“Two subjects leaving the vehicle,” Hopkins said.
Marcus began walking silently toward the Mercedes. He carried a small, cheap briefcase with twenty thousand dollars inside.
That would be a small price to pay if it led to information on how to find Alisher Byko.
Marcus had been working overtime on the project for months and this was his first concrete lead, but Hopkins still hadn’t told Marcus why London wanted to find Byko so badly. It was part of the trade that Hopkins had never liked, men going into harm’s way for things they didn’t even understand.
There had been an attempt to take Byko down three days earlier—based on intel to which Marcus had not been privy. Much to Hopkins’s chagrin, the takedown had been a total cock-up and Byko had gotten clean away.
All of which made it that much more important that Marcus successfully complete this transaction. Marcus had gotten a tip from one of his trusted sources that he could put him together with someone in Byko’s organization, someone who could give Marcus an exact time and place where the billionaire would be within the next twenty-four hours. The source knew enough details about Byko’s security and traveling arrangements to make his story sound plausible. And the price, twenty thousand U.S., was cheap under the circumstances.
As Marcus approached the car, Hopkins thought he saw a tiny flash of greenish white, peeking out from under one of the big pieces of machinery in front of his agent. He put his hand over the mic and turned to the video analyst. “What’s that?” he barked, pointing at the screen.
“What’s what?”
But by then it was gone.
“Bloody lights,” Marcus muttered. “Can’t see shite now.”
His wobbly green image pointed in the direction of the Mercedes.
“Turn off your lights!” Marcus shouted in Russian.
The man on the passenger side of the Mercedes waved languidly. “Come over this way.”
“No!” Marcus called back. “Not till you turn off the bloody lights.”
“We’re friends! Come on.”
“Turn off the lights or I’m leaving.”
“What’s wrong?” the man called, switching to English—Uzbek accented with a sprinkling of American vowels. “We’re friends, bro. Friends!”
Hopkins had debriefed Marcus extensively and knew that he’d never identified himself as an Englishman, much less as an agent of the British government. From the beginning, Marcus had played the false flag game, claiming to be a Pole freelancing for the Russians, never using his diplomatic car or his embassy phone. So how did this man know to speak English to Marcus?
“I’m leaving,” Marcus shouted.
Hopkins picked up the distant voice of the man by the Mercedes. “Okay, my friend. You don’t like lights, no problem.”
The car’s lights went out.
Marcus picked up the briefcase and started walking toward the men. Hopkins could see the jaunty confidence of his walk, even from the satellite. And he knew just what an act of will it was for Marcus to keep calm under the circumstances.
When Marcus got halfway to the Merc, he looked toward one of the factory windows and nodded, as though signaling to a shooter hidden in overwatch. If this was a simple rip-off, the hope was that a little crumb of humbuggery like that might be enough to make these men think twice.
“Base, do you see anything on my ten?” Marcus whispered furtively.
Hopkins scanned the screen. “Nothing,” he answered. “You’re clear.”
Marcus began moving again, his right hand inside his jacket. No doubt gripping the butt of the SIG under his jacket as he approached the two men.
“Stop there, Osprey,” Hopkins said as Marcus reached a point about forty feet from the Mercedes.
Again Hopkins saw the briefest flash of white next to one of the fallen cranes.
“Was that us?” Hopkins said urgently to the video analyst, cupping his hand over the mic so that Marcus couldn’t hear.
The analyst’s eyes widened slightly. “I saw it too. I don’t like it, sir.”
“Come on!” Hopkins said. “Is that a hostile or not?”
The analyst shrugged. “How bad do you need what these men have?”
“Bloody well badly.”
The analyst sighed. “Then I’m telling you I don’t know if that was a video artifact or a hostile.”
“Watch your nine, Osprey,” Hopkins hissed into his mike.
But Marcus must have already sensed something, too. The Minicam scanned from side to side as he eyed various piles of machinery. All Hopkins could see was a blur.
The driver came out from behind the open door of the Mercedes and began walking cautiously toward Marcus.
“That’s close enough, mate,” Marcus said.
“You got the money, bro?”
“You don’t see a penny until I know something.”
“I don’t tell you nothing till I see the Benjamins.”
“You’ve been watching too much bloody American TV.”
The man crossed his arms and shrugged. “Hey, bro, we do it or we don’t.”
“Who’s behind that pile of rubbish?” Marcus demanded, cocking his head toward the pile of equipment to his left.
“What! Dude! There’s nobody here but me and my boy Vladislav,” the man said, teeth flashing.
Hopkins’s heart was slamming in his chest. This didn’t feel right.
But Marcus was already opening the briefcase, tossing a small stack of money onto the ground in front of the car. “That’s a taste,” Marcus said. “The rest when you talk.”
The guy from the car didn’t even bend over to look at the money.
And Hopkins knew this had all gone sideways.
“Abort, Osprey,” Hopkins said, his voice rising louder than he wanted it to. “Abort, abort.”
A flash of white by the crane. Then gone.
Another, up in the window of the factory.
“Oh, shit,” gasped the analyst.
“Abort!” Hopkins shouted. “Shooters at nine and three o’clock high. Repeat, shooters at nine and three high!”
