Cono’s head reeled as he stood up; he stumbled over the hoses, trying to get away as fast as he could from the bodies. Xiao Li. Dimira. Zheng. He grabbed the welding mask hanging on one of the tanks and trudged toward Azmat, trying to guess where Zheng might have taken his captives. Maybe he should have given Xiao Li another mobile phone, so she could alert him if there was a problem, but it could have been a liability if she’d used it incautiously. Or so he told himself.
Cono lifted Azmat’s ankles and propped them up on the welding mask. The boy was in shock, but his chest was still rising and falling with shallow breaths. Cono gathered up Azmat’s fallen pistol and went back to the two bodies. He pulled the AK from between them and unwrapped the grenade from Tamaris’s fingers.
He carried the weapons to the base of the cockpit stairs where he’d laid Timur’s handguns. Here, next to the door leading to the quarry, the crusher seemed horribly loud and demanding. Where are Xiao Li and Dimira? He felt like a hunter without a spear, naked with stupidity.
The humming machine beckoned him. It would take only fifteen minutes or so to get rid of the rest of the canisters. Only three or four more. Which was it? Or he could stretch out on this floor, just for a little while … He closed his eyes and staggered to the door to the quarry, bracing himself against its bent frame. He felt warmth and opened his eyes. The sun, a red sphere on the horizon, was blinding. He turned his head back to the interior, blinking, trying to form images. He saw Azmat on the floor. There was another boy below, killed by two knuckles on Cono’s right hand. And somewhere behind the cylinders was the boys’ brave, dead leader.
Dying for a lump of metal in a barrel. What foolishness. He laughed, still holding himself against the doorframe. He could prove their foolishness by tossing the rest of the lumps into the hungry mouth. He laughed again, and again; it kept him alert as he hoisted the canister lying on the floor and carried it to the crusher, where he lobbed it into the feed bin.
He climbed into the pit to go down for another one. As he entered the hole he stepped on the gun he’d left on the second rung of the ladder.
“Your mind is mush, Cono,” he yelled as he wedged the gun into his waistband and went down, laughing hysterically.
The sight of the dead young man in the tunnel silenced his laughter. Cono pulled him away by the ankles to clear the space next to the high-U.
He brought up the fourth and fifth canisters. “Yes, I am a mule, yes I am a mule,” he repeated to himself. Tamaris’s words formed a rhythm that kept Cono marching as he delivered each yellow barrel to its death. His hysteria broke free each time he pressed the crusher feed lever and shouted, “Dust to dust!” toward the sunrise shimmering in the distance.
The last canister seemed the lightest of all as he lugged it up the ladder, and he found it easy to thrust it onto the diminished pile of rocks in the feed bin. He felt his cheeks flushing as he came down the steps from the cockpit. More! More! What else can I return to the earth? Midway down the stairs, he stopped.
“Timur! My BROTHER!” he yelled. “Dust to dust!” He almost tripped as he leaped off the stairs in eagerness.
But while he was airborne, he heard above the drone of the crusher a creak, like a distant hinge coming to life. As he landed at the foot of the stairs, Cono seized the AK and spun.
It was Bulat. Same clothes, same cap. He had just walked through the little door next to the interior shed.
Cono looked for others behind the intruder. There were none. “So, Teacher, speak to the class.”
Bulat steadily shuffled forward, looking left at Tamaris and Timur, and then at Azmat, lying to the right.
“Stop there.”
Bulat stood still, surveying the parts of the building that hadn’t been visible from the doorway, then his gaze veered back to Cono. “You seem to have recovered quickly since our last meeting.”
“Take off the jacket and cap and throw them in front of you.”
Bulat complied, saying, “I assure you I have no weapons.”
“Assurances are as dependable as alley cats lately. Take off your shirt and pants and throw them down too. Then take five steps backward and turn around. A full circle. Arms in the air.”
“This is quite, quite irregular.”
“This is an irregular place.”
“I assure you …”
“I assure you I am very impatient. And not normal in the head.”
