by Greg Rucka
“It’d overheat the engine,” Tower said, answering the unasked question, and then lowering their respective windows. The scent of fouled water wafted into the car.
Riess turned around in his seat, reaching into the rear for the backpack he’d brought along. From within he removed his binoculars and his camera, a Konica Minolta digital camera with telephoto lens. Tower had brought his own binoculars with him, but when Riess turned back, he found the other man had also brought a radio with him, and was raising it to his mouth.
“Ikki, this is Baloo, over,” he said, and Riess stared at him, because Tower had transmitted in Uzbek, not English.
“Baloo, this is Ikki.”
“How do you read?”
“Five by five.”
“Over and out,” Tower said, and then set the radio on the dashboard, above the wheel.
Riess continued to stare, and Tower seemed not to mind, now producing his own set of binoculars. The CIA man raised his optics and looked out toward the bridge.
Seeing no explanation for his behavior forthcoming, Riess followed suit, pointing his lenses down to the foot of the bridge. There was movement from the guards, what he read as agitation, and two of the soldiers were beginning to make their way toward the Americans, slipping their rifles off their arms. But as Riess watched, he saw the pair turn even as the distant shouting made its way to him through the still air. An officer was running toward the soldiers, waving an arm angrily. The officer pointed at them in the van, and the soldiers snapped to attention, then ran hastily back to their posts.
The officer watched them go, then cast a glance back in the Americans’ direction. Through the binoculars, Riess could make out the man’s expression, the confusion and displeasure. Whatever he’d been told, whatever orders he’d just passed on to his men, he was uncomfortable with them.
Riess looked away to check his watch. Nine minutes to eight. He was raising the binoculars again when Tower spoke.
“West side. Blue Lada approaching, along the fence.”
Panning swiftly right, along what Riess thought of as a service road running parallel to the fence, was a late-model Lada, its wheels kicking up clouds of dust. He lost his view of it for a moment as it passed between him and one of the squat bunkers near the shore, but reacquired it immediately as it emerged, slowing to a stop. He could make out the driver behind the wheel.
“Hell,” Riess said. “I should have seen that coming.”
“Yeah,” Tower agreed, raising his radio once more. “You probably should’ve.”
CHAPTER 46
Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—
Termez, “Friendship Bridge”
29 August, 0753 Hours (GMT+5:00)
Chace had left Tashkent just after midnight, arriving in Termez on a flight run by a charter service contracted to the British Embassy. The Lada had been waiting for her at the airfield, and Chace didn’t want to know who Fincher had bribed to get it for her, and she made a mental note to thank him when she had the chance. He may have stunk as a Minder, but she was rapidly gaining new respect for the man as an HOS.
She’d spent the night in the car, which wasn’t to say she’d slept in it. Rather, she’d driven out to a vantage point overlooking the bridge and parked there for almost an hour, watching the floodlights on the Uzbek side as they ran along the length of the fence and shone off the water, trying to understand the terrain. She’d emerged from the car a few times to smoke the cigarettes she’d taken from Tozim’s body, to stretch her legs, to try to calm her mind. Neither the nicotine nor the movement had done the trick.
Before dawn, she’d started the Lada up again, easing it back into Termez proper, such as there was a Termez proper, and then made her way west, out of town, watching the odometer and counting out five kilometers. She’d passed the airfield the Germans were using, then turned back again, toward the Amu Darya, until the fence had once again become visible in her headlights, then reversed the direction. She’d passed plenty of places where a man could hide with a MANPAD, and it didn’t give her much comfort that she’d seen no signs of the same.
The sun had been rising by then, at which point she abandoned the hunt. She had no guarantee that Zahidov was going to make a play to begin with, and searching for him in the dark had been just shy of foolish. Had she found him, there would have been a very good chance that he’d have seen her coming first. And if he did have the MANPAD, she suspected that both herself and the Lada would have ended in a fireworks of light and flames.
For the best, then, that she lie low for the time being.
