  “It’s cold,” Chace whispered to him.

  He nodded, finished with his last shoe, moved to the closet. From inside he pulled a thick overcoat.

  “You have to keep your son quiet,” Chace told him. “Can you keep Stepan quiet?”

  He was pulling on his overcoat, and surprised her by answering in English, his accent more Russian than Uzbek, but not so thick as to make him unintelligible. “Yes, he’ll stay quiet.”

  Chace held out the flak jacket for him. “Wrap him in this,” she answered, now speaking English, too. “It’ll offer some protection.”

  Ruslan balked for a second, looking at the blood-soaked garment, then nodded, taking it.

  “Follow me,” Chace said, and slipped out the door, back into the hall. There was still nothing from below, no motion, no noise. She covered the distance to the child’s room, feeling Ruslan close behind her, then let him pass her when they entered. Ruslan moved to the crib, scooping up his son and whispering a flood of Uzbek as he did, cradling the little boy against his chest, wrapping the flak jacket around him. The boy barely stirred, and Chace wondered if Ruslan could keep him asleep until they were out of the house.

  “Stay close,” Chace told him. “The car is out front. When we reach it, get in the back, then lie down on Stepan.”

  “Yes,” Ruslan whispered.

  Chace pivoted, moved back into the bright light of the upstairs hall, to the top of the landing. She stole a glance over the railing, down to the floor below, and saw no one but the body she’d left just inside the doorway. She motioned for Ruslan to follow, and he emerged from his son’s room. When the light hit Stepan, the boy squawked in soft protest, burying his face further against Ruslan’s chest, and Chace thought of Tamsin without wanting to or meaning to, then turned away, leading father and son down the stairs.

  She checked the entry hall, looking back toward the darkened kitchen, then turned to the front door and edged it open, the hush puppy held in low-ready, with both hands. No one was outside, and the sound of the unattended Volga, its engine still wheezing, was the only thing she heard.

  “Now,” Chace said, and she ran for the car, Ruslan with his son still in his arms close on her heels. She reached the car first, whipping her head around, checking the street in both directions even as she pulled open the rear door. The boy was crying now, startled and unnerved as Ruslan bundled him inside, and Chace heard his father’s voice, low and calm and constant, speaking in Uzbek. She slammed the door behind them, jumped into the driver’s seat, and accelerated out, wheeling the car around into a one-eighty. She floored it, the Volga reluctant at first, then finally catching speed.

  From the backseat, she heard Stepan’s sobs turn to howls.

  Chace slid the Volga to a stop beside the Range Rover, jumped out, saying, “Wait here.”

  “What—” Ruslan began, almost shouting over Stepan’s screams.

  She ignored him, moving to the tailgate. Without the flak jacket, the cold was beginning to eat at her, finding the sweat and blood still wet on her skin and clothes. A wind was starting to rise, light, but enough to make her shiver.

  Chace pulled the Starstreak from the Range Rover, switched on the power to the aiming unit and ignition, then hoisted it onto her shoulder, settling her right eye against the monocular. Sweat clung to her eyelashes, stinging her, and she blinked, trying to clear her eyes. A new anticipation swelled in her chest, a strange collusion of fear and excitement, almost arousing. She knew the Starstreak from reports, from technical papers and military analysis. She knew the Starstreak academically, what it could do, how it did it. But she’d never fired one herself, never seen the results in person. She lined up the aiming mark, exhaling slowly.

  She depressed the firing stud, the small white button resting below her right thumb.

  For a fraction of a second there was nothing, no response from the Starstreak, and her thoughts flashed on the possibility that the unit was dead, that the internal battery was incapable of engaging the first-stage motor and starting the launch sequence. Then, on her shoulder, she felt the tube rumble, the missile hissing, the sound of a kettle just before boil. Thrust drove the launcher hard into her shoulder, pressing her down, and she grit her teeth, fighting to keep the aiming mark steady on target. It all took an instant, and then, just as swiftly, the pressure was gone.

