Out of Range: A Novel (9 page)

Chapter Fourteen

T
here was only one set of connecting flights that would get Charlie to Tashkent that day and the outbound from LAX didn’t leave for another ninety-two minutes. Which left him just enough time to get to his bank. The one thing he knew he would need in Uzbekistan was money. Cash on hand for bribes and payoffs. It was a way of life there, and without it he would barely make it out of the airport.

Inside the Wells Fargo on Montana Avenue, he was ushered into an office by the assistant manager, a chatty Rubenesque young woman in a suit that was about one size too small. “Hi, Mr. Davis. Read your piece last week in the
Times
about that budget thing. Amazing, isn’t it, how these crooks think you can—”

“I’m in a bit of a rush,” he said, cutting her off. “If you don’t mind?”

Her smile faded. “Sure, sure, of course.”

Charlie slid a legal pad across the table. “I need to move some money around. It’s all written down right there.”

“Okay, yeah, sure,” she said. “Now has anybody talked to you about the tax implications of taking money out of a Roth IRA and moving it to—”

She caught the gleam of impatience in his eye and this time cut herself off.

“I’ll just be a minute,” she said, hopping up from the desk.

The instant she stepped away and he had a moment to himself, his mind turned to Becca and the children. Clearly, there was no one he would rather have left them with, no one he and Julie felt more comfortable with, but still—he already felt a physical ache at being separated from them. During their good-byes, he’d hugged each of them so tightly that he feared he might actually crush them. But Oliver was resolute as ever, without an ounce of sentiment that Charlie should stay. And Meagan had given him a small drawing she’d recently made in preschool—“for Mommy,” she’d said. He’d caught Becca’s eye in that moment and they both nearly lost it. But she’d rebounded quickly and whisked the kids into the playroom for a game of Chutes and Ladders. That was the last he’d seen of them before he left the house.

He’d considered having Becca take the kids somewhere else—to be safer—but he was quite sure that Bull was done with all of them. Most important, he’d overheard Bull saying, “We’re going to have a hard enough time getting the woman” to Tashkent, which meant that Bull and his goons were probably already out of the country and on their way to Uzbekistan with Julie. How he was planning on taking her there—and why—was the question that was plaguing Charlie. But as his mind turned to that question, the assistant manager returned, chipper as ever.

“Okay, super, so we’ve got the IRA and 401(K) funds moved into checking. Was there anything else?”

“Now I’d like to make a withdrawal in this amount.” He wrote the amount on the legal pad.

$9,900.

“Would that be a cashier’s check?”

“Cash.”

The assistant bank manager adjusted her blouse over her substantial bosom, a nervous little smile on her face. Banks were supposed to report any cash transaction over $10,000. United States customs made you report it when you took anything greater than $10,000 outside the borders of the country.

The only people who moved cash around in $9,900 increments were people doing something outside the law.

Charlie flashed her an impish smile. “If you wouldn’t mind . . . ?”

“How would you like that then?”

“Twenties, fifties and hundreds,” Charlie said evenly.

She got up, ducked behind one of the cashiers and soon returned with the money. As she slowly counted it out on her desk, Charlie looked at his watch. It was getting tight.

“ . . . and ninety-nine hundred.” Charlie grabbed the money and headed out.

“Mr. Davis?” she called to him. “Your receipt . . . ?”

She held it aloft, as if this was what he had really come here for.

“You keep it,” he replied and bolted out the door.

B
ack in his car, he stuffed the cash into a money belt and started the engine. The flight to London left in seventy-nine minutes. Traffic permitting, he’d have barely enough time.

As he raced down the 405, trying not to think of his harrowing journey from the night before, Charlie forced himself to concentrate. To put himself in journalistic mode. To be an investigator. How would Bull, being ex–Special Forces, possibly working for the CIA or some other government agency, smuggle Julie from Los Angeles to Uzbekistan? Some years ago, Charlie had written an explosive story about extraordinary rendition, the process by which American prisoners were flown to foreign jurisdictions where local authorities didn’t feel particularly burdened by the Geneva Convention’s prohibition on torture. Uzbekistan was one of the major destinations for this practice. That might explain why Bull’s men were speaking Russian. He was most likely using Uzbek mercenaries to minimize exposure—particularly in a covert and risky play like the rendition of an American citizen to a foreign country.

But even with the tacit approval of foreign governments like Uzbekistan, a covert agency still had to be careful about how they transported a prisoner. To avoid any paper trail that might lead back to the American government, they were often taken out of the country using shell companies. There had been much political backlash in the past few years against the use of rendition, but Charlie suspected these front companies might still be in existence.

