Enemy of the Good

by Matthew Palmer

  “Do you think Eraliev or Chalibashvili would take that deal?” Ruslan asked.

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kayrat uluu said. “But I do need an answer.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “I thought that might be your position. Very well, the offer is good for the next three hours. Think it over.”

  “In three hours, I will still want you to go to hell, but there is something else that I want right now.”

  “What is it?”

  “I want your agreement not to use guns. If you do, then we will have to. And boys and girls will die who do not need to die. You, Mr. Kayrat uluu, I believe to be a Kyrgyz patriot. Don’t spill the blood of Kyrgyzstan’s children needlessly.”

  “Maybe we should each appoint a champion and they can battle it out in front of your walls. Like Hector and Achilles at Troy.”

  “I don’t think that one worked out so well for the defenders,” Ruslan replied. “I’d prefer David and Goliath.”

  The colonel was quiet as he considered his options.

  “Malinin would have already dropped a barrel bomb on you from a helicopter.”

  “Maybe so,” Ruslan said. “But I think you’re different.”

  “Oh, really? What makes you think that?”

  “You came here alone. I assume that was so we could talk honestly.”

  “It’s always better to be honest, but you never know who reports to whom.”

  “Of course. So do we have an understanding? No guns?”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Kayrat uluu promised.

  “Remember, Colonel. We are going to win. And for the rest of your life you are going to have to answer for the decisions you make in the next few days. Choose wisely. Choose your country over Eraliev. The fat pig calls himself President for Life. Well, his term is almost up.”

  Once the colonel had left, Ruslan turned to Murzaev.

  “Askar, you said you could contact the Americans if you had to. Let them know about Kate.”

  “Yes. If I had to.”

  “Do it. Quickly. Before they decide that she’s too dangerous to hold on to.”

  “You don’t think they’ll let her go?” Nogoev asked.

  “I think they’ll kill her.”

  29

  He was far from gentle, but Chalibashvili, it seemed, could not quite bring himself to cross the line into torturing an American diplomat. Kate had the impression, however, that he was building up his courage. She had no illusions about her ability to withhold information if Torquemada made the decision to employ some of his more extreme interrogation techniques, waterboarding or electric shock. Nor did she harbor illusions about how valuable the information she had really was. The one meaningful secret she had carried was Seitek’s real identity, and she had already compromised that. Everything else was details.

  Even so, she had no intention of making things easy for Chalibashvili, and she remained stubbornly uncooperative through three rounds of questioning that were at times conciliatory and at others threatening. Prison Number One’s torturer in chief could not seem to make up his mind.

  Still, the threat of violence was always there and Kate stiffened when she heard the key turn in the lock of her cell door. At least they had left the lights on. As a mark of her ambiguous status, Kate had been moved up from the dungeon level to the third sub-basement, the same level that Zamira was on. She had a toilet and a bed with a mattress and blanket. After the Pit, it was like being put up in the Waldorf.

  The oversize Uzbek guard opened the door and gestured for Kate to follow him. Each “session” with Chalibashvili had been in a different room, as though the Georgian was looking for the right conditions that would persuade Kate to cooperate. All the interrogation rooms had been on the third level, however. This time the guard led her to an elevator she had not known existed and took her up to the ground floor.

  There did not seem to be any cells on this level. It was mostly office space. A few prison staff were working at their desks, and they pointedly did not look up from whatever they were doing to stare at Kate as she shuffled past them in her prison uniform and rubber slippers.

  The guard knocked on a door at the end of the hall, and she heard Chalibashvili’s voice tell him in Russian to come in.

  The room behind the door was a Spartan but serviceable conference room. There were eight chairs arranged around a wooden table with a speakerphone on the tabletop and a plastic plant in one corner. Chalibashvili sat at the table facing the door. Two men in business suits sat across from him and turned to look at her when the door opened. One was her Uncle Harry. The other was Larry Crespo. Kate felt a wave of relief and gratitude flood through her, and her knees started to shake from the pent-up fear and anxiety of her days in captivity. It was almost over, she thought.

  Her uncle stood and hugged her and Kate had to exercise every ounce of self-control she possessed not to cry.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Did they hurt you?”

  “I’m okay. But I’m awfully glad to see you. You too, Larry.”

  The station chief nodded but said nothing.

  Kate was acutely conscious of how awful she must look. It had been days since she had showered. Her hair was greasy. Her face was grimy and her eyes were bloodshot.

  Chalibashvili gestured for her to sit and she took the seat next to her uncle.

  “You asked for proof of life, Mr. Ambassador. And as you can see, Ms. Hollister is very much alive.”

  “And I’m not the only one,” Kate interjected. “I found Zamira. She’s here. Alive.”

  The ambassador locked eyes with Chalibashvili.

  “Is that true? Are you holding Zamira Ishenbaev here in Building D?”

  “We have many guests. I don’t know them all by name. But I’d be pleased to check our records for you.”

  “I saw her,” Kate insisted. “Torquemada here brought me to her cell and offered me a deal. I respectfully declined.”

