Enemy of the Good

by Matthew Palmer

  The statue landed on the front end of the third APC, crushing the armor like it was tissue paper and blocking the gate.

  Approximately half of the Fifty-fourth were inside the compound and half were still outside the walls. They had succeeded in dividing Shakirov’s force. Now to destroy it.

  Ruslan looked around quickly to see if he could find Kate. But it was growing dark and the compound was chaos. The Scythians had lit fires to confuse the soldiers’ night-vision equipment.

  “Squad Three,” Nogoev said into the radio. “Your target is the lead APC. Squad Two. Take the second vehicle.”

  Two Scythians leapt from the walls onto the top of the first APC. One Scythian trained his weapon on the command hatch while the second leaned over the side and tossed stun grenades in through the firing slits.

  Other Scythians lobbed Molotov cocktails at the second APC, which was soon covered in flames. The heat and smoke would drive the soldiers out of the vehicle, or they could choose to die in there.

  “Do you have this?” Ruslan asked Nogoev.

  “I do. Go.”

  “Don’t slaughter them, Daniar. Give them a chance to surrender.”

  “They’ll have a chance,” Nogoev promised vaguely. It would have to do.

  Ruslan looked outside the walls and saw what he had been both expecting and hoping for. The police were gone. They had melted away and there was no one to control the crowds. Kayrat uluu had made good on his promise. Ruslan felt a wave of relief. The odds had shifted decidedly in their favor.

  Ruslan jumped down from the walls and pushed his way through the crowd to the tent where his grandfather was looking after the horses. He mounted his stallion.

  “Grandfather. Find Kate for me, please. Look after her.”

  Tashtanbek nodded.

  Ruslan rode through the crowd, urging them forward. A swarm of ordinary Kyrgyz—women from the village, pensioners from Bishkek, university students, laborers—followed him. Without the police lines to hold them back, they swarmed the soldiers and the remaining APCs, crowding around them and pulling their weapons out of their hands.

  The soldiers did not know how to respond. This was not covered by their orders. They had come here to shoot armed traitors, not people who reminded them of their grandparents or their mothers and sisters. The APCs were blocked, unable to move. The drivers refused to run over the demonstrators, who were clearly civilians. The Fifty-fourth was now, for all intents and purposes, out of the fight.

  From horseback, Ruslan had a commanding view of the square. To the east, he could see the gates of the Presidential Palace. They were unguarded. The Special Police who had been posted at the entrance to the palace were gone, pulled off by Kayrat uluu along with the others. The gates were not only unguarded, they were open. Now was the moment.

  Ruslan pulled back on the reins and the stallion reared and whinnied his eagerness to run.

  “Come!” he shouted to the crowd. “Follow me! We end this tonight.”

  He turned his horse’s head and galloped for the gates, trusting that the crowd would follow.

  They did.

  —

  President for Life Nurlan Eraliev picked up the gun. It was a 9 mm, polished silver with an ivory grip. A gift from Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. A man to be admired, Eraliev thought. A man who understood power. A man who though twenty years his elder would outlive him.

  Looking out the window of his study, Eraliev could see them. The masses swarming through the suddenly unguarded gates of his palace, trampling through the gardens like wild horses. They would be inside soon enough. The opportunity to loot might slow them down. But they would find him eventually. There were fifteen bullets in the gun and a spare magazine in the desk drawer. The math was pretty easy to do, and the conclusion was inescapable.

  He would not need all thirty bullets.

  He would only need one.

  He wondered how it would end for Mugabe. Would he die in bed surrounded by family and those who had pretended most successfully to be his friends? Would a firing squad offer him a quick and painless death after a hurried trial with a preordained outcome? Or would he be torn apart by a mob?

  Someday, he hoped, they would understand. That everything he had done he had done for love of country. He was a patriot. The father of the Kyrgyz people. A benevolent ruler who knew what was best for his children. Someday, they would understand.

  He put the gun in his mouth. The silver metallic taste of the gun was overwhelmed by the coppery taste of fear. He calmed his mind.

  It would be better this way.

  Someday, they would understand.

  He pulled the trigger.

  —

  It was a madness unlike anything Kate had ever experienced. Soldiers ran through the compound individually and in groups with no clear sense of purpose or mission. Kate admired Val’s poise as she recorded the chaos on her camcorder. She zoomed in on two young Scythians who had jumped onto the roof of one of the APCs.

  “Someday we’re going to build a statue to those two boys,” she said.

  Kate saw three soldiers cut down by fire from the Scythians posted along the top of the makeshift walls. And she saw one Scythian, a boy really, fall to the ground with the back of his head leaking blood and gore. But with the attacking force cut in half, the Scythians had the advantage. Even to Kate’s untrained eye, one thing was apparent. Boldu was winning.

  Surrounded and cut off, groups of Kyrgyz army soldiers began surrendering.

  “Kate, this is almost over here,” Val said. “Let’s get up on the walls so we can get some—”

  Valentina did not get a chance to finish the sentence.

