Death of a Spy (11 page)

“Something like that,” said the ambassador.

“Listen, I’m sympathetic to your concerns, but it sounds as if you have a problem with Langley, not me.”

“That may be so, but you’re the one sitting here in front of me.”

“So then veto the investigation. Kaufman will raise a stink and probably drag his boss and your boss into it, but you do what you gotta do.”

“You get paid either way,” said Davis. “Is that it?”

“Actually, no. I’d bill for the airfare, but not for the job. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not a dickhead. My firm delivers good intel at a fair price.”

Mark didn’t fault Davis for feeling sour about the money; when Mark had run the station, he’d resented the private contractors too. The truth was, even charging the CIA a rate that was more than reasonable when compared to other private contractors, Mark was still making far more than Davis—and a ton more than the operations officers that Davis managed. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, but that was life. The solution was to fix the CIA so that they could do in-house what they now needed the private contractors to do, but Mark had little faith that would happen any time soon.

Mark turned to the ambassador. “I won’t try to work in Azerbaijan without your approval. But if you don’t grant approval, we both know it’s going to piss off Kaufman. It’s your call.”

The ambassador paused, then looked at Davis, who shrugged. “I want him sneaking around my station like I want a hole in my head, but my boss wants him here, so that’s game-set-match on my end. I’d like daily reports routed directly to me—”

“I’m not guaranteeing daily. It’ll depend on where I am and what I’m doing. I’ll file timely reports.”

Davis rolled his eyes. “Timely reports then. And a restriction on firearms.”

The ambassador nodded slowly, considering the matter. “Agreed. No firearms in the station. That’s pretty much the rule here anyway.”

That had been Mark’s official rule too for the last two years that he’d run the station. Azerbaijan had pretty restrictive gun laws; you had to weigh the risk of getting caught with an illegal gun against the potential security a gun could provide. Usually it wasn’t worth the risk, but most officers, especially the ones operating under nonofficial cover, kept a backup hidden somewhere, just in case.

“I’m good with that,” said Mark. “Do you have the alias packet for your branch chief ready?”

“I’ll need a few hours on that,” said Davis.

They discussed logistics for a while longer, then Mark shook hands with Davis and the ambassador and thanked them for their time. He was about to leave when he remembered his promise to Daria. “By the way, you wouldn’t know where the best place to pick up decent diaper cream is, would you? It can’t just be any old brand, I need Triple Paste or Desitin.”

The ambassador wrinkled her nose. “No, I would not.”

“Try the new Port Baku mall,” said Davis. “I don’t know if they have a pharmacy, but if they do it’s a safe bet it’s stocked with a lot of high-end crap.”

Mark collected his electronic equipment and, from the relative safety of the guardhouse, called two cabs. When they arrived, he turned to the armed Azeri guard who appeared to be in charge. “I’ll take an escort to my car, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“You are worried, sir?”

“No, but I’m not exactly the most popular guy around here, so…”

“It will not be a problem. But sir, you’re forgetting your computer and camera.”

Mark had left Larry’s camera and laptop on the counter where the guard had placed them. The memory cards filled with photos of the Russian base were in a Ziploc bag on top of the laptop.

“I’ll come for them in a few days.” He didn’t need them and was sick of carrying them around. That, and he didn’t want to be caught snooping around Ganja while carrying photos of the Russian military base. Especially when the photos had already been backed up online.

“I’m sorry, sir. We cannot store them for you. It is only storage for while you are in the embassy.”

Mark left everything where it lay.

“Please be careful with the camera, it’s expensive. Maybe store everything in a safe inside the embassy. Better yet, talk to Roger Davis. Have
him
store it all for me.”

“Sir, I must tell you—”

“Figure no longer than a week, tops. If it’s going to be longer than that I’ll send someone else to collect them.”

“This is not like a locker room, where you can just—”

“Talk to Davis. I’ve got to go, please escort me out.”

The guard did so, albeit reluctantly.

20

Mark hadn’t been able to detect anyone following him from the airport to the embassy, but after what had happened in Tbilisi, he wasn’t about to take any chances.

Upon exiting the guardhouse, he quickly assessed the two cabs that had pulled up in front: the first was one of the new London-style cabs that the president of Azerbaijan had insisted all be painted bright purple; the other a decrepit Russian-made Lada sedan. The man behind the wheel of the purple cab was considerably younger; judging that the younger driver in the newer car would be the faster ride, Mark climbed in. As he did so, a man across the street, wearing ridiculous mirrored aviator glasses and a brown leather jacket, appeared to glance at him.

“The Four Seasons Hotel,” said Mark. “Get me there in five minutes, and I won’t need change for this hundred.” He slipped the bill into the cabbie’s hand and they took off like a shot.

Soon they were cruising west down Neftchilar Avenue, parallel to which ran a promenade that followed the coast of the Caspian Sea. Until recently, the promenade had been a shabby but pleasant place to take a stroll, framed at its western and eastern ends by shipping ports that stank of oil. Now the industrial zones, with their rusted yellow cranes and beat-up container-ship barges were gone, shuffled off to a massive new port south of Baku. In their place were several waterfront parks, one of which was anchored by a massive flagpole that—until Tajikistan built an even bigger one—had been the tallest in the world. The promenade itself, once nothing more than a cracked asphalt path that had run along the edge of a rock breakwater that smelled of rotting fish and seaweed, was now a pristine expanse of white tile that extended all the way down to the water’s edge.

