by Greg Rucka
“A touch, yes.”
“Well, then,” Barclay said, and stood for a moment longer before almost reluctantly taking his customary seat. He positioned himself sitting on the edge, leaning forward. He adjusted his eyeglasses, then exhaled, resolving himself. “I assume you know that Daniel called your home, and spoke to your wife.”
“You didn’t believe my daughter had broken her leg.”
“It isn’t beyond you to employ your family in a deception.”
“Why would I deceive you?”
Barclay made a single noise, the start of an abortive laugh. “Paul, I don’t think that really deserves a response.”
“Perhaps I should rephrase, then, sir. What would I be deceiving you about this time?”
“I don’t know,” Barclay replied, suddenly frank. “But I do know you’ve been to see the PUS at the FCO twice in the past week. And I know that when I make inquiries into the purpose of those visits, the answers I receive are, at best, evasive.”
“It’s as I told you before, sir. Sir Walter has been soliciting my input regarding the fiasco in KL.”
“I don’t believe you.” Barclay finally leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together, setting his hands in his lap. He looked at Crocker. “And unfortunately, I seem to have no way to compel the truth from you, considering that you’ve little over a week left in this job.”
Crocker didn’t respond.
“You have no interest in the position in Washington?” Barclay asked.
Crocker considered his possible answers, then decided to go with brutal honesty. “None at all, sir.”
“Then I suppose the only real thing I can offer you is your job, and my promise that you will keep it if you bring me into your confidence.”
That was unexpected, and Crocker did his best to keep the fact from his face, but it answered, finally, the questions he’d been wrestling with ever since meeting with Seale in Hyde Park. For the first time, he felt confident he knew what this was about, if not in specifics, at least in generalities. Something had happened in the last five days to put Barclay not only on the defensive, but under siege. Something that he could not easily avoid or redress.
Something that threatened his career the same way, five days prior, he had threatened Crocker’s.
It had to be the MANPADs—there just wasn’t any other explanation as far as Crocker could see. And thinking that, it seemed more than plausible, possible even. Barclay on the Joint Intelligence Committee had been in position to authorize the transfer of weapons to the Northern Alliance. He’d had enough clout and seniority to initiate the move, as well as to compel Islamabad Station’s silence in the matter, either through intimidation or, more likely, the promise of later reward. Sitting at the head of the JIC, it had been understood that Barclay’s next step up the career rung would be as the Chief of Service at SIS. To a Station Number One in Islamabad, Frances Barclay would have been a very good friend to have indeed. But it had gone wrong, the missiles had vanished, and Barclay had spent the last four years looking behind him, wondering when they would return.
According to the CIA, they just had, somewhere in the south of Uzbekistan.
“You know about the Starstreaks,” Barclay said finally.
“Yes.”
“Seccombe knows about them, too. He’s known about them ever since they disappeared into Afghanistan.”
Crocker wasn’t surprised, and didn’t doubt the assertion. “Seccombe’s never mentioned them. They’ve never come up in our discussions.”
Barclay frowned slightly, unsure whether or not to believe him.
“They’ve never come up, sir,” Crocker assured him.
“Be that as it may, according to the CIA, these four Starstreaks were sold into Uzbekistan less than a month ago. You know that much from Seale, I’m sure.”
It seemed unnecessary to say that the information had come from Cheng at the NCCT, rather than the CIA, so Crocker merely nodded slightly, waiting for Barclay to continue.
“I’ve been on to the Station in Tashkent, asking them to keep an eye open. I’ve had to be circumspect, obviously, but I think I made myself clear to them. I want those missiles found, Paul. I want them found, and I want them returned to England. Either that, or I want proof of their destruction.”
“They’ve been in service for over seven years, sir. I’m sure the batteries that power them have run down by now.”
“That hardly renders them harmless, Paul. Four Starstreak missiles. If they end up in the hands of our enemies, if they’re used to bring down a military, or, heaven forbid, a commercial aircraft . . .”
