by Greg Rucka
She lowered the binoculars, and saw Kostum watching her, and then she understood, and the humiliation and betrayal that burst open inside her at having been played so well and so effectively was sickening. It all made sense, then, what Ruslan had done and why he had done it. Why he had demanded that she be the one to bring Stepan across, why Ruslan had claimed that the fear for his own life was greater than his concern for his son’s. Chace understood it all, and worse, understood just how effectively Ruslan had found her blind spot and exploited it.
She saw it all, and she saw the reason for it, but Kostum had seen the realization coming, too, and the pistol was coming out from the folds of his shirt, held in his left hand. With his other, Kostum held Stepan with an open palm on the little boy’s chest, pressing him against the backseat, keeping him still. The bandage around his hand was filthy and stained, and looked like a tumor where his hand pressed against the little boy’s breast.
“Chris—” Chace started to say, but the pistol was already pressing into the back of Lankford’s head, and it was too late for any move.
“Stop,” Kostum said.
Lankford stopped the Cherokee in the middle of the road.
“I take son to him now,” Kostum said. “You both out.”
“Where is he?” Chace asked. “Where’s Ruslan?”
“Out.”
“He’s going to kill his sister. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Kostum pushed the barrel of his pistol harder into the back of Lankford’s head, and in her peripheral vision, Chace could see Minder Three wince, his hands still tight on the wheel. The gun was a Makarov, a Russian pistol, and from the looks of it, acquired during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Not the best gun in the world, and not the most accurate outside of fifteen meters or so, but here and now, perfectly suited for its job.
“Out,” Kostum repeated, then slid his eyes to Chace, and his expression softened, almost to a plea. “Please.”
“Where’d he get the Starstreak? From you?”
Kostum’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t move, and neither did the pistol, and Chace could see him struggling with the conflict. She and Lankford had saved his life on the road to Mazar-i-Sharif, when Zahidov’s men had ambushed them, after all. There was a debt to be paid.
“You’re the one who sold them to Zahidov in the first place, aren’t you?” Chace persisted. “Kept one for yourself?”
“Please.” Kostum spoke through clenched teeth. “I take son now.”
“You gave us protection. Pashtunwali.”
Kostum turned his head to Chace. Trapped beneath his palm, Stepan seemed frozen in place, staring straight ahead, at nothing, young eyes dead, a witness already of too much violence. Beneath their voices, the engine idled softly, waiting.
“He asks my help for his revenge. You do not understand—”
Lankford twisted his neck to the left, wrenching himself about in the seat, the Makarov slipping from his head, and when he did, Chace lunged. The interior of the car exploded with the sound of the pistol’s report, the windshield shattering, and Chace felt something slap her face, a hot line burning across her cheek. She bore down on the weapon, hearing Stepan’s screams as if her head were inside a bucket of water, her ears ringing from the gunshot, and she kept her grip on the Makarov, twisting it with both hands, turning it away from Kostum’s finger trapped inside the trigger guard, refusing him a second shot.
Then Lankford had his Browning out, pointed at Kostum’s face, and Chace had the Makarov in her hand, and Stepan was wailing, and Kostum was falling back against his seat, shaking his injured left hand. The look on his face was devoid of anger, even of pain, just an acknowledgment of his failure, and already Chace could see him finding his resolve. This wasn’t what Kostum had wanted, but in its way, it satisfied his obligations. He had tried, and he had failed.
Lankford was saying something, but Chace couldn’t hear him. She saw Kostum start slightly in his seat, glance down at his shirt, then look back to them. With the pistol in one hand, pointed at him, Chace leaned forward, digging into the folds of his shirt with the other. Kostum’s expression tightened with anger, but he didn’t move, and she found the phone nestled near his hip. When she pulled it out, her hearing had returned enough that she could dimly make out the trill of an incoming call.
“Get him out of the car,” Chace said to Lankford, then turned her attention to the phone.
It was another satellite model, not unlike the Iridium she’d brought with her to Tashkent in February. She set the Makarov in her lap, pulling the earpiece from the radio free while using her teeth to extend the antenna on the phone. She punched the receive button with her thumb and put the unit to her ear.
“Hello, Ruslan,” Chace said, and she hoped she wasn’t shouting.
There was a moment’s pause. “You have my son with you?”
Chace looked at the boy, his face stained with tears, snot bubbling over his upper lip, miserable in the backseat.
“I do. Where are you? I’ll bring him to you.”
“In a few minutes. After Sevara has boarded her helicopter.”
“Now,” Chace disagreed. “Or I don’t bring him to you at all.”
There was a second pause, Ruslan hesitating, trapped between conflicting desires.
“You kill her, you’ll never see your son again, Ruslan. Even if you do manage to disappear into Afghanistan for the rest of your life, you’ll never see Stepan again.”
“You will kill him?”
“I’ll take him back to Uzbekistan. Your sister’s husband is still there.”
His muttered curse came over the line.
“You’re running out of time, Ruslan.”