  “I’m afraid Ms. Hollister may be somewhat delusional. It’s been known to happen on occasion to people who aren’t used to . . . confinement.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Kate said icily. “You—”

  The ambassador put a hand on her shoulder, a signal she should stop. Kate swallowed the rest of the sentence.

  “First things first,” he said. “Mr. Chalibashvili, we’ll be leaving now, with Kate. Please produce her things.” The ambassador’s tone was as smooth and unruffled as if he were discussing the weather rather than the detention and possible torture of his niece. “We can continue this discussion at a later date, to include the issue of Ms. Ishenbaev’s whereabouts and well-being.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” the Georgian replied with equal calm.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. You see, Ms. Hollister has violated her diplomatic status in the most serious fashion. It will take some time for us to complete the investigation. Formal charges are, I’m afraid, likely.”

  “You cannot charge her for a crime, no matter how serious, unless my government agrees to lift her immunity. And we do not. You are, therefore, acting in direct contravention to your international legal obligations under the Vienna Convention.”

  “What is it you Americans say? Sue me?”

  “Actually we have a variant of that expression in the State Department. Sanction me.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “You are holding an official American unlawfully. There are existing authorities that allow us to add your name and that of your country’s leadership, including President Eraliev, to a blacklist that will result in freezing any overseas assets within reach of U.S. financial institutions. Your accounts with . . . I’m sorry, can you remind me?” The question was directed at Crespo.

  The station chief removed a small notebook from his ja
cket pocket and flipped through it slowly. It was all theater, Kate knew, but it was effective theater.

  “Chase and Citibank in New York. A total of two-point-five million. There are Swiss and Caymans accounts as well. We can’t touch those directly, but we can make it impossible for the money to move anywhere in the international financial system.”

  “Thank you, Larry. Now you could still, I suppose, fly to the Caymans and take the money out in cash. But we will make that difficult for you with an INTERPOL Red Notice. That would make international travel . . . interesting. Again, there are workarounds. A Kyrgyz government charter flying direct from Bishkek to the Cayman Islands perhaps. Does your government have a plane with that kind of range? Refueling could subject you to arrest and extradition. It’s complicated, I know.”

  Chalibashvili’s expression hardened as he listened to the litany of woes that awaited him.

  “And there’s more,” Crespo offered.

  “Do tell.” The sarcasm dripped from Chalibashvili’s response.

  Crespo turned and looked at Kate. “How would you describe your time in captivity here, Kate? Would the word ‘terrifying’ apply?”

  “Absolutely,” she answered.

  “Inflicting terror on an American official. By definition, I think that would make you a terrorist. And it’s a simple enough matter for me to add your name to that list.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Chalibashvili protested. “I haven’t planted a bomb in a shopping mall. I have merely been questioning a woman who attacked this prison as part of an armed group and freed a prominent prisoner, who was himself wanted on terrorism charges.”

  “So you understand how flexible those charges are?” Crespo said. “That’s good. It’s always a pleasure working with professionals. I assure you that once your name is on the list, the burden of proof to get it removed will be on you. That can take time. A lot can happen in that time. You know how we treat people who make it onto that list? It’s so much more efficient than courts, don’t you think? You’d be safe enough in downtown Bishkek, I suppose. We’ve grown averse to collateral damage. But every time you take a trip outside the city limits, driving down some back road in an SUV, you’ll have to wonder, is today the day? We have a long reach, Mr. Chalibashvili, and a long, long memory.”

  Chalibashvili was used to issuing these kinds of threats. Not receiving them. His equanimity was broken. His face was flushed and the edge of anger in his voice was unmistakable.

  “How dare you come here and threaten me with your drones. I will bring this to the attention of the president and I guarantee that the base negotiations will be negatively affected by your behavior.”

  “President Eraliev should be careful,” the ambassador observed, “not to alienate too many of the friends he has left, especially in light of the most recent developments. The United States has interests in this country. But those interests are many and varied and they must be balanced against one another. You should please tell him I said that. He’ll understand.”

  Kate did. Values complexity. Her uncle was nothing if not consistent.

  The rest was details. Forty-five minutes later, Kate was in the back of the ambassador’s armored Cadillac wearing her own clothes. She looked over her shoulder as the gates of the prison receded.

  “Don’t worry,” her uncle said, misinterpreting the gesture. “You’ll never see the inside of that place again.”

  One more time, maybe. I left something important behind. She kept this unspoken. Her uncle had likely saved her life, she knew, but she still did not know the full extent of the conflicting values he was balancing. How much was the life of his dead brother’s sister-in-law worth to him? But that did not mean that she was ready to let it rest.

  “She was there, Ambassador. I saw her. It wasn’t a hallucination.”

  “I don’t doubt you.”

  Something in his tone triggered a connection for Kate, something that she had almost seen but overlooked.

  “You knew, didn’t you? You knew she was there.”

  “I suspected,” her uncle answered. “That’s not the same thing. There was some information. Fragmentary. Not reliable. But not easy to dismiss as noise.”

  “And you did nothing?”

  “No, Kate. I did my job.”

  This was not a fight that she wanted to have in front of Crespo. It was a family matter.

