Private Wars (28 page)

“You believed this man?”

“Yes, I did.”

Sevara frowned, shook her head slightly, then waved past him at the secretary standing in the doorway of the office, dismissing the man. Zahidov watched him go. The secretary was in his mid-twenties, and far too attentive to the President for Zahidov’s comfort.

“Could there be another reason?” she asked him when they were alone.

“Why else take the heroin, Sevya? He’s selling it and keeping the money, using it to fund his eventual offensive. There is no other explanation.”

She shook her head again, this time with more certainty. “No. It would be too foolish.”

“Why?” He struggled, managing to keep the frustration from his voice.

“In 2000, there was no ISAF, no Coalition. In 2000, it was possible to come from the south and meet little to no resistance. Now if you come from the south, you meet the Germans in Termez and the Americans in Karshi. No—it makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Zahidov countered. “For just those reasons. Think how such a move would humiliate you, think how it would look to the rest of the world. It would make us—you—look insecure, even incompetent. And if Americans or Germans died as he came north?”

“Then the Americans and the Germans and all the rest, they would join us in destroying him.”

“And every extremist from Pakistan to Chechnya would come and join him. There is no way this is good, Sevya, there is no way we can continue to ignore this! We must act.”

“How? How do you suggest we do that, Ahtam? You let him get away once, and now he’s in Afghanistan. Are you going to send one of your men after him? You think that man would stand even the slightest chance of success, assuming he could find Ruslan, assuming he still is somewhere around Mazar-i-Sharif? If you know all these things about his plans, then surely Ruslan must have considered that. No. As long as he remains in Afghanistan, we cannot touch him.”

Zahidov stepped closer to where she stood by the windows of her office, looking out at the courtyard of the Presidential Residence in the Tashkent suburb of Dormon. It was late afternoon, the sunlight slanting through the glass and making her hair burn like copper.

“If we wait for him to leave Afghanistan, it will be too late,” Zahidov said. “You could use Stepan.”

Sevara shot him a look of warning. “No.”

“Just take him out in public with you, have pictures taken of the two of you together. The President and her beloved nephew. Ruslan will get the message.”

“I won’t use the boy that way,” she said. “Bad enough that he was photographed at the concert last week.”

“It does him no harm—”

“He wakes crying every night, Ahtam! He has nightmares, he still calls for Dina, he calls for my brother! I won’t hurt him any more, I can’t do it. He’s my nephew, he’s the only family I have left.”

It struck at Zahidov, and he spoke before he meant to, saying, “So divorce Deniska instead of promising me that you will. Let me give you the child you want, let us make the family we talk about having! It’s been three months since you were elected, you can do it now, no one would dare say anything!”

“Soon, not yet.”

“When?”

“Soon,” she repeated sharply. “And we will not discuss using Stepan again, Ahtam. Is that clear?”

“Then we have nothing to hold over Ruslan.”

Sevara moved away from the window, nearer to him. “There must be a way to remove him.”

“If you had let me, I would have removed him long ago,” Zahidov reminded her. “You would never be threatened like this. I could remove Denis, too.”

She slapped him, and the blow surprised more than it hurt, knocking his glasses askew, and he stepped back, shocked.

“Don’t even think of it,” she hissed at him. “Do you know what trouble you have made for me already? Do you know how the Americans watch me now? Watch us? You cleared the way for me to sit in this office, but you left a mess behind you, Ahtam.”

He touched his cheek, feeling it burn. The first time she had touched him in weeks, and it was to strike him, and for a moment, he thought he felt tears trying to rise, and that both shamed and enraged him.

“I did it for you, Sevara.”

She took a breath, then spoke to him again, her voice softer. “The man from the American Embassy, the one who took the woman spy away. Do you know what would have happened if he had arrived five minutes later? Or ten? Or an hour? Can you imagine the nightmare for me that would have been? The Americans and the British both, can you imagine it?”

She touched his cheek where she’d struck him, her fingertips light on his skin. He could feel the cool of her enameled nails against the burning of his cheek.

“You pick your targets badly, Ahtam,” Sevara said. “It makes you look like a thug.”

She pulled her hand away. “Go back to work,” she told him. “I’ll find a way to handle Ruslan. I’ll speak to the Americans; they don’t want to see him opening the south to extremists.”

Zahidov stood for a moment, reeling, in the grand space of her office, then did as she’d instructed. He looked back to her as he went through the door, hoping she would raise her eyes to his, that he would see some forgiveness, some sign of her love.

But Sevara never looked up.

CHAPTER 33

London—Victoria Street, Number 75b, Pret a Manger

22 August, 1301 Hours GMT

“Salmon or Thai chicken?” Seale asked.

“Salmon,” Crocker said.

“The salmon’s for me.”

“Then why’d you offer?”