She’d driven down to the river, parking in time to watch the remainder of the sunrise. The warmth had reached her through the car’s windows, and despite herself, she’d dozed off, thinking of home and Tamsin and wondering for how much longer she could expect Val to come when called. If it was hard on Tamsin for Chace to go away, it was, in its fashion, harder for Val. Val knew just enough to be aware that, like Tom, Chace might not return.
She’d started awake with a panic then, afraid she’d blown the pickup. By her watch, she’d slept for all of two minutes. She’d gotten out of the vehicle again, smoked more of Tozim’s cigarettes, and by then it was time to get moving. She’d climbed back behind the wheel, turned the nose of the car east, and found a dirt track used by the border guards that took her back to the bridge.
She saw the van, parked on the slope, before she stopped the Lada. Her watch read exactly nine minutes to eight, and when she looked south, across the river, she could see the Afghan checkpoint. She shut off the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition, then pulled out the radio set, fitting the earpiece into place before switching the unit on and slipping it into her pocket. She climbed out of the car, and had to fight to keep herself from gagging. The air was rank from the river, fouled with a mix of chemical runoff and human waste, an odor that invaded the sinuses and clung to the back of her throat. The heat augmented it, and Chace hoped the stench wouldn’t be quite so strong from the bridge, but expected that it would be worse.
There was a crackle in her ear, and then a man’s voice, gravelly and American. “Shere Khan, this is Baloo, respond.”
She keyed her radio, watching the activity of the guards on the Uzbek side of the bridge, walking their patrol along the concrete roadblocks. “Go ahead.”
“Proceed as planned.”
“You have a location on Kaa?”
There was a hiss in her ear as the CIA man, Tower, paused while keeping the line open. “We have overwatch on Kaa. You may proceed as planned.”
Chace moved around to the hood of the car, only marginally relieved by the news. She glanced again to the van parked off the main road leading to the bridge, saw the flash of a lens. She wondered who was in the vehicle with Tower, handling the camera. Perhaps it was Riess, and she liked that idea. Riess had been a part of it the last time; it seemed right to her that he participate again now.
“Should I say cheese?” she asked. “Where’s Bagheera?”
Lankford’s voice broke in, choppier than Tower’s had been. “We’re in position, holding.”
She turned her attention back to the bridge, following it across the river to the Afghan side, over a kilometer away. She could see movement at the checkpoint, vehicles, but without optics had no hope of making out Lankford and Kostum’s position.
“Understood,” Chace said.
“Here they come,” Tower said.
Chace heard the cars coming along the main road first, the helicopter second, coming from the center of Termez. The helo looked like another Sikorsky, or perhaps it was the same Sikorsky that had pursued her when she’d run in the Audi, she couldn’t be certain. She watched as two Uzbek Army Jeeps led a black Mercedes-Benz, a third Jeep following, off the main road at the summit of the slope, where the helicopter was lovingly settling to the earth, blowing clouds of dust as it came in to land. For a second time, she wished she had optics, could confirm that the boy was in the helo.
The
Sikorsky’s rotors slowed, then stopped, and she saw activity around the Benz, figures moving, passengers shifting from the helo to the car. She imagined, rather than heard, the sound of the vehicle doors slamming, the engines starting, and then the convoy was moving again, the two Jeeps again taking the lead back to the road, the Benz close behind. The line of cars started down the road, past the parked van, toward the foot of the bridge.
Trying to ignore the stench from the river, Chace began walking toward the checkpoint.
CHAPTER 47
Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—
Termez, “Friendship Bridge”
29 August, 0754 Hours (GMT+5:00)
The windows on the Benz were tinted, and Riess couldn’t see who rode inside as the minor motorcade passed them, making its way down to the bridge. He’d switched to the camera, and as soon as the last Jeep passed, put the lens back on Tara-not-Tracy, now walking slowly along the access road to the foot of the bridge. She was wearing the same clothes he’d last seen her in, right down—he suspected—to the blood-spattered boots, but with the addition of sunglasses.