Bulat removed his shirt and tossed it. He had a hard time getting his pant legs over his shoes.
“The shoes too.”
When the trousers and shoes joined the pile, Bulat, wearing only baggy gray briefs, a sleeveless undershirt, and drooping brown socks, stepped backward and turned around. He was a short block of a man, with legs like tree stumps.
Cono approached the clothes and began to step on them to feel for weapons.
“My phone. Don’t break it. It’s in the coat.”
Cono found it and put it in his pocket.
“Now I am sure you are a very capable man,” Bulat said, “just as Miss Oksana told me. It has been quite a spectacle.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I came shortly after the head of the Bureau arrived.”
“You saw everything?”
“All that I could see from that little door when it wasn’t being guarded.”
“And you didn’t help me?”
“It was hard to make sense of it all. A puzzle with so many missing pieces. And, from what I could see, you seemed to need no help from an unarmed man.”
Cono let the AK rest at his hip. “I could be one of the corpses here.”
“With such a complicated picture, how could I know that was a bad thing?”
Cono raised the rifle to his shoulder again. “Do you think it would be a bad thing if I put you down right now?” Cono had been standing still for too long. The lack of vigorous movement, which the canister toting had afforded, was allowing weariness to reinvade his body.
“For me, a very bad thing indeed,” Bulat said. “For you, I’m not sure. But a man, especially a naked man, deserves to know why he is to be killed by someone he helped such a short time before.”
“Get dressed.”
Bulat gathered up his clothes.
“Tell me, Slem, where is Miss Oksana?”
“I don’t know. And please, Bulat is a much better name.”
“Why are you here, Bulat?”
“I relieved another man who works for Miss Oksana. He was keeping watch on the Bureau chief, for what purpose I wasn’t informed. As I arrived the other man got a message from Miss Oksana. She told him not to bother with the surveillance—I like that word, ‘surveillance.’ The other man left with surprising haste; perhaps he was happy to get some sleep.” Bulat continued talking as he buttoned his shirt. “But I had already slept for several hours. What was I to do? Go home and play chess against myself? My family is in the countryside; I am all alone. And I was right—chess is nothing compared to the drama I have witnessed here.” Bulat put on his cap.
“That’s enough. Do you know that Oksana has turned over two women, my friends, to a Beijing agent, who will surely kill them?”
“I heard the Bureau chief shouting something about a tart a short time ago, and a Kitai. Regrettably, I could not understand all that he said.”
Cono moved slightly so he could see Bulat more clearly in the sunlight glowing from the doorway behind him. The broad Kazak face lacked any momentary ripples of lies.
“I don’t know about these women,” Bulat said. “Why would Miss Oksana put your friends in danger? I thought Miss Oksana was your friend too. I am confused. What Beijing agent?”
“Your Miss Oksana couldn’t get what she needed from the Americans, so she cut a deal with the Kitai, the ringleader of Beijing’s grab for your country—the torturer you saved me from. That’s why she called off the surveillance of the Bureau chief, who came here to trade with the jihadis to get their support. She called off the chase beca
use the Bureau chief was soon to be Beijing’s man too.”
Creases appeared in the wide slab of Bulat’s forehead. “Miss Oksana? No. There must be another explanation. Perhaps she just took my advice that the jihadis were a distraction from the bigger problem.”
Cono pulled out Bulat’s mobile and handed it to him. “Call her.”
“Oh, no. We never communicate by phone.”
Cono planted the butt of the AK in his shoulder and aimed.
“That number is only for the most extreme of circumstances.”
“Look around. There’s another dead man down in the tunnel. Do you want me to cut an equation into your forehead?”
“Miss Oksana going over to the Kitais? After all my warnings about Beijing taking my country? It cannot be so,” Bulat asserted, but a telltale vertical wrinkle of doubt formed between his eyebrows.
“Call her.”
Bulat carefully punched in a number by memory. “It’s ringing.” Bulat held the phone to his ear for a dozen rings. The wrinkle on his forehead grew deeper. “No answer,” he said softly.
