Private Wars (35 page)

CHAPTER 44

Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—Termez

29 August, 0319 Hours (GMT+5:00)

Zahidov held a handkerchief to his mouth, then
checked the white cloth, seeing spots of blood mixed in with his saliva. His gums were still leaking, raw to the touch of his tongue, raw like the rest of him. It gave him resolve, made him all the more certain of what he had to do.

Not for her any longer. This was for him now.

Captain Oleg Arkitov was watching him with both suspicion and concern. “Tell me again?”

“One helicopter and a pilot, that’s all I need. Everything else, I’ve already taken care of it. But I need the pilot and the helicopter quickly, Captain, I must be in position before dawn.”

“And at dawn—”

“It may not be at dawn, but I think soon after, certainly before noon. Then I do what I have been sent here to do, and your pilot, he takes me in the helicopter east, drops me in Tajikistan. Then he returns to you. That’s all.”

“I am hesitant, Ahtam.” The yellow light shining from the ceiling of the captain’s office made Arkitov’s expression seem even more troubled, his frown more profound. “Even if everything is as you say, it puts my pilot at great risk.”

“My risk is far greater, Oleg. This is for our country. I’m appealing to you as a patriot.”

“So you have said.” Captain Arkitov motioned to the radio resting on the shelf beside the door. “But you can’t be here officially, Ahtam, the President replaced you this morning with her husband. It was on the radio.”

“I’ve explained that she needs to preserve her deniability.” Zahidov ran his handkerchief across his mouth a second time. “That’s why she did it. You know the President’s relationship with me, how close she and I are. Think about it.”

“I had heard you were no longer as close as you had been.”

“The President of Uzbekistan must be discreet.”

Arkitov nodded slightly, accepting that. “But if what you’re telling me is true, Ahtam, why haven’t I received orders from my superiors? Or from the President herself?”

“Deniability. The fewer who know about this, the better.”

“But surely, after it’s done, the whole world will know. You’ll be a wanted man.”

“Which is why your pilot must take me to Tajikistan. You see how I look?” Zahidov indicated the bruises on his face, his injuries. “I had these wounds done to me by my own men, Oleg, to build my cover. If I am willing to lose my front teeth for this, you think I would not sacrifice even more for our country’s future?”

Arkitov studied him, and Zahidov knew he was marking all of his many bruises and cuts and scrapes, and he tried to keep anything from his expression that might betray him.

“No, you are a patriot, Ahtam, you always have been,” Arkitov agreed. “I accept that, I accept what you are telling me.”

“Then you know what I need. We must get moving, I don’t have much time.”

Zahidov rose from his chair, stopped as he realized that Arkitov had made no move to follow.

“I don’t have much time, Oleg,” Zahidov repeated.

“Yes, I understand that. And I understand that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for this, that Uzbekistan’s future is more important than your own. But I now must think about mine, Ahtam. If I do this, I will be blamed, accused of aiding and abetting you.”

“You do this for your country.”

“No,
you
do this for your country. I need more.”

“You don’t deserve that uniform,” Zahidov spat, furious.

“Perhaps not, but I am the one wearing it, and you, as you have said twice already, do not have much time.”

“How much do you want?”

“For this? For an act that will end my career and possibly shame me and my family? A million American dollars, I think.”

“I don’t have a million dollars.”

“Of course you do. Just wire one of your banks in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands to transfer the cash to my account.”

“We don’t have time for this!”

Arkitov folded his hands across his stomach, then stared patiently at Zahidov. “I do.”

Zahidov swore, thought about killing the man right there, where he sat, but knew that if he did, he would never get what he needed. And the money, he would need the money if he was to run and to stay hidden, he would need the money to survive. One million dollars, that was perhaps an eighth of what he had hidden away, but it rankled, being blackmailed in this way.

Arkitov pointedly looked at his wristwatch.

Zahidov cursed a second time, then moved to the desk, grabbing the telephone and dialing quickly, from memory.

“Give me the account number,” he spat at Arkitov.

Arkitov leaned forward, pulling a piece of paper from the yellow Post-It pad on his desk, and taking up a pencil. He scribbled out a sequence of numbers, and the name of his own bank in Bern.

It took Zahidov another twelve minutes to arrange the transfer, and three minutes more for Arkitov to confirm that the funds had made their way to him. Satisfied at last, the captain hung up the phone, rose, and smiled at Zahidov.

