“When I decide I want a pokhmelye, a hangover from a three-day bender, you’ll be the first person I’ll invite.” I sat back, stared at her. “Now, tell me about our little friend with the high-powered rifle.”
Chapter 19
“You’ve probably guessed I’m not here for the water parks either,” Saltanat said, taking another cautious sip of her wine. From her expression, the second taste was no more enticing than the first.
“Back in Tashkent we got word that a Chechen group was here in Dubai trying to raise money to buy weapons and keep hostilities with the Russians bubbling along.”
I nodded. Over the years there have been some terrible incidents involving the Russians and Chechens: the Beslan school siege, the Moscow theater crisis, the seizure of a hospital and its staff and patients in Budyonnovsk, all with massive loss of life. Terrorist acts or the brave actions of freedom fighters, depending on which side of the bloodstained ground you crouched down on.
I was no lover of the Soviet Union when it was around, but I don’t believe in slaughtering innocent people in the name of independence either. By and large, we Kyrgyz get on reasonably well with the Chechens in our country. They arrived after being deported from Chechnya by Stalin in 1944, who was afraid they would collaborate with the Nazis. Many of them died on the long train ride to Bishkek. We Kyrgyz also had our share of shit from Stalin, and so we were prepared to accept the Chechen people. Not that Stalin gave us any choice in the matter.
“So what has that got to do with you?” I asked. “You’re Uzbek, not Russian or Chechen. It’s not your fight.”
Saltanat gave me the kind of look a teacher wears when explaining something perfectly simple to a particularly stupid pupil.
“Russia has helped Uzbek intelligence in the past. Information, tip-offs, that sort of thing. So we owe them. And besides,” she added, “who doesn’t want to stay friends with the biggest boy in the playground?”
I nodded. In Central Asia realpolitik is what counts. And if you’re the one with the big stick, you can make sure everything goes your way.
“And the people I’m talking about,” Saltanat continued, “sure, it’s Chechen liberation they’re primarily interested in, but spreading unrest in my country and yours, it’s all a part of their jihad—spreading extremism, destroying decadence and the influence of Western values. No home without a prayer mat, no god but God; believe in the power of Islam or face the music, if any is allowed. So it’s a threat to us, not just the Russians.”
I splintered more ice.
“So you were sent here to track them down?”
“No, I was sent to eliminate them.”
Wet work. Easier to dispose of your enemies than to argue with them. Prison doesn’t work because it simply allows them to recruit more followers. If you’re trapped in one of the shit holes we call prisons in Central Asia, then the promise of a new caliphate, a new world, can be very appealing.
I spat the last of the ice back into my glass, stood up, felt my muscles pull where I’d rolled across the floor after the rifle shot.
“I’d love to help, but I’m only going to be in Dubai for a couple more days. And, as you say, I’m here on business of my own.”
I reached over, stretched out my hand. I knew that Saltanat wasn’t going to do anything as revealing or vulnerable as kissing my cheek.
“You don’t think this is more important? Stopping international terrorism, as opposed to getting Tynaliev out of the shit?”
I could tell by the impassive gaze with which Saltanat blasted me that she considered my priorities short-sighted, weak and probably self-serving. So did I. But I know my limitations; it’s taken me long enough to discover them.
“You blocked me, so I can’t call you,” I said. “But if you want to call me, perhaps we can meet again before I go?”
“Drinks and dinner? A weekend romance?” Saltanat said, and I could hear pity as well as scorn in her voice.
I shrugged; two can play the cynicism game.
“I could maybe give you a little help,” I said, “if my work here goes according to plan.”
Saltanat nodded. Perhaps the wheels in her head were revolving and telling her that any assistance on foreign turf was better than none.
“There’s a player I’m looking for. Here in the city, a contact point for the group. A Chechen, obviously—they play everything by ethnic loyalty. It’s not his real name but he calls himself Kulayev. Salman Kulayev.”