Barclay trailed off, looking past Crocker, toward his desk.
“I’d hate to be responsible for that loss of life,” Barclay concluded quietly.
Not to mention the loss of career, Crocker thought. If the missiles were used, if their use could be traced, then it would be just a matter of time before Barclay would have to claim ownership. There would be no defense for what came next, only the question of how Sir Frances Barclay would conduct his withdrawal from public service.
“The Americans seemed to think it unlikely that the missiles are still in Uzbekistan,” Crocker said. “More likely they’ve been moved farther into Central Asia. They could be in any of a dozen countries by now.”
“I know that.”
“Without more information, they’re impossible to locate.”
“I know that as well.” Barclay looked at him levelly. “But your aid in the search for them would be invaluable, Paul. And as D-Ops, it’s a reasonable directive for you to issue to our Stations. If you took the lead in this search for me, if you worked with Simon, I’d think your chances of success in doing so would be substantial.”
“You’ll forgive me for saying that I think you’re being overly optimistic, sir. We’ve been searching up MANPADs since the start of the war, and with only limited success.”
“But in this instance, you’d have hard intelligence to begin with. A place to start, a direction to head. It would scarcely be fumbling about in the dark.”
“Perhaps not, but close to it.”
“I’m asking for your help, Paul. Help that I would be grateful to receive. Help that I would reward.”
“You’d spare me my job.”
“I would see you became my next Deputy Chief.”
That stopped Crocker. “The DC is leaving?”
“She could be made to, to ensure your promotion,” Barclay rejoined levelly. “And I would, of course, follow your recommendation on the appointment of a new D-Ops. Even Poole, were you to champion him.”
Barclay waited, watching him, knowing full well the weight of the offer he had just made. Crocker had been passed over twice already for promotion to Deputy Chief, stalled at the level of Director of Operations. It was the next logical promotion in his career, one he had deeply coveted. As much as he respected, even liked, Alison Gordon-Palmer, Crocker absolutely wanted her job.
Poole wouldn’t do as D-Ops, not yet, but if he had to, Crocker could see him as Head of Section. Which would free up Chace, allow him to promote her to fill Crocker’s office. Just as he wanted the promotion to DC, he knew that Chace had wanted, eventually, to succeed him as D-Ops.
And with that hierarchy in place, with Crocker positioned between Barclay and Chace, he could do a lot of good, he was certain of it. He could move the Firm fully back into the game, begin correcting the errors of the last twenty years, the compromises, the capitulations.
It was an extraordinarily tempting offer, and looking at Barclay, he knew it was sincere.
“The offer is contingent on the recovery or destruction of the Starstreaks?” Crocker asked.
“Obviously.”
He thought again, once more considering it all, everything Barclay had told him. He thought about Alison Gordon-Palmer, and Sir Walter Seccombe. He thought about Chace, still running secretly in Uzbekistan. He thought, for a moment, about Ruslan Mihailovich Malikov and his sister, Sevar
a Malikov-Ganiev.
Unbidden, he thought about his wife and his daughters, and remembered the bitterness in Ariel’s voice, the hurt at yet another of her father’s broken promises.
He wondered which of many enemies he’d rather have, and thought it was a luxury to be able to choose even that.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Crocker told Barclay.
CHAPTER 16
Uzbekistan—Tashkent—U.S. Chancery,
Office of the Political Counselor
20 February, 0703 Hours (GMT+5:00)
Riess came in early on Monday morning, hoping to use the peace and quiet of McColl’s absence to mow through the majority of the paperwork on his desk. He had yet another in the endless streams of démarches to prepare, this one regarding conditional subsidies proposed to support the Aral Sea Project, truly an utter waste of his time.