“Come toward the water,” he told her. “Quickly.”
He hung up.
Chace shifted the Makarov to her coat pocket, then opened her door and moved around the hood to the driver’s side, to climb back in. Lankford stood with Kostum, now at the side of the road, the Browning still pointed at him.
“Where are you going?”
“Ruslan’s down by the river. I’m going to get the missile.”
Lankford didn’t look away from Kostum. “You’re taking the kid with you?”
“He wants his son.”
“And Ruslan will just hand the Starstreak over in trade, will he?”
“For the boy’s sake, let’s hope so,” Chace said.
He’d taken a position another half-kilometer away, along a dried wash at the edge of the water, and Chace saw him from a distance, and thought that he’d picked a fine place to stage an assassination. She’d expected him to take higher ground, but instead, he’d gone for lower, using the shelter cut from the earth by the water long ago. It was a good spot, not unlike the one Chace had picked for the failed rendezvous with Porter nearly seven months earlier, and well within the maximum range of the Starstreak.
He had the MANPAD deployed, resting on his shoulder, nose to the ground. Chace guided the Cherokee toward him along the river’s edge, closing the distance as quickly as she could manage without giving him the impression she would run him down. When he thought she’d come far enough, he lifted the missile and pointed it at the car, indicating that she should stop.
Chace killed the engine, stared out at Ruslan through the shattered windshield. Behind her, still belted into his seat, she heard Stepan snuffle as the latest bout of his tears finally subsided.
“Step out of the car,” Ruslan called to her.
From the backseat she heard Stepan cry out, surprised and frightened and delighted all at once, hearing his father’s voice. Chace could hear the child moving, straining against the lap belt, caught a glimpse of the little boy’s reflection in the rearview mirror as he struggled against the safety restraint.
Chace got out of the car, slamming her door, then looking again to Ruslan. He was dressed much as he had been the last time she’d seen him. About two meters past him, resting in the dirt, was the crate for the Starstreak, opened and e
mpty, and propped against it, a Kalashnikov. She wondered idly how he’d gotten himself and the missile into position, then realized there would have been a thousand ways to do so, that all it took was money to bribe the right people and the will to make it happen.
“You killed Kostum?” Ruslan asked.
She shook her head. He was still holding the Starstreak as before, the launch tube roughly parallel to the ground, but skewed away from her, his eye clear of the aiming unit. Chace turned, looking in the direction Ruslan faced. Across the water, the Uzbek minefield sloped upward, toward the electrified fence. She could see the bridge in the distance, and a couple of vehicles parked near the checkpoint, but not the Sikorsky.
“You’re waiting until she takes off,” Chace said.
“If my son had not been aboard, I would have shot her down before she landed.”
Stepan called out from inside the Cherokee, his voice climbing in volume and pitch. Ruslan didn’t answer, but she saw him look to the vehicle, and for a moment thought he might actually lower the Starstreak and go to his son.
But he didn’t.
“Then what?” Chace asked him. “You and Stepan disappear into Afghanistan, never to return?”
“It is a country made for hiding,” he answered.
“Zahidov’s dead.”
“A good start, but not enough.”
“Put it down, Ruslan.”
He shook his head. “I must do this.”
“Forget that she’s your sister. She’s the President of Uzbekistan.”
“She killed my father. She killed my wife!”
“Zahidov killed your wife.”
“At her request! At her pleasure! She is a monster, you know this!”
His voice was shaking now, churning with anger and desperation, with his need for Chace to understand. And she did understand—too well she understood. Blood cried for blood.
“She’s the President of Uzbekistan,” Chace repeated. “I can’t let you kill her. Please, put it down, Ruslan. You have your son, let that be enough.”
“It isn’t enough!” He glared at her, then turned his head slightly, suddenly, and she knew he was listening for the rumble of the helicopter lifting off from across the river. So far, there was only the running water of the Amu Darya and their own voices.
“It isn’t enough,” he repeated.
Chace turned, walking around the rear of the vehicle to the passenger side. She looked back toward the bridge as she did, thinking again that Ruslan had done an excellent job of picking his spot. The helo would be visible in the air as it turned back toward Termez. Fired from here, the Starstreak could hit it in mere seconds, and there was even a chance that the missile would never be seen coming.
When she reached Stepan’s door, Ruslan snapped, “Leave him inside.”
Inside the Cherokee, Stepan was looking at her, wide-eyed. Chace turned.
“Put it down.”
“I cannot.”
She opened the passenger door, reaching across the little boy to unfasten his seatbelt.
“Please,” Ruslan pleaded. “Leave him in the car!”
Chace finished unfastening the boy, caught him beneath the armpits, and swung him out of the vehicle. She set Stepan down on the rough sand, facing his father.
“Don’t do this!”
“Ota,” she told the little boy. She needn’t have said anything.
As soon as her hands left him, Stepan was off, a full toddler run, arms flailing, legs pumping, making straight for Ruslan. Chace straightened, watching the little boy as she pulled the Makarov from her pocket. She followed after him, slower, the gun in her right hand.