An image flashed in my mind: coffee at Burjuman, a man, balding, brown eyes, late thirties, white shirt, blue chinos. One of the benefits of cop memory. It looked as if a simple find-and-retrieve mission was really a lot more complicated than I’d first thought. Maybe sharks swam beneath the surface of a peaceful lagoon, wolves lay in hiding for the flock of sheep to stray too close. Perhaps Tynaliev had set me up, tethered me to attract predators.
I knew that Saltanat would want whatever information I had, whatever leads I could offer. And I knew that I wouldn’t give her anything until my role in all of this became a lot clearer. I’ve learned the hard way that one-way trust is just self-interest wearing a false smile. And nothing breeds trouble quicker than distrust. But then again, I reassured myself, trouble is what I’ve always been all about.
Chapter 20
I made the call on my way back; it was time to stir things up and see what bubbled to the surface. I told Kulayev that I’d found Natasha, which was true, and that she’d agreed to hand over whatever it was she’d taken back to Tynaliev, which wasn’t.
“Did you find out what she’d taken?” he asked, and I could hear the hunger in his voice.
“I didn’t ask. The less I know, the safer I am,” I lied. Sometimes my job is like playing chess in the dark. You can tell which piece is which by touch—the curve of the bishop’s miter, the mane on the knight’s horse—but you can’t tell whether you’re playing black or white.
I arranged to meet Kulayev in the Denver Hotel. I hadn’t told him I’d changed hotels, and I was hoping he didn’t know. In the back of the taxi, out of sight of the driver, I checked the Makarov. So far I hadn’t needed to fire it, but that moment might be on its way.
I then called Natasha, using the mobile number she’d given me, told her to wait for me at her apartment, not to open the door to anyone except me. I could tell the tone of my voice scared her, told her that things were getting serious.
At the Dôme coffee shop in Burjuman I called Kulayev, told him there’d been a change of venue, that I’d wait twenty minutes for him and no longer. That meant he didn’t have time to set me up. I found a quiet booth, sat with my back to the wall, ordered something called an Americano, put my gun under an artfully arranged copy of the local newspaper. If Kulayev asked, I could always tell him I was practicing my Arabic.
I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to find out from Kulayev; it’s only by asking the questions that don’t matter that you unearth the ones that do. It’s a kind of archaeology, scraping away at the surface litter and debris to uncover the bones underneath.
The minutes raced by at glacial speed. I’d drained my coffee cup, decided against drinking another in case my hands shook just when I needed them when Kulayev appeared. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t brought any friends with him. I felt charged, the kind of exhilaration you get when the mists of a case start to disperse and you begin to see where the path might take you.
“Everything I was told about you is true, Inspector Borubaev,” he said, sitting across the table from me, beckoning a waitress over, pointing to my cup and holding up two fingers. I didn’t bother to say I didn’t want another; I didn’t think we’d be talking long enough for that.
The coffee arrived. “I’m sure the minister will be delighted to hear the news, if you haven’t already informed him,” Kulayev said, sipping at his coffee, giving an expert’s nod of approval. “The girl will be accompanying you back to Bishkek?” he continued. “I’m sure the minister will want to discuss these unf
ortunate events with her in person.”
He gave a smile that told me he’d witnessed women being interrogated before. A cigarette burn on the breast perhaps, the threat of rape or the kiss of a razor down both cheeks. The smile also told me he’d enjoyed it, maybe carried out the torture himself.
I didn’t speak, stared at him, gaze unwavering, waited for my silence to unnerve him. Kulayev looked puzzled, then uncertain. It’s the oldest technique in the Murder Squad handbook, but it almost always produces results.
“She won’t be coming back to Kyrgyzstan with me,” I said finally, “if you understand what I mean.”
I waited to see if he’d take the bait I’d offered him. Sometimes misdirection can set you in the right direction.
“She’s dead? You’ve killed her?” Kulayev asked and rolled his eyes in despair at my stupidity. “A murder in Dubai, with CCTV cameras everywhere? Are you crazy? A diplomatic passport won’t get you out of shit like that.”
“Why’s it so important to you that she’s alive?” I asked.