The SIG appeared in Marcus’s hand.
And then there were shapes moving all around him, greenish-white blobs disconnecting themselves from the dark piles of machinery.
Marcus got off two shots, perfectly composed masterpieces of combat shooting, the two men by the Mercedes crumpling to the ground.
Then Marcus was running.
Hopkins could hear the tiny pop-pop-pops of automatic fire and then a grunt.
“Marcus! Marcus, are you all right?” Blatant violation of radio discipline, calling his agent by his name rather than his radio code.
“Cheers,” Marcus said. “Getting a bit sporty right now. I’ve taken two I think.”
Another grunt.
“Bollocks. That one was bad.”
Then Marcus fell, the view from the Minicam taking a whirling tumble.
The figures who had come out of cover were advancing now, firing and firing and firing.
“Christ,” Hopkins muttered, forcing himself to keep watching.
It was the professionalism in their movements, the telltale signatures of experienced men at arms, moving briskly but unhurriedly—firing, reloading, firing—that told Hopkins the story. These were not cheap gun thugs, but highly trained, disciplined fighters.
One of the assassins leaned down toward the camera.
“He’s wired,” the assassin said in perfect English. “Switch it off.”
There was a burst of static then the monitor went dead.
And Hopkins knew. Knew by the way it had all gone down.
This was the handiwork of John Quinn.
Chapter Eighteen
Charlie felt something bump and slam against his back. He awoke with a jerk—heart pounding—to find the Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-154 descending toward Tashkent like a punch-drunk fighter, veering from side to side as though the pilot were landing it with his eyes closed.
Uzbek
Air certainly did not inspire great confidence. The pilot was a haggard-looking man with strange staring eyes, and the careless, surly flight attendants wore toothpaste green polyester pantsuits that might have seemed vaguely fashionable in the early 1970s. The plane itself was a wreck: strips of peeling wallpaper dangled off the ceiling like streamers at a parade, there was chewing gum under the seats, graffiti carved into the tray table and a missing armrest on Charlie’s chair where his white-knuckled hand should have been.
Sitting near the rear of the plane, the howl of the aging Russian turbines assaulting his ears, Charlie diverted himself by looking out the window. Finally the plane touched down on the runway.
He breathed a sigh of relief and saw that nothing had changed since he left—the same grungy little airport, the same ugly collection of hangars, the same arid terrain, the same low and unremarkable skyline.
Tashkent.
Charlie took out his cell and checked his voice mail. There were three new messages. The first one greeted him rudely: “Hey there, Mr. Davis, Detective Albez here. We see that you happened to have left the country. Doesn’t look too good for you, you know? Not if you ever want to see your kids again. I were you, I’d rethink this going-on-the-lam strategy and get your ass on the next flight back—” Charlie deleted the prick.
The next was from Sal. He was beginning an awkward apology about overstepping his bounds when Charlie deleted that, too. At this point, he could care less.
The last message was from Mac. “Okay, Charlie, don’t ask me how, but I did it. The freight forwarder was Corrigan Brothers, like you thought. The container, serial number A427-HXQ, left Port of Long Beach, Pier J in a Liberian-flagged steamer, SS Albert J. Mott to Port of Sitka in Alaska. Transferred there to a Russian air freight outfit called AeroTrade, which flew through Petrapavlovsk and Kazakhstan en route to Tashkent. The flight is scheduled to arrive at Tashkent International at 7:58 this morning. I’m emailing you all the relevant info, but—” Mac hesitated, voice lowering gravely, “I don’t know what you’re into, Charlie, but be goddamn careful.”
The line went dead.
Charlie looked at his watch: 7:06. He had fifty-two minutes to deplane, hurry through customs, and get to the freight terminal.
He quickly checked his texts and emails. There was one from Faruz—he had no idea what was going on but he would be at the airport to pick Charlie up; one from Becca—the kids were doing just fine; and another from Mac with the serial numbers and info on the container. But there was nothing from Byko. Surely a man like him didn’t allow eleven hours to pass without checking his email. Why would he not respond? Was it possible he, too, had already been taken?
Finally, Charlie heard the forward cabin door thumping open. He jumped up, grabbed his things and forced his way through a group of Russian businessmen, all of them smelling of cologne and vodka. “Prastitye,” he said. “Emergency.” The Russians, and everyone else for that matter, swore at Charlie as he pushed, elbowed, and cajoled his way to the front of the plane.
Four minutes later, Charlie was clumping down the old-fashioned aluminum stairway—shades of 1963—and across the tarmac, squinting against the sunlight.
As he rushed through the terminal, he was greeted by a huge portrait of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, looking down at him with beady, calculating eyes. At passport control, he soon found himself at the end of a long single-file line. Usually there was a separate queue for foreign nationals, but he couldn’t see where it was.
A couple of shoddily uniformed soldiers slouched near the line, both carrying AK-47s.
The sight of them made Charlie’s heart pound, but he forced himself to step out of line and approach them. “Izvineetye,” he said. “Is there a separate line for—”
“Back in the line!” The young soldier brandished his weapon as though he’d like to whack Charlie in the face.