The Aral Sea was dying, if it wasn’t dead already. The two mighty rivers that had once fed it—the Syr Darya in the north, the Amu Darya in the south—no longer actually reached the sea, diverted and run dry by irrigation projects devoted to cotton production long before the waterways could reach their onetime destination. The sea level itself was dropping at a rate of one meter per year, and what it uncovered as it went could only be described as chemical crust, a foul mix of pesticides and defoliants that had run off the cotton fields. So far, over thirty-four thousand square kilometers of seafloor had been exposed, costing over ten million hectares of pastureland. All twenty-four documented species of fish that once swam in its waters were now gone.
It wasn’t simply an environmental disaster, it was a humanitarian one. Tuberculosis was endemic to the region, with over two thousand deaths attributed to the disease each year. Anemia was common. Children suffered from a host of liver, kidney, and respiratory ailments, in addition to cancer and birth defects.
It was a problem that had no solution, and as Riess read the reports yet again, trying to compose the paper that McColl would ask him to rewrite at least twice, he felt his frustration build more. What was the point? The political will to fix the situation didn’t exist, not here in Uzbekistan, nor in neighboring Kazakhstan, sharing the northern shores of the Aral. It didn’t exist in Turkmenistan or Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan, all of whom drew from one or the other river to support their own agribusiness.
Yet another situation, another crisis in the long line of crises that Riess had seen in his years at the State Department, that had no solution.
It turned his thoughts dark and made the work harder, and he was so focused on it all that he didn’t look up when the door opened from the hall, into the Pol/Econ office. He assumed it was McColl, or the staff secretary, and it wasn’t until he heard Aaron Tower’s voice that he actually raised his eyes from his computer screen, to see the Tashkent COS standing before him.
“Morning, Chuck.”
“Good morning, sir. If you’re looking for the Counselor, I’m afraid he isn’t in yet.”
Tower shook his head, hooking one of the nearby chairs with his foot, drawing it to him. He shoved it with a knee, positioning it to face Riess’ desk, then sat down. He had a travel mug in his hand, brushed stainless steel and uncovered, and Riess could see the paper tag of an herbal tea bag dangling over the edge. It surprised him; he’d always imagined Tower to be a coffee drinker.
“Had to give up caffeine,” Tower informed him. “Blood pressure.”
“Ah.”
“Hey, listen,” Tower said. “This is one of those things that’s a little clumsy to talk about, so I’m just going to come out and say it, all right? And I hope you won’t be offended.”
“All right.”
“You were at the InterContinental on Thursday night.”
Riess felt his stomach perform what honestly felt like a backflip. “I’m sorry?”
“Yeah, it’s awkward, see? You were at the InterContinental, and no, I can’t tell you how I know it, but I know it, so let’s not play the no-I-wasn’t/yes-you-were game. You spent the night there. Well, a portion of the night there. In room 615, with a Brit named Tracy Carlisle.”
“I’m not sure this is any of your business, sir,” Riess countered, trying to channel the embarrassment, rather than the fear. It wasn’t very hard to do. He was certain he was blushing, and for a moment was immensely grateful that Tower had chosen to have this conversation while the office was empty, instead of in another hour, when McColl would have been certain to overhear it.
“Maybe, maybe not, but I kind of think that’s for me to decide,” Tower said. “I need you to tell me who this woman is, Charles, and how you know her.”
“I’ve known her for about twelve years,” Riess lied. “She spent a semester at Virginia Tech my junior year.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We had a thing. She works for some agricultural firm in England. They do irrigation, I think.”
“So she’s here on business.”
“Much as I’d like to say she came all this way for me, she’s here on business.”
“This company she works for, you know its name?”
Riess shook his head. “We didn’t talk about it. Kind of puts me in a bad position if she starts asking questions about the economy of the region.”
“I can see that.”
Riess paused, then asked, “Can I ask why this matters?”
“It may not matter at all.”
“Yeah, but you’re asking me about it.”
Tower nodded, took hold of the paper tab on the end of its string, and pulled his tea bag from the cup. He flicked it overhand, sending it sailing, bag end first, into the wastepaper basket at the side of the secretary’s desk. It landed with a loud, wet smack. Tower admired the shot for a second, then turned his attention back to Riess.
