Private Wars (30 page)

“Will it be long?” Lankford asked.

Fariq shrugged, and the graybeard asked a question, then laughed at Fariq’s response. The tension abated somewhat, muzzles dipping lower. Chace leaned against the Jeep, looking around, then down, examining the tire tracks in the dust. There’d been enough traffic along the path to make discerning different sets difficult, but at a guess, she had to think that at least four or five different vehicles had come this way fairly recently.

The heat had climbed past uncomfortable to sweltering, and she watched as Lankford removed his hat long enough to wipe the sweat from his brow. Minder Three was as fair-skinned as she, almost as tall, with straight black hair that added to his pallor. She thought he was already turning pink, and wondered if she was doing the same.

A pebble broke loose from above them, bounced down the mountainside, and the graybeard and the others with him all turned, bringing their rifles up, only to see the young man they’d dispatched as a messenger returning. He popped out from behind the rocks higher on the ridge, calling down to them and raising his arm, and immediately, Chace saw both Fariq and Karim relax.

“You can go with them,” Fariq said, addressing both her and Lankford. “We will go back now, before it is dark.”

“You’re leaving us with them?” Chace asked.

“Kostum sees you,” Fariq said. “Safe.”

He and his brother climbed back into the Jeep, starting the car once more.

The graybeard approached them, speaking and smiling at her, the others following, then coming around to get behind them. The graybeard indicated a direction, roughly the way the younger man had gone, then began leading the way.

With no other choice, Chace and Lankford followed.

They
walked for another two and a half hours, and Chace suspected that the graybeard was setting an easy pace for their benefit, or more precisely, for hers. The narrow trail weaved around the rocks and scrub, summiting and then again descending. She wondered how the messenger had traveled the distance so quickly, then realized that he couldn’t have, that he must have used a radio or a satellite phone instead.

Either that or this was one hell of a setup, and she and Lankford were about to find themselves truly in the middle of nowhere, in the dead wild on the western edges of the Hindu Kush mountains. If they were going to be done here, no one would ever find their bodies.

She doubted that was how this would end up—at least, not until journey’s end. The graybeard had promised them safety, and she had to take him at his word. Al-Qaeda or Coalition, it didn’t matter who; once the promise was made, it was kept until death.

Finally they descended to a ravine, following a narrow trail midway along its side until it opened to a canyon floor. Below, a walled stronghold—it was the only way Chace could think to describe it—rested at the bottom of the way, built back against the side of the mountain, almost built into it, in fact. A cluster of trees grew in the yard, their leaves shockingly green against the deadened tan, and beyond that, in the shade cast by the mountainside, a large, almost sprawling house. A minaret rose up from the corner of the wall, and Chace could see movement inside, a man with an RPG launcher on guard.

Along the sides of the canyon, Chace saw more guard emplacements, more of the vested and robed men, sitting or standing in what little shade they could find, rifles to hand. A mortar had been positioned high on the south side, far enough away that Chace couldn’t readily identify the make and model, but it was a safe bet it had been recovered from the Soviet occupation. Chace didn’t doubt the weapon was in working order, though she wondered where Kostum found the rounds for it.

They reached the canyon’s bottom, approached the gates at the wall. The earth down here was hard-packed, and Chace could make out tire tracks, the signs of heavy vehicles that had traveled along the canyon floor. She hadn’t seen a garage on their descent, and wondered where the vehicles were stored.

“Bloody hell,” Lankford murmured to her as they approached, and she knew why he’d said it and what he was thinking. If they were going to kill Ruslan Malikov, they’d have one hell of a time getting out again after the deed was done.

“They’re going to search us,” Chace said. “Don’t fuss.”

“We’re heavy.”

“I know. Don’t fuss.”

Lankford nodded, his lips tightening, and then they had reached the gates. The graybeard called out in Pashto, and a response came back from behind the wall, and the man laughed, rested his Kalashnikov against the gate, and turned back to face them. He spoke pleasantly as he approached, holding out his hand, gesturing for the bags they were carrying on their shoulders.

Chace handed hers over, watched as Lankford did the same. The graybeard was joined by the others who had accompanied them, one of the others taking Chace’s bag from him. For a moment, everyone’s attention was on the bags, and Chace took the opportunity to smooth the front of her shirt, and in so doing, to shove the Walther fully down the front of her pants. It was uncomfortable but not intolerable, and she feigned shifting impatiently, trying to move the gun into a more concealed position.

