Out of Range

by Hank Steinberg

  That was it. This time, Julie would be his eyes.

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Byko was so angry that his entire body felt like it was vibrating.

  He stood behind the statue of Babur, shouting derisive instructions to Stas, the senior surviving member of his crew. What was wrong with these cretins? An entire team of Russian special forces veterans against one journalist? And the journalist had decimated them?

  Well, it hardly mattered, did it? There was nothing that Julie and her meddling husband could do to stop him now. In a few moments he would execute the final part of his masterpiece then go into hiding.

  Byko held his right hand in front of his face, willing it to stop shaking. The thought that his plan was now virtually unstoppable began to calm him and the trembling subsided.

  In front of him, Uktam searched the crowd with his field glasses, looking for the Davises. Stas and Farhod flanked him, submachine guns hidden under their leather dusters.

  Byko forced himself to put Julie and her husband aside, to ready himself for his speech.

  It was nearly time.

  As they pushed their way through the crowd, Charlie explained his plan to Julie. She was skeptical at first, thinking that he was merely trying to get her out of harm’s way, but she soon realized he’d never pull any of it off without her help.

  Now the question was finding binoculars or a camera. The group assembled in this Square was not a wealthy one—and Charlie needed to find someone with decent equipment.

  So far, he’d seen lots of cheap cell phones and point-and-shoot cameras, but nothing that would serve his purpose. Finally, Charlie caught sight of a man who could help them. He was pointing a Russian-made Zenit with a long lens in the direction of Babur’s statue.

  “You got a good look?” Charlie asked the middle-aged man, poking him on the shoulder.

  The man lowered his camera and looked at Charlie with annoyance.

  Charlie instantly pulled out a wad of cash and waved it at the man.

  “I want to buy your camera,” Charlie said. “Two thousand U.S., no questions asked. And I’ll need your cell phone, too.”

  The man frowned as he stared at the money. The offer was simply too good to be true. But he hungrily snatched the money, forked over his camera and cell phone and scurried into the crowd as if he’d just stolen something.

  Charlie grabbed Julie’s hand and led her to the half-dozen large trucks parked on the other side of the Square. On the cabs of those trucks, several young men stood, high above the scene, watching everything.

  Charlie handed the camera to Julie and programmed his newly acquired phone with the number of his pink-and-diamond beauty. He tested it and the bimbo’s phone rang, chiming out her song of choice.

  “ ‘Baby I Love Your Way,’ ” Julie noted with a tiny tear in her eye.

  “Rather appropriate,” Charlie quipped.

  She grabbed him and kissed him hard on the mouth.

  “I’m not going to say, ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ ” she said. “Just don’t get yourself killed after all of this. ’Cause that would really suck.”

  He kissed her again and held her hard. “There’s no way,” he said. “Our story doesn’t end like that.”

  She nodded, wanting to believe him. “I love you.”

  “I love you,” he said, then called to one of the kids atop the truck. “Hey! Can you help this lady get up there?”

  Salim skirted the crowd, dragging his wounded leg, trying to find a good location.

  Charlie was a good man, maybe even a great man, but despite all they’d been through together, he still seemed to think that Salim was just a boy, someone who needed to be protected. Well, he was not the first one to make that mistake. People had been underestimating Salim for a long time.

  He stopped and surveyed the Square. He had seen a video once of the rally from six years ago. It had been larger than this one. But not by much.

  He looked for a place that was higher than everything else, someplace from which he would have a clear, open view of the Square.

  Then he saw it. On the far side of the Square was a big municipal building with a green roof. It had high windows that looked directly down onto the statue of Babur.

  Perfect.

  Charlie stopped fighting his way through the throngs of people when he got to within twenty yards of Sultan Babur. He had spotted several of Byko’s remaining men at the base of the statue.

  “I see at least three on the base,” Charlie said into the phone.

  “There’s four,” Julie responded. “One’s on the western side, in your blind spot.”

  “I can’t see Byko.”

  “I’ve got him. He’s about to get up on the statue.”

  Charlie had to get closer. Even if there was a danger of being seen. He was sure Byko was going to send out the targets during his speech.

  “I’m moving in,” he said.

  “There’s some kind of barricade around the statue,” she replied. “He’s got two, wait, no, three guys moving right next to him. Two of them are bodyguards. The other one, it’s this guy in a Homer Simpson T-shirt. I saw him back at the hotel. He’s some kind of computer geek.”

  Charlie pulled the pistol out of his waistband, letting it dangle where nobody in the crowd would spot it, then put his shoulder down and bulled his way toward the statue.

  “Where’s Byko?” Charlie barked.

  “East! He’s on the east side of the statue.”

  And Charlie spotted him—eyes intent, body coiled with energy. Charlie considered trying to shoot him from here. But it was pointless. He was too far away. And in a crowd like this, all he’d do was kill an innocent bystander.

  Suddenly Byko turned and looked out at the crowd. This time, he seemed to be searching the faces of the people in front of him. Charlie tried to avert his eyes, but it was too late. Byko was staring right at him.

  How in God’s name did he get here?