  It all came back to her then, all of the clinical data, the briefings, the analysis. Starstreak, designed as a high-velocity extreme-short-range MANPAD, maximum distance five kilometers, minimum only three hundred meters. Composed of a two-stage rocket motor, capped with a three-dart kinetically driven payload guidance system. The electronic pulse delivered via the firing stud engages the first-stage motor, propelling the missile from its canister while canted nozzles on the side of the rocket force it to rotate, the rotation in turn causing its fins to deploy, providing stabilization in flight.

  Missile clears launch tube, first-stage motor is jettisoned, second stage is engaged, providing full thrust, and accelerating the rocket to speeds in excess of Mach 4. Missile closes to target, the darts fire, each dart with its own high-density penetrating explosive payload, fuse, guidance system, and thermal battery. Dart separation from missile initiates the arming of each warhead, each dart guided independently via a double laser-beam riding system, controlled by the missile operator via the aiming unit.

  That was the clinical, the academic, what she knew.

  What she experienced was the roar of the launch, the shock of the missile leaving the launch tube, the flare of light, the wash of heat. White-hot fire streaking horizontally toward number 14 Uzbekiston, her arm shaking, her eye stinging, trying to keep the aiming mark on the door, left wide open in the wake of their flight.

  The missile vanished, and for a fraction, nothing, not noise, not light, nothing.

  Then the house exploded.

  Chace felt the concussion throughout her body, dropped the launch tube, and turned her back to the flames and falling debris. From the back of the Range Rover, she scooped up the Kalashnikov, the spare magazines, and the blanket, then made her way to the Volga, climbing inside. Ruslan was staring at her, and Stepan, for the moment, had gone silent, held against his father’s shoulder, staring past him, at the ruins of the house.

  She started the car and pulled away from the Range Rover.

  In the backseat, Stepan said something in Uzbek, and Ruslan responded tartly. In the rearview mirror, Chace could see the man still staring at her. Stepan repeated the word, and Ruslan responded the same way.

  “What’s he saying?” Chace asked.

  “Again,” Ruslan said. “He wants you to do it again.”

  This time, the urge to laugh was too strong, and Chace didn’t bother to fight it.

  CHAPTER 23

  London—Vauxhall Cross, Operations Room

  20 February, 2324 Hours GMT

  Crocker came onto the Ops Room floor, shrugging out of his overcoat, demanding, “What’s the latest?”

  “Tashkent Station now confirms that there was an explosion at the home of Ruslan Malikov,” Alexis Ferguson told him from the MCO Desk. “Estimates the blast at twenty past three zone. Several dead, several missing and presumed dead. There’s been no indication if Malikov or his kid is among the fatalities. State-run radio has issued a statement, confirming that there was an explosion, and blaming Hizb-ut-Tahir for the blast.”

  From his inside pocket, Crocker found his cigarettes, then abandoned the coat and crossed the room, heading for Alexis. “Anything more?”

  “Station Number Two has a man inside the police department who reports that there’s been activity at the NSS, and that both the NSS and the police are engaged in a full-scale search for the perpetrators. Apparently there are two different vehicle descriptions being circulated at the moment, one for a blue Volga, late model, the other for an Audi. It seems they’re searching for both cars, though how they’re connected to the blast, the Station Number Two can’t say.”

 
; “The blast, it wasn’t a car bomb?”

  “Unclear one way or the other.”

  Crocker nodded, then stepped back, looking up at the plasma wall for a moment before lighting his cigarette. From the Duty Ops Desk, he heard Ron stifling a yawn. He empathized, though only slightly; Ron had relief coming on-shift in two more hours. Crocker, who’d been at home and about to head for bed when the call had come informing him of what had happened in Tashkent, doubted he’d be getting sleep anytime soon.

  “You think it’s a coup, sir?” Ron asked him.

  “No. Not unless someone’s gone after the President and his daughter as well.”

  “No word of that,” Alexis confirmed.