He picked up his phone and dialed Mac at the
Times.
“Hey, bud, I need a favor.”

“Name it.”

“I need you to track down an international shipment . . . It was probably sent out of the Port of Los Angeles. But I suppose it could have gone out of anyplace on the West Coast. Ultimate destination Uzbekistan.”

“That’s all you got? West Coast to Uzbekistan?”

“Start with a couple of freight forwarders. One’s called Global Reach Logistics and the other is called . . .” Charlie probed his memory. “Corrigan Brothers.”

“What story is this for?”

“It’s an . . .” Charlie tried to think of something plausible. “It’s in the realm of an extradition-type thing. The package would need to be in something big enough to hold at least one person.”

“A dude in a box—that sounds a lot more like extraordinary rendition to me . . .” Mac’s voice trailed off nervously. “I mean, if I’m going to be getting a visit from Homeland Security in the middle of the night I’d like to at least have—”

“It’s nothing like that.”

“Because Sal didn’t mention you were working on anything—”

“Mac, I said it’s nothing like that,” Charlie said sharply. “Now I’ll need everything you can find. The shipper, destination, identifying numbers on the container . . .”

“Uh-huh.” The kid sounded skittish.

Charlie felt a bit sordid about the possibility—however distant it might be—of exposing Mac to the same people who had invaded his house. But Charlie simply didn’t have the expertise to track something like this down on his own.

“One last thing,” Charlie added, “I need to get into Julie’s email. Her account seems to have been wiped. Is there any way to recover emails in an account that’s been erased like that?”

“Is she in some kind of trouble?”

“The less I tell you the better,” was all Charlie said, but he knew it would convey the urgency. And the risks. There was a long pause at the other end of the line. “Mac?”

“Depending on the mail provider, there’s probably a way, but Jesus, Charlie—”

“This is very important to me, Mac. Life and death important.”

Again, there was a long pause. Was he losing the kid?

Finally a frightened, halfhearted voice answered him. “Okay, Charlie, I’ll try.”

As he hung up the phone, Charlie pulled off the 405 at Century Boulevard. One mile from LAX. He still had fifty-three minutes to catch his plane.

Chapter Fifteen

C
harlie hadn’t slept on the flight over from L.A., not for even a minute, and exhaustion only contributed to his feelings of unease as he made his way through Heathrow and arrived at his gate. Three cheap cardboard posters on the wall indicated the gate was shared by Uzbek Air, National Airlines of Tajikistan and an airline with the optimistic name of Air! Line! Armenia!

Charlie surveyed the people around him. He could still look at the faces and gauge what ethnic groups they were from—Russians with their dyed-blond wives, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz. Some wore the blocky polyester suits of the post-Soviet republics while others donned the traditional flowing shirts and baggy pants of the region. The last time he’d seen this many people dressed like this was in Babur Square six years ago.

Charlie took out his phone and dialed Faruz again. This was his third call and he’d still heard nothing back. He left another message—this time leaving his flight details and arrival time. As he hung up, Charlie was hit with a stab of shame. Over all these years, he’d never once reached out to his old friend. For all Charlie knew, Faruz could be dead.

A thick accent crackled over the PA system, “Please, attention, is now boarding first class. Is now boarding, first-class passengers only.”

The message was repeated in Russian, Uzbek, Tajik, and Urdu, but the Uzbeks all ignored it, crowding around the door, pushing and shoving, tripping each other with their bags. A characteristic series of shouting matches and semisurreptitious exchanges of bribery ensued as the attendants at the gate tried to deal with the crush of people surging forward.

Andijan. That’s all Charlie could think about. Andijan.

And then his phone rang. Faruz? No—it was Mac.

“Tell me you have something,” Charlie said as he stepped away from the crowd.

“Nothing on the container yet. There’s a lot of security on these things now. It’s taking me a while.”

“Well, how about Julie’s emails?”

“I got into her account, but it’s been wiped totally clean. No backups, nothing in the cloud, it’s just gone.”

“Damnit,” Charlie muttered.

“Hold your horses. I didn’t come up totally dry. I was able to access her computer remotely and I found some cookies on there that led to a second account.”

“What do you mean, second account?”

“She opened a second email account back in June.”

“And can you access her correspondence?”

“I can and I did.”

“Well, send it to me then.”

“I’m doing it now.”

“And have you read them?”

Mac hesitated. “Not all of them, no.” As Charlie pressed, he could feel a hint of embarrassment creeping into Mac’s voice. “The thing is . . . there’s eighty-six emails and they’re all from or to the same guy.”