“Now, my friend,” he said, “let’s see about that helicopter for you.”

CHAPTER 45

Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—
Termez, “Friendship Bridge”

29 August, 0747 Hours (GMT+5:00)

One journalist had labeled it the “Checkpoint Charlie
of Central Asia,” and as Riess rode with Tower out toward the bridge in a filthy white Daewoo van, he thought the description both appropriate and painfully ironic. Termez itself had seen recent construction and renovation, attempts to repair and bolster its infrastructure in support of both the relief and military operations that were staged from the town. But as they left the city and followed the road down to the river, the already sun-blasted landscape dropped around them, flattening out as it ran to the water. Patches of scrub and weeds clung to the land, barely surviving.

The van rattled as they crossed the railroad tracks, continuing down toward the foot of the bridge. Approaching, Riess could see concrete slabs painted white and black positioned as roadblocks, in an attempt to channel and control approaching vehicle traffic. The bridge itself was ugly, pure Soviet in execution, white-painted steel and concrete, and the paint was faded and peeling. On the Uzbek side, the final access to the crossing was blocked by a gate, closed and electrified, another part of the fence that marked the border. Armed guards in camouflage uniforms patrolled the immediate perimeter.

Tower parked the Daewoo some fifty feet from the bridge, off the side of the road, and killed the engine. Riess wanted to question that decision. Not yet eight in the morning, and already the temperature had passed miserable and was well on its way to kiln. The air conditioner would be a relief.

“It’d overheat the engine,” Tower said, answering the unasked question, and then lowering their respective windows. The scent of fouled water wafted into the car.

Riess turned around in his seat, reaching into the rear for the backpack he’d brought along. From within he removed his binoculars and his camera, a Konica Minolta digital camera with telephoto lens. Tower had brought his own binoculars with him, but when Riess turned back, he found the other man had also brought a radio with him, and was raising it to his mouth.

“Ikki, this is Baloo, over,” he said, and Riess stared at him, because Tower had transmitted in Uzbek, not English.

“Baloo, this is Ikki.”

“How do you read?”

“Five by five.”

“Over and out,” Tower said, and then set the radio on the dashboard, above the wheel.

Riess continued to stare, and Tower seemed not to mind, now producing his own set of binoculars. The CIA man raised his optics and looked out toward the bridge.

Seeing no explanation for his behavior forthcoming, Riess followed suit, pointing his lenses down to the foot of the bridge. There was movement from the guards, what he read as agitation, and two of the soldiers were beginning to make their way toward the Americans, slipping their rifles off their arms. But as Riess watched, he saw the pair turn even as the distant shouting made its way to him through the still air. An officer was running toward the soldiers, waving an arm angrily. The officer pointed at them in the van, and the soldiers snapped to attention, then ran hastily back to their posts.

The officer watched them go, then cast a glance back in the Americans’ direction. Through the binoculars, Riess could make out the man’s expression, the confusion and displeasure. Whatever he’d been told, whatever orders he’d just passed on to his men, he was uncomfortable with them.

Riess looked away to check his watch. Nine minutes to eight. He was raising the binoculars again when Tower spoke.

“West side. Blue Lada approaching, along the fence.”

Panning swiftly right, along what Riess thought of as a service road running parallel to the fence, was a late-model Lada, its wheels kicking up clouds of dust. He lost his view of it for a moment as it passed between him and one of the squat bunkers near the shore, but reacquired it immediately as it emerged, slowing to a stop. He could make out the driver behind the wheel.

“Hell,” Riess said. “I should have seen that coming.”

“Yeah,” Tower agreed, raising his radio once more. “You probably should’ve.”

CHAPTER 46

Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—
Termez, “Friendship Bridge”

29 August, 0753 Hours (GMT+5:00)

Chace had left Tashkent just after midnight, arriving
in Termez on a flight run by a charter service contracted to the British Embassy. The Lada had been waiting for her at the airfield, and Chace didn’t want to know who Fincher had bribed to get it for her, and she made a mental note to thank him when she had the chance. He may have stunk as a Minder, but she was rapidly gaining new respect for the man as an HOS.

She’d spent the night in the car, which wasn’t to say she’d slept in it. Rather, she’d driven out to a vantage point overlooking the bridge and parked there for almost an hour, watching the floodlights on the Uzbek side as they ran along the length of the fence and shone off the water, trying to understand the terrain. She’d emerged from the car a few times to smoke the cigarettes she’d taken from Tozim’s body, to stretch her legs, to try to calm her mind. Neither the nicotine nor the movement had done the trick.