“Well, no reason . . . but why bring down the heat on us? On me? I live here, remember?”
“I’ll ask again. Why do you need her alive and talking, rather than dumped under a sand dune ten kilometers into the desert?”
I could see the wheels behind his eyes spinning. He was good, but I’m better.
He finally said, “The minister asked me to find out some other information from her. Not part of your brief, so no need for you to know.”
“Shame,” I said. “Tynaliev doesn’t take kindly to people letting him down. But you probably already know that.”
It was time to give Kulayev a glimpse of the gun, a quick flash just to show him the future. A very uncertain future, and a short one.
I watch his face go pale as the small black eye of death stared at his face. I was beginning to enjoy myself.
“Maybe you can come back with me to Bishkek, explain to Tynaliev yourself.”
“He’ll be pissed off at both of us. You know that,” Kulayev said, a new whining tone in his voice.
I shook my head. “I’ve got what he wanted,” I said and tapped my shirt pocket. “Mission accomplished for me.”
Kulayev slumped in his chair, already foreseeing a painful and probably final meeting. His hand shook as he tried and failed to raise his coffee cup to his mouth. I gave him an encouraging smile. The sort a wolf might give to its prey.
“Relax. You’re not having a quiet discussion in the cellar at Sverdlovsky station. Yet. Maybe I can figure out a way to help you.”
I didn’t realize quite how wrong I could be.
Chapter 21
It made sense to question Kulayev somewhere quiet, away from prying eyes, where an occasional yell or moan wouldn’t attract any attention. So I decided to head for the room I’d kept on at the Denver.
“We’re going to get in a taxi, close, like two long-lost brothers suddenly reunited,” I said, “just so we can have a little fact-sharing without being disturbed. But I should tell you that if you try anything that concerns me or makes me feel threatened, I’ll blow a hole in your spinal column you could put your fist through.”
Kulayev nodded so rapidly I thought his head would fall off.
“Ask for the bill. Politely.”
When the bill finally arrived, we made our way outside into the heat. The glare was dazzling, almost enough to blind you, and I was worried Kulayev might use that to make a move. But the memory of my gun pointed at him seemed to have dampened down any thoughts of escape.
At the Denver reception was manned by the same surly clerk who’d checked me in, and he paid just as much attention as before. My room hadn’t become any bigger either. I handcuffed Kulayev to the bed. Strangely, that seemed to reassure him, as if I was going to question him and then let him go, instead of just providing him with a bullet in the side of the head.
“Look, Inspector, there’s no need for all this. If that stupid bitch is dead, then you just get on a plane—I’ll even pay for business class. You wake up looking at Bishkek from thirty-five thousand feet, drop off the stuff and then go have a few vodkas to celebrate. That’s OK, right?”
I said nothing, just took out a fork that I’d liberated while waiting at the Dôme. I was sure they’d have a replacement.
It’s nothing short of amazing how quickly a simple household object like an iron or a toothpick or a fork can get you the information you want. Most of the time, the threat is enough to loosen the tightest tongue. Eyes, gums, nails, they all take on a terrible significance when the anticipation of pain becomes real enough.
I’ve been tortured myself: the scars on my hand I acquired during the Ekaterina Tynalieva case are always there to remind me, especially when the weather turns cold, which is about six months of the year in Bishkek. So I know about the helplessness, the urge to piss, the knowledge that nothing has ever felt this bad before. Now I wanted to share that knowledge with Kulayev.
I held up my hand in front of Kulayev’s face, the parallel scars vivid as if I’d drawn on my palm in reddish-brown ink, raised and hard as electrical wiring.
“You see this, Salman? I got this hunting down the killers of Ekaterina Tynalieva, the minister’s only daughter. So I know what it’s like to endure pain in the service of a cause. But I’m an inspector in the Murder Squad; I have to expect a few cuts and bruises on the job. But you . . .?”
I pushed one of the tines of the fork against his thumb, working the point under the nail, just so he could feel it pressing against the tender flesh.