“I was being polite.” Seale handed the Thai chicken sandwich over, along with a can of Coke. “You want to eat here?”

“We could find a bench.”

“It’s air-conditioned in here.”

“You’re offering me choices where you’ve already determined the response,” Crocker observed, following the American to one of the square metal tables in the corner of the eatery.

The table had just been vacated, and Seale swiped crumbs from its surface with his left hand, holding his own sandwich and soda together in his right. Satisfied the surface was now clean enough to eat off, he sat, spreading a paper napkin like a small tablecloth, then unfolding another onto his lap before tearing open the plastic container that held his meal.

“You keep making the wrong choice,” Seale said.

“Story of my life.” Crocker sat opposite, cracked open his soda. “What’s up?”

“Ruslan Malikov is in Afghanistan, somewhere in the northern part of the country, we think near Mazar-i-Sharif.”

“You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Chace will be pleased,” Crocker said, tucking into his sandwich. It wasn’t bad, just not what he’d have chosen for himself.

“She won’t be for long,” Seale said, around his own mouthful. “We’ve got a problem, Paul. It looks like Ruslan’s recruiting and arming his own militia in an attempt to overthrow his sister. He’s been cozying up to one of the local warlords, Ahmad Mohammad Kostum, as well as working with some of the dope peddlers, selling heroin for financing.”

“Someone should tell him to knock it off.”

“Yeah, we’re thinking the same thing.” Seale wiped his mouth with the napkin from his lap. “So who are you going to send?”

“Me? You found it, it’s yours. Besides, you’ve got your set crawling all over Mazar-i-Sharif.”

“And we’ve worked long and hard to earn the trust and cooperation of the people there, so we’re not looking to foul it up. Besides, we didn’t turn Ruslan loose, that was you.”

“Foul it up how?”

“Telling him to knock it off is the nice way to put it, Paul. Ruslan’s got to be firmly dissuaded, if not permanently.”

Crocker stopped his can halfway to his lips, staring at Seale. “You want him removed?”

“Me, I don’t know the guy. But, as has been said twice already, he’s got to knock it off. He charges at his sister, he’s going to be kicking the door into Uzbekistan wide open for every extremist in the region to follow. And despite Tashkent’s eagerness to blame everything that goes wrong in their country on terrorists, there
is
a legitimate threat there.”

Crocker thought, then took the drink he’d paused on, set the can down, shaking his head. “I’m not going to get authorization to hit Ruslan.”

“You don’t have to hit him, you just have to get him to—”

“—knock it off, yes, I understand. But you’ve just told me it’s going to have to stick. Which means we’re not talking about possibly removing him, we’re talking about definitely removing him.”

Seale tucked the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth with an index finger, chewed, swallowed. “Dammit, these are good. I love this country—you get salmon and butter sandwiches as fast food.”

“Julian.”

Seale wiped his mouth again with the napkin, crumpled it into his fist, making it vanish. “I know you don’t like it, Paul, but I’m getting stick from Langley. The sentiment there is that this is your mess, you guys need to clean it up.”

“How legitimate a threat is he?”

“Legitimate enough that it has to be addressed.” Seale checked his watch, then rose. “I’ve got to get back to the office. Call me when you’ve got good news.”

Crocker watched him go, threading out of the little restaurant through the lunch hour crowd. He thought about finishing his lunch, but discovered he’d lost his taste for it.

“No,
he’s right,” Alison Gordon-Palmer told him. “It is our mess, and we do have to clean it up.”

“We’re talking about putting an agent into Afghanistan to kill a man under the protection of Ahmad Kostum. A man whose life, six months ago, we were trying to save.”

C nodded. “And if Chace had been successful, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

If she had been successful,
Crocker thought,
you wouldn’t be sitting in that chair right now, either
.

“We can hardly blame Chace for this,” he said.

C rose, capping the pen in her hand as she did so and dropping it on the blotter. “I’m not blaming Chace, Paul, nor am I blaming you. But the fact remains, the situation with Ruslan Malikov would not be what it is if we hadn’t become involved. The Americans expecting us to clean it up isn’t an unreasonable request.”

“I think that it is. We’ve had to clean up plenty of their messes.”

“Don’t be petulant. You’re my Director of Operations, not some pubescent teen. You’ve spoken to Simon?”

“I brought it to the Deputy Chief first, yes.”

“And?”

“And his assessment agrees with yours.”

“Then why are you here?”

“In the hope that you would disagree with him. It’s a betrayal.”

“A betrayal it may be, but it’s now also a directive,” C said. “Consider it a Special Op, and task a Minder for it, two if you think it’s necessary. I’ll contact the FCO, speak to Seccombe about authorization, but for the moment, you may safely assume the mission has Downing Street’s blessing.”

