Private Wars (37 page)

CHAPTER 51

No-Man’s-Land—Amu Darya River—
“Friendship Bridge”

29 August, 0803 Hours (GMT+5:00)

Chace had stopped not so much because the
boy needed her to carry him, but because she needed the signal to be clear. It was a game of trust now, trust that everyone would do what they were supposed to, be where they were supposed to, when they were supposed to.

She could see Kostum and Lankford at the far end of the bridge, standing in Afghanistan, five hundred meters away. When she turned and looked back, she could see Sevara’s little motorcade, the President standing where they’d left her, watching their progress.

Then she heard the radio chatter in her ear, Tower’s voice speaking in Uzbek, and another’s, answering him in the same language. She saw the plume of dust spurt from where the van had been parked on the slope, and she knew it was on, and as a result, she knew several other things. The first was that Ahtam Zahidov was somewhere within five kilometers of their position, within the maximum range of the Starstreak. Second, that he planned on using the Starstreak to kill not just Stepan and Ruslan, but Lankford and herself as well.

And third, that she now needed to make certain Zahidov stayed so focused on what she was doing that he didn’t decide to fire early, that he wouldn’t see what was coming.

Stepan was looking up at her, confusion painting his small face, and he asked her a question in Uzbek, and she smiled at him, then crouched and hoisted him in her arms, positioning him on her left hip.

“How about a song?” she asked him. “Shall we sing a song?”

Stepan’s confusion remained, and Chace resumed walking along the bridge. Most of the songs she knew by heart, she realized, were entirely inappropriate for children, whether Stepan could understand them or not. Instead, she pointed with her free hand down toward the southern end of the bridge, and used the one Uzbek word that Stepan himself had taught her.

“That way,” she told the little boy.
“Ota.”

The boy twisted in her arm, looking, and she felt him tense with excitement, and for a second, she was afraid she would lose her grip on him as he tried to lunge forward. Then, not seeing his father, he sagged and turned an accusing look at her. She couldn’t blame him. That Ruslan’s fear had been greater than his desire to see his son, to be present when the little boy came across the border, confused her. If it had been Chace waiting for Tamsin, she’d have stood naked with a bull’s-eye painted over her heart, just so her daughter would know she was waiting.

From the southern end of the bridge, Kostum shouted something in Uzbek at them, and Chace didn’t understand a word of it, but it got Stepan’s attention, and he squirmed in her arm. There was a crackle in her ear, and a second transmission in Uzbek, followed by another response, and now Tower sounded more agitated, more urgent. Chace tried to keep her progress as slow as before, buying time, but Afghanistan was coming closer. She thought about stopping again, but to do so a second time would be too risky—Zahidov would see it for what it was, a stalling tactic.

Look at me,
she thought.
Look at me, hate me, look at me. Just don’t hate me so much you lose your patience.

Stepan was speaking in her arms, apparently in response to Kostum’s words. Chace wondered just how much of what the little boy was saying was actually Uzbek versus toddler babble. Kostum was gesturing toward himself, then the vehicle, parked and waiting for them. Lankford now stood by the open driver’s door, the tension on his face, the anxiety. She shared it.

The trap hinged on denying Zahidov the optimum shot, on keeping Chace, Stepan, and Lankford apart for as long as possible. Once they were all together in Afghanistan, once they were at the vehicle, that would be when Zahidov loosed the Starstreak. They had to stay separated long enough for Tower and the Uzbeks to close in on Zahidov. But they couldn’t be obvious about it, because if Zahidov for an instant thought he was being set up, he’d take whatever shot he could.

And Chace knew whom that shot would be targeted at, and this time, she was sure there’d be no narrow escape for her and little Stepan Malikov.

She kept walking, measuring her pace, trying to guess at the time. How long had it been since she’d given the go signal? Thirty seconds? Forty? A minute? How fast would they be able to move overland, how far away was Zahidov?

The Afghan border guards were raising the gate now, she saw the two bars of white-and-red-painted metal lifting and separating, clearing the way. Chace felt her stomach contracting, knowing that her next few steps would take her and the boy into the kill zone, the blast radius of the Starstreak when it hit the Cherokee. Any instant now, Zahidov would fire.

Any instant now, he would kill them all.

Then Chace heard the echo of gunfire as it rolled down the hills out of Uzbekistan and across the water, the chorus of automatic rifles as they made certain that the man who had tortured her, who had murdered the mother of the child in her arms, could never hurt anyone ever again.

CHAPTER 52

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

29 August, 0803 Hours (GMT+5:00)

Finally, the bitch had done what she was
supposed to be doing all along. And carrying the little shit, that was even better—she’d be wearing his blood by the time he was through.