The graybeard laughed, brought out the pistol Lankford was carrying, a Browning, showing it to him. Lankford shrugged, and the graybeard laughed again, then spoke to the man who’d been helping him. The man approached Lankford, clearly apologetic, and gestured for him to raise his hands. Chace watched as Lankford did so, submitting to the search. It was brief and efficient, but Chace noticed that the searcher avoided checking Lankford’s crotch too carefully.

The two men searching her bag had finished, and were now looking from her to the graybeard, clearly uncomfortable. Graybeard indicated one of the two, then Chace, and the man sighed heavily, then approached her, shaking his head slightly as he did so. He gestured for her to raise her arms, and the discomfort on his face was blatant and so acute, Chace almost felt sorry for him.

He took all of six seconds to check her, doing her arms and legs first, before stealing himself to check her torso. He avoided actually touching the front of her body, and barely touched her back, more mime than actual search. He touched her hips, but nothing more, before stepping back and speaking to the graybeard.

Chace and Lankford were each handed their bags, and the gates opened, and they were allowed through into the courtyard.

“Kostum?” the graybeard said to them, directing his words primarily at Lankford. “Speak Kostum?”

“Malikov,” Chace said. “Ruslan Malikov.”

There was a sudden stillness in the yard, and the graybeard stared at her.

“No Ruslan.”

“Stepan,” Chace said. “Tracy.”

“Trahcee?”

Chace pointed to herself. “Tracy.”

From the shadow of the house stepped Ruslan Malikov, dressed in the vest and loose pants worn by so many of the others. Dirtier, wearier perhaps, wearing a white knit prayer cap and armed with a Kalashnikov of his own in his hand. He stared at her, as if trying to remember her face. He’d barely seen her in the light before, Chace thought, and a lot had been going on that night.

“It’s good to see you, sir,” Chace told him in English. “There are some matters we need to discuss.”

CHAPTER 37

Uzbekistan—Tashkent—Residence of the
U.S. Chief of Mission to Uzbekistan

25 August, 2011 Hours (GMT+5:00)

On 31 August 1991, Uzbekistan declared its independence
from the disintegrating Soviet Union, following in the wake of the other newly forming independent states that surrounded it on all sides. In the grand scheme of nations and their histories, it hadn’t been that long ago at all, and for that reason, the Uzbek Government still made a deal of the day, and of the event. This year, the thirty-first fell on a Thursday, and for that reason, the Ambassador’s Reception in honor of Independence Day was scheduled at the end of the week prior, a Friday night.

Riess, who had been in the doghouse for so long now he’d almost grown accustomed to it, hadn’t expected that his attendance would be required, or, for that matter, welcome. Ever since Garret had been relieved of post, Riess had existed in a sort of semiexile, under McColl’s spiteful eyes. That Riess, too, hadn’t been shipped back to the States continued to surprise him.

It had been Garret who’d spared him, of course, a last act of gratitude before departing public service. The Ambassador had taken sole responsibility for opposing the White House and supporting Ruslan Malikov, and in the end, even if Garret hadn’t shouldered the load willingly, he’d have been made to bear it anyway. Garret was the Ambassador, and there were more than enough people back at State who had been willing to excuse Riess his indiscretions as a result. It wasn’t an uncommon thing for a poloff to be taken under an Ambassador’s wing, after all, and there had been some question as to how much of what had occurred had been of Riess’ doing, rather than Garret’s. FSOs were hard to come by, anyway. Measured against the difficulties in replacing Riess on post versus leaving him on station, it was easier to let him stay. His service record would reflect his involvement in Garret’s plot, and Riess knew that his next posting would be a junior desk back in D.C.

He would live in the wilderness for a long time to come.

For that reason, Riess had thought he’d spend Friday night working late in the Pol/Econ Office, finishing up the cables back to State, and putting the final report on the latest in the stream of démarches. It had been midmorning before McColl had corrected his assumption.

“It’s black tie,” McColl had said, passing by his desk without stopping.

“Sir?”

“The reception tonight, at the Residence. It’s black tie. I hope your tuxedo is clean.”

“I wasn’t aware you wanted me to attend.”

“I don’t, but the Ambassador does.” McColl sniffed, pulling a handkerchief from his trousers and wiping his nose. “See if you can resist the urge to play spy this time, all right?”