“The Prime Minister will authorize an assassination?”

“The mission objective is not to assassinate, but to dissuade by all means necessary. Conops will be very clear on that.”

“It’s a dodge.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, the kettle returning the look from the pot.

“Well,” Alison Gordon-Palmer said, “I suppose you’d know.”

CHAPTER 34

London—Vauxhall Cross, Operations Room

22 August, 1519 Hours GMT

Crocker was waiting for them when Chace led
Poole and Lankford into the Ops Room, and she thought he looked more than his usual unhappy. He was standing—actually, Chace thought it was closer to slouching—with his hands thrust deep in his pockets and his cigarette burning between his lips, glowering at the plasma wall. Behind him, at Duty Ops, Bill Teagle was in the throes of mission planning with Danny Beale. She nodded to them both and they acknowledged her, then continued poring over the map unfolded between them.

Chace glanced to the wall, feeling more than seeing Lankford and Poole doing the same behind her. There was a highlight around Afghanistan, which immediately struck her as a bad thing, and Mike Putnam at MCO was busy typing up the information that would go onto the screen.

“Who has the control?” Putnam asked.

“I’ll take it,” said Beale.

“The operation is designated Sundown.”

“Boss?” Chace asked.

Crocker ignored her, still looking at the plasma wall, and then he turned sharply to face Beale, saying, “Minders One and Three allocated.”

“Yes, sir,” Beale said.

“They’ll need to connect through a military flight,” Crocker said. “Put them on the ground as close to target as possible. What do we have in the area?”

“NATO activity is primarily focused on the hinterlands, sir, but there’s a forward support base at Mazar-i-Sharif staffed by our troops.”

“Get onto the RAF, see what they have headed that way and when, and if that doesn’t give us anything for the next twenty-four hours, work your way through the rest of the Article Five powers.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They’re to draw weapons. If travel is via RAF, they can draw them before departure; otherwise we’ll have to arrange for a delivery by the Station in Kandahar when they hit the ground.”

“Kandahar’s been having communications difficulties,” Putnam said from the MCO Desk. “We may not be able to get the cable to them in time.”

“Islamabad, then. But they’re not wandering around the countryside unarmed. Clear?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

Crocker finally looked to Chace. “You and Chris are going to Afghanistan.”

“So I’d gathered,” Chace said.

“Not me, too?” Poole asked.

“You get to stay here and look after the store, Nicky.” Crocker motioned them toward the map table. On the plasma wall, the word “Sundown” had appeared in a callout over Mazar-i-Sharif.

Chace couldn’t help but notice how close the city was to the Uzbekistan border.

“Ruslan Malikov has been found in Afghanistan,” Crocker told them, stabbing out his cigarette in the tray on the table. He focused on Chace, and she saw in his expression the acknowledgment that she had been correct, that Ruslan was still alive, and that Crocker also didn’t need her going on about it here and now.

Chace couldn’t argue with that. It didn’t seem the time for an I-told-you-so.

“Ruslan’s cozied up to one of the local warlords,” Crocker continued. “There’s a fear that Malikov is gathering troops and matériel for an attempted coup in Uzbekistan. I’m sending you two to deal with it.”

“Deal with it how?” Chace asked.

He ignored her. “Warlord’s name is General Ahmad Mohammad Kostum, he’s an ethnic Uzbek from the region, fought against the Soviets and then against the
taleban
with the Northern Alliance. He’s got a stronghold somewhere south of Mazar-i-Sharif, in the Samangan region. Intelligence is that Malikov is staying with him there.”

“Warlord’s stronghold, there’s going to be a lot of guns about,” Lankford observed.

“It’s Afghanistan,” Poole said. “The babies have AK-47s—I think they get them for their first birthday.”

Lankford snorted, and Chace shot Poole a look, silencing further comment from the peanut gallery, before turning her attention back to Crocker and repeating, “Deal with it how?”

“How do you think?” he snapped. “Find him, make contact, do what you need to do to ensure he won’t stir things up north of the Afghan border.”

“Wait a second—”

“I’ll be in my office,” Crocker cut in. “Minder One to see me on completion of briefing.”

He headed out of the room, leaving her to stare after him. And she knew already how she was supposed to “deal” with Ruslan Malikov.

Kate
buzzed Crocker the moment Chace entered the office, and Chace heard the answering buzz immediately, and Kate said, “You can go on in.”

She pushed into the inner office, let the door slide shut behind her, and then said, “You can’t really expect me to go and kill him.”

“That’s why I’m sending two of you,” Crocker said, eyes on the papers on his desk.

“Boss . . .”

He looked up, angry. “If you can’t do the job, Tara, you shouldn’t have come back.”

That stung, and she let him know it. “It has nothing to do with my ability to do it, it’s my willingness. It’s a bad op.”