“Is there a problem?” Riess asked.
Tower didn’t answer, still looking at him.
No, not looking, Riess thought. Watching.
“I haven’t seen her since then,” Riess added.
“I know,” Tower said, and lapsed into silence again, continuing to watch him.
The silence turned uncomfortable. The fan on Riess’ desktop computer switched on, unnecessarily loud. Outside and down the hall, he heard a telephone begin ringing, then stop, as abruptly as it had started.
“Is there anything else, sir?” Riess asked. “I’ve got to finish this démarche before the Counselor comes in.”
“You’ve known this woman since you were a sophomore at Virginia Tech.”
“A junior.”
“Right.” Tower stared at him, then rose. “Okay, then. Thanks for your time.”
“No trouble, sir.”
Tower stopped, a hand on the door. “Chuck—word of advice, okay? Next time you’re going to meet an old friend for a quick fuck, bring her to your place, all right? A hotel, that’s just tacky.”
“It came up unexpectedly.”
“Just as long as you didn’t.” Tower grinned at him.
Riess blinked, then forced himself to laugh.
Tower left the office.
Riess stopped laughing.
He found it very difficult to concentrate on the Aral Sea after that.
CHAPTER 17
Uzbekistan—Tashkent—
Uzbekiston Street
20 February, 1326 Hours (GMT+5:00)
According to her math, she hadn’t slept in thirty-seven hours, and Tara Chace was beginning to feel it.
The problem, of course, was that she was alone. If she’d been able to rely upon some backup, if she’d had Poole or Lankford with her or, hell, even the Station Number Two, they could have split the surveillance. She’d have been able to set them in their positions to watch Ruslan Mihailovich Malikov’s home, to tell them what to look for and how to do it, to break the larger job into smaller ones and, thus, been free to return to the little room she’d taken at the Hotel Sayokhat and get some goddamn sleep.
But she had no one but herself, and worse, she was running out of time. Porter woul
d wait until the twenty-fifth, she was certain of that; he wasn’t the problem. At this point, she was reasonably certain Porter was actually the only thing she could count on, and she’d already picked a location for their eventual rendezvous, seventy-seven kilometers southwest of the city, at the northern edge of Dzhizak Province. She’d picked the location on her way back from her shopping trip, off the main highway, along the banks of the Syr Darya, where it cut through Uzbekistan, joining Kazakhstan in the northwest and Tajikistan in southeast. Parked by the side of the river, she’d pulled the GPS unit she’d brought with her from London, taken three different readings, all confirming the same set of coordinates, and then spent another minute and a half committing them to memory.
Porter was not going to be the problem.
The problem was back in London, and the problem was here in Tashkent. Crocker had made it clear he wanted—needed—the job done quickly. For that reason alone, time was of the essence. Compounding that was the situation with President Malikov. Since meeting with Riess, she’d had no news of the old man’s condition. Local media had resolutely failed to report even a whisper of his illness. She didn’t know if the President was lingering, recovering, or already in the ground, but if it was the last, then she felt safe in assuming that the clock was running for Ruslan and his son as well.
So the surveillance fell to her, and it fell to her with an urgency she did not like. Haste made for mistakes, and as things stood, there was already too much room for error, too many things she didn’t like.
First, Ruslan and his son were, for all intents and purposes, under house arrest. By her count, there were at least three static surveillance posts devoted to watching the home, each manned by a team of two, each team replaced every eight hours, at five hundred, thirteen hundred, and twenty-one hundred hours. The watchers made no attempts to hide themselves, using automobiles as their staging point, with one person remaining behind the wheel, the second alternately walking up and down the block or lounging against the side of the car. Every other hour of the shift, the two would swap, the walker assuming the seat in the car, the driver assuming the walking post. The occupants of the cars used radios for communication, but from what Chace could see, the walkers did not. She was certain that the drivers not only communicated with one another, but with a central dispatcher as well.