Riess had nodded, hiding his anger and his frustration. The wound was still open, the sense of failure profound. Not one of the things he and Garret had set out to do had come to pass, after all. While Sevara had done an exceedingly good job of keeping her nose clean and of working with the U.S. in the past six months, Ahtam Zahidov was now DPM at the Interior Ministry. She kept him on a short leash, but the country’s human rights record was still a far cry from anything that would earn kudos from Amnesty International or HRW.

Sometimes, Riess wondered if it had been an ill-conceived venture from the start, if Garret hadn’t been totally unrealistic in his dreams of what they could do, what they might accomplish. Nations rarely changed overnight, and even when they did, there was always a price to pay in blood and pain. He had come to doubt that Ruslan would have made a better President of Uzbekistan than his sister. In all likelihood, for all of Ruslan’s best intentions—if indeed his intentions had even been true—very little would have changed.

Things were improving in Uzbekistan under Sevara, little by little. There were still drugs coming up from the south, out of Afghanistan, but less and less seemed to be getting through these days. The new President had eased off the dictatorial enforcement of the government’s version of Islam, permitting slightly more freedom of religion. The election that had seen her confirmed into office had been fixed, of course, but not so blatantly or arrogantly as her father’s had been in the past. For the first time, the Oliy Majlis now seated an opposition party as well as Sevara’s own. It was small to the point of being entirely ineffective, but it was more than her father had allowed. There was even an opposition newspaper available on the streets of Tashkent and Samarkand—overseen by government censors, but again, more than before.

So maybe it was the best Riess could have hoped for. This was the way diplomacy was supposed to work, incrementally and out in the open. Not behind the scenes.

He had grudgingly come to accept that, and in so doing had found a measure of peace that allowed him to sleep better at nights.

At least until those few times he saw Stepan, either in a photograph or in video footage, and he remembered the boy’s mother, and what Zahidov had done to her. What Zahidov had done at Sevara’s order, he was certain of it.

Maybe it was because Riess had known Dina Malikov, but he couldn’t forgive that.

He couldn’t let that go.

He
arrived at the Residence forty-five minutes after the reception had started, showed his ID to the Marines who were pulling double duty as guards for the event. Since Michael “Mitch” Norton had taken over as CM for Garret almost five months back, Riess had had no reason to visit the Residence. In fact, the last time he’d been here was back in mid-February, in the wake of Dina Malikov’s murder. Most of the lights had been out then, Riess remembered.

This time, though, the house was ablaze, as if it had caught what remained of the sunset for use indoors. Music reached him as he went through the doors and entered the enormous two-story entry hall. A string quartet from the Bakhor Symphony had set up about twenty feet from the door, playing an Uzbek piece Riess didn’t recognize. The sound was amplified in the space, mixed with the voices speaking in Russian, Uzbek, and English. There were almost three dozen people in the hall alone, and Riess wondered just how many had been invited. The Residence, if he remembered right, could entertain somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty before the RSO went into fits about lack of security.

Riess saw several faces from the Mission, moved through the hall exchanging brief but polite greetings. He made his way through to the salon, weaving through the crowd. The doors into the back garden were open, and he could see tables set up outside, more people seated there, dining on appetizers. He saw a couple of the DPMs, too, the Head of Consumer Goods and Trade standing with the DPM for Foreign Economic Relations, and McColl was among them, his wife chatting with their wives. Riess tried to move through unseen, edged his way out into the garden.

It was cooler outside, and quieter, though the noise from inside the Residence was still audible. Riess got himself a drink from the banquet table, a plastic bottle of mineral water, twisted off the cap, and drank half of it down. There were things he could be doing inside, things he should be doing. At a function like this, his place was to mingle and chat with the junior officials in attendance, to keep his eyes and his ears open for news that might be useful to the Ambassador and Political Counselor later.

He didn’t want to. He didn’t really want to be there at all. It had been at a party like this that he’d first met Ruslan and Dina, and it brought back memories, and again, he felt like a failure.

He sighed, steeling himself. What he wanted to do was irrelevant; what he needed to do, right now, was his job. He turned around to head back inside, then stopped, seeing Aaron Tower coming toward him.

“Chuck,” Tower said. “Standing outside all alone?”

“I was about to head back in, sir.”

The CIA man continued approaching, reaching out to the banquet table and snagging a bottle of water for himself. His smile was easy. Like almost all the men attending, Tower was in a tuxedo, though somehow he’d already managed to rumple it.