“Call again.”
“She told me if circumstances ever became extreme, she would respond immediately,” he said slowly, as if explaining a theorem to a student. “She said my good service demanded that of her.” He punched in the number again and listened, his head bent down.
“Hallo. Miss Oksana. Yes, it’s Slem. It’s an emergency …”
Cono grabbed the phone. “Where are they?”
“Cono, you sound like you’ve lost your cool.” Katerina’s voice was even. “You see? You are addicted.”
“Where are my friends?”
There was a momentary silence. “You mean the Chinese street whore? Why bother? A woman like that is always asking for trouble.”
“And what were you when you first came to Almaty?”
Silence.
“And what are you now?”
Silence.
“And the other woman you gave to Zheng, a mother,” Cono said. “Children—you were so worried about them. A million dead.”
Cono heard Katerina draw in a breath. “You mean the one with the ugly ears,” she said. “We know her kid is dead anyway. Just get out, Cono.”
“Why did you turn? Have you been hedging your bets all along? Where are the two women?”
“Listen. Simmons’s replacement doesn’t like my style. She called me a liability. You know what that means, Cono? It means my family is fucked unless I find another way, and my bones will be found someday in an acid vat at a tannery in Chimkent. So, Mr. Free to Go Anywhere Anytime, see reality and get the fuck out of town.” There were three clicks. The connection went dead.
“Well?” Bulat looked alarmed by the anger in Cono’s face.
“It’s true. She’s working for Beijing. In hopes of freedom.”
“Beijing? Freedom?” Bulat started to laugh, but stopped himself. He shook his head. “Oil and water.”
15
Cono redialed the number Bulat had entered and saw that it was not the same one Katerina had given him at the swimming pool. It rang, but there was no answer. He kept his eyes on Bulat as he dialed six more times, with the same result. He also again tried the number Katerina had given him at the pool, relieved that he could still retrieve it from his own memory. Three times, no answer.
“So, Teacher, where would Oksana take two women so she could hand them over as hostages?” Cono felt out of breath, and sucked in air. “Does she have other safe houses, places that are only hers, not the Americans’?”
“I am not aware of any except the place I took you.” Bulat rubbed his chin. “I am sorry to say this, but you look very weary. Perhaps you should sit down and rest.”
“It’ll have to wait.” Cono tried to think through the fog that was drifting into his head. “The note. The one you said you didn’t leave under my friend Dimira’s door. Who was the stringer who left it?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know about the note or who might have left it. Miss Oksana says it’s better if we don’t have contact with each other. It’s the way it’s done in this business.”
“But you must have a telephone number for at least one of them.” Cono scrolled through the memory of Bulat’s mobile. There were no numbers listed. He went to Calls Received: None. Unanswered Incoming Calls: None. Calls Made: Only the multiple attempts to call Katerina. “You have it memorized.” Cono searched Bulat’s face. “Give me another number.”
“I assure you, I have no number for the others. I don’t even have names for them. And I don’t want to know them.” Bulat’s voice was steady.
“Help me think. Where, how, to find Oksana and Zheng and the women.” Cono walked over to the backpack lying next to the pit and took out the Geiger counter. Beneath it, wrapped in a wad of cloth diapers, were three Russian RGD-5 grenades. There was a ring of keys, and nothing else. Cono carried the bag to the base of the control-room stairs and put the harvest of four pistols and Tamaris’s grenade into it.
“Think!”
“Yes, I am trying to think,” said Bulat, now standing over Azmat. “What about this young man, whose arm you tied?”
“You should take him to a hospital. But I won’t let you. I need your help.”
“To do what?”
“Help me think, goddamn it! I can’t think straight!”
Bulat looked at Cono’s face and then at the AK. He was concerned that the hysterical behavior he’d seen just before entering the building was now returning, but this time Cono had a rifle in his hands, not a canister. Cono took a few steps and stood outside the doorway, in the brightness of a cloudless morning. The damn machines are still on. He went up to the control room and turned off all the switches. As he came down the stairs he felt a vibration against his thigh. It was Bulat’s cell phone.