“For pity’s sake, Ruslan,” she said, “put the damn thing down.”
She thought she saw him consider it, saw the launch tube of the missile dip toward the earth once more just as Stepan reached him. The little boy threw his arms around his father’s legs, and Ruslan looked down at his son, then up at Chace, and there was no escaping the pain on his face.
“Put him back in the car! I am begging you!”
Chace continued to approach, shaking her head. From across the river, she could hear the Sikorsky, the echo of the rotors spinning up. She saw Ruslan’s head jerk to the right, hearing it as well.
“You have to decide what’s more important, Ruslan,” Chace told him. “Your son or your revenge.”
“She raped and murdered his mother!”
“And you’re about to murder his aunt.”
“Tell me! You tell me! Tell me that you wouldn’t have killed the man who murdered the father of your child.”
Chace brought the Makarov up, holding it in both hands, placing the sights high on Ruslan’s body, as far away from his son as she dared.
“I did kill him,” she answered.
He wasn’t looking at her now, looking instead past her, focusing on where the Sikorsky would rise into sight. The noise of the helicopter went from faint to suddenly much louder, and without needing to turn and look, Chace knew it was off the ground. The window was open for his shot, would only remain so for a few more seconds.
Ruslan looked down at his son, still clinging tightly to his legs, then to Chace. He hoisted the Starstreak back into firing position on his shoulder, turned his face to settle his right eye against the sight.
“You are the mother of a child,” Ruslan Mihailovich Malikov reminded her. “You will not shoot me in front of my son.”
“You’re wrong,” Chace said, and then she shot him four times in the chest.
CHAPTER 54
London—Camden—Chace Family Residence
1 September, 0033 Hours GMT
She’d sent a message from Mazar-i-Sharif before she and Lankford had caught the transport to Turkey, telling Val that she was on her way home, and that she hoped to see her and Tamsin in London on her return. It was a break in protocol to send any such communication while on a job, and if Crocker had known about it he’d have gone into fits, but after seeing Stepan back to Uzbekistan and returned to Sevara Malikov-Ganiev’s care, Chace didn’t really give a damn. They had the last Starstreak back and Ruslan Malikov was no longer a problem for anyone except perhaps his son.
If that didn’t make Crocker happy, Chace had no interest in performing whatever task would.
The little boy had looked at her with eyes devoid of any comprehension or soul when she’d pulled him from his father’s body. There had been no more tears and no more sobs, there had been no sound at all. There had been nothing because, Chace suspected, Stepan Malikov no longer had anything.
She told herself that he would forget, that he would recover, and on the plane to Frankfurt, Lankford tried to tell her the same thing.
Both of them knew it for the lie it was.
Her house was quiet and still and the lights were all off when Chace came through the door, and she wondered if Val had received the message. She shut and locked the front door behind her, hung her coat on the stand, dropped her go-bag at its foot. She would have to replace its contents, substitute clean clothes for the dirty, replace those things she had used.
Then she saw her mail piled neatly on the table beside the couch.
She checked in the guest room, parting the door just enough to confirm that Val was indeed asleep there, then made her way to the bedroom. She stripped, changed into pajamas, and then went to look in on Tamsin, finding her sixteen-month-old daughter awake and on her feet in her crib, waiting quietly in the darkness.
“Mama,” Tamsin said.
“That’s right,” Chace agreed, taking the child in her arms. “Mama.”
GLOSSARY
Article Five
Referring to NATO signatories; Article Five declares that an attack against any one of the member nations is an attack against all of the signatories; further, that member nations shall, in the instance of such attack, render assistance and aid to fellow members.
BOX
Used to refer to the Security Services, more commonly known as MI-5 (U.K.
)
C
Head of SIS; also Chief of Service
CAO
Cultural Affairs Officer
CENTCOM
United States Central Command, oversees U.S. security interests in 25 Middle Eastern and Arab nations
Chancery
The principal office of an Embassy, housing the Ambassador’s office
CIA
Central Intelligence Agency (U.S.)
CIS
Confederacy of Independent States
COB
“Close of Business”
COM
Chief of Mission (U.S. State Department); generally refers to the Ambassador
conops
Concept of Operations—official document describing parameters and goals assigned to a prospective operation, and securing necessary permissions to pursue the undertaking
COS
Chief of Station (CIA)
CQC
Close Quarters Combat
D
Deputy Secretary of State (U.S.)
D-Int
Director of Operations (SIS); sometimes Director Intelligence
D-Ops
Director of Operations (SIS); sometimes Director Operations
DC
Deputy Chief of Service (SIS); also Deputy Chief
DCM
Deputy Chief of Mission (U.S. State Department)
DOO
Duty Operations Officer
DPM
Deputy Prime Minister, DPMs plural
EIJ
Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Al-Jihad al-Islami; founded late 1970s, merged with al-Qaeda in June 2001. Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri one of its founders.
FCO
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (U.K.)