Zahidov felt his heart pounding in his ears, his pulse making his very palms vibrate. He adjusted his position slightly, pressing the sight more firmly to his eye, settling the crosshairs on little boy’s head as it rested on the blond bitch’s shoulder. If he did it right, he’d take them both together.

He heard engines, car engines, or engines larger than cars, and for a moment the sound confused him. They were far from the road, far enough that the sounds of the vehicles traveling it wouldn’t carry. He pulled his eye from the sight and half turned, trying to find the source of the noise, and then he saw the vehicles coming, two APCs and, of all things, a white van, a Daewoo, and they were roaring toward him, cresting the hill above where the helicopter waited.

And in that moment, Ahtam Zahidov knew he had been had.

Swearing, he twisted back around, to face the bridge and Afghanistan, trying to reacquire the bitch and the boy in his sights. But he’d shifted, he was looking at the water, not at the bridge, and it took him precious seconds to reacquire the target, and then he could see them, the two figures about to come off the bridge, the gate on the Afghan side being raised.

He heard the shouts and the gunfire together, the rattle of automatic weapons, and he knew that they were too late, all he needed to do was pull the trigger, such a little gesture, such a tiny act. But his chest felt suddenly heavy, as if filled with cast iron, and his legs felt brittle, and he couldn’t see the target anymore, only sky. He felt a thousand blows raining down on his body.

He saw his rifle on the ground.

Then a last blow shattered his head, and he never saw anything else.

CHAPTER 53

Afghanistan—Balkh Province—
1.3 Km ESE “Friendship Bridge”

29 August, 0806 Hours (GMT+5:00)

Lankford drove the Cherokee, taking them out along
the newly paved road that paralleled the Amu Darya, Chace seated beside him. In the backseat, belted in, Stepan sat numbly beside Kostum, who, Chace thought, was doing a wretched job of trying to reassure the boy.

She was looking back over the river, to the Uzbek side, when Tower’s voice crackled once again in her ear, the transmission distorted with interference from the border posts.

“We have Kaa but negative on the candle. Baloo to Shere Khan, do you copy?”

Chace glanced sharply to Lankford, saw from his expression that he’d received the transmission as well, was just as bewildered by it as she was. She twisted in her seat, looking past Stepan, back toward the bridge spanning the ugly river.

“Shere Khan, do you copy? I repeat, negative on the candle, the candle is
not
here.”

The binoculars that Lankford had used were on the dashboard, and Chace took them up, used them to look back toward the Uzbek checkpoint. She could feel Lankford slowing the Cherokee, and that made it easier to find what she was looking for, the cluster of soldiers and vehicles that formed President Sevara Malikov-Ganiev’s motorcade. They were still parked as before, and she could see the figures that made up her retinue as the President made nice with the guards, taking her promised tour of the border crossing before returning to the Sikorsky and a quick trip back into Termez.

How long until she got aboard her helicopter once more? Three minutes? Five?

There was another transmission from Tower, this one so distorted as to be unintelligible, but it didn’t matter, she knew what he was saying. Zahidov hadn’t had the missile, maybe had never had it, and that meant it was in someone else’s hands.

She lowered the binoculars, and saw Kostum watching her, and then she understood, and the humiliation and betrayal that burst open inside her at having been played so well and so effectively was sickening. It all made sense, then, what Ruslan had done and why he had done it. Why he had demanded that she be the one to bring Stepan across, why Ruslan had claimed that the fear for his own life was greater than his concern for his son’s. Chace understood it all, and worse, understood just how effectively Ruslan had found her blind spot and exploited it.

She saw it all, and she saw the reason for it, but Kostum had seen the realization coming, too, and the pistol was coming out from the folds of his shirt, held in his left hand. With his other, Kostum held Stepan with an open palm on the little boy’s chest, pressing him against the backseat, keeping him still. The bandage around his hand was filthy and stained, and looked like a tumor where his hand pressed against the little boy’s breast.

“Chris—” Chace started to say, but the pistol was already pressing into the back of Lankford’s head, and it was too late for any move.

“Stop,” Kostum said.

Lankford stopped the Cherokee in the middle of the road.

“I take son to him now,” Kostum said. “You both out.”

“Where is he?” Chace asked. “Where’s Ruslan?”

“Out.”

“He’s going to kill his sister. That’s it, isn’t it?”

Kostum pushed the barrel of his pistol harder into the back of Lankford’s head, and in her peripheral vision, Chace could see Minder Three wince, his hands still tight on the wheel. The gun was a Makarov, a Russian pistol, and from the looks of it, acquired during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Not the best gun in the world, and not the most accurate outside of fifteen meters or so, but here and now, perfectly suited for its job.