“How you doing?” Tower asked.

Riess pondered the question for longer than he intended. They’d spoken in passing a handful of times in the last few months, confined it to greetings and social pleasantries. If Tower had harbored ill will for what had happened, there’d never been any true sign of it. He’d been angry about the Ambassador’s two-step behind his back, of course, but none of it had come back to hit Riess, at least not that Riess knew.

“I was thinking about Dina Malikov,” Riess said.

Tower sipped from his bottle, nodded slightly. “You heard anything from Garret?”

“No, sir. Not since he went back home. I understand he’s in the private sector now.”

“Got himself a job as president of some college on the West Coast,” Tower confirmed. “You look tired.”

“McColl’s keeping me busy.”

Tower grinned. “I’ll bet. Well, you’re doing a hell of a job for him, Chuck. He might make DCM yet. Not here, of course, but on his next posting.”

“Good for him,” Riess said.

They drank their water in silence, looking back toward the Residence, through the open doors. More people were making their way outside from the den, drinks in hand.

“Coming out for the fireworks,” Tower said. “Soon as it gets dark.”

“Right.”

A cluster of people emerged, surrounding the Ambassador and his wife as they escorted Sevara Malikov-Ganiev and her husband, Denis, the former DPM of the Interior, outside. Sevara looked stunning, Riess had to admit, the gown she’d chosen for the event just managing to straddle the line between alluring and reserved, but her beauty lay far more in the way she carried herself. She was supremely self-confident, and when she laughed at something the Ambassador’s wife said, it carried over the grass to him. Riess wondered if Sevara had left her nephew at home for the evening.

“She didn’t bring the kid,” Tower said, reading his mind.

“Yeah, I was just wondering.”

“She takes good care of him.” Tower took another pull from his bottle, watching the Ambassador’s party advance. “It’s called guilt, Chuck.”

“I don’t think she feels guilty about anything, sir.”

Tower turned slightly, looking him in the eye. “Never forget that they’re patriots the way we’re patriots, Chuck. They believe in their country the way we believe in ours.”

“Not all of them.”

“Most of them, then. Sevara Malikov-Ganiev is the first CIS leader who didn’t cut her teeth under the Soviets, Chuck. Think about that. All the others, the old men, either they’re former Communists or they came up under the Communists. But that woman’s the new breed.”

“It’s not where she is now that bothers me,” Riess answered. “It’s what she did to get there.”

“Don’t think it doesn’t bother me, too.” Tower’s eyes were on the Ambassador’s group, now being seated at the largest table.

Riess didn’t say anything.

“You know Ruslan’s alive,” Tower said, softer. “In Afghanistan.”

Why are you telling me this?
Riess thought. “No, I didn’t.”

“Somewhere in the Samangan. Or maybe the Bámiyán region.”

Riess stared at Tower, who continued to watch the Ambassador speaking with Sevara. “Nice place to hide.”

“If that’s all he’s planning, yeah,” Tower said. “Let’s hope that’s all he’s planning.”

Behind them, they heard a series of cracks, then a hiss, and both of them looked up to see the first of the fireworks streaking into the sky. The explosives shrieked as they climbed, then went silent before bursting into a cascade of green, white, and blue, the colors of the Uzbek flag. Green to represent Islam, but officially said to represent nature and fertility, the life of the young country. White to represent purity in thought and deed. And blue for the waters that fed the cotton and the land, and to recall the fourteenth-century flag of the ruler Timur, who had claimed an empire from Samarkand, controlling the heart of the Silk Road.

The crowd broke into polite applause, and a second volley of fireworks started, chasing the first into the air.

“Come on, Chuck,” Tower told him. “Let’s enjoy the show.”

It
was when Riess was leaving, shaking hands with the last of the junior Reps, that he saw Zahidov. The Deputy Prime Minister of the Interior stood alone at the edge of the den, looking out into the garden. He had a drink in his hand, but it was untouched, and Riess followed his gaze to see that Zahidov was watching Sevara, still seated outside, now talking animatedly with the DCM.

Riess headed outside, wondering about Zahidov, thinking about the other color in the Uzbekistan flag, the one color that hadn’t been represented in the fireworks display. On the flag, between the strips of blue and white and green, ran thin red lines. Red for blood.

He was sure that Zahidov had noticed it was missing, too.