A Summer Revenge

by Tom Callaghan

  I don’t consider myself a professional the way Saltanat is; I didn’t have the years of hard training that she went through even as a child. But I’ve been in enough situations to know it can go all the way to hell if the wrong people are involved.

  I waited until Lin had gone before I spoke to Saltanat.

  “I know what you’re planning,” I said, “and it isn’t a rescue, it’s a massacre.”

  “And what do you think these men are planning, Akyl,” she said, “a dinner party? As far as they’re concerned, this world can go to hell in a blaze of fire and an avalanche of ice. You, me, the children playing football in the streets of Bishkek and Tashkent. And you’ve got scruples about wiping these guys out?”

  “Isn’t that the difference? Isn’t that why we have laws?”

  “While you’re waiting for justice, they’ll create more injustice, more dead, more tortured and broken. You stick with the rules, Akyl, and I’ll clean up the shit.”

  I knew I couldn’t argue with Saltanat. What’s more, I knew that part of what she was saying was right. I wouldn’t stop to argue with a cobra in the mountains, I’d kill it. But a person isn’t a snake, however much of a deadly reptile he might be.

  Instead, I tried another approach.

  “Do we really need to involve Lin? This isn’t amateur hour.”

  Saltanat merely shrugged. Lin was potentially collateral damage as far as she was concerned. The mission comes first. Always. Even when amateurs are involved.

  Chapter 47

  The following night, Saltanat, Lin and I were sitting in a vehicle that Saltanat had liberated from a long-stay car park at the airport. She’d watched a family drive in, unload enough cases to suggest they were emigrating and head toward check-in. Business-class seats and complimentary lounge access, by the look of them. Three minutes later Saltanat was steering her way back toward Bur Dubai.

  “What about CCTV?” I’d said when she turned up with her new toy.

  “By the time they report the car stolen, we’ll either be out of the country or dead,” she’d replied, unpacking the bag of weapons onto the back seat, where the tinted glass meant they wouldn’t be seen.

  The sour taste in my mouth had nothing to do with the bile gnawing away at my stomach. I’ve been afraid before and I recognized the symptoms. All your senses feel tuned to a high pitch but somehow off key. Sounds echo and are amplified almost to the point of distortion. A movement glimpsed out of the corner of your eyes slams the accelerator driving your heart. And the quiver in your hands isn’t simply due to the weight of your gun.

  I don’t know if being afraid made me a good cop or not; I only knew that so far it had kept me alive.

  I checked my watch: ten thirty, not so late that we’d attract attention but a time when most people would be switching off the TV, thinking about bed, winding down at the end of yet another uneventful day.

  Saltanat had outlined her plan, and I was OK with it, as far as that went, which probably wasn’t far enough. She’d entrusted me with the role of backup, which made sense, given her training and skills. I might have felt my male vanity a little wounded, but if that was the only wound I got, I’d take it as a result. Saltanat and I were both wearing head-to-toe black, while Lin maintained her usual heart-of-gold hooker look. Makeup and a pair of dark glasses did a lot to hide the damage to her face, in the unlikely event that any man would be looking that high up.

  “You stay here,” Saltanat had said to me. “Keep the engine ticking over in case we need to make a fast escape. If you hear shots, then we’re going to need you, but don’t just appear. I don’t want to kill you by accident; I don’t have the time or patience for remorse.”

  I considered just how much of a blow to my masculinity I’d just received.

  “Give me ten minutes to get into the stairwell,” Saltanat said. “There’s always a way into these buildings, maybe even as simple as walking into the car park then finding the stairs, but the odds are the place is monitored by the security guard on the front desk. CCTV screens under the desk, that sort of thing. So he’s going to need distracting while I make my way in.”

  “I think I can manage that,” Lin said, tugging her blouse lower over her already highly visible breasts, but Saltanat shook her head.

  “No, I’m saving those for later,” she said. “Once I’m inside the building and on the right floor.”

  Saltanat turned and looked at me, raised that infuriating eyebrow once more.