  Byko whirled and shouted at Farhod, “He’s here! Goddamnit, get him!”

  He watched Charlie duck into the crowd and disappear from view.

  But Byko would not allow that man to get in his way, or to get in his head. There was nothing Charlie Davis could do now.

  Byko turned back toward the statue.

  A college student had been speaking to the crowd, his mouth so close to the microphone that his cries of outrage and optimism were distorted by the powerful sound system. Byko recognized the innocent ardor in the eyes of the young man as he shouted about democracy and freedom, and supposed there had been a time when his own face had probably looked like that. But platitudes were not enough. Not anymore. The message Byko was about to bring to the stage was going to be darker than this boy’s. But it would also be clearer, purer, more mature.

  And his people would recognize the hard wisdom in it.

  Byko closed his eyes and prepared himself. He had played this moment over and over in his mind. The performance needed to be perfect.

  “And now let us hear from the hero of Andijan . . . ,” the young man shouted. “ . . . Alisher Byko!”

  Byko swung himself up onto the statue and looked out at the crowd, remembering the last time he had been here, the hope with which that day had begun—and the tragedy into which it had descended. This time it would be different.

  Forget Julie Davis. Forget Charlie Davis. They were irrelevant.

  Byko raised his hands and the crowd broke into a long, sustained cheer.

  This is my moment.

  Julie could see Byko’s men—four or five of them—fanning out into the audience, all armed with AK-47s. And they were getting closer and closer to Charlie.

  “Where exactly are they?” Charlie asked. “Give it to me on a clock.”

  Julie looked through the camera. “Two at your three o’clock. One mor
e at eight o’clock. I don’t know where—I lost the other one.”

  She swung the camera wildly, trying to isolate the most important threat, to guide Charlie to safety. But then she lost him altogether.

  She panned back and forth anxiously, catching a view of one hard-faced killer, then another. But no Charlie.

  Charlie ducked down to conceal himself, still clutching the gun in his right hand, the phone cradled in his left.

  “Where am I going, Jules?”

  “I don’t know. I lost you. I can’t see you.”

  In the roar of the crowd, Charlie could barely hear her. “I’m twenty yards south of the statue!” he yelled. “I can see the middle of the base right in front of me!”

  Suddenly the shouting began to die down.

  Charlie peeked up to see Byko standing on the pedestal, holding up his arms, hands extended, as motionless as the statue looming over him. When the crowd finally went silent, Byko slowly lowered his hands. The last time they were here, he had spoken through a crude megaphone. But today, his people had set up a high-quality sound-reinforcement system and his voice blasted through speakers.

  “Six years ago, we came together here, in this Square, as a signal of our solidarity. To say to our government that we would no longer stand for its oppression and tyranny . . .”

  Angry voices shouted agreement throughout the crowd.

  Byko calmed them again. “The government responded that day the same way it always does. And since that day, we have been cowards. Living in a state of retreat and denial. But today, all of that will change. For good.”

  The crowd roared. Charlie knew they were responding to the easy aphorisms and vague optimism. If they only knew what Byko really had planned . . .

  “Today we will finally strike back,” Byko continued. “Not with candles or banners, but with force. Today, we will strike back at the West. For this is where our true enemies lie.”

  Charlie pressed the phone to his mouth. “We’re running out of time, Jules. I need a path.”

  “There’s a sort of passageway in the barricade. In the back, behind Byko. Nobody’s guarding it now. It comes from the rear of the statue. You might be able to work your way around to there.”

  “All right,” Charlie said, as determined as he’d ever been about anything. “You’re going to get me there.”

  His leg throbbing in agony, Salim limped up to the second floor of the municipal building and rapidly located a perfect sniper location—a small nook just the right size for one man to stand in, more or less invisible from the rest of the lobby. A quick blow with his fist knocked out one pane of glass. He would be visible from the ground, but he didn’t care about that. If he was spotted after it was over, so be it. He racked a round into the chamber, braced the rifle carefully on the ledge, then sighted on his target.

  It was the traitor. And he was standing on Babur’s monument.

  Our true enemies,” Byko roared, “are those in governments which support and prop up this murderous regime. Our true enemies are in every country which buys our cotton and our oil, our uranium and our gold, knowing that the people who work to produce it toil in abject poverty.”

  Byko had been speaking for about five minutes and the crowd was still with him. But he sensed their enthusiasm had dimmed a little since he began. They wanted to hear him talk about the regime, about his plans for taking it down and replacing it with something better. He had to convince them that they were missing the point.

  “We have lost control of our country. Somewhere out there—in London, in New York, in Washington, D.C.—are little men in little rooms, pushing the buttons, moving the chess pieces of the world around. They consider us their pawns. Pieces which can be sacrificed to satisfy the thirsts and hungers of their kings and queens. And all the while, they themselves are hiding. Refusing to admit what they do, refusing to say what they believe. They obfuscate everything and expect us to swallow it or look the other way. But all of that is about to change. Because I am here, standing before you, before the world, to proudly say, ‘Here is what I believe!’ ”

  Salim was no billionaire, no worldly sophisticate with an international education, but he knew who was to blame for his brother’s death. It wasn’t Americans, it wasn’t Englishmen . . . It was the men who had dragged his brother away, beaten him, cut him, broken him—they were Uzbeks. If you wanted to fix this country, it would do no good to point the finger of blame at foreigners.