“You going to tell me what’s going on?” Riess asked as he took another two shots, then moved his focus to the Benz, now coming to a halt perhaps ten yards from the checkpoint.
“You know what’s going on,” Tower said.
“What’s with all the code names? Who’s Bagheera?”
“He’s with Shere Khan, on the Afghan side. Take a look across the bridge.”
“And Kaa? Ikki?”
“Just take a look at the Afghan side, Chuck, tell me what you see.”
Riess panned the lens from the Benz, its doors still closed, to the foot of the bridge, then followed its line across the muddy water of the river to the Afghan side, settling his view again on the cluster of newly painted buildings there. He’d maxed the telephoto and could make out figures, but not much detail. There was a fair amount of activity, Afghan border guards at their posts, and an SUV of some sort, what he thought might be a Jeep Cherokee, parked near the gate at the far side of the bridge. A thin black-haired man in civilian clothes was speaking to one of the border guards, another man with him, Afghani from the way he was dressed. Riess could make out a smear of white around the man’s right hand, as if it was wrapped in a scarf or otherwise bandaged.
“I’ve got two men, one of them could be Ruslan if he’s gone native,” Riess said.
“It’s not Ruslan,” Tower told him. “He’s in Mazar-i, lying low.”
Riess lowered the camera slightly, puzzled. “He thinks it’s a setup?”
“He’s got a reason to be paranoid.”
“Is it a setup?”
“Yeah, but Ruslan’s not the target.”
“Who’s Ikki?”
Tower grinned. “Uzbek military. I was talking to an Army captain named Arkitov.”
“About?”
“Security. Eyes on the road, Chuck, c’mon. You’re supposed to be documenting this for the Ambassador.”
Riess bit back more questions, brought the camera up once more, locating Tara-not-Tracy again, still strolling toward the Uzbek checkpoint. He snapped off three pictures in quick succession.
“One for the scrapbook?” Tower asked him.
“Bite me,” Riess said. “Sir.”
Tower laughed.
Riess next moved the camera to the bridge, where the border guards had all come to attention. The soldiers in the Jeeps had already leaped down, fanning out to form a perimeter. For a second, it seemed vaguely silly to him, until Riess remembered where they were, and that to the right sniper with the right rifle, one thousand meters could be considered an easy shot to make.
An aide jumped out from the front of the Benz, running around to the passenger door and opening it, and Riess snapped another set of photographs as he watched Sevara Malikov-Ganiev emerge from the vehicle. She’d adopted a more conservative style of dress since ascending to the Presidency, wearing a tailored business suit that Riess guessed was linen, her hair up, sunglasses hiding her eyes. She took the man’s offered hand, and Riess saw that she was holding a small, plush lion in her other. Once she was out of the car, she turned back to help Stepan out of the vehicle.
The boy looked confused, Riess thought, and frightened. Stepan had been dressed in what Riess supposed were his best clothes, very Western, and for a moment he had to wonder if Sevara ordered from Baby Gap or the like. Stepan sported toddler chinos and a blue button-down shirt, and he tugged after him in one hand a backpack, made for a child at least five years older than he, with the image of a Disney character large on its outward side.
As Riess watched, Sevara crouched down on her haunches, setting her free hand on the boy’s shoulder, speaking to him, and he could tell she was trying to reassure the boy. She clasped his hand and began walking him toward the bridge.
Riess moved his view back toward the Lada, trying to find Tara-not-Tracy, and saw that she was already halfway to the checkpoint. Her pace hadn’t increased. Three soldiers were heading toward her, and they intercepted her with twenty feet to go, two of the three leveling their weapons at her.
“What the hell . . . ?”
“Easy, Chuck. It’s a search, that’s all.”
Tower was right, and Riess snapped off another half-dozen shots, filling the camera’s data card, as the third soldier searched Tara-not-Tracy, hands efficiently running over her body. He swapped cards quickly, and when he brought the camera back up again, she was continuing toward President Malikov and Stepan, the soldiers following after her.