Charlie’s heart sank. He knew he’d be able to read them soon enough, but he had to know. “Who’s the guy?”

“Somebody named Alisher,” Mac said.

Alisher Byko?

She’d been corresponding with Byko for almost a year from a secret account? With an ever-expanding pit in his stomach, Charlie thanked Mac, urged him to keep working on the container and found a place to sit.

It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Julie starts a secret email correspondence with Alisher Byko and now Special Forces guys are kidnapping her and taking her to Tashkent? Byko must have been the man she met in London.

Charlie opened his computer, logged on to his email and found the message from Mac. There was an attachment labeled “Julie’s recovered mail.” He clicked on it and found an extremely long text file, email after email jammed together without a break. As much as he wanted to know how their correspondence had started, to pore over every detail of every letter between them, he scanned down to the most recent email. If Byko was mixed up in her disappearance, this was the logical place to begin his research. The email had been sent last Sunday—May 5. Only six days ago:

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Visit

Alisher, I have some very good news. After all of our conversations, I’ve decided that I should, in fact, consider coming out of “retirement.” My old company has agreed to fly me to several locations in Central Asia, including Tashkent, to explore the possibilities. I arrive in Uzbekistan on Thursday for two days and I’d obviously love to take you up on your offer to meet for a drink. I should have enough time to come to Samarkand if that makes things more convenient for you. Sorry for the short notice, but hopefully you can make it work. I really would love to see you again after all of this time.

J

Charlie froze. She’d gone to see Byko? In Uzbekistan? But the LAPD had checked with the FAA and located her flight to London—and there was no connecting flight to Tashkent. Maybe she’d stopped for a layover in London on the way? Maybe she’d bought separate tickets back and forth to Tashkent? But why? Was it for Charlie’s benefit? In case he started snooping, all he’d find was the round-trip to London? If she was going to bother with that, why didn’t she just tell Charlie she was going to London in the first place? Why create the alibi with her sister in New York?

For a moment, the fact that she’d been kidnapped receded and Charlie felt himself in a jealous rage.
His wife had flown ten thousand miles from home to visit with an old lover? Who she’d been secretly corresponding with for almost a year?

He read Byko’s response to her.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Visit

My dear girl,

I cannot tell you how much it means to me that we will see each other again at long last. I will phone your mobile first thing on Thursday and we’ll make all the arrangements.

As ever yours,

Alisher

My dear girl. As ever yours
. It was enough to make Charlie vomit. And clearly, Byko already had her cell number, which meant they must have been speaking on the phone as well as by email. Charlie took a deep breath, realizing that his jealousy would only cloud his judgment and decision making.

As he calmed, he realized that she’d clearly misled Byko as well. She was only gone for four days, yet she’d told Byko she was on a weeklong tour of the region. Charlie jumped online and immediately accessed his and Julie’s joint accounts for their American Express and Visa cards. He scrolled through the recent activity, but there was nothing there. No charges to British Airways, no charges to any airline for that matter. He’d already confirmed that she’d had no contact with World Vision. Who had paid for her ticket to Tashkent?

There were no answers, but then the reality of the situation was clear: she’d gone to see Byko and now she’d been absconded by Special Forces Bull, who was secreting her back to Tashkent
.
The only reasonable explanation was that she had mistakenly gotten caught up with something dangerous in Byko’s world. Or that someone in that world believed Julie knew something very important about Byko.

And then it occurred to Charlie: what if Bull wasn’t working for American intel? Was it possible that he was working for the Uzbek government? That kidnapping Julie was merely an insane extension of Karimov’s paranoid, repressive regime? Charlie remembered that Byko’s sister had been arrested and tortured last year. Was it possible that anyone close to Byko was now a target? That Karimov’s reach could extend all the way into the United States? That he would apprehend an American citizen on American soil?

At first, it seemed preposterous, but then Charlie considered who Julie was. Who he, Charlie Davis, was. To Karimov and his cronies, they were instigators. Outspoken critics of the regime. It was Charlie’s series of articles which had prompted the rally at Andijan. It was Julie who’d been handing out placards in Babur Square.

Charlie took out his phone to call someone at the State Department. But what if his theory was wrong? Or only half right? What if American intel was working with Karimov on this? After all, Uzbekistan was an important ally in the “war on terror” and Karimov provided the U.S. a military base in Karshi-Khanabad, which gave American troops an access point and supply line for the Afghan campaign.

There were too many things Charlie didn’t know and if there was one seminal lesson he’d learned as a journalist it was this: don’t ask the wrong people questions if you don’t have an idea what the story is.