  “Time to try out your acting skills, Inspector,” she said. “Hollywood beckons.”

  I switched off the car’s inner light; no point giving ourselves away any sooner than we had to. And with that Saltanat was gone, simply a black shadow sliding toward an outer wall.

  The strangest thoughts come to you when you’re on a stakeout. I could sense Lin sitting too close next to me. She reached out, put her hand in mine. Her fingers were cold, the skin hard and worn, a lifetime of labor and trouble and the wrong kind of men. Maybe she was afraid, maybe she was only interested in revenge, whatever the cost. Me, I was just afraid.

  I wondered about Saltanat, about the marriage she’d been in, why it had ended. I only knew what she wanted to let me know; she was a mirror turned to the wall so that no hint of anything personal escaped. But the problem with wearing a mask for too long is that when you try to remove it, you realize it’s become your face.

  They say you don’t know it when love stalks you, only when it attacks. If I was falling in love with Saltanat—and it was becoming clear even to me that I was—then sharing a life together wasn’t going to be a big priority for her. Maybe that’s a consolation if you’re in the kill-or-be-killed business.

  The cigarette between my fingers tasted dry, acrid, as if I was holding my head over a bonfire of autumn leaves. I ground the butt out, then I was out of the passenger seat and lurching toward the building’s entrance.

  The security officer was obviously not the sharpest knife in the box, but he’d clearly seen enough drunken expats to recognize the situation. Before I’d got as far as the desk, he was walking toward me, holding his hand up in a stop-right-there gesture he’d obviously used before.

  “Kairat,” I slurred, doing my best to focus through imaginary beer goggles. “Old pal Kairat lives here, which floor?”

  “No, no,” the guard said, turning me by the shoulders so that I was facing the glass doors once more. “No Kairat here. You have too much drink. Go home or I call police.”

  I sat down heavily on one of the leather sofas against the wall, underneath an abstract painting in brutal primary colors. I stared up at it with undisguised disgust and made as if to vomit. Create the painting’s twin brother, you might say.

  The thought of cleaning the mess up obviously worked wonders; the guard had me up on my feet and out through the door in a matter of seconds. He stood just the other side of the glass, protecting the privacy and peace of the residents, but I didn’t need to enter the building anymore. The phone vibrating in my pocket told me that Saltanat was inside, and it was time for the next stage of her plan.

  I staggered out of sight of the guard, giving a drunken wave as I left. But he was already back at his station, checking that his empire was still secure. I clambered back into the car, checked my phone. The message from Saltanat was short, to the point: “Side door wedged open at back by trash skips.” I was in for yet another exotic excursion.

  “You know what you have to do, Lin?” I asked. She nodded, used to turning up at apartments in the middle of the night. As long as she followed Saltanat’s instructions, there didn’t seem much that could go wrong. There was no way Saltanat and I could find out which apartment Boris was staying in without attracting the wrong sort of attention, but we figured that the arrival of someone like Lin wouldn’t come as a surprise to the security guard. Boris was likely to have a string of overnight visitors happy to play party games. I’ve always been amazed by how many devout people fall prey to temptation. But then maybe eter
nity in paradise isn’t quite as much fun as the publicity brochures tell you.

  I checked that the street was empty and walked casually down the side of the building. Run and look nervous, people notice; walk as if you own the place and they think you have every right to be there. I got to the door, pushed it open, removed the wooden pegs with which Saltanat had made sure it didn’t close tight. It was one of those emergency exits where a bar on the inside lets you out.

  I expected to meet Saltanat inside, but the stairwell to the upper floors was empty. Perhaps she’d gone ahead to check the layout of the building, but I decided not to follow her. I didn’t want to get shot in a moment of nervous enthusiasm.

  After the ten minutes we’d agreed upon, I sent a missed call to Lin, the signal that she was to make her way into the building’s lobby and announce that she was expected. Since we didn’t know what floor Boris was on, she’d pretend to have no English, show the guard the phone number Boris had used to call me, get him to give her the apartment number and then make her way up. Once she was in the lift, she’d text the apartment number to both Saltanat and myself, and we’d be there when she arrived, waiting to make her grand entrance.