“It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? ‘He threatened me with a fork!’ But if you’ve felt cold sharp metal pressed against your eyeball while strong fingers hold your eyelid open, you don’t laugh, believe me.”
“I don’t know anything, believe me,” Kulayev said. I watched fat beads of greasy sweat trickle down his face, and I knew it wasn’t all due to the Denver’s atrocious air conditioning.
“How can you know that when you don’t know what I’m asking?” I said. I pushed a little harder with the fork.
“For God’s sake, you’re a cop!”
“Not in Dubai, I’m not, I’m just someone sent here to be played like an idiot, to get his nose rubbed in the shit. What do you want from Natasha Sulonbekova? Believe me, Salman, I’m not enjoying this, but I know someone who will.”
Maybe my hand slipped, or perhaps Kulayev moved. The whimper in his throat turned into a scream, and we both watched a red rose bloom under his fingernail.
“It’s to do with the money, isn’t it?” I asked, encouraging him to get started with his story.
“Only an idiot would believe Tynaliev’s bullshit about state secrets being stolen. Of course it’s about money. And when he told me to nursemaid you, it was obvious you were sent to hunt for it.”
“So what’s your plan for the money? New face, new passport, maybe sunning yourself on a beach somewhere warm?”
Kulayev nodded. Too eagerly, too soon. It’s the big mistake all liars make under questioning: give the answer they want to hear, and maybe they’ll stop.
I could feel the sweat pouring down my back, sluggish and warm. I knew I couldn’t keep the pressure up for much longer. Some people are born torturers; I can only pretend. I’ve never known whether that’s a disadvantage in my job, but it’s a personality flaw I’m happy to have.
“It’s strange to hear you say that, Salman. I hadn’t got you down as the live-in-luxury type. Certainly not when it comes to the whores you pick up in bars here. I had you as the idealistic type, a man who finds meaning in a crusade.”
I tapped the times of the fork against Kulayev’s right cheekbone, close enough to his eye to make him flinch. The handcuffs rattled against the bedpost like teeth chattering.
“I had a chat earlier with a member of the Uzbek security forces, just after someone tried to turn her inside out with a sniper rifle. Strange, but she has a theory you’re looking for money to finance a little strife back in
Mother Russia. Money that belongs to Minister of State Security Tynaliev.”
The air in the room was stifling, and I could smell raw sewage from the toilet. I watched as something in Kulayev’s face changed, as he started to consider what lie might appease me.
“If I hand you over to her, she won’t be giving you a manicure with a fork, Salman. She’ll take you the whole length of the pitch, flaying you down to splinters of bone.”
Kulayev gave a harsh laugh, as if a clot of blood had backed up in his throat.
“You mean that bitch Saltanat? I heard that she could twist you round one of those perfect fingers of hers, nail varnish and all.”
I gave him the sort of half-playful slap that says mind your manners or there’s worse coming down the track.
“She’s right though, isn’t she? You want to finance a mini-revolution.”
Kulayev looked at me and shook his head in mock despair.
“You’re Kyrgyz, you lived under the Soviets for seventy years. They were no friends to your people, were they? The show trials, the executions, all the other stuff that Stalin used to keep the people of the republics in their place. So when their system finally fell apart and you got the chance to tell them to fuck off, they had no choice.”
He paused, carried away by his rhetoric.
“That’s all we Chechen want, that’s what we’re fighting for. You got what we want: a land of our own, the right to choose how we live.”
It all sounded very noble, in the usual justifying-bombs-on-buses-and-blowing-up-apartment-blocks kind of way. But killing for freedom is a song that gets sour and repetitive too often.
I’ve seen too much TV coverage of the aftermath of such bravery: buildings with their façades lying in pieces across the road, bags and coats abandoned in terror on the streets, women and children with clothes and faces streaked with blood like initiates into a cult of unreason.
I shook my head to clear the images, pushed Kulayev further back onto the bed. He winced as the handcuff chain snapped taut on his wrist, twisting him onto his side.
A Summer Revenge Page 8