“Out,” Kostum repeated, then slid his eyes to Chace, and his expression softened, almost to a plea. “Please.”

“Where’d he get the Starstreak? From you?”

Kostum’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t move, and neither did the pistol, and Chace could see him struggling with the conflict. She and Lankford had saved his life on the road to Mazar-i-Sharif, when Zahidov’s men had ambushed them, after all. There was a debt to be paid.

“You’re the one who sold them to Zahidov in the first place, aren’t you?” Chace persisted. “Kept one for yourself?”

“Please.” Kostum spoke through clenched teeth. “I take son now.”

“You gave us protection. Pashtunwali.”

Kostum turned his head to Chace. Trapped beneath his palm, Stepan seemed frozen in place, staring straight ahead, at nothing, young eyes dead, a witness already of too much violence. Beneath their voices, the engine idled softly, waiting.

“He asks my help for his revenge. You do not understand—”

Lankford twisted his neck to the left, wrenching himself about in the seat, the Makarov slipping from his head, and when he did, Chace lunged. The interior of the car exploded with the sound of the pistol’s report, the windshield shattering, and Chace felt something slap her face, a hot line burning across her cheek. She bore down on the weapon, hearing Stepan’s screams as if her head were inside a bucket of water, her ears ringing from the gunshot, and she kept her grip on the Makarov, twisting it with both hands, turning it away from Kostum’s finger trapped inside the trigger guard, refusing him a second shot.

Then Lankford had his Browning out, pointed at Kostum’s face, and Chace had the Makarov in her hand, and Stepan was wailing, and Kostum was falling back against his seat, shaking his injured left hand. The look on his face was devoid of anger, even of pain, just an acknowledgment of his failure, and already Chace could see him finding his resolve. This wasn’t what Kostum had wanted, but in its way, it satisfied his obligations. He had tried, and he had failed.

Lankford was saying something, but Chace couldn’t hear him. She saw Kostum start slightly in his seat, glance down at his shirt, then look back to them. With the pistol in one hand, pointed at him, Chace leaned forward, digging into the folds of his shirt with the other. Kostum’s expression tightened with anger, but he didn’t move, and she found the phone nestled near his hip. When she pulled it out, her hearing had returned enough that she could dimly make out the trill of an incoming call.

“Get him out of the car,” Chace said to Lankford, then turned her attention to the phone.

It was another satellite model, not unlike the Iridium she’d brought with her to Tashkent in February. She set the Makarov in her lap, pulling the earpiece from the radio free while using her teeth to extend the antenna on the phone. She punched the receive button with her thumb and put the unit to her ear.

“Hello, Ruslan,” Chace said, and she hoped she wasn’t shouting.

There was a moment’s pause. “You have my son with you?”

Chace looked at the boy, his face stained with tears, snot bubbling over his upper lip, miserable in the backseat.

“I do. Where are you? I’ll bring him to you.”

“In a few minutes. After Sevara has boarded her helicopter.”

“Now,” Chace disagreed. “Or I don’t bring him to you at all.”

There was a second pause, Ruslan hesitating, trapped between conflicting desires.

“You kill her, you’ll never see your son again, Ruslan. Even if you do manage to disappear into Afghanistan for the rest of your life, you’ll never see Stepan again.”

“You will kill him?”

“I’ll take him back to Uzbekistan. Your sister’s husband is still there.”

His muttered curse came over the line.

“You’re running out of time, Ruslan.”

“Come toward the water,” he told her. “Quickly.”

He hung up.

Chace shifted the Makarov to her coat pocket, then opened her door and moved around the hood to the driver’s side, to climb back in. Lankford stood with Kostum, now at the side of the road, the Browning still pointed at him.

“Where are you going?”

“Ruslan’s down by the river. I’m going to get the missile.”

Lankford didn’t look away from Kostum. “You’re taking the kid with you?”

“He wants his son.”

“And Ruslan will just hand the Starstreak over in trade, will he?”

“For the boy’s sake, let’s hope so,” Chace said.

He’d
taken a position another half-kilometer away, along a dried wash at the edge of the water, and Chace saw him from a distance, and thought that he’d picked a fine place to stage an assassination. She’d expected him to take higher ground, but instead, he’d gone for lower, using the shelter cut from the earth by the water long ago. It was a good spot, not unlike the one Chace had picked for the failed rendezvous with Porter nearly seven months earlier, and well within the maximum range of the Starstreak.