  “How did you find me?” she asked, changing the subject. “Chalibashvili made it sound like a state secret.”

  “One of your friends in Boldu reached out to Larry through a cutout and let him know where you were.” Her uncle seemed relieved that the conversation had moved on from Zamira. “It was a risky thing for them to do. And it says something about your standing with them that they would take that risk.”

  “Did you have the authority to do those things you threatened Chalibashvili with?”

  “Of course not. We were freelancing. But it sounded good, didn’t it?”

  “You had me fooled. More or less. I’m sorry about the base negotiations,” she added. “I know that they were important.”

  “Not as important as you. There will be other negotiations. You are my only niece.”

  “And what about you, Larry? You’re not family. And the tracking device you put in my purse is the reason I wound up in Prison Number One. I thought you’d be just as happy to leave me there.”

  “You’re wrong, Kate,” Crespo said from the front seat. He did not turn around. “My tracker was the reason Usenov ended up in prison. You were there because you decided to violate every imaginable principle of diplomatic practice and join an armed assault on a foreign government facility. It frankly boggles the mind.”

  Kate was duly chagrined. Crespo’s assessment of her actions was harsh but not unfair.

  “So why did you come for me?”

  “As I told you, I like to hedge my bets.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  “There’ve been some . . . changes . . . while you’ve been away,” the ambassador said.

  “What kind of changes?”

  “Your friends in Boldu have taken over Ala-Too Square. It looks like Maidan, with walls and a tent city, thousands of demonstrators, and a standoff with the Special Police. The situation is pretty fragile. It’s not clear how things are going to play out.”

  Kate felt a surge of joy at the news. She did her best to keep the emotion from showing on her face, but she suspected that her uncle at least knew how to read Hollister family expressions too well to be fooled.

  “Values complexity, Kate,” the ambassador said. “Never marry your position and never conflate your position and your ego. As circumstances change, we need to adapt. It’s what diplomats do.”

  “I knew they were planning something like this. But I didn’t realize it would be quite so big.”

  “It’s pretty big, all right,” Crespo said. “The stakes are high, and we don’t have a lot of visibility into what’s going on from the Boldu end of things.”

  And suddenly it was clear what Crespo meant by hedging his bets.

  “You think Boldu might succeed.” Kate said. “That the Eraliev government is in danger of collapse, and you want to make sure that you have your bases covered with the next government if that happens.”

  “That would be my responsibility, yes.”

  “And I’m a side bet. Is that right?”

  “If you want to look at it that way, go ahead,” Crespo said. “But help us here, and the ambassador and I can make sure that nothing about your little misadventure in the Kyrgyz prison system gets back to Washington. And what they don’t know, they can’t punish.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “It’s simple, really,” her uncle said. “We want you to go inside the Boldu compound and tell us what’s g
oing on. We want you to serve as a conduit between us and Usenov. And we want to make certain that if, in fact, Boldu’s Maidan-style revolution succeeds, the new powers that be look to the United States as a friend and partner and not as a stalking horse for the restoration of the ancien régime.”

  “You want me to spy on Boldu?”

  “No. You should be completely open about what you’re doing. We want you to do your job, Kate. To be a diplomat and represent the interests of your country to Usenov and his people. Do you think you can do that?”

  “No secrets? No lies?”

  “None.”

  “I can do it. And I can do it damn well.”

  “I know you can, Kate.”

  “There’s one condition.”

  The ambassador rolled his eyes in mock exasperation.

  “Tell me.”

  “We have to stop at my apartment first. I smell like a prison and I’m taking a shower before I see Ruslan.”

  30

  An hour later, the ambassador’s Cadillac pulled up right before a checkpoint about two blocks from Ala-Too Square.

  “Here we are,” the ambassador said. “This is as close as we can get.”

  Kate had showered and changed and she had an overnight bag resting on her lap. She had packed light. How do you dress for a revolution? The clothes she had chosen were more appropriate for a hike in the mountains than a diplomatic reception. She was wearing an old, comfortable pair of jeans, boots, and a black T-shirt under a light windbreaker. It had only been a few hours ago that she was a prisoner locked alone in her cell, but it already felt like that was weeks in the past.

  “Will I be able to get through?” Kate asked.

  “You should. There are lots of police, but they haven’t tried to completely close off the square. People have been able to move in and out, and Boldu supporters have been able to bring food in for the hard-core demonstrators.”

  “Why are the authorities letting them do that?”

  “Because the alternative may be worse. They look at what’s happening in Ala-Too like it’s a tumor and they’re afraid of metastasis. Crack down too hard on the demonstrations and they are likely to trigger uprisings elsewhere, maybe in Bishkek, maybe in some other city or even the countryside. I’m sure that Eraliev’s people have looked at the precedents as carefully as Boldu has. For every Maidan that brought down a government, there’s a counterexample, like the Green Revolution in Iran, in which the protestors failed. When the government wins, it’s usually a result of strategic patience. They wait out the protests and avoid any kind of climactic confrontation that would galvanize the wider public. Basically, they try to bore the revolution to death.”