Cono yanked it out of his pocket. He pushed the Receive button and listened to a faint buzz. When he reached the bottom of the stairs and stood in the sunshine at the doorway, the signal cleared up. “Yes?”
“My dear Cono. I have another joke for you. The Dalai Lama wants a hooker. He’s a man, after all. He rings up the Chinese consulate, because he’s heard they can find the best. The operator gives him a name and a number. He asks how he can be sure she’s the best. The operator says, because her lovers are all willing to die to get more of her. The Lama says, she’s the one for me, no problem—I get reincarnated anyway!”
Zheng’s laughter was so loud that Cono had to move the phone away.
Cono brought it back to his ear. “I’m not laughing this time.”
“You are so honest, always so sincere, my friend. The small boats are floating on the lake, the red ties are shining, tell me my comrades, all that Communist Youth Brigade rubbish. Pity that your sincerity had such a nostalgic effect on my two bank assistants. They are now trying to row themselves out of the bottom of a lake.”
“Yes, a pity.”
“My dear Cono, you were such a raconteur on our first two meetings. Loosen up. We should have another conversation, for old times’ sake. It looks to be a pretty day. The sun’s rays are already warming the cuts made by the hand of man in the always-forgiving earth …”
Hearing those words Cono dove into the building as the sheet metal above the door ripped open. The cracking peal from a high-powered rifle followed less than a second later.
Cono kept the phone to his head as he dug his heels into the floor, thrusting himself backward from the doorway.
“Are you still there, my poorly dressed friend? You see that my new assistants are not so sentimental. That was just an invitation. To our next conversation. I hear you gasping for air. There is lots of air up here on the mountainside. We’re all wondering why you chose this vacant place to enjoy the sunrise; but indeed the view is sublime.”
“And?”
“And, if you want your two, shall we say, attractive friends back, you should visit me on this gorgeous lookout above the quarry.”
“You can have th
em.”
“Your lovely friend Katerina doesn’t think you are so nonchalant about them. I respect the ploy. But after all, you came such a long distance on your white horse to help them.”
“And my horse is ready to trot back to the stables.” Cono got to his feet and edged toward the doorway where he’d been seen by the sniper.
“But really,” Zheng said, “you wouldn’t want to leave your girlfriends hanging like that. After all your trouble, a hero like you.”
Cono looked out beyond the edge of the doorframe, still holding the phone to his ear. More than a hundred yards away, on the upper rim of the quarry that was cut into the slope leading to the mountains, were three figures—Xiao Li, Dimira, and between them, Zheng, in a silver suit, his right arm around Xiao Li’s shoulders and his other hand holding a cell phone. The women had gags in their mouths and their wrists were tied in front of them. Their necks seemed thick. Cono realized why when he saw two ropes extending from the women to the rear bumper of a black SUV thirty yards up the slope—their necks were thickened by nooses. The three were standing atop a giant, rounded block of granite that had resisted the blasting that cut the highest tier of the quarry. The garnet-colored stone was the size of a four-story house; the plateau, on which the three were perched, sloped slightly downward and then to a near-vertical drop until it merged with the first ledge of the quarry. It looked like the forehead of an enormous cranium.
The neat white stripe protruding from Zheng’s breast pocket blushed with the color of morning, as did his smile. Dimira was in jeans and a tight green sweater; Xiao Li, on the far side of Zheng, had on the same running pants from the previous day, but her top was different—she was wearing a bulky red pullover. She was trying to shrug off Zheng’s arm, but he held her firmly.
“I’m sure you can see the situation,” Zheng said. “We’ll throw down another rope for you, to make it easy for you to have the conversation I desire.” Zheng turned and nodded. A man with a rifle strapped on his shoulder tossed a rope over the near face of the granite block. As the rope fell and tensed, Cono saw that it also was connected to the SUV.
Performance Anomalies Page 20