Charlie had no choice but to retreat, falling in line once again.
The young soldier eyeballed him for what seemed like a lifetime then finally resumed his playful banter with his comrades. Charlie exhaled and checked his watch.
7:21.
He looked at the line. It was moving—but slowly.
Come on! he thought. Damnit, come on!
At 7:32, he reached passport control. The official, a short man with a wispy beard, stared long and hard at Charlie’s documents then took them to an ancient computer in a booth located at another officer’s desk. He pecked slowly at the keys, typing in Charlie’s name with the eraser of his pencil.
“Is this going to take long?” Charlie called.
The man turned, eyeballed him briefly, then continued typing—if that was even the right word for this glacial activity.
The bearded man dinged what appeared to be the last key, hit enter and waited. And waited. And waited. Charlie’s entire body was vibrating with impatience until something popped up on the screen.
The officer motioned to his superior, who sat on a chair in a high booth, staring out at the arriving passengers through enormously thick glasses. The supervisor grunted and sighed, then pointed languidly to a red door on the far side of the room.
“What’s this?” Charlie demanded.
“You’re being detained,” said the officer with the beard.
“What do you mean, detained?”
“Detained.”
Charlie had been afraid this might happen. His articles about life here had never put him in high favor with the government. No doubt his name was on some kind of list of undesirables.
But making a scene out here in the open would do him no good. If there was a deal to be made, it would have to be made in the room behind the red door. He raised his hands in surrender and walked as quickly as he could to that door. He entered, followed by the passport-control officer and his supervisor.
The only thing in the room was a table with a handcuff attached to it. Charlie set his bag on the table, turned to the two men and began the proceedings. “Just name me a price.”
The supervisor’s eyes widened, magnified to the size of boiled eggs behind his glasses. “Are you attempting to bribe me?”
Charlie reached into his pocket, took out three hundred dollars in twenties, which he kept in a roll with a rubber band around it. It would be cheaper if he pretended that these weren’t bribes but fees, if he talked in code about it, if he flattered and cajoled. But to hell with that. There was no time.
“Here,” he said, counting out his opening offer: two piles, a hundred each.
The supervisor laughed. The passport-control officer laughed.
“Okay, okay,” Charlie said, splitting another eighty between the two piles. It left only a twenty in his hand. “I have to keep something for the cab,” he said.
The supervisor blinked. “You insult us . . . then you speak about cab fare? You won’t need cab fare when we put you on the next plane back to London.”
Charlie sighed heavily and put the last twenty on the table. “It’s everything I have.”
The supervisor waddled around him in a slow circle, smiling cynically. Finally he reached out and poked Charlie’s stomach. “Everything?”
Charlie backed away from him.
The supervisor snapped his finger at the passport-control officer, who walked out of the room, closed the door, then came back moments later with the soldiers. One of the uniformed young men grabbed Charlie and pushed him against the wall while the other yanked up his shirt and jerked the money belt off Charlie’s midsection.
“Please!” Charlie begged. “I need that!”
The supervisor stood with his hands folded over his chest while the passport-control officer zipped open the money belt and dumped the contents on the table.
“I thought you said you only had three hundred?” The supervisor waved at the bills on the table. “We may be forced to seize this as evidence of a possible crime.”
“What crime?” Charlie asked indignantly.
The passport-control officer splayed the money
out, licked his finger and began counting. The only sound in the room was the rapid shick-shick-shick-shick of money.
“Take it,” Charlie said with abject resignation. “Take it all. I don’t care. Just please let me go. I’m in a hurry.”
The supervisor took a small fleck of tobacco from between his teeth and flicked it into the air. “Will you require a receipt?”
“Just give me the belt back,” Charlie said.
The supervisor shrugged, then tossed him the empty belt. “Enjoy your stay in Uzbekistan, Mr. Davis.”
Charlie grabbed his bag and walked as swiftly as he could out the door.
He permitted himself a brief smile as he paused behind a potted plant, reached into his pants and pulled nine thousand dollars out of his underwear. He’d expected there might be a shakedown and knew the money belt would be their first target, so the underwear was his fallback position. It seemed silly, but even extortionists don’t like sticking their hands into other men’s boxer shorts.
He shoved the money back into the belt, secured it underneath his shirt and sprinted for the exit, looking at his watch.
He had fourteen minutes.
Chapter Nineteen
Charlie exited the terminal and scanned the area. There was no Faruz.
And the taxi stand was a mob scene—Uzbeks yelling and waving money, Russian mobsters shouting at their flunkies, a couple of muscular Englishmen who had the look of military contractors shoving their way through throngs of drivers. Cabs were parked higgledy-piggledy, blocking one another, the drivers honking and swearing.
It could take half an hour just to get out of this mess.
As Charlie pushed his way through the crowd, he heard a loud screech of tires. The mobsters all looked up—alarmed—hands reaching under coats as they ducked behind their cars.
To Charlie’s relief, it was his old friend, waving out the window and pounding on the horn, a wide grin splitting his roguish features. He was parked in the middle of the road but seemed not to notice the inconvenience he was causing the other drivers.
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