Out of Range: A Novel (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-seven

F
our armed men escorted Charlie and Faruz into the large building through a heavy wooden door that looked like something out of a medieval castle. Inside, the walls were blue tile and the vaulted ceiling was held up by thick stone columns. The air was unusually warm, musty and humid—almost to the point of being steamy—and their footsteps echoed eerily in the silence of the strange building.

“What is this place?” Charlie asked.

“Ancient bathhouse,” Faruz said. “My guess, it go back to at least sixteenth century. I hear Byko brings his buddies here to—”

“Shut your mouth,” one of the men said, goosing Faruz in the back with the muzzle of his carbine.

They were marched down a hallway. An open archway to one side revealed another vaulted space, this one so full of steam that Charlie almost couldn’t make out the intricate tile work on the far side of the room. In the center of the room was a small stone pool in which several unclothed women—very beautiful and very young—were lounging. The young women stared at them blankly, their eyes dull and resentful.

To the right was another steam room, this one containing several bearded men, one of them in the throes of a massage by a half-naked girl who couldn’t have been more than thirteen.

Disgust rippled through Charlie’s insides. But there was something else there, too. The sinking feeling that he had absolutely no idea what he was walking into. Byko had been a playboy in his heyday but what was going on here was something close to pedophilia. What had Alisher Byko become?

Back in the car, the first thought that ran through Charlie’s mind was that Byko must be a deranged lunatic. A drug-addled, lonely, love-struck guy who’d thought he had a chance at seducing Julie. That he’d lured her to Uzbekistan under false pretenses and then when it hadn’t gone the way he’d planned, he’d sent John Quinn to America to kidnap her and bring her back to his lair. If he couldn’t woo her, Charlie figured, he’d take her by force. The old-fashioned, medieval way. And these girls here were certainly proof that Byko had forsaken any modern, Westernized view of women.

But Charlie quickly remembered Quinn and those questions in his basement: Who was Julie working for? Who had she seen in London? Clearly, this wasn’t just some lovesick bully demanding to have the woman he desired. Quinn, and by proxy Byko, wrongly believed that Julie was somehow out to get Byko, that she had set him up in some fashion. This was why they’d taken her and now it was Charlie’s job to convince them they were crazy. But there is no way to prove a negative. If someone is paranoid enough, any denial that you give will only reinforce their suspicions. There had to be another way out of this.

And then the idea hit him. The one way he might be able to outmaneuver Byko. To use Byko’s greatest fear against him. He’d gone underground, after all. If Charlie could convince Byko that he could expose his location . . .

He took out his cell phone and turned it off, but he kept it in the palm of his left hand. If it came down to it, it would be a bluff of the highest order. But it just might work.

The guards led Charlie and Faruz through two more sets of doors. The next room was much cooler, and—after the mugginess of the steam rooms—the air felt bone dry. It had the look of a library in an English gentlemen’s club—except for the books, whose spines all bore Russian script.

There were half a dozen people in the room, large silent men in dark suits who were not going to a great deal of trouble to hide the pistols under their coats.

A man rose from a leather chair in the corner, a broad smile on his face.

It was Alisher Byko.

He was a little thinner than he had once been, with some gray in his mane of fashionably cropped black hair, but there was nothing to indicate that anything fundamental had changed about him as his arms spread wide, calling out in his flawless Etonian diction, “Charlie, my friend, how long has it been?”

Byko kissed him on each cheek then pushed Charlie away, holding him by the shoulders and staring at him with intent black eyes.

“You Americans, always with the weights and the gym. Rude good health personified!” He gestured at one of the heavy leather upholstered chairs next to him. “Sit! Sit! I must know what brings you here. Our old friend Faruz told my people it was very important.”

This was not what Charlie had expected. He’d assumed that Byko would either play the heavy right out of the gate or the concerned friend devastated by Julie’s disappearance. Instead, he was feigning ignorance. The chess match was under way and Charlie had only one move.

“You didn’t get my email?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Byko replied with the utmost interest. “What did it say?”

“It said that Julie was kidnapped. And that she’d been brought to Uzbekistan.”

Byko cupped a hand over his mouth. “But why?”