  The enemy was here.

  Salim had been just a kid when his brother had lain there under a white sheet in the courtyard of their home. But he could still remember the sight of him when his mother had pulled the sheet away. A thing like that, you didn’t forget. Salim was a quiet boy, and most people didn’t realize how much he had thought about what needed to happen in his country. But Salim had thought about it. Someday this would be a country where young men weren’t dragged off and murdered just because they didn’t like the government.

  Salim had dreams for his country. And Byko was getting in the way of those dreams, confusing things, distracting the people with foolish tales about who their real enemies were.

  The target swam in the bull’s-eye of Salim’s rifle scope and he settled the crosshairs on the man’s chest. Salim took up the slack in the trigger with his index finger as gently as you might stroke the lips of a beautiful girl and gently squeezed the trigger.

  But instead of the customary boom and kickback all he heard was a click.

  The rifle had jammed.

  Charlie crouched as low as he could and moved toward the rear of the statue, ducking in and out of the crowd so he could see.

  One of the bodyguards was less than ten feet to his left and Charlie could glimpse his AK-47 through the throngs of people. The guard seemed to know that Charlie was close but couldn’t quite find him.

  “Keep going!” Julie said. “You’re thirty yards out. You’re almost there.”

  To Charlie’s left, he saw the crowd part like the Red Sea. The bodyguard was waving his rifle at them. He was heading in the wrong direction but it would only be a few seconds before Charlie was revealed.

  Charlie pushed to his right.

  “Not that way! Go—” Julie’s voice momentarily dissolved into a crackle of static. Charlie looked at the phone. The charge was down to 2 percent and he was losing his signal.

  “I’ve got one of them coming up behind me!” he shouted.

  Julie’s voice cut through the static of the dying phone. “Another one’s coming up right in front of you! Go back, go back, go back!”

  Charlie bulled through the middle, heading straight for the statue.

  Some of the men in the crowd pushed back at him and Charlie had no choice but to wield his gun. “Out of my way!”

  Byko paused, hearing screams behind him. He wheeled, but couldn’t see what was happening. Perhaps his men were apprehending Charlie Davis. He turned back to the crowd. They were clearly sensing that he had reached some important turning point in his speech.

  “Today, we are reclaiming something. Today, in this small place, we are going to do something that affects the so-called great nations, the so-called powerful. But what makes them great? What makes them powerful? It is only because we are afraid to see through the smoke screen of their power, and challenge them where they live.”

  He pointed down at Gulbadeen, the young man standing there with his spiky hair and his foolish Homer Simpson T-shirt. Byko might have been angry that the computer technician had so little sense of occasion. But it could be argued that he was the perfect symbol for what Byko was arguing—that this silly doughy boy could unleash a firestorm that might eventually consume the world.

  “When this young man presses a button on his screen, word will go out to people like you—all over the world. Within minutes, great actions will be put into place and we will finally have our say!”


  Byko nodded to the young man and thrust his fist toward the sky.

  As Charlie saw Byko punch the air, he lifted his gun, pointing it toward Homer Simpson, trying to get within range. He had Homer in his crosshairs, about to shoot, when a young woman in front of him shifted ever so slightly, bobbing her head into his line of fire.

  “Down!” Charlie shouted.

  Everyone in front of him ducked for cover, but as Charlie went to line up his shot again, the young computer tech stabbed the tablet with his finger.

  “It is done!” he heard Byko proclaim.

  The crowd seemed stunned, unsure how to react.

  Charlie wheeled around, looking for Byko’s guards, still brandishing his gun to make sure no one jumped him. He put the phone back to his ear. “I didn’t do it,” he said. “We were too late.”

  “I know,” Julie told him. “Get out of there, Charlie!”

  Charlie retreated as quickly as he could, but Byko’s thundering continued from the platform. “No longer will our gold form the bars of our prisons. No longer will our oil power the tanks that roll over our broken bodies. No longer will our cotton form the ropes that bind our hands . . .”

  Charlie saw Byko extend his arms into the air as though they were handcuffed, as though he was the prisoner.

  “Because our enemies are not here. In our own country. Our enemies are in New York and London, Copenhagen and Vienna, Sydney and Tokyo—in every country that buys T-shirts made from the cotton picked by a generation of child slaves. Today, these enemies will pay the price for their hypocrisy. Today, they will pay for it with their blood. If money is all they care about, let them choke on it!”

  Suddenly it dawned on Charlie. New York and London, Copenhagen and Vienna, Sydney and Tokyo . . . Chicago and Minneapolis!

  It was the dramatic inevitability that told the story. Today, this Square, the anniversary, Byko on that statue. The money and the greed. That was what Byko meant to punish.

  I know what the targets are!” Julie heard Charlie say into the phone.