  Kate turned to see Val lying crumpled on the ground. Colonel Ball was standing over her body wearing a Kyrgyz army uniform. He was holding his pistol by the barrel, indicating that he had struck Val with the butt rather than shot her. There was a look of madness in his eyes that Kate could not dismiss as a trick of the firelight.

  Ball reversed the weapon and pointed it at Kate’s chest.

  “Goddamn you. You’ve ruined it. You’ve ruined everything.”

  “It’s over, Brass. Eraliev is done. There’ll be a new government soon. Then you and Crandle can restart your precious base negotiations. Now put that gun away and let me take care of my friend.”

  “It’s too late for that. This isn’t about the base talks anymore. This is about survival. Mine, that is. It’s time for me to disappear. Someplace warm and sunny.”

  “How does killing me help you?”

  “It doesn’t. This isn’t business, Kate. It’s personal.”

  Brass raised the pistol, pointing it straight at Kate’s head.

  Then he screamed and clawed at his face as a large gray-and-white bird raked furrows into his flesh with its sharp talons. Kate saw that the bird had leather jesses tied to its legs. This was Tashtanbek’s goshawk.

  Brass tried to pull the bird off his face, but the hawk flew off before he could get a grip on its neck. He turned back to Kate, blood oozing from where his left eye had been.

  “I’m gonna find that fucking bird after I kill you and break both its wings.”

  He raised the pistol and Kate knew that gesture would be fatal.

  “Don’t do it, Ball. He’s watching you.”

  “Who?”

  It was the last thing he would ever say.

  A hole appeared in the middle of his chest, the sound of the shot arriving half a second later. Brass fell backward and the gun clattered across the concrete.

  Kate looked at the lifeless body of the defense attaché and was surprised and abashed to realize that she felt nothing. Certainly not remorse.

  It should be plenty warm in hell, Brass.

  Kate turned to see Tashtanbek standing on the observation platform, the ancient rifle he carried around with
him resting in his arms. A wisp of smoke drifted from the muzzle.

  She waved a quick thank-you and rushed to help Val, who was already beginning to stir. With Kate’s assistance, she was able to sit up.

  “Val, are you okay?”

  The response was incoherent and Kate suspected her friend was concussed.

  She pulled Val to her feet and walked her to one of the yurts, where a doctor and two nurses had set up an aid station. There were a dozen serious casualties in the tent, but Kate grabbed one of the nurses and begged her to take a look at Val.

  “She’ll be all right,” the nurse said after a quick examination. “She can sit, but don’t let her lie down. She might vomit and aspirate.”

  By the time Kate located a stool, Val was starting to come around.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, although her words were still a little slurry and her gaze unfocused. “Go. Go find him.”

  Kate kissed her on the cheek and ran to see if Ruslan was still alive.

  Outside the gate she pushed her way through the crowd. The demonstrators had taken over the Presidential Palace and she saw Ruslan riding his enormous stallion through the gardens, urging the crowd forward. It was like a weight being lifted. He was all right. And the fighting was over.

  She wanted to run to Ruslan and join him in his moment of triumph, but there was something else she had to do.

  Kate grabbed one of the Scythians by the arm.

  “Where’s Nogoev?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard over the triumphant shouts of the exultant Boldu supporters.

  The Scythian pointed toward the fountain where Kate could see Nogoev standing on top of one of the planters and addressing a group of his soldiers. She pushed through the crowds to reach him.

  “Daniar, I need five Scythians and a truck. And I need them now.”

  Nogoev studied her for a moment and then nodded his assent.

  “Ilhom,” he said to one of the Scythians. “Take your squad. Steal a truck. Help Ms. Hollister with whatever she needs.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where are you going, Kate?” he asked.

  “I’m going back to prison.”

  32

  The Scythians found her a truck, a Kyrgyz army transport with a canvas cover.

  “Please tell me that you didn’t kill anyone to get this,” Kate said.

  “The keys were in it,” Ilhom said unconvincingly.

  As the Scythians mounted up, Kate spotted Patime Akhun in the crowd with a group of Women in Black who had been some of the first Bishkekers to join the protests.

  “Patime,” Kate shouted, catching her attention. “Get in the truck.”

  Patime and four of her dark-clad colleagues walked over to the truck.

  “It’s good to see you here, Kate,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re going to get your son. Do you want to come along?”

  Patime grinned and got on the truck.

  The gates of Prison Number One were closed and locked but unguarded. It seemed as though the Special Police had their instructions for the night. Go home. Kayrat uluu had bet on regime change and it looked like his bet was going to pay off.

  The heavy army truck made short work of the gates, crashing through them in a crunch of metal and a shower of broken bricks. There were guards on duty at Building D, but they were not at all interested in martyring themselves for a spent regime. With the largest of the Scythians offering suitable encouragement, two of the guards admitted to having master keys to the cells. Kate gave one of the keys to Ilhom.

  “Help Patime find her son,” she ordered. “Find the Scythian who was wounded when we freed Ruslan. He may still be in the infirmary. And release all of the other prisoners in this building as well.”