“I thought maybe you could help me with that.”

“Me?”

“I know that you and she have been corresponding, Alisher. I know that she opened up a second email account to keep it from me. I read all of the emails. I know that you begged her to come here and last week she finally did. You met, I take it, in either Tashkent or Samarkand. What happened there, I have no idea. But she came home two days ago and the next night she was kidnapped. Presumably by your enemies. Because they believe she has valuable information about you.”

Byko’s face grew deadly serious. “And how do you know that she’s in Uzbekistan?”

“Because the same nice folks who took Julie broke into my house and tortured me for six hours to find out if I knew anything. Which I don’t.”

“Knew anything about what?”

This was starting to go as Charlie had hoped. Him confiding in his old friend, asking for help, protesting innocence and ignorance. And it was all sounding eminently believable.

“They kept asking me who she worked for, what she knew, who she stopped to see in London on her way. It’s crazy, Alisher.”

“What do you think they could have meant?” Byko said, fishing. “When they asked who she worked for?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. All I know is that something led her to reach out to you. And then you took advantage of that. Eleven months of seduction, Alisher. I read it all. And then she lied to me. Told me she was going to New York. She flew halfway around the world to get laid and now somebody’s got her in a warehouse somewhere, probably torturing her to death to find out how to get to you. You never should have had her come, Alisher. Not when there’s this much heat on you.”

“You think it is Karimov’s people who have her?” Byko asked gravely.

“I would assume. Or maybe CIA.”

“And how do you know that they’ve brought her to Uzbekistan? Why not just interrogate her in Los Angeles somewhere?”

“The men who came to my house—I overheard them speaking. I know she’s here.”

“And who else have you told about this?” Byko asked.

Now Charlie began to see what Byko was after. “No one. Besides you and Faruz.”

“Because you trust us.”

“I know that you love her,” Charlie said. “It’s not a thrilling idea as a husband, but as the man who needs to get her back, I figured it counts for something.”

“As a matter of fact, it does count. It counts for a great deal in this matter.”

“Then help me find her.”

Charlie searched Byko’s eyes and could have sworn he saw a flicker of compassion or empathy. And the complete scenario flashed in Charlie’s head, a prayer for how the rest of this might go: Byko tells Charlie to sit tight, that he’ll put out feelers for Julie, a few hours go by and Byko’s men miraculously produce her. Byko emerges as the hero who saved her, Charlie and Julie thank Byko immensely for all that he’s done and head home, allowing Byko to feel like Humphrey Bogart in
Casablanca
. It seemed plausible enough, if Charlie had only managed to convince Byko of Julie’s innocence.

Then Hasan stepped forward, Bluetooth in his ear, and approached Byko. Byko leaned forward eagerly as Hasan whispered something to him. The debriefing couldn’t have lasted more than ten seconds, but as Hasan backed away, Charlie felt an enormous shift in Byko’s energy and body language. His adversary seemed to be steeling himself for battle, any remnants of their past friendship drifting away.

“Something wrong?” Charlie felt obliged to ask.

The tiniest hint of a smile curled on Byko’s lips. “You haven’t asked me if we slept together.”

Charlie clenched his teeth. “That’s not something I need to know.”

“You’re not curious?”

“She’s the mother of my children. I need to bring her home. That’s all that matters right now.”

“She told me that she was coming here for some business meetings in Tashkent,” Byko began, his voice cold. “That she had meetings arranged in several other countries in the region. That all turned out to be untrue.”

Charlie could feel Byko’s drug-addled bloodshot eyes boring into him, his suspicion and paranoia practically seeping out. Whatever Hasan had just told him, it had turned things against Julie.

“She lied to you because she was embarrassed,” Charlie reasoned. “She couldn’t admit that she was coming here only to see you.”

“And you know this how? Given that she lied to you as well?”

“Because I know how she thinks,” Charlie said, though half of him didn’t quite believe that.

“I think,” Byko replied, “that you know a great deal. A great deal more than you’re saying.”

Byko nodded to someone standing behind Charlie. Before Charlie could turn to see who it was, a lean man in an ugly taupe suit stepped forward. Carrying Charlie’s camera.

