Out of Range: A Novel (11 page)

Chapter Eighteen

C
harlie felt something bump and slam against his back. He awoke with a jerk—heart pounding—to find the Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-154 descending toward Tashkent like a punch-drunk fighter, veering from side to side as though the pilot were landing it with his eyes closed.

Uzbek Air certainly did not inspire great confidence. The pilot was a haggard-looking man with strange staring eyes, and the careless, surly flight attendants wore toothpaste green polyester pantsuits that might have seemed vaguely fashionable in the early 1970s. The plane itself was a wreck: strips of peeling wallpaper dangled off the ceiling like streamers at a parade, there was chewing gum under the seats, graffiti carved into the tray table and a missing armrest on Charlie’s chair where his white-knuckled hand should have been.

Sitting near the rear of the plane, the howl of the aging Russian turbines assaulting his ears, Charlie diverted himself by looking out the window. Finally the plane touched down on the runway.

He breathed a sigh of relief and saw that nothing had changed since he left—the same grungy little airport, the same ugly collection of hangars, the same arid terrain, the same low and unremarkable skyline.

Tashkent.

Charlie took out his cell and checked his voice mail. There were three new messages. The first one greeted him rudely: “Hey there, Mr. Davis, Detective Albez here. We see that you happened to have left the country. Doesn’t look too good for you, you know? Not if you ever want to see your kids again. I were you, I’d rethink this going-on-the-lam strategy and get your ass on the next flight back—” Charlie deleted the prick.

The next was from Sal. He was beginning an awkward apology about overstepping his bounds when Charlie deleted that, too. At this point, he could care less.

The last message was from Mac. “Okay, Charlie, don’t ask me how, but I did it. The freight forwarder was Corrigan Brothers, like you thought. The container, serial number A427-HXQ, left Port of Long Beach, Pier J in a Liberian-flagged steamer, SS
Albert J. Mott
to Port of Sitka in Alaska. Transferred there to a Russian air freight outfit called AeroTrade, which flew through Petrapavlovsk and Kazakhstan en route to Tashkent. The flight is scheduled to arrive at Tashkent International at 7:58 this morning. I’m emailing you all the relevant info, but—” Mac hesitated, voice lowering gravely, “I don’t know what you’re into, Charlie, but be goddamn careful.”

The line went dead.

Charlie looked at his watch: 7:06. He had fifty-two minutes to deplane, hurry through customs, and get to the freight terminal.

He quickly checked his texts and emails. There was one from Faruz—he had no idea what was going on but he would be at the airport to pick Charlie up; one from Becca—the kids were doing just fine; and another from Mac with the serial numbers and info on the container. But there was nothing from Byko. Surely a man like him didn’t allow eleven hours to pass without checking his email. Why would he not respond? Was it possible he, too, had already been taken?

Finally, Charlie heard the forward cabin door thumping open. He jumped up, grabbed his things and forced his way through a group of Russian businessmen, all of them smelling of cologne and vodka. “
Prastitye
,” he said. “Emergency.” The Russians, and everyone else for that matter, swore at Charlie as he pushed, elbowed, and cajoled his way to the front of the plane.

Four minutes later, Charlie was clumping down the old-fashioned aluminum stairway—shades of 1963—and across the tarmac, squinting against the sunlight.

As he rushed through the terminal, he was greeted by a huge portrait of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, looking down at him with beady, calculating eyes. At passport control, he soon found himself at the end of a long single-file line. Usually there was a separate queue for foreign nationals, but he couldn’t see where it was.

A couple of shoddily uniformed soldiers slouched near the line, both carrying AK-47s.

The sight of them made Charlie’s heart pound, but he forced himself to step out of line and approach them. “
Izvineetye
,” he said. “Is there a separate line for—”

“Back in the line!” The young soldier brandished his weapon as though he’d like to whack Charlie in the face.

Charlie had no choice but to retreat, falling in line once again.

The young soldier eyeballed him for what seemed like a lifetime then finally resumed his playful banter with his comrades. Charlie exhaled and checked his watch.

7:21.

He looked at the line. It was moving—but slowly.

Come on!
he thought.
Damnit, come on!

At 7:32, he reached passport control. The official, a short man with a wispy beard, stared long and hard at Charlie’s documents then took them to an ancient computer in a booth located at another officer’s desk. He pecked slowly at the keys, typing in Charlie’s name with the eraser of his pencil.

“Is this going to take long?” Charlie called.

The man turned, eyeballed him briefly, then continued typing—if that was even the right word for this glacial activity.

The bearded man dinged what appeared to be the last key, hit enter and waited. And waited. And waited. Charlie’s entire body was vibrating with impatience until something popped up on the screen.

The officer motioned to his superior, who sat on a chair in a high booth, staring out at the arriving passengers through enormously thick glasses. The supervisor grunted and sighed, then pointed languidly to a red door on the far side of the room.