Tara-not-Tracy slowed, then stopped, leaving ten feet between herself and Stepan, President Malikov, and the foot of the bridge.
“Moment of truth,” Tower said.
CHAPTER 48
Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—
Termez, “Friendship Bridge”
29 August, 0758 Hours (GMT+5:00)
Chace stopped, keeping her hands loose at her sides, palms open. She could see that the boy had been crying, and she thought about how often she’d seen him cry, and she sincerely hoped that this would be the last time. He held the oversized backpack by its strap. It only made the child seem smaller, more vulnerable.
She smiled at Stepan, and, without looking away from him, said, “Madam President.”
“You’re the one taking him across?” President Malikov-Ganiev’s English was flawless.
“Yes, ma’am.”
President Malikov tilted her head, issued an order in Uzbek. One of the soldiers, an officer, stepped forward, and she spoke to him again. The officer saluted, then sprinted back to the foot of the bridge, calling out. Chace looked away from Stepan long enough to confirm what the officer was doing, watched as he was handed a set of binoculars and then climbed up onto one of the checkered cement roadblocks to get a better view of the Afghan side.
Chace put her attention back on the child, the boy still watching her warily.
“Hello, Stepan,” she said to him in English. “My name’s Tara. I don’t know if you remember me.”
Beside the boy, President Sevara Malikov-Ganiev tilted her head slightly, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. Then she looked down to Stepan and spoke in Uzbek softly, and the contrast between the voice she’d used to issue her orders to the soldier and tone she used on the boy was stark.
Stepan stared up at Chace, then spoke in response, so softly that, even if it had been in English, she doubted she’d have understood it.
President Malikov turned back to Chace, saying in English, “My nephew says he remembers you. You’re the one who tried to take Stepan and his father out of the country back in February?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re the one that Ahtam tortured.”
Chace looked at President Malikov-Ganiev, trying to read her expression behind the sunglasses, her tone. There was nothing in it one way or another to indicate approval of what had been done to her, or disapproval.
“One of the many,” Chace a
nswered, and her voice was flat.
From the bridge, the officer came jogging back, delivering another salute and then speaking quickly. President Malikov-Ganiev frowned, and the officer stepped back.
“Where is my brother?” the President asked Chace. “Why can they not find him?”
“He’s waiting in Mazar-i-Sharif, Madam President. He was afraid of another attempt on his life.”
President Malikov-Ganiev’s frown went from annoyance to anger, and she hissed softly, cursing. Chace caught the name “Ahtam,” but nothing else.
“So you bring Stepan across, and then you two join my brother in Mazar-i-Sharif,” the President said to Chace.
“Yes, ma’am.”
For a moment, President Malikov-Ganiev didn’t move, and Chace was certain the woman was staring at her from behind her sunglasses. Then she bent back down to Stepan and spoke to him again. Stepan responded, just as quietly as he had the first time, and President Malikov-Ganiev seemed to repeat herself, her voice gaining an edge. The boy looked up at her with wide eyes, then to Chace, and then to the bridge.
The President turned to Chace. She held out the stuffed animal in her hand. “Take him and go.”
“Thank you, Madam President,” Chace said. She took the stuffed lion, and then she reached out for Stepan’s hand.
The boy hesitated, and President Malikov-Ganiev snapped at him, and the anger in her voice was unmistakable. Stepan flinched, then offered Chace his hand, and she took it, felt it small and a little cold in her own.
“It’ll be all right,” Chace told Stepan.
“Go,” President Malikov-Ganiev said. “Go, and never come back. Tell my brother, he never comes back.”
Chace turned away without answering, holding the boy’s hand. After a half-dozen steps, she stopped and took his backpack, slipping her arm through the strap, hoisting it onto her shoulder. She offered Stepan her hand once more, and this time he took it without hesitation.