Hungry to understand how all of this had developed between Julie and Byko, Charlie scrolled back to the beginning, scanning to Julie’s first email, dated June 22 of last year.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Alisher, It’s so good to hear about many of the things that you’re doing over there. I’m especially encouraged with what you’re managing in Namangan. I know that you always treated your employees at the gold mine fairly, but to hear the expansiveness of your vision for the region is really commendable. Have to run out now and pick up the kids from school, but just wanted to say a quick hello. By the way, I’ve opened up a new email account, so please delete my old email address and use this one from here on in.

J

There was no way to tell when or how their correspondence had begun, but clearly their first few exchanges must have taken place on her gmail account—the one that Charlie knew about—and evidently, she’d decided that it was too risky to continue without Charlie catching wind of it. In spite of the blithely casual way that she’d mentioned her change of address—
By the way, I’ve opened a new email account—
it was a painfully thin disguise for her deception. And it would have been as obvious to Byko then as it was to Charlie now. It was an admission that they were carrying on something illicit, and it couldn’t help but being read by the other man as a form of encouragement.

Charlie’s blood began to boil but he hungrily devoured the next emails.

At first they were relatively businesslike—particularly on Julie’s end. Quickly they became more personal. Any pretense—if that’s what it had been—of this being purely a friendly business correspondence quickly evaporated. There were small observations on daily life, an occasional bared emotion, philosophical musings—a slow corkscrewing increase of intimacy and trust.

Byko shared his feelings of anguish about his sister’s death, his weariness with the constant wrangle to keep himself on the straight and narrow in the midst of Uzbek corruption, oblique references to “personal demons.” And all the while Julie was becoming more confessional. She spoke of missing the times in Uzbekistan when she felt she was doing something important and complained, however gently, about the humdrum life of car pools and t-ball practice and laundry. At times, she protested a little too stridently about how they’d made the right decision to settle in Los Angeles, as if to paper over the sadder truth. She never said anything overt, but there was a strong implication that things weren’t right in their marriage.

Meanwhile Byko was slowly planting seeds in Julie’s mind: she would find more fulfillment if she was working, wouldn’t she? She had so many gifts to offer the world. She had barely scratched the surface of her talents. He had projects in Uzbekistan
begging
for people of her natural ability, judgment and charisma. Slowly his finely tuned references to her wonderful personal qualities and his need for managerial talent in his development projects began to converge. It was a seduction. And a very good one.

When Charlie had finished deciphering the emails, he simply stared at the screen. As if gazing at the words long enough might somehow change them.

Grasping at straws, he noted that there were no emails between Julie and Byko since she’d gotten back to Los Angeles. Perhaps the sparks weren’t there after all. Perhaps she’d had second thoughts about throwing their marriage under the bus.

Was it possible there was some other explanation altogether? That she genuinely wanted to return to Uzbekistan? That she really wanted to work for Byko in some capacity? That she wanted to get all her ducks in a row before broaching the idea with Charlie?

It seemed ludicrous that any of that would require such deception on her part and he felt like a sap for even trying to convince himself that this was not what it seemed.

Apparently, Julie had become a bored housewife, restless with her suburban life, tired of her husband, seeking adventure in old places with old lovers. She’d gotten herself into a world of trouble and now here he was, chasing her down the rabbit hole.

Charlie shook his head, trying desperately to exorcise the image of her and Byko together. The issue of her infidelity—and how they would deal with that—would wait until he found her. For now, all that mattered was that he figure out how to save her. Even if their marriage couldn’t be repaired, he would deliver her back to Oliver and Meagan.

And then he had the awkward and humiliating realization that the one person he needed to get hold of right now was Alisher Byko. Byko would be infuriated to hear that Julie had potentially paid such a price for their rendezvous and he would undoubtedly have some insight into what might have happened to her. Most important, Charlie had to admit that Byko might in fact be more equipped to find his wife than he was.

Back in the day, Charlie had used Byko for background on a number of stories and he still had Byko’s old cell phone number in his contacts list. He dialed it, but almost immediately heard the irritating singsongy chimes that told him he’d reached an inactive phone number.

Charlie muttered under his breath, but at least Byko had an active email account. He typed in Byko’s address and a message:

Julie’s been kidnapped. I think she’s in Tashkent. I’m on my way. We need to talk. Charlie Davis

He tapped in his own email address and cell phone number then pressed send. As he did, he heard the announcement for the final boarding call.

Charlie packed up his computer and headed for the gate. He’d be out of range for the next thirteen hours. By the time he touched down in Tashkent, there would surely be a reply from Byko.