Byko’s eyes found Charlie’s for an instant and then he grabbed for the Nikon. He turned it on and tried to scroll through the stored photographs. After a moment, he looked up.

“Where is the disc?”

Charlie just stared at him.

“I had you followed at the airport,” Byko conceded. “I know you photographed the tarmac. Now where is the disc?”

Charlie reached into his pocket and held it up. “You’re more than welcome to it,” Charlie said, tossing it at Byko’s feet. “But I’ve already downloaded the photos and sent them to Michael Vance at the American Embassy.”

Byko eyed the disc, but refused to pick it up. For such a large man, Hasan moved like a cat. In an instant, he had the disc between his meaty fingers and began loading it into the camera.

“So . . . ,” Byko said, exhaling, “Michael Vance?”

“That’s right,” Charlie bluffed. “And everything’s completely documented. The route of the container. Every payment, every manifest, every customs form. The entire file is sitting on the ambassador’s desk as we speak.”

Byko remained motionless, eyes hooded.

Charlie held up his hand, finally exposing the phone in his left palm. “Right now, all I have to do is turn on my phone and the Foreign Office will instantly know where I am. How long do you think it’ll take for the NSA to get one of their satellites homed in on this very spot?”

Hasan handed Byko the camera, but he no longer seemed interested in its contents. Charlie had his attention.

“I don’t know what she did to you, Alisher. Maybe she rejected you, maybe she found out something about you that you didn’t want the world to know . . . It doesn’t matter to me. As far as I’m concerned, the whole thing is one big misunderstanding. No harm no foul. You give me Julie, we walk out of here, you never see or hear about us again.”

“And how do I know you won’t just turn on your phone when you get out of here? Or tell them where I am when you get to safety?”

“Mutual deterrence.”

“Mutual deterrence?”

“You were able to get to us in Los Angeles. I know that you could do it again with a snap of your fingers. Even from prison. All I want is to get out of here. All I care about is Julie.”

“And yourself,” Byko said. “That you made perfectly clear when you left here six years ago. You had so much ‘passion’ when it was easy, but as soon as there was something at risk for you, you fled with your tail between your legs. You’re a hypocrite and a coward, just like the country you live in.”

“If that’s what you want to believe,” Charlie said, “I won’t argue with you. Give me Julie and you have my word, I will drive away from here and never look back.”

Byko seemed to seriously consider Charlie’s proposal, but then he looked past Charlie to someone by the door.

“Is it true?” Byko asked. “What he says about Michael Vance and the phone?”

Charlie turned to see Faruz framed in the doorway, the barest glimmer of a smile on his lips. “He only found out Quinn works for you ten minutes ago,” Faruz said coolly. “The Americans know nothing.”

A sluice of nausea rushed through Charlie as he absorbed the betrayal. “You sold me out? You fucking sold me out?”

“What? You think I am suppose be loyal to you? Only reason you ever came here to begin with was so you get your Pulitzer! So you can have stories for cocktail party in L.A.”

Charlie rushed at Faruz, but Hasan shoved Charlie back.

“How much did he pay you?” Charlie shouted. “For Julie’s life? For mine?”

Faruz wagged a finger at him. “I can feed my mother’s whole town for a year with what he paid me today. I have to watch out for
my
family now.”

Charlie’s head was spinning. He couldn’t fathom when and how this had happened.

“So . . . this whole time? At the tarmac? All of that driving around?”

Faruz shrugged. “Selling the con, Charlie. Just like democracy and free speech and the rights of man.”

“Hasan,” Byko barked, cutting off the conversation. It was one word, but everyone in the room knew it was an order.

The big slab-faced bodyguard drew his pistol. Charlie thought for sure that his life was over. But then the hulking man pointed his gun at Faruz. The betrayer’s face registered shock, realizing what was about to happen.

“Mr. Byko, I—”

The bullet caught him in the side of the face. A cloud of dark liquid exploded in the air and Faruz fell with a thud.

“The thing I’ve always detested about Faruz,” Byko said, “is that he’s merely an opportunist. No sense of loyalty whatsoever.”