  “So no, it’s not a coup.” Crocker frowned, then moved back to the Duty Ops station. “You’ve informed the DC, C, and the FCO?”

  “As per usual, yes, sir. C hasn’t arrived yet, but the DC is in her office.”

  Crocker lifted up the handset on one of the internal phones, held it out for Ron to take. “Inform her I’m coming up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turned to face Alexis. “Signal Tashkent, get the Number One on an open line, and tell him to stay there. Inform him that I want updates every twenty minutes, and have him tell the Number Two that I’m especially interested in the pursuit, and any new information about the vehicles, however minor it may seem. Anything they get on those last, they’re to inform us immediately. I’ll be upstairs.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Crocker grabbed his coat, and headed for Alison Gordon-Palmer’s office.

  “Would Chace have blown up the house?” the Deputy Chief asked.

  “It’s not a bad way to cover one’s tracks,” Crocker told her. “Creates one hell of a mess, and makes it difficult if not impossible to quickly determine if Ruslan and his boy are missing, rather than dead.”

  She rested her elbows on her desk, folding her hands one over the other, resting her chin upon them, musing. “So it’s possible she did it.”

  “Yes, it’s possible. She’s not one to go big if she can get away with small, but if the opportunity and means presented itself, yes, I can see her doing it.”

  “Presuming that Chace is responsible in the first place?”

  “I think she is. I think she’s made the lift, and she’s on the run to her RV.”

  “But no way to confirm?”

  “Not without informing Tashkent Station that Chace is there to begin with, no,” Crocker said. “Though you were right about Seale. I could check with the CIA.”

  Alison Gordon-Palmer frowned slightly. “No, let’s keep the Americans out of it for the moment.”

  Something in the way she said it struck Crocker as off, but before he could ask the question, the Deputy Chief had continued.

  “The blast. Assuming it was Chace, and assuming she did it after getting Ruslan and his son clear, how would she have managed it?”

  “Again, I can’t say. We don’t have enough details about the blast, if the house was leveled or if the reports are exaggerated. She was traveling light, and without support, so anything she’s using she must have acquired on the ground.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him, and Crocker knew what she wanted to hear.

  “It is possible it was a Starstreak missile, yes,” he conceded.

  “Which she acquired in Tashkent somehow.”

  “She didn’t bring it with her from London.” Crocker shifted position in his chair, leaning forward. “Isn’t it time you told me what you and Sir Walter are up to?”

  The Deputy Chief considered, raising her head off her hands, then lowering her arms to lie flat on her desk. Her office, like Crocker’s, was spare, sparsely furnished and sparsely decorated. Unlike Crocker’s desk, though, hers was almost bare as well, devoid of almost all paper, and occupied with only the barest of office essentials.

  “Barclay talked to you,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “He offered you my job, didn’t he?”

  Crocker saw no reason to deny it. “Yes, he did.”

  “And you’re willing to burn him?”

  “I think that’s evident. And he thinks you and Sir Walter are moving to burn him, doesn’t he? That’s part of what this is about.”

  “Paul,” Alison Gordon-Palmer said, “it’s all that this is about.”

  He needed a second, which was long enough for the realization to both hit and sicken him.

  “It’s a dummy run?” Crocker asked. “I’ve sent Chace on a dummy run?”

  “Nothing so crude. If she can get Ruslan and his son out, so much the better.”

  “But you’re saying there’s no plan for a coup?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What changed?”

  “The CIA got wind of it, and bless their souls, they promptly told the White House. And the White House came back to Downing Street and said in no uncertain terms that Sevara Malikov-Ganiev was to be the next President of the Democratic Republic of Uzbekistan.” She straightened in her chair, gauging Crocker’s reaction, seeing the distress. “It hardly matters, Paul.”

  “It matters to Chace.”

  “What would you have done if I’d told you this four hours ago? You have no contact with her, correct? You wouldn’t have been able to get her to abort even if you wanted to.”

  It was true, but it didn’t make Crocker feel any better.