“What’s this?” Charlie demanded.

“You’re being detained,” said the officer with the beard.

“What do you mean, detained?”

“Detained.”

Charlie had been afraid this might happen. His articles about life here had never put him in high favor with the government. No doubt his name was on some kind of list of undesirables.

But making a scene out here in the open would do him no good. If there was a deal to be made, it would have to be made in the room behind the red door. He raised his hands in surrender and walked as quickly as he could to that door. He entered, followed by the passport-control officer and his supervisor.

The only thing in the room was a table with a handcuff attached to it. Charlie set his bag on the table, turned to the two men and began the proceedings. “Just name me a price.”

The supervisor’s eyes widened, magnified to the size of boiled eggs behind his glasses. “Are you attempting to
bribe
me?”

Charlie reached into his pocket, took out three hundred dollars in twenties, which he kept in a roll with a rubber band around it. It would be cheaper if he pretended that these weren’t bribes but fees, if he talked in code about it, if he flattered and cajoled. But to hell with that. There was no time.

“Here,” he said, counting out his opening offer: two piles, a hundred each.

The supervisor laughed. The passport-control officer laughed.

“Okay, okay,” Charlie said, splitting another eighty between the two piles. It left only a twenty in his hand. “I have to keep something for the cab,” he said.

The supervisor blinked. “You insult us . . . then you speak about
cab fare
? You won’t need cab fare when we put you on the next plane back to London.”

Charlie sighed heavily and put the last twenty on the table. “It’s everything I have.”

The supervisor waddled around him in a slow circle, smiling cynically. Finally he reached out and poked Charlie’s stomach. “Everything?”

Charlie backed away from him.

The supervisor snapped his finger at the passport-control officer, who walked out of the room, closed the door, then came back moments later with the soldiers. One of the uniformed young men grabbed Charlie and pushed him against the wall while the other yanked up his shirt and jerked the money belt off Charlie’s midsection.

“Please!” Charlie begged. “I need that!”

The supervisor stood with his hands folded over his chest while the passport-control officer zipped open the money belt and dumped the contents on the table.

“I thought you said you only had three hundred?” The supervisor waved at the bills on the table. “We may be forced to seize this as evidence of a possible crime.”

“What crime?” Charlie asked indignantly.

The passport-control officer splayed the money out, licked his finger and began counting. The only sound in the room was the rapid
shick-shick-shick-shick
of money.

“Take it,” Charlie said with abject resignation. “Take it all. I don’t care. Just please let me go. I’m in a hurry.”

The supervisor took a small fleck of tobacco from between his teeth and flicked it into the air. “Will you require a receipt?”

“Just give me the belt back,” Charlie said.

The supervisor shrugged, then tossed him the empty belt. “Enjoy your stay in Uzbekistan, Mr. Davis.”

Charlie grabbed his bag and walked as swiftly as he could out the door.

He permitted himself a brief smile as he paused behind a potted plant, reached into his pants and pulled nine thousand dollars out of his underwear. He’d expected there might be a shakedown and knew the money belt would be their first target, so the underwear was his fallback position. It seemed silly, but even extortionists don’t like sticking their hands into other men’s boxer shorts.

He shoved the money back into the belt, secured it underneath his shirt and sprinted for the exit, looking at his watch.

He had fourteen minutes.

Chapter Nineteen

C
harlie exited the terminal and scanned the area. There was no Faruz.

And the taxi stand was a mob scene—Uzbeks yelling and waving money, Russian mobsters shouting at their flunkies, a couple of muscular Englishmen who had the look of military contractors shoving their way through throngs of drivers. Cabs were parked higgledy-piggledy, blocking one another, the drivers honking and swearing.

It could take half an hour just to get out of this mess.

As Charlie pushed his way through the crowd, he heard a loud screech of tires. The mobsters all looked up—alarmed—hands reaching under coats as they ducked behind their cars.

To Charlie’s relief, it was his old friend, waving out the window and pounding on the horn, a wide grin splitting his roguish features. He was parked in the middle of the road but seemed not to notice the inconvenience he was causing the other drivers.

Charlie scrambled toward him, escorted by a chorus of honking horns and epithets from the Russian mobsters. Faruz hopped out of the car, shouting, “Holy shit! I never thought you come back this fucked-up place.” Before Charlie could reply, he found himself locked in a bear hug and enduring Faruz’s traditional slobbering double kiss on the cheeks.

Charlie couldn’t be bothered with pleasantries. “We need to get to the air freight terminal. Now.”

Faruz squinted curiously as Charlie got in the car, then circled around his side and returned to the driver’s seat of his old BMW. “The air freight terminal?”

“I need to see something that’s being delivered there. Seriously, I mean
now
.”