Rising up from the hill that lay beyond Neftchilar Avenue, a trio of gleaming flame-shaped skyscrapers dominated the western skyline.

As Mark took all this in, keeping an eye out too for signs that he was being followed, he wondered briefly whether Baku was still the right fit for him. Wondered whether the city had outgrown him. The Baku he knew was one of shady back alleys and pollution and stink and corruption, but this…this place seemed like a shopping mall, a mini-Dubai in the making.

But he was getting older, he reasoned. He was changing himself; he was a father now, and a husband. He no longer took the risks he used to. Maybe it was only right that his adopted city was changing, just as he was changing. They were both cleaning up their acts.

Mark glanced at his face in the rearview mirror of the cab. He saw the crow’s-feet around his eyes; the gray that had once been just around his temples was now peppering the hair on the top of his head.

Baku, he had to admit, was aging better than he was.

“Here’s fine,” said Mark, just before they got to the Four Seasons.

He got out of the cab, shouldered his travel bag, and headed into old Baku. When he’d first come to Baku, the old part of the city had been surrounded by a massive crumbling rock wall that dated from the eleventh century. But once the oil money started pouring in, the Azeris had decided to fix everything. They’d repaired the wall, doing such a thorough job that it now looked new—because it was—and they’d taken the same approach to cultural preservation with the rest of the old city, most of which now appeared to be about as old as the Great Sphinx outside the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas.

The cobbled streets were still narrow, though, and many bottlenecked down to cobbled footpaths that were just a couple of yards wide. The pedestrian traffic was light enough that Mark could focus intently on the footsteps of the few people behind him.

He turned left up a particularly steep alley and passed through a construction site that no one had bothered to rope off, winding his way through a maze of concrete saws and jackhammers and workers hauling mortar. When he reached the top of the alley, he took a quick right. Eventually a newly renovated beehive-domed limestone building appeared, outside of which was a sign that read H
AMAM
.

There were many Turkish baths in Baku, some of which had been in use for centuries. It depressed Mark that they’d renovated the exterior of his favorite; instead of the sooty stained brown it once had been, it was now a clean light khaki color. But the instant he ducked inside and felt the heat, and smelled the water and the sweat and the ancient wet rocks and the wet wood, and saw the clutter of teacups and papers behind the counter opposite the entrance, and almost tripped on a bucketful of plumbing wrenches and other tools that the Azeri who maintained the bath had left in front of the counter, and when he saw too that the plaster on the arched dome was still crumbling, then all at once Mark felt at home and glad, so profoundly glad, to be back in the city that he loved.

“Mr. Sava!” exclaimed a voice from behind the counter that stood in front of the entrance door. “Oh, but it has been too long. I thought you were dead!”

“Not yet, friend. Not yet.”

Hassan—a heavyset Azeri with a bald head and a beak nose marked by a permanent indentation from heavy reading glasses—stepped out from behind the counter. He wore gym shorts and a sleeveless undershirt.

“It
has
been too long,” said Mark, embracing Hassan briefly. “How have you been?”

“Well. Very well.”

“And your children?”

“My oldest started working here last month cleaning the baths. He works hard.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Today you bathe for free, Mr. Sava. To welcome you back.

But I fear you must have found another hamam you prefer.”

“No, no. I’ve been abroad, Hassan. Living in a land where all the hamams are dirty and diseased. I went to one and I needed to bathe again when I got home, just to get clean! But it’s good to be home. Had I known I was leaving for so long I would have told you, but…”

Hassan waved his hand. “It is no matter. And it is good to see you home, Mr. Sava.”

After they spoke of the past year, and of what each of them had done with it—Mark shared that he’d married Daria, and was now a father—Hassan said, “You will take the full treatment, of course.” He gestured to the plastic sandals—loaners provided by the hamam—outside the changing room. “You will also take a robe?” Before Mark could say no, Hassan’s eyes widened. “Wait one minute, Mr. Sava. I have something for you!”

“I don’t—” Mark was going to say that he didn’t have time at the moment for a treatment, but Hassan had already ducked into the employee room behind the front desk. A moment later, the Azeri reemerged. In his hand he held a pair of plastic slippers. They were old, and the plastic was partially ripped on one. But Mark recognized them.

“They are yours, Mr. Sava. When you don’t return for a year, we took them from the changing room, but I saved them.”

“I was wondering whether I’d ever get those back. You are too good to me.”

Hassan tipped his head briefly, acknowledging the compliment.

Mark said, “But right now I don’t have time for a treatment. I just need a favor.”

“Anything, Mr. Sava. What can I do?”

Hassan loaned Mark his spare jacket, sunglasses, and straw cowboy-style hat—the type favored by men who labored long hours in the sun. And he let Mark exit the hamam via an old tunnel that cut underneath the baths and which was used to service the heating elements beneath the hot rooms. The tunnel opened onto an alley behind the hamam; Mark had used the same exit many times in the past, often after the hamam had officially closed—it was one of the ways he’d managed to arrange secure meetings with his potential informants.