“If you’re twitched—”

“It’s not mission twitch! Jesus Christ, Paul, it’s my bloody fault Ruslan’s there to begin with!”

“I’m not certain I agree.”

“If I’d gotten him and his son out of the country as planned—”

“You did everything you could.”

“I didn’t have a fallback!”

“A fallback wouldn’t have helped, and you know it.”

“Why send me? Why aren’t you sending Nicky with Chris?”

“You’ve met Ruslan, you’ll be able to get close to him.”

“I’ve met him, he’ll see me coming, and he’ll know exactly why I’m there! Chris and I’ll end up shot before I get a word in edgewise. Aside from the fact that Western women don’t just wander around the Afghan countryside.”

“Find a burka.”

“I don’t find that remotely amusing.”

“I don’t find
any
of this remotely amusing, Tara,” Crocker snarled, slamming a hand down on his desk. “As the CIA has so eagerly pointed out, and as our dear new C has cheerfully confirmed, the Powers That Be consider Ruslan Malikov
our
problem, and they want it swept under the carpet, and they want it swept there now.”

“He won’t be convinced, sir. I won’t be able to talk him out of anything.”

“You’re authorized to use any means necessary to dissuade him.”

“I heard the conops—I
was
present for the briefing.” Chace paused, caught her breath, realizing that her heart was pounding. She didn’t mind being worked up over this, but she was vaguely embarrassed to find that she wasn’t even bothering to try to hide the fact.

“You realize that if he’s under this warlord’s protection then he’s more than likely protected by Pashtunwali?” she asked. “You know what that means?”

“Yes, I seem to recall that particular issue of
National Geographic,
Tara. December ’03, was it?”

“The mocking is good, I like that a lot. Ruslan’s been granted sanctuary. It’s why bin Laden got away in the first fucking instance, boss, it’s the same bloody thing.”

“Bin Laden was trying to stay hidden. It’s quite obvious Ruslan isn’t. Besides, Kostum is ethnic Uzbek, not Pashtun.”

“Which doesn’t mean he isn’t beholden to Pashtunwali! If he was fighting the Soviets, he’s an Afghani, not an Uzbek, he’s going to be part of the culture. And if Kostum has given Ruslan Malikov sanctuary, then Kostum and all of his men are now duty-bound to protect him. That means that if I so much as try to harm a hair on Ruslan’s head, they’ll kill me.”

“Then let’s hope it won’t come to that.”

“I’m not seeing any other option!”

Crocker shot out of his chair as if on a wire, sending the seat banging back into the wall, beneath the window. “Then you’d damn well better find one!”

Chace caught herself, turned away, as embarrassed by his outburst as by her own. She heard Crocker moving, the chair being righted and replaced at the desk. She looked out the window at the late-summer afternoon, the traffic on distant Lambeth Bridge.

“This stinks,” she said. “And it’s wrong.”

“No,” Crocker said. “What was wrong was sending you into Tashkent in the first place so Seccombe could spring his MANPAD surprise on Sir Frances Barclay. That was wrong. What this is now is the endgame, it’s the resolution of something that started in February—hell, of something that started five years ago. So, yes, maybe it’s wrong, but it’s not a different wrong, Tara, it’s the same wrong it always was. And it’s come home to roost, and I’m sending you to deal with it because I can’t send Chris alone and because you know Ruslan.”

“We exchanged perhaps five hundred words,” Chace said.

“That’s five hundred more than Nicky and Chris combined.”

“Shit,” Chace said emphatically.

“I concur.” He held out his pack of cigarettes.

After a second, Chace grabbed one, then his lighter. She dropped the lighter back on his desk, then began pacing around the room.

“You have time to get Tamsin squared away?” Crocker asked.

“There’s a Tristar scheduled out of Brize Norton at oh-four-twenty tomorrow morning, troops and supplies,” Chace said. “Two stops before landing in Mazar-i-Sharif to resupply the support base there. Mission Planning is checking with MOD, and you’ll have to get onto the Vice Chief of the Air Staff most likely, but unless someone suddenly comes to their senses, it looks like Chris and I will be on the flight. I’ve already called Val, Missi will stay with Tam until Val can come down to stay with her.”

Crocker didn’t speak for several seconds, then said, “I was thinking. If you ever need a sitter in a hurry, Jennie could watch her.”

Chace stopped her pacing, staring at him in disbelief. “Did you just offer your wife as a babysitter for my daughter?”

“She taught nursery school for twenty years,” Crocker said, lamely. “And there’s Sabrina and Ariel, they’d be glad to help.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this your way of apologizing for handing me a bag of shit?”

Crocker considered, then said, “I suppose.”

“You realize that it’s still a bag of shit?”

“Yes,” Crocker agreed. “Yes, it most certainly is.”