Before dawn, she’d started the Lada up again, easing it back into Termez proper, such as there was a Termez proper, and then made her way west, out of town, watching the odometer and counting out five kilometers. She’d passed the airfield the Germans were using, then turned back again, toward the Amu Darya, until the fence had once again become visible in her headlights, then reversed the direction. She’d passed plenty of places where a man could hide with a MANPAD, and it didn’t give her much comfort that she’d seen no signs of the same.

The sun had been rising by then, at which point she abandoned the hunt. She had no guarantee that Zahidov was going to make a play to begin with, and searching for him in the dark had been just shy of foolish. Had she found him, there would have been a very good chance that he’d have seen her coming first. And if he did have the MANPAD, she suspected that both herself and the Lada would have ended in a fireworks of light and flames.

For the best, then, that she lie low for the time being.

She’d driven down to the river, parking in time to watch the remainder of the sunrise. The warmth had reached her through the car’s windows, and despite herself, she’d dozed off, thinking of home and Tamsin and wondering for how much longer she could expect Val to come when called. If it was hard on Tamsin for Chace to go away, it was, in its fashion, harder for Val. Val knew just enough to be aware that, like Tom, Chace might not return.

She’d started awake with a panic then, afraid she’d blown the pickup. By her watch, she’d slept for all of two minutes. She’d gotten out of the vehicle again, smoked more of Tozim’s cigarettes, and by then it was time to get moving. She’d climbed back behind the wheel, turned the nose of the car east, and found a dirt track used by the border guards that took her back to the bridge.

She saw the van, parked on the slope, before she stopped the Lada. Her watch read exactly nine minutes to eight, and when she looked south, across the river, she could see the Afghan checkpoint. She shut off the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition, then pulled out the radio set, fitting the earpiece into place before switching the unit on and slipping it into her pocket. She climbed out of the car, and had to fight to keep herself from gagging. The air was rank from the river, fouled with a mix of chemical runoff and human waste, an odor that invaded the sinuses and clung to the back of her throat. The heat augmented it, and Chace hoped the stench wouldn’t be quite so strong from the bridge, but expected that it would be worse.

There was a crackle in her ear, and then a man’s voice, gravelly and American.
“Shere Khan, this is Baloo, respond.”

She keyed her radio, watching the activity of the guards on the Uzbek side of the bridge, walking their patrol along the concrete roadblocks. “Go ahead.”

“Proceed as planned.”

“You have a location on Kaa?”

There was a hiss in her ear as the CIA man, Tower, paused while keeping the line open.
“We have overwatch on Kaa. You may proceed as planned.”

Chace moved around to the hood of the car, only marginally relieved by the news. She glanced again to the van parked off the main road leading to the bridge, saw the flash of a lens. She wondered who was in the vehicle with Tower, handling the camera. Perhaps it was Riess, and she liked that idea. Riess had been a part of it the last time; it seemed right to her that he participate again now.

“Should I say cheese?” she asked. “Where’s Bagheera?”

Lankford’s voice broke in, choppier than Tower’s had been.
“We’re in position, holding.”

She turned her attention back to the bridge, following it across the river to the Afghan side, over a kilometer away. She could see movement at the checkpoint, vehicles, but without optics had no hope of making out Lankford and Kostum’s position.

“Understood,” Chace said.

“Here they come,”
Tower said.

Chace heard the cars coming along the main road first, the helicopter second, coming from the center of Termez. The helo looked like another Sikorsky, or perhaps it was the same Sikorsky that had pursued her when she’d run in the Audi, she couldn’t be certain. She watched as two Uzbek Army Jeeps led a black Mercedes-Benz, a third Jeep following, off the main road at the summit of the slope, where the helicopter was lovingly settling to the earth, blowing clouds of dust as it came in to land. For a second time, she wished she had optics, could confirm that the boy was in the helo.

The Sikorsky’s rotors slowed, then stopped, and she saw activity around the Benz, figures moving, passengers shifting from the helo to the car. She imagined, rather than heard, the sound of the vehicle doors slamming, the engines starting, and then the convoy was moving again, the two Jeeps again taking the lead back to the road, the Benz close behind. The line of cars started down the road, past the parked van, toward the foot of the bridge.

Trying to ignore the stench from the river, Chace began walking toward the checkpoint.