“Still the cowboy, huh?”

Faruz smiled, put the car in drive and navigated his way out of the terminal. He pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his leather coat, whacked them on his palm, held out a cigarette for Charlie.

“I quit,” Charlie said.

“Look at you! Cut your hair, dressing like an old man. You pretending to be a grown-up now?”

“Julie’s in trouble,” Charlie told him. “She was kidnapped in Los Angeles and taken here.” Faruz looked at him incredulously. “She’s in a shipping container arriving at the freight terminal in twelve minutes. I’ll need to get onto the tarmac.”

Faruz lit his cigarette with a gold lighter, steering the car with his knees as he monkeyed around with the pack of Marlboros. “You’re joking, right?”

“I’m dead serious.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. We gonna have to back up a little. Flesh this out, what we up against. I mean, air freight terminal is like Fort Knox.”

“Faruz—”

Faruz held up one hand. “Look, brother, I understand you got a serious situation. Believe me, we ain’t gonna just drive up, say, ‘hey let me in air freight terminal.’ Not gonna happen.”

“We’ve got to find a way.”

“Okay. Just give me a second to think.”

Charlie nodded and examined his old friend for a moment. There was a hint of a potbelly under his handmade silk shirt, and a thin line of gray had appeared in his mane of thick brown hair. But he still exhibited the youthful charm and enthusiasm that had helped him move easily between the interlocking worlds of the democratic movement, the arts, and the fuzzy edges of the underworld. Charlie had missed him more than he’d anticipated and it was a comfort to have him as his wingman.

“Okay, look,” Faruz said, “what I can do is get you up someplace you can watch incoming flights, movement on tarmac, whatever. At least we see if this container is even there. If it’s down there, we figure out what next to do, okay?” Charlie looked at him. “I’m telling you, kid, there’s no way we get in there. No way.”

Charlie realized it was the best he could hope for right now and soon they were speeding down a one-lane road beside a chain-link fence topped with razor wire.

“Let’s try this,” Faruz said, steering the BMW off the road. It bounded and bounced up a hill. At the top was a large cluster of boulders, shattered with age and covered with lichen. “Perfect. Nobody see us here.”

He stomped on the brake and the car skidded to a stop on the bone-dry grass, throwing up an immense cloud of dust.

Faruz climbed out of the car, looked around nervously and walked to the boulders. “Behold,” he said. Sprawled out in front of them was a collection of warehouses and hangars.

Charlie found a crevice in which he could survey the entire freight terminal, but his stomach twisted with disappointment. There were literally thousands of containers stacked up in long rows from one side to the other. Charlie glanced at his watch. It was 7:56.

“What time it supposed to come?” Faruz asked.

“Two minutes,” Charlie replied, pulling out his Nikon. He screwed in a powerful 500-millimeter lens and began a slow, careful scan of the facility. Faruz wasn’t kidding about the security in the freight terminal. Roving teams of three and four armed men—some of them with German shepherds—moved throughout the facility and guard towers rose from each corner of the fence.

With the magnification of his big lens, Charlie was able to barely make out numbers on the sides of the shipping containers, but there were so many he almost didn’t know where to begin.

“You know,” Faruz reminded him, “there’s no such thing as ‘ahead of schedule’ in the U-stan. If it’s supposed get here in two minutes there’s no way it’s here yet. Nothing ever come early here. Now how’s about you tell me what fuck going on with Julie.”

Charlie glanced back at his friend. “I don’t know exactly. Except that she came here to see Byko last week and somehow got herself into trouble. She was grabbed in L.A., and whoever took her is bringing her back here. That’s your next assignment: help me find Byko.”

“No way. Nobody seen that guy for months.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Byko, man! I’m talking about Byko. Speculation, the guy got in some kind of beef with Karimov. All I know, everybody’s like, hey, Byko’s gone to the mattresses.”

Charlie considered this. If Byko had gone underground months ago, then how would he have been able to meet Julie in Samarkand or Tashkent? Then again, Charlie remembered Byko’s final email to Julie:
I’ll call you on your mobile and we’ll make arrangements.
At first, it seemed innocent enough. Hearing what Faruz was telling him now, Charlie figured that Byko didn’t want to give away his comings and goings online. Whatever the scenario, it seemed clear that Byko had risked his own safety and come out of hiding just to meet Julie. Or perhaps Byko had sent his men to escort Julie to one of his many outposts in the Fergana Valley. Either way, Charlie was convinced more than ever that her disappearance had to be connected to him.

Charlie looked into Faruz’s dark eyes. “If anybody can find the guy, it’s you, Faruz.”

Faruz looked out thoughtfully toward the cluster of warehouses and stacks of containers below them, then whipped out his phone and began a series of conversations, carried on in a rapid mixture of Uzbek, Tajik, Russian and English. He was putting out a net for Byko.

