“I don’t need protection. I have something to give to one of the leaders of the front. Something very, very small. I don’t even have to meet them in person, just get it to someone who can get it to them. Don’t tell me you can’t even do that?”
Uwe scrunched down into his gelatin seat and began tapping one finger on his chin. My guess was he was worried less about how to pull off my request and more about whether or not I was worth the trouble.
“Know what Stauffenberg told me?” I said. It wasn’t really my style, but if there was ever a time to pull rank, now was it. “She said the fate of the world was resting on my shoulders.”
“For real?”
“Feel free to call her up on your HeadPhone.”
“No thanks. I spend enough time trying to avoid her calls as it is.”
Uwe turned to look me straight in the eye and smiled. I detected a glimmer of irony. “This must be pretty serious for you to go pulling the Os Cara card.”
“People are dying all over the world right now, and a lot more will be soon. If that’s not serious enough, I don’t know what is.”
Uwe stretched in his chair and laughed out loud. The sound echoed off the walls of the spacious room. “No, no. I’m surprised you are serious about this, Tuan. I know your profile. I’ve heard the stories. Don’t tell me you give a shit about what’s going on in the world. You have some personal connection to this, don’t you? That, and the thing with your dad—sorry about that, by the way. You don’t strike me as the vengeful type, so I’m going to say you’re after something. A little revenge on the side would just sweeten the deal. Look, I’m not one to point fingers. I’m here in this camp half for the booze and the smokes myself. As are the guys we got from your Niger operation. You’re not the only one who wandered out here to get out of the kindness compactor and found themselves somehow responsible for the well-being of the whole fucking world.”
I was shocked, a little, to find that there were others of like mind outside of the crew I had cultivated at my old post.
“You’re working for yourself. Admit that, and I’ll do what I can to help you.”
I sighed, though to tell the truth I wasn’t unhappy. I was starting to like this guy. “You might say it’s a private affair.”
“Private, eh? Sexy. I approve.” Uwe’s lips curled into a smile and his hand went to one ear to make a call. “Call the kid from the Fawn, will you? I doubt they have much business these days anyway. Right. Later.”
≡
The Fawn was an eatery across the street from the old city hall where the camp was located. Much to my surprise, they had beer on the menu. Previously, their clientele had been mostly city officials. Portraits of several soldiers had been printed out and hung on the walls—memories of numerous conflicts this land had seen. I asked about them and Uwe chuckled.
“Those aren’t printouts, Tuan. They’re called photographs.”
“Photographs?”
“Yeah. Bitch to make. You need all this film and photo paper and developing fluid. Really annoying protocol. It’s not like just changing the cartridge in your printer.”
“Another dead medium, then.”
“Guilty as charged. Though for dead media, it’s still pretty alive in these parts.”
“Speaking of things I thought were dead and gone, I’m a little surprised they’ve got beer on the menu.”
“Yeah. That’s the kind of thing the Russians love to grumble about,” Uwe said with a grin. “I can’t tell you how many thousands of reports I’ve read about the ‘shocking consumption of dangerous libations in this hopelessly backward region.’”
“I can imagine.”
“Funny thing is, I looked into it and it turns out that out of all the thousands of admedistrations in the world, only twentysix have laws on the books actually prohibiting alcohol. Just twenty-six that forbid their members to imbibe. In all the rest, it’s just not done.”
“I’m sure the SA analysts have something to do with that.”
“Oh, I know. That’s how the social assessment points work. As long as enough people agree about something, it starts being reflected in your points, and before you know it, you’d better behave or else. And enforcement is built in.”
I smiled. “You know, I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”
“How nice of you to say that. I wouldn’t mind—ah, here comes the food.”
We were alone in the restaurant. The proprietor brought out our food on a large platter, placing it on our table before retreating to the kitchen.
“You think he’s wondering what he should do before the deadline?” I asked, eyeing the retreating man.
“I doubt it. I certainly haven’t given it any thought.”
“That so?”
“You can believe me or not, makes no difference to me. I plan on taking whatever happens that day as it comes. More importantly, this here’s a Chechen specialty. Zhizhig galnash. In other words, meat.”
It was, literally, a mound of meat on a bed of what looked like penne. I dug in, the stench of mutton filling my nose. “You dip it in this,” Uwe said, pushing a saucer of garlic oil across the table. It did a lot to improve the flavor. Still, the meat was unbelievably tough. I really had to go at it with fork and knife for a while before I made any progress.
The dishes kept coming out. There were lamb dumplings. And then more lamb. Eager to wash the taste out of my mouth, I found myself ordering a beer—right in front of a fellow Helix agent.
“Good call. I’ll have one too. Don’t see anyone else coming in tonight anyway.”
“How do fool your WatchMe?”
“Ah, turns out that by agency regulations, the health risks associated with any consumption of alcohol during negotiations in regions where drinking is common isn’t counted in your SA score. All I have to do is write a report. You went the DummyMe route, am I right? My way involves a little paperwork, but you got to hand it to the agency for showing a little common sense now and then.”
“I had no idea.”
“Few people do. Myself, I prefer to enjoy life, so I spend a lot of time finding loopholes in the system.”
The proprietor brought out chicken pilaf next. I looked up from my plate to see a boy tapping Uwe on the shoulder. When did he get in here, I wondered. He certainly hadn’t come in through the front door. He was wearing a necklace of spent rifle cartridges over a woven ethnic shawl of some sort. Maybe a warrior, and a young one at that. Uwe turned around and said something to him, upon which the boy faced me and stuck out his hand.
“He says give him whatever it is you have for his boss,” Uwe explained.
I pulled a scrap of paper out of my pocket.
“What, just a piece of paper?” Uwe asked, and I assured him that was all. I told the boy to make sure his boss got it, and Uwe translated for me. The boy nodded, a serious look on his face, and slipped out through the back door of the bar.
“You sure that was all you wanted to give him?”
“I am. Better dig in. Your pilaf’s getting cold.”
“Not a bad idea—and since we’re both here on business, we don’t have to worry about oil or cholesterol or any moral concerns. Let’s eat!”
≡
We stuffed ourselves and went back to Uwe’s office, where he found a single folded piece of paper sitting on his desk. He frowned. “You got a response. That was quick.”
I stepped in front of him and picked up the piece of paper. It began with a line of numbers: coordinates. And then a single word. ALONE.
“That’s waaay out in the mountains,” Uwe said.
I called up WorldVision in my AR and inputted the numbers. A visualization of the world appeared spinning in front of me until I was looking at Eurasia, then the line of the Caucasus in between the Black and Caspian seas. When the texture of the mountainsides became clear, I found I was looking at a rock-strewn hillside with a few straight lines defining the edges of something rectangular in the middle of it.