  There were too many variables, but I didn’t know what else we could do. Maybe Boris wouldn’t be there; maybe Natasha was kept somewhere else; maybe there would be too many men with guns; maybe maybe . . .

  I waited, my stomach bubbling with nerves and fear. Finally, after a couple of years of waiting, I got the message from Lin. Apartment 310. I knew she’d also sent the location to Saltanat, but without hearing from her I didn’t want to move. The minutes crawled by like a badly wounded man looking for cover or a place to die. My heart sounded like a temple gong in a deserted monastery in the mountains.

  And then finally, just as my patience collapsed and I was about to text Saltanat, my phone rang. Saltanat’s number.

  “Da?” I said, “Kak dela?”

  But it wasn’t Saltanat who answered me.

  Chapter 48

  “You really must think I’m stupid, Inspector. Perhaps the quality of people you’re used to dealing with back in your little city has lowered your standards?”

  Boris’s voice was amused, the tone of a man who knows he holds all the face cards in a game of his own design. At that moment my anger was overwhelmed by a sense of failure.

  “Why do you think the door at the side entrance was so easy to open? For once Ms. Umarova’s famed caution seems to have let her down. I’ve had men stationed there for the last two days and nights. She walked in; they took her as easy as trapping a wolf in the winter when it’s hungry.”

  “And where is she now?” I asked, my voice taut with rage, fear. I swept the stairwell with my gun, peering into the shadows, wondering if someone was going to loom out of the darkness, the last person I would ever see.

  “No need to concern yourself with her, Inspector. Surely Ms. Sulonbekova should be your primary concern. After all, she is the key to great wealth for both of us, wouldn’t you agree? I’ve always thought that gold trumps love, at least for anyone with any sense. But in this case I think there’s enough to go around, don’t you?”

  I know the sensible thing was to let caution and common sense replace anger. Saltanat may have been a stone-cold killer, but then so was Boris. All of which meant that I’d be dead the moment Boris thought it gave him an edge. I had to assume Saltanat was incapacitated or dead, unable to help. This one was going to be down to me.

  “You want me to come to you?” I asked, the uncertainty in my voice only a little exaggerated.

  “I’m sure we can relax over a drink, some zakuski?”

  Boris chuckled at my surprise.

  “You’re not the first Kyrgyz I’ve had dealings with, Inspector. I know your countrymen’s fondness for little snacks, even if I don’t share it.”

  We believe that anyone who drinks without also eating is little more than a barbarian, and I was happy to find that Boris fitted right into that category.

  “Where are you?” I asked, not wanting to betray that I knew his location.

  “Apartment 310,” Boris said and paused for effect. “But I think perhaps you already knew that.”

  I heard the line go dead.

  I felt around the stairwell for a light switch, saw the gray concrete steps rising to the next floor. The unpainted metal rail was cold against my right hand, my left free to keep my gun raised. My footsteps raised small clouds of dust with each tread, and I noticed that the dust on the stairs above me was undisturbed. It was a puzzle I didn’t feel like solving right at that moment.

  I reached a fire door with 3 crudely painted on it, so I guessed I’d reached the floor I wanted. And maybe the end of the road as well.

  In contrast to the spartan stairwell, the corridor beyond the door was carpeted in a dark brown chosen to hide the dirt. The walls were tiled to a meter above the floor, and after that pale blue paint took over. It was as impersonal and professional as a hit squad.

  I walked past door after door, all identical, with the same spyhole set at the same height in each. It felt like a recurring nightmare, one in which the monster is invisible but you know it’s waiting for you, and it’s hungry. The sound of my heart was loud and fast enough to be a machine gun, and my knees ached with the effort of moving them forward.

  Finally I stopped at the furthest door on the corridor. Apartment 310. The same as all the others on the outside. Completely unique on the inside, and not in a good way.