  “We’ll get her back, don’t worry,” the Deputy Chief told him. “CIA knows she’s there, they’ll watch out for her.”

  “Unless the White House decides otherwise.”

  “Instruments of government, Paul. If they bend, break, or discard us, it’s their prerogative.”

  “I’m sure that’ll be of some comfort to her daughter, though at the moment, I can’t imagine how.”

  The Deputy Chief narrowed her eyes, began to respond, and then her phone rang, so she answered it instead.

  It was C, informing them that he was in his office and ready to see them now.

  “We’ll be right up, sir,” Alison Gordon-Palmer told him, then replaced the handset carefully in its cradle. “He wants us upstairs.”

  Crocker got to his feet. “And what are you going to tell him?”

  She shook her head, rising with him. “No, Paul, not me, you. You’re going to tell him exactly what you just told me.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. And you can tell him that Chace may well have found one of his missing Starstreaks.” She opened the door to the outer office, holding it for Crocker. “I think he’ll be particularly happy with that bit of news, don’t you?”

  “I doubt it,” Crocker said.

  CHAPTER 24

  Uzbekistan—Syr Darya Province—

  Samarkand Road, 63 km Southwest Tashkent

  21 February, 0424 Hours (GMT+5:00)

  One headlight was enough, it seemed, the xenon beam harsh on the two-lane highway that ran south from Tashkent to Dzhizak and then on to Samarkand, a memory of the Silk Road long past. At the edges of the light, the landscape siding the road glowed like the surface of the moon, the dirt and dust turning a blue-white. The wind that had come up on them in Tashkent was stronger south of the city, howling along the valley, and fingers of dust twirled along the surface of the road.

  Chace drove fast, taking the Audi up to a hundred and forty kilometers an hour and then holding it there wherever the road would allow. The sound of the air rushing past the car clogged her left ear, but the vehicle’s aerodynamics were strong, and most of the wind stayed outside the car instead of climbing inside with them. Occasionally, a gust would break through, snapping Chace’s hair so hard she could feel it stinging her neck.

  Ruslan sat in the front passenger’s seat, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of them whenever he wasn’t twisting himself about to check on his son, asleep in the back, the blanket Chace had taken from the Range Rover wrapped tightly around him. Chace marveled at it, that the boy could sleep through the racket of the wind and the car, with all that had
happened so far. She envied Stepan. Right now, she wanted sleep, too.

  The adrenaline crash was wicked, revealing a soreness throughout her body and a dull ache in her limbs. Her left bicep twinged regularly when she moved the arm, reminding her of the exertion required in holding a man’s throat exposed while stabbing him to death. The blood on her hands and arms had dried, and every so often a flake would come loose, caught in the wind, sending it spiraling in one random direction or another, a red snowflake that flipped through the car.

  Chace checked her mirrors again, barely aware she was doing it, and saw Ruslan shift in his seat, either nervous, uncomfortable, or both. He’d ridden in silence ever since they’d switched to the Audi, and he hadn’t really been talkative prior to that, for the obvious reasons. What little he’d said had been directed at his son, and in Uzbek. But since they’d made the Audi and hit the road, there’d been nothing more from him. Surely he had questions—dozens of them, more than likely—but thus far, he was keeping them to himself.

  “My orders are to take you both to England, sir,” Chace said, after another reflexive check of the mirrors, thinking that an explanation of one sort or another was in order. “We’re on our way to a landing zone where we’ll be met by a helicopter to fly us out.”

  She hadn’t expected him to answer, and he surprised her when he did, asking, “Not America?”

  “No.”

  “My wife was working with the Americans.” He raised his left hand, rubbed his eyes, wiping sleep from their corners. “Before Zahidov raped and murdered her, she was working for the Americans. You are working with the Americans as well?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Chace shook her head, barely. “I wouldn’t worry about it, sir.”

  “But I must worry about it, I have no choice. My son and I are fleeing for our lives with a woman covered in blood in Ahtam Zahidov’s automobile. There is nothing more for me to do now than worry about it.”