“The VV guy, was he North Caucus or—”
“Couldn’t tell. I extracted a head shot for him and everyone else that I could, and enlarged and enhanced all identifying marks, so maybe you can make more sense of it. There was another guy who was a general whose last name begins with Golo — it was a side shot, the rest of the name on his uniform wasn’t visible. Plenty of Forty-Ninth Army troops too, but that’s to be expected.”
“Yeah, that’s their backyard.”
“There was one guy in civilian clothes who got dropped off in a cab. His back was to the camera, but the duffle bag he was carrying had a sticker on it with the letters NAJ. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but I did a little research — that’s the code for the main airport in Nakhchivan.”
“Nakhchivan?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s kind of random.” Nakhchivan was a tiny scrap of land wedged between Turkey, Iran, and Armenia. Though it was technically a part of Azerbaijan, Nakhchivan was an exclave, to Azerbaijan what Alaska was to the continental US, in that it wasn’t physically connected to the main part of the country.
“Yeah, I thought so too.”
“I’ll put together a full report for Kaufman when I get back, but in the meantime could you shoot me encrypted copies of the crops you made, and write out what you just told me?”
“Already on it. Check your e-mail.”
“Thanks. How’s Lila?”
“Sleeping.”
Mark considered telling Daria about Katerina, but explaining to his wife that he’d just been blindsided by a self-portrait of a former lover was a much longer conversation than he wanted to have at the moment. They’d have plenty of time to talk about all that when he got back home. And he also saw no point in mentioning that he’d almost been abducted, and that, upon landing in Almaty in the morning, he planned to spend a lot of time making sure that no one was still on his tail. He had to make sure he was perfectly clean before coming anywhere near Bishkek. Why worry her about all that? “All right, talk soon.”
“Travel safe.”
“Always.”
Still connected to the Wi-Fi signal at the coffee shop, Mark called Ted Kaufman’s secure landline in Langley, Virginia, where it was morning.
“Larry’s en route.” Mark started to bring Kaufman up to speed on what had transpired over the course of the day. But, as with Daria, he left out the bit about the painting — that angle was far too unsettled, too strange, too raw for him to be able to draw any conclusions from it. He needed to get a better handle on what was going on before he mentioned that to anyone.
He was relaying Larry’s flight information, when Kaufman interrupted.
“Hold on, let me get a pen. Actually, screw it. Just e-mail me what I need to know. Talk to me more about these missing photos.”
“Daria just put together a preliminary report—”
“Daria, as in Daria Buckingham?”
“Yeah. As in my wife.”
“I knew you’d married a trait—”
“Don’t go there.”
“—but now you’ve got her working for you? Nice to know. Brilliant move, Sava.”
Daria hadn’t just quit the CIA the way Mark had. She’d been kicked out because her idealistic streak had led her to do some things that she shouldn’t have. Mark had long since forgiven her, but Kaufman hadn’t.
“She’s just helping out in a pinch.”
“She’s not the one with the clearance. You are.”
“You want the preliminary intel on the missing photos?”
“What have you got?”
Mark started to repeat what Daria had told him.
“Back up,” said Kaufman. “Did you say Nakhchivan?”
“Yeah. Why?”
No response.
“Ted?”
“You sure on that?”
“No, I haven’t even looked at Daria’s crops yet. I’m just telling you what she told me.”
“What else could those letters stand for?”
“A lot of things probably.”
“But she thinks it’s an airport security sticker.”
“Yeah. The kind they slap on your bags after they inspect them.” Mark waited a moment, then said, “We good?”
He heard tapping on a computer keyboard, then a sigh. Finally, Kaufman said, “Listen, Sava. What if, instead of heading back to Bishkek, you were to hold tight for a bit? While I check something out.”
“No can do, Ted.”
“I may have more work for you.”
“Great. Submit a request for proposal. I’ll take a look and price it out whenever you get it to me.”
“This might be more urgent.”
“I could probably line up someone for you ASAP if you’re in a pinch.”
“The job I’m thinking of is one you’d be better suited for.”
“My plane boards in an hour. I’m heading back to Bishkek, Ted. Tonight. But we can talk tomorrow.”
So put that in your pipe and smoke it, thought Mark as he clicked off his phone.
When Mark had been the chief of the CIA’s Azerbaijan station, Kaufman had been his boss, so he knew just how far he could push him without seriously damaging the relationship. Besides, while he wasn’t just going to forget about what had happened to Larry, Mark knew there was a lot he could do from back in Bishkek. He’d wait for the CIA’s Russia specialists to analyze the missing photos. Maybe by then Keal would have come up with contact information for Katerina. He considered trying to hunt her down on his own, but until he had a better grip on the situation, decided he belonged back in Bishkek.
For a moment he started to think about how satisfying it would be to be back home, with Daria and Lila. Then the memory of Katerina burrowed its way into his thoughts.
What if she had left that painting there to send him a message? Was it a coincidence that all this was happening now, right after the birth of his first child? He and Katerina didn’t know each other anymore. But had she somehow connected with Larry? Mark couldn’t fathom how or why they would have, but that painting…what was equally unfathomable was that such a painting could have wound up in that hotel room if there hadn’t been some sort of link between Larry and Katerina.
Mark checked his watch. He still had a half hour before his plane was due to board, so he flagged down the waiter, ordered another vodka on the rocks, and tried to remember as much as he could about Katerina and that spring of 1991. Mostly what he remembered now, though, was how quickly everything had spiraled out of control.
In retrospect, Mark could see that agreeing to help Larry funnel money to the Press Club hadn’t been one of his smartest moves. And ignoring the warning lights that started flashing in his mind after Larry intimated that other types of aid might become available if things in Georgia really started to heat up, maybe even weapons — ignoring that danger…well, he’d been young.
Mark recalled that it was shortly after the mention of weapons that Larry had said he wanted to make sure that the Soviets hadn’t planted a mole in the Press Club. Money was one thing, but before any weapons were transferred, he needed to be sure the Press Club was clean. Larry had said he’d come up with a plan. Meanwhile, Mark had started paying closer attention to all the members of the club.
Mark had known he was playing with fire. He’d known Larry wasn’t just some businessman. He’d known too that he was being watched — the old woman who pottered about in the street in red sandals, sneaking nips of apricot moonshine, who was always full of questions; the same black Volga sedan with a dented fender he’d see several times over the course of a normal day. But he’d wanted to do it, he’d wanted to help fight the communists who had wronged his mother, to be a part of history, to help make history.