He wanted to rid his mind of that ugliness, to cut that memory and a thousand others out of his brain.
The image of little Lila in her bassinet flashed into his head. He thought of Daria nursing his daughter as morning sunlight streamed in from the kitchen windows. He could smell the fresh coffee, hear it percolating, hear Daria speaking softly to Lila, “Easy there, easy there, you don’t have to drink so fast,” and it triggered within him a visceral eagerness to get back home with them both as soon as he possibly could.
Because, while he didn’t like to think it, Mark knew that beautiful calm, the essence of all that he loved, all that he wanted to protect and keep, could be gone in an instant.
If nothing else, his time in Georgia had taught him that.
Part Three
17
Mark was still at the airport in Tbilisi, waiting in line to board an Airbus jet, when a text came in from what appeared to be KyrgyzTelecom, indicating he qualified for a reduced rate plan. In reality, it was from Ted Kaufman. The message: make contact.
As eager as he was to get home, Mark was also well aware that Kaufman had thrown a lot of business his way. He knew he shouldn’t push his luck by completely ignoring his main source of income. So he left the boarding gate, picked up a Wi-Fi signal again outside the airport coffee shop, and used his jury-rigged iPad Mini to call Kaufman’s secure landline.
“So that job I was talking about,” said Kaufman.
“Throw a request for proposal together, I’ll look at it first thing—”
“The thing is, it might be related to what happened to Larry. I would think you’d at least want to hear me out now.”
“OK, but my plane is boarding as we speak. It’ll have to be quick.”
“I have a branch chief who’s stationed in Ganja, Azerbaijan. He was running a source, a twenty-eight-year-old woman. Two days ago, she was killed.”
Ganja, which lay about a hundred and thirty miles southeast of Tbilisi, was the second largest city in Azerbaijan. The last time Mark had been there it had been a chaotic dump. As far as he knew, it still was.
“I need,” added Kaufman, “for you to figure out why she was killed, and whether it was related to what happened to Larry.”
“Why can’t the branch chief investigate?”
“He’s come under some pressure recently. In fact, item one on the agenda would be to bring him an alias packet and see that he makes it out of Ganja without having a nervous breakdown. After you debrief him, of course.”
“What pressure?”
“There’ve been threats.”
“You want me to exfiltrate him?”
“It wouldn’t be a real exfiltration. As I understand it, he just needs a little hand-holding.”
“I’m not in the hand-holding business, and I’m not getting how this has anything to do with what happened to Larry.”
“Nakhchivan.”
“Still not following.”
“This source the branch chief was running was killed right before she was supposed to provide us with the financials for a construction company that had a big project going on in Nakhchivan.”
“And that’s it. That’s the connection. An airport security sticker and a construction project.”
“How often does an obscure place like Nakhchivan come up, Sava? And now it shows up on my desk in two separate reports—”
“I don’t recall writing a report—”
“You know what I mean. Two references to Nakhchivan, two people dead. I want you to find out why this woman in Ganja was killed. I’ll pay double your usual rate. Plus a bonus if—”
“I’ve been PNG’d from Azerbaijan, Ted. Remember?”
“Oh, shit. No, I forgot about that.”
“I’ve asked you twice to try to get it lifted.”
PNG stood for persona non grata. Mark had been declared one by the government of Azerbaijan over a year ago, as a result of an intelligence operation — involving oil politics and Iran — gone bad. Which meant he’d been kicked out of his adopted country and told never to return. Daria had been given a similar shove out the door. That’s why they’d moved to Bishkek.
“Yeah, now it’s coming back to me.”
Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, had been Mark’s home. He’d worked there for nearly a decade as an employee of the CIA, and then after quitting the Agency, had stayed on to teach international relations at a local university. Getting kicked out by the Azeris had been one of the worst developments in his life. Kaufman, however, clearly hadn’t lost any sleep over it.
“Point being,” said Mark, “I’m not going to be able to help you. Sorry.”
“What if I was able to get the PNG lifted?”
Mark had been about to check the time on his iPad — he had to get back in the boarding line soon. Instead, he said, “You could do that?”
“Sure. Probably. I think.”
“But I thought last you checked, the Azeris wouldn’t budge.”
“True, but that’s because you wouldn’t have been going back at the request of the US government. Whereas now you would.”
“You never even requested that they let me back in?”
“As I recall, I passed along your personal request. That’s different from an official request that comes from the State Department.”
“I’m aware of the difference, dammit. Thanks for dicking me around, Ted.”
“You take this job, I’d be putting in an official request now, I can guarantee you that.”
Mark didn’t respond right away. He thought again of Daria and Lila. And the frailty of the little life they had together. And then he thought about how much better that frail little life would be if they could all live in Baku instead of in permanent exile in Bishkek. Part of his job as a father was to think of the long term. “Diplomatic passport?”
“No. But I could probably swing an official one.”
“That’d work.”
“No diplomatic immunity, unless you want to really cozy up with State. I mean, you could try claiming it if you get in a jam, but I don’t know that State will back you up.”
“Even with an official passport, I’d need a visa for Azerbaijan.”
“I can have the embassy in Tbilisi start working on it now. Is that it? Are you saying you’ll do it?”
“No. The PNG. It’s lifted permanently. I’m not going in for a couple days and then getting tossed out again.”
“If you’re an approved contractor, working regularly with us, then it will probably stay lifted. But you start pissing people off again — and I’m warning you, the new ambassador in Baku is a bit of a pill — you’re going to get tossed again. That’s the best I can do.”
“Daria gets her PNG lifted too.”
“Whoa.”
“That’s a nonnegotiable.”
“You’re one thing, Mark. You’re one of us and always have been. Daria…”
“People do things in their youth that they regret.”
“She wasn’t that young, and she doesn’t regret shit.”
“You know, I got over all that. You can too.”
“I don’t know that I can even do it. With you, State can say you’re working under a government contract. The Azeris will respect that. With Daria, there’s no angle.”
“Then just say she’s working for me and do it all at once.”
“I don’t know, Mark.”
“She’s already pitching in on this project. Besides, didn’t you have your wife on payroll back in the nineties?” Mark knew he was pushing it, but if he couldn’t get Daria’s PNG lifted along with his own, then he couldn’t justify taking the job.