He had the MANPAD deployed, resting on his shoulder, nose to the ground. Chace guided the Cherokee toward him along the river’s edge, closing the distance as quickly as she could manage without giving him the impression she would run him down. When he thought she’d come far enough, he lifted the missile and pointed it at the car, indicating that she should stop.

Chace killed the engine, stared out at Ruslan through the shattered windshield. Behind her, still belted into his seat, she heard Stepan snuffle as the latest bout of his tears finally subsided.

“Step out of the car,” Ruslan called to her.

From the backseat she heard Stepan cry out, surprised and frightened and delighted all at once, hearing his father’s voice. Chace could hear the child moving, straining against the lap belt, caught a glimpse of the little boy’s reflection in the rearview mirror as he struggled against the safety restraint.

Chace got out of the car, slamming her door, then looking again to Ruslan. He was dressed much as he had been the last time she’d seen him. About two meters past him, resting in the dirt, was the crate for the Starstreak, opened and empty, and propped against it, a Kalashnikov. She wondered idly how he’d gotten himself and the missile into position, then realized there would have been a thousand ways to do so, that all it took was money to bribe the right people and the will to make it happen.

“You killed Kostum?” Ruslan asked.

She shook her head. He was still holding the Starstreak as before, the launch tube roughly parallel to the ground, but skewed away from her, his eye clear of the aiming unit. Chace turned, looking in the direction Ruslan faced. Across the water, the Uzbek minefield sloped upward, toward the electrified fence. She could see the bridge in the distance, and a couple of vehicles parked near the checkpoint, but not the Sikorsky.

“You’re waiting until she takes off,” Chace said.

“If my son had not been aboard, I would have shot her down before she landed.”

Stepan called out from inside the Cherokee, his voice climbing in volume and pitch. Ruslan didn’t answer, but she saw him look to the vehicle, and for a moment thought he might actually lower the Starstreak and go to his son.

But he didn’t.

“Then what?” Chace asked him. “You and Stepan disappear into Afghanistan, never to return?”

“It is a country made for hiding,” he answered.

“Zahidov’s dead.”

“A good start, but not enough.”

“Put it down, Ruslan.”

He shook his head. “I must do this.”

“Forget that she’s your sister. She’s the President of Uzbekistan.”

“She killed my father. She killed my wife!”

“Zahidov killed your wife.”

“At her request! At her pleasure! She is a monster, you know this!”

His voice was shaking now, churning with anger and desperation, with his need for Chace to understand. And she did understand—too well she understood. Blood cried for blood.

“She’s the President of Uzbekistan,” Chace repeated. “I can’t let you kill her. Please, put it down, Ruslan. You have your son, let that be enough.”

“It isn’t enough!” He glared at her, then turned his head slightly, suddenly, and she knew he was listening for the rumble of the helicopter lifting off from across the river. So far, there was only the running water of the Amu Darya and their own voices.

“It isn’t enough,” he repeated.

Chace turned, walking around the rear of the vehicle to the passenger side. She looked back toward the bridge as she did, thinking again that Ruslan had done an excellent job of picking his spot. The helo would be visible in the air as it turned back toward Termez. Fired from here, the Starstreak could hit it in mere seconds, and there was even a chance that the missile would never be seen coming.

When she reached Stepan’s door, Ruslan snapped, “Leave him inside.”

Inside the Cherokee, Stepan was looking at her, wide-eyed. Chace turned.

“Put it down.”

“I cannot.”

She opened the passenger door, reaching across the little boy to unfasten his seatbelt.

“Please,” Ruslan pleaded. “Leave him in the car!”

Chace finished unfastening the boy, caught him beneath the armpits, and swung him out of the vehicle. She set Stepan down on the rough sand, facing his father.

“Don’t do this!”

“Ota,”
she told the little boy. She needn’t have said anything.

As soon as her hands left him, Stepan was off, a full toddler run, arms flailing, legs pumping, making straight for Ruslan. Chace straightened, watching the little boy as she pulled the Makarov from her pocket. She followed after him, slower, the gun in her right hand.

“For pity’s sake, Ruslan,” she said, “put the damn thing down.”

She thought she saw him consider it, saw the launch tube of the missile dip toward the earth once more just as Stepan reached him. The little boy threw his arms around his father’s legs, and Ruslan looked down at his son, then up at Chace, and there was no escaping the pain on his face.

“Put him back in the car! I am begging you!”

Chace continued to approach, shaking her head. From across the river, she could hear the Sikorsky, the echo of the rotors spinning up. She saw Ruslan’s head jerk to the right, hearing it as well.

“You have to decide what’s more important, Ruslan,” Chace told him. “Your son or your revenge.”

“She raped and murdered his mother!”

“And you’re about to murder his aunt.”