  “All of the prisoners?” Ilhom asked. “No exceptions?”

  “This is Building D. There are no muggers or rapists here. These are all political prisoners and nothing any of these poor bastards did is a crime. Not anymore.”

  Kate took a second key and ran to find her aunt.

  She paused for a moment at the door to Zamira’s cell, both to catch her breath and to prepare herself. It had been more than twelve years since Azattyk had been betrayed. Twelve years since her aunt had fallen hard into the black hole of Prison Number One.

  What might the years in prison have done to her? The torture she no doubt endured early on and the long stretches of solitary confinement that followed? Kate had spent a day and a half alone in a dark cell of the Pit and it had rattled her more than she cared to admit. What if it had been a week? Or a month? Or a year? How long could she have endured that before going insane?

  She worried that her aunt would no longer be the strong, vibrant woman she remembered from her childhood. Healing the damage they had done to her would take time.

  The key turned easily in the lock.

  “Zamira? Aunt Zamira? It’s me. It’s Kate.”

  Her aunt was as Kate had left her, sitting on a stool and staring at the wall. Her blue prison uniform was worn and faded from years of use. Her once jet black hair was white and feathery, as though all the color had been leeched out by the dark.

  “Zamira?” Kate said again in the kind of soft voice she might have used to coax a pet or a frightened child out of its hiding place.

  She turned to face Kate.

  “Oh god.”

  A thousand different emotions assailed Kate, competing for a grip on her heart until one came to dominate. Grief. She recognized it easily, as she might an old friend. Kate’s knees buckled. Even with her vision blurred by tears, there was no denying the awful truth.

  This woman was not Zamira.

  Kate had been so certain. The disappointment was crushing.

  “I’m sorry,” the stranger said in Kyrgyz, her voice slow and deliberate as though she were struggling to keep her focus. “Do I know you?”

  “No,” Kate said sadly. “You don’t.”

  She sat on the bed across from this woman who looked enough like her aunt to fool her from a distance, at an angle, and across twelve years of imagined suffering. But she did not have Zamira’s fiery black eyes or the sharp chin she shared with Kate’s mother. It had all been a maskirovka. A deception.

  Kate looked at the wall where the picture of her and her mother had been taped to the wall. The photograph was gone, but a small piece of tape had been left behind.

  It would have been easy enough as part of the deception, Kate knew, to break into her apartment to look for something like that photo. A small keepsake, the kind that a prisoner might be allowed to hold on to. Something personal and intimate that would connect Kate to this stranger on an emotional level, make her see what she wanted to see. Torturers were, at the end of the day, really psychologists of a sort. Leaving the photo somewhere where Kate would have to find it on her own and recognize its significance was a master touch. It made it all seem that much more real.

  Chalibashvili knew that Kate’s mother had never lost faith that her sister was alive. It was easy enough to conclude that that belief had been passed on to Kate. And he had set her up for exactly what she had hoped and expected to find. He was an evil genius. She was a fool.

  And Zamira was dead.

  “I thought you were somebody else,” Kate said.

  “I am somebody else. What year is it? Please?”

  Kate told her.

  “So long,” she said. “So long.”

  Kate could see the faintly narcoleptic look of disengagement in the woman’s eyes from whatever drugs had been mixed in with her food.

  “Is it over now?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Kate said. “It’s over.”

  “I’d like to go home then.”

  “All right. I’ll take you there.”

  THREE WEEKS LATER

  EPILOGUE
>
  They drove for almost three hours. Spring had turned to early summer and the countryside was lush and emerald green. Murzaev insisted on listening to his music, and Kate indulged his penchant for syrupy Russian folk songs as she pushed the Touareg up the narrow twisting roads in the lower Ala-Too mountains.

  “Are you sure you know where we’re going, Askar?” Kate asked. Murzaev had not once looked at a map or consulted the GPS.

  “Quite sure. Yes.”

  “Thank you for doing this.”

  “We owe you this and more. Without you, this new Kyrgyzstan might never have been possible. I’m pleased they let you stay.”

  “Me too. The interim government’s naming Val to head the base negotiations didn’t hurt. The ambassador saw value in keeping me on, and Washington ultimately agreed.”

  “So all is forgiven?”

  “More or less. My uncle and Crespo kept D.C. in the dark about most of what happened.”

  “It’s better that way for everyone. How are the talks going?”

  “We’re almost done. A few loose ends to tie up. But we’ll have the agreement ready in a week or two at the most.”

  “And then what?”

  “It needs to be approved by the new government, once it’s formally installed. After the elections, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of days to put together a cabinet. Then the parliament can vote on the agreement up or down and it’ll come into effect when Ruslan—or whoever wins the presidency—signs it.”

  “Or whoever?”

  “Okay, Ruslan’s going to win with some ridiculous percentage of the vote. But it’d be good if someone credible at least runs against him. Kyrgyzstan needs a democracy, not a monarchy, and that requires a functioning opposition.”

  “That may take time,” Murzaev said with a trace of regret. “We Kyrgyz have gotten too used to a strongman in the palace.”