  I decided not to ring the bell, thinking it might give the wrong idea. Instead, I tapped the wood with the barrel of my gun. It sounded competent, reassuring. I was less certain I’d be able to say the same for my voice. Basic fieldcraft says you don’t stand in front of a door when there’s a man on the other side ready to put a bullet through the wood, so I stepped to one side and assumed Boris had done the same. After a moment I saw the door handle turn, and the door swung open.

  “Glad you could join us, Inspector.”

  I walked into the apartment, making sure that everyone saw that my gun was hanging by the trigger guard from my forefinger. Not pointing a gun at someone almost always helps defuse the situation. Of course, if you’re mistaken the consequences don’t always work to your advantage.

  Boris was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, one arm wrapped in what almost looked like a tender gesture around Lin’s neck, the way young men in my country pull their girlfriends close to them, both tender and possessive. The gun at her temple ensured she stayed close to him. The way they were standing meant that his chest and stomach were shielded by her. I could appreciate his caution. No one runs any risks when there are millions of dollars for the taking. I could see the terror in Lin’s eyes and wondered where Saltanat was. Tied up in one of the bedrooms? Dead on the bathroom tiles?

  “You know the routine, Inspector. Put your gun on the floor.”

  I did as I was told, pushing it away with my foot for good measure. I heard the metal scrape against the tiled floor, like fingernails on glass. The weight against my toe reminded me how much I was risking, but there was no turning back.

  “I take it you have the access card? It would be more than foolish to come here without it.”

  I stared at him, willing my gaze not to drop.

  “First of all, where’s Saltanat? And Natasha?”

  Boris pulled an expression that could have been regret or simply satisfaction. Either option didn’t look promising.

  “I’m afraid I’ve rather misled you there. To be honest with you, I’ve no idea where your Uzbek accomplice is. Oh, she arrived in the building all right, and I used her phone to call you, but she was rather sharper than I gave her credit for. Which is why one of my men is dead and another is in a coma. A very resourceful woman, Ms. Umarova.”

  I looked around the room. Virtually unfurnished, a couple of cheap plastic chairs, a pile of sleeping bags in one corner. Boris clearly wasn’t here on a luxury holiday. He was ready to move out at a
moment’s warning.

  “Where are the rest of your crew, Boris?” I asked, but I’d already begun to put the pieces together. Sometimes it saddens me how much I know about human greed.

  “They’re in one of the bedrooms, aren’t they?” I said, nodding toward a closed door, “but they’re not sleeping, right?”

  Maybe it was my imagination, but I’ve smelled the aftermath of death too many times to be mistaken about the odor that seemed to creep under the bedroom door. Hot copper with a hint of charred meat left too long on a grill.

  Boris gave a noncommittal shrug, giving nothing away. I looked at his dark hooded eyes, saw how they gleamed with certainty, confidence. And greed. I’d seen that look before on members of the Circle of Brothers, senior criminals who believed they’d bought their way into immunity. It had been my job to make them blink in a sudden realization that not everything has a price.

  “What happened? They were committed to jihad under any circumstances, ready to die for their beliefs? The money meant nothing to them, just a way of creating the chaos they wanted, out of which would come a better world? And if they don’t want to share the fun of this world, why deny them entry to the next?”

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, calculating how far I would get before Boris put a bullet through my throat.

  “But you?” I continued. “It’s easy not to be tempted by money, to remain pure and unsullied when you’re living in a shit-hole slum in Grozny. But Dubai? That’s a different story. Designer clothes, expensive cars, even more expensive women, all yours for the taking. What happened? ‘Start the jihad without me’?”

  Boris condescended to smile.

  “The jihad will happen, don’t worry about that. I still believe that. Just slightly delayed, that’s all. I just couldn’t convince my two colleagues of the error of their certainties, that’s all. It’s a battle that’s been going on for centuries, so a couple of decades is neither here nor there. Killing them was unfortunate; I liked them personally. Not too bright but they did what they were told. Now? They’re martyrs enjoying the eternal rewards of Paradise. And besides, ten million dollars doesn’t go that far if you have to share it out.”