And no one in the Firm who knew what Zahidov had done to her could expect her to do anything less when the opportunity came.
Crocker said, “I do understand, Tara, you know that.”
“I know.” She looked back to him, then got out of the chair. “I’ll be down in the Pit.”
“Tara.”
She stopped at the door, looking back.
“It’s been six months,” Crocker said. “You’re going to have to let it go.”
Chace thought about the terror of that room and the cruelty of the men who had filled it. There were still times, six months after the fact, when she would lift Tamsin or reach above her for a high shelf, when her right shoulder would send fire down her arm. When she touched the skin around her eye, she could feel a spur of bone, floating just above the orbit. And, condom bouquet notwithstanding, the only people she’d allowed to touch her in any way but the most formal or accidental since Tashkent had been her daughter and her physician.
“No,” she told him. “Really, I don’t. And you wouldn’t, either, boss.”
Time didn’t heal all wounds, not for her.
Especially not this one.
CHAPTER 32
Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—
Termez, “Friendship Bridge”
20 August, 0621 Hours (GMT+5:00)
Zahidov stood in the dawn light at the foot of the bridge beside an Uzbek army captain named Oleg Arkitov, took the offered binoculars from the man’s hand, and looked into Afghanistan. Across the Amu Darya River, past the newly built Customs houses and immigration offices staffed by the Afghanis, the Salang Highway joined the road that ran parallel to the tracks, cutting straight to Mazar-i-Sharif, and then on to Kabul, winding through the red hills in the distance. A train was rumbling up the tracks toward them, returning empty, Zahidov suspected, having been emptied of the UN relief supplies it had delivered earlier in the day. It would be stopped by the border guards on the Uzbek side and thoroughly searched before being allowed to proceed.
“You look upriver, Minister, you can see the barges coming, too,” Arkitov told him.
Zahidov swiveled, turning east to follow the river. The Uzbek side of the border was lined with a 380-volt electrified fence, and beyond it, land mines covered the banks down to the water. The fence and the mines had been laid in the late nineties in response to incursions from the extremists who then ruled Afghanistan. The bridge, at that time, had been all but permanently closed, reopened only in late 2001. Since then, the border operated almost at random, the Uzbek side shutting down whenever the government responded to a security alert or a bombing. Despite continued American insistence to keep the border open, there were still times when the border was ordered shut.
Zahidov lowered the optics, handing them back to the captain. “They hit before the bridge?”
“Last night, just after three in the morning, sir. We could see the muzzle-flashes and the rocket grenades.”
“How many trucks made it?”
“One.”
“And how many were coming?”
“Three.”
Zahidov felt his frustration well. This was the fourth time the heroin had been hijacked before reaching the border. Twice in May, once in July, and then again this morning. Four times, and there could be no doubt in his mind any longer. He was being persecuted, he was being targeted specifically.
When it first happened, he’d been angry, but willing to accept the loss. The north of Afghanistan was populated by warlords and drug lords, each leading a private army of Pathan soldiers eager for nothing more than a chance to fight. The Pathans’ favorite sports, the saying went, were dog racing, horse racing, and fighting each other, not in that order. If Zahidov’s heroin was lost in this cross fire, it wasn’t ideal, but it was survivable, it was the cost of doing business with the Afghanis.
But when it happened again, less than two weeks later, and the replacement shipment had also been lost, he had become immediately suspicious, and just as quickly considered the possibility that it was Ruslan Malikov behind it all. No proof, of course, except for the fact that the man had escaped him in February, and when he thought back to that, all of his rage returned. He’d been a fool, so filled with hatred for the bitch spy he’d ordered the Sikorsky in immediate pursuit of her, instead of commanding the pilot to set down first, to allow him to finish what they had begun with Ruslan.
The fact was, he’d been so eager to catch and kill the spy that he hadn’t even considered the possibility that Ruslan wasn’t dead. It had been almost two hours later, after he’d brought Stepan to Sevara and was making his way back to the Ministry to begin the interrogation, that he’d received the call. Ruslan had vanished, there was no sign of him.
And there had been no true sign of him since then, Zahidov’s suspicions notwithstanding. But there was logic to the idea that the President’s son had gone south. His support had always been strongest there, in Bukhara, Samarkand, Qashka Darya, and Surkhan Darya provinces. He would have been able to find some aid, some shelter, at least enough to provide for his immediate needs. It was even possible he had jumped aboard a UN relief shipment, either hiding in one of the train cars or riding in one of the trucks that traveled the thousand meters across the river alongside the tracks.
Why he’d gone to Afghanistan was the question, and it wasn’t a terribly difficult one to answer. There were few places better in the world for a man to hide, the terrain placed by God, it seemed, only for that purpose and no other. Add to that the central government’s lack of actual power in the outlying regions, the scores of bickering warlords and tribesmen, all of them bound by their peculiar code of honor, what they called Pashtunwali, the Law of the Pathan. And first among the laws was the demand that they provide sanctuary and hospitality to any and all who request it. It was how bin Laden’s people had survived when the Coalition had come for their blood.
Sanctuary was given to any and all who asked for it. The Pathans would shelter Ruslan, if the bastard asked. They would have to: their culture allowed them no other choice.
So Zahidov had become convinced it was Ruslan persecuting him, stealing his heroin. And it wasn’t simply to hurt him or Sevara, no, though that was certainly an added benefit. Zahidov was certain Ruslan was selling it, perhaps to the same Moscow buyers that Sevara and he dealt with. Ruslan was selling it, and making a lot of money. Money he could use to pay the warlords and their men, money he could use to raise an army.
It wasn’t far-fetched. In 2000, taleban-backed extremists had poured over the border from Afghanistan in an attempt to overthrow the country. They had closed to within one hundred kilometers of Tashkent before they’d been stopped by Uzbek forces. If Ruslan tried to do the same, he stood an even better chance. He knew the land, and if his support in Uzbekistan still held, if those in the military rose to join him, it would be either a coup or a civil war.
These were Zahidov’s fears, and watching as the rising sun turned the already red hills of Afghanistan bloody, he gave them their due. A coup, or worse, a civil war, would destroy Uzbekistan, and at the end of the day, despite everything he did or had done—or perhaps because of it—Ahtam Zahidov was a patriot. He saw no conflict in wishing to do himself well in the process of serving his county, he saw no fault in the viciousness he showed his enemies. He wanted what was best for his nation, and he did what he did to ensure it. All his love for Sevara notwithstanding, it was why he had supported her as President in the first place. It was why he continued to serve her, despite their troubles.