Meanwhile, Charlie directed his camera at the distant steel structure. A small fleet of wheeled containers sat on the tarmac behind it. Unfortunately, not only was it at the farthest point from their little promontory, but his view of many of the containers was blocked by the massive warehouse.

Suddenly, Charlie saw Faruz flattening himself against the rock.

“Get down, get down!” he hissed, switching off his phone in midconversation.

As Charlie ducked behind the rock, he saw why Faruz was panicking. A Jeep Cherokee was driving slowly by on the road below. Inside were several heavily armed men. And they would not look kindly on an American journalist snooping around up here.

Charlie lay flat against the cool rock, listening to their approach. He thought that he heard them slow but then realized it was the sound of the motor receding into the distance.

Faruz rose and stared at the receding plume of dust. “Goddamnit, I hate those people,” he said. Then he began talking on the phone again—laughing, wheedling, chiding, flattering—as though nothing had happened.

Satisfied that the security patrol was gone, Charlie rose slightly and stared through his lens again. As he tried to reorient his camera, a very large multiengine turboprop taxied slowly toward the warehouse, cutting off his view.

The airplane stopped. It appeared to be some kind of military transport—its markings on the side read aerotrade in bold Cyrillic letters. After a moment, the entire tail began to rise, opening a giant maw in the rear of the plane. Down came a big steel ramp and a low, trucklike towing vehicle crawled slowly up it.

Could this be the flight she was supposed to come in on?

Charlie zoomed the camera in on the plane. The towing vehicle was bumping down off the ramp—behind it was a container on a little flatbed trailer. As he racked focus, something in the viewfinder caught his attention. Four white letters flashing in front of him: a427. Those were the first four digits of the serial number he was looking for. He tracked across the container and found the last three: hxq.

A wave of excitement ran through him. That was it.

Suddenly, with a horrific clatter of rotors, a helicopter burst over the hill. Faruz threw himself to the ground and Charlie thought for sure the chopper was part of a security detail sent to apprehend them. But it screamed right past and thundered toward the forest of containers on the other side of the fence.

“I’m getting too old for this shit,” Faruz muttered. “How much longer?”

Charlie ignored him, fixated on the tarmac.

Down by the big transport aircraft, the towing vehicle slowly pulled the container into the middle of a large clearing and stopped.

“Oh shit!” Faruz said.

“What?”

Faruz merely pointed.

The Jeep that had been patrolling the perimeter road was back again. But this time it was driving across an open field, heading for the back side of the hummock on which they were situated. And it was hauling ass.

Faruz ran toward his car.

“Wait!” Charlie yelled.

“We gotta go! These guys don’t fuck around.”

“Just wait, goddamnit!”

Charlie raised his camera a little and saw the chopper lowering itself toward the container. Four slim steel cables slid from its belly, unspooling downward.

Charlie watched two men spring up onto the container and attach hooks to the ends of the cable, connecting the chopper to the four corners of the big steel box. The task completed, they jumped down to the towing vehicle and unhitched the container from the tow bar.

Faruz revved the engine. “Charlie! Don’t be fool! Come on!”

But Charlie kept snapping photos as fast as he could. A man appeared in the hatchway of the chopper. He was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, and carried an M4 carbine on a sling across his chest. He shouted something to the others, then tossed a duffle bag down to them.

The bag hit the tarmac and broke open, spilling stacks of banknotes onto the ground.

Charlie popped off a few shots of the payoff then swiveled the camera up to the chopper again, snapping one last picture. As he did, the man in the hatchway turned his head and looked out toward Charlie. That was when Charlie recognized him.

It was Bull.

Charlie felt a mixture of triumph and terror. Bull’s presence confirmed beyond any doubt that Julie was in the container. It also confirmed what Julie would soon be facing.

The panicked Faruz fishtailed around in a half circle, preparing to head back down the hill. “You don’t come right now, I leave without you!”

“I’m coming!” Charlie sprinted alongside the car, grabbed the open door and dove into the passenger seat.

Faruz thumped and bumped and slid down the hill, threatening to turn over at any second. The vehicle behind them was gaining rapidly, the Jeep so close that Charlie could see the individual security guards’ faces, their jaws set, weapons ready.

But Faruz made it to the road at the bottom of the hill. Back on its native territory, the BMW surged forward with a screech of tires and was soon easily outdistancing the slower all-terrain vehicle. Charlie looked back to see the Jeep slowing down and apparently giving up. Maybe they were writing off Charlie and Faruz as a couple of dumb tourists.

Faruz was sweating profusely and he gave Charlie a look as if to say, “Don’t pull that shit again!” but a roar overhead brought Charlie’s attention back to the chopper.

As he watched it fly east and disappear over the horizon, he tried not to imagine where they were taking Julie and what Bull would do to her once they got there.