“I know this woman who runs an orphanage, OK? So I’m guessing the kid’s an orphan, but evidently there’s been some complications.”
“This woman who runs the orphanage — is she the friend that asked you to do this?”
“No. That’s this other guy. But I think he was asking for her. They’re like, almost married.”
Jessica gripped the steering wheel with both hands, staring with deer-in-the-headlights eyes out the front windshield. She shook her head a few times, as though having a conversation with herself.
Decker added, “The kid’s in some kind of danger, some people are after him, and I’ve been asked to protect him. That’s all I know and all I have to know. I’m gonna take him to my place, deal with things there. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
Jessica took a full minute to answer. “I said I’d stay. We’ll take care of him together.”
20
Val Rosten, the deputy director of the CIA’s Near East Division, showed up at the US embassy in Bishkek just after nine.
Mark had met Rosten years before at Langley, when they’d both been station chiefs. Rosten had just given an intense, one-hour, head-spinning sixty-slide presentation on Jordanian economic policies. In the years since, Rosten had made short work of climbing over colleagues to get to his current position.
He took a seat across from Mark at the conference table in the room where Mark had been kept waiting. He was rail thin, short, and dressed in a navy-blue pinstriped suit with a yellow tie. His white shirt looked a little rumpled from travel and his mouth had taken the shape of something close to a smile.
“I’ll get right to it,” said Rosten.
“Please do.”
“The boy.”
Mark sat back in his chair and studied Rosten. He figured they were roughly the same age. “What of him?”
“I believe Ted Kaufman spoke to you about the necessity of releasing him to us. So we can place him under protection.”
Rosten spoke quickly, but he enunciated each word with studied precision. Mark had heard he’d been recruited from MIT, where he’d double majored in math and Middle Eastern studies.
“He sure did.”
“Evidently you didn’t feel it necessary to communicate the same to your companion, Daria Buckingham, though.”
“Oh?”
“Buckingham promised to lead two local ops officers to the boy. Instead she drew them away from Bishkek and left them standing with their dicks in their hands. I just got the report from Serena Bamford.”
“Hmm.”
“You knew she was going to do it. Didn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
“Don’t be coy with me, Sava. Do you know where the child is?”
As Rosten spoke, he tapped his foot. He struck Mark as one of those guys who had more energy — physical and intellectual — than he knew what to do with.
“Why’d you involve Holtz in this?” asked Mark.
“One of my younger colleagues used to work with him. He knew about CAIN, and better yet, he knew Holtz.”
“Knew Holtz probably would take the job without asking a ton of questions. Even if the job involved kidnapping a two-year-old child.”
Rosten pointed a finger at Mark. “I asked Holtz to help us find the son of two dead Jordanian agents, a decent family…”
The story Rosten began to tell was the same one Mark had heard from Holtz.
Interrupting, Mark said, “Yeah, only problem is, what you’re telling me is a load of crap. The kid’s from Bahrain.”
Rosten’s eyes narrowed just a bit. Mark thought he looked as though someone had just insulted his mother and he’d decided that, instead of getting angry, he was going to play it cool and get even. “And what might have led you to that conclusion?”
“Ah, you may have noticed that Muhammad is a person? The kid told us.”
“He’s a two-year-old. A confused two-year-old. Who speaks Arabic. Maybe you misunderstood.”
“Or not.”
They stared at each other for a while.
Mark said, “What the hell is a kid from Bahrain doing in Kyrgyzstan?”
Bahrain was the smallest Arab country in the world, just a tiny speck of an island that had been teetering on the brink of revolution for years. But it was also home to the United States’ Fifth Fleet, a massive armada that had helped launch the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“That isn’t any of your business, Sava.”
“Listen, if you didn’t want it to be my business, you shouldn’t have stuck the kid in an orphanage run by my girlfriend.”
“I didn’t. That was Holtz.”
“Daria just wants to know we’re doing right by the kid. So that’s all I want to know. It’s not an unreasonable request.”
“Let me break it down for you, Sava. This is a legit Agency operation, approved with a presidential finding.”
A presidential finding was a decree, issued in secret by the president, that authorized the CIA to proceed with a covert operation.
“Let me guess, though. The part about the two-year-old wasn’t mentioned in the finding.”
Presidential findings, Mark knew, were often written in an intentionally vague way that allowed the president to approve a general policy, but preserve some level of plausible deniability when it came to the details.
“I have no intention of telling you about this operation, because that information is classified. I can assure you, however, that you’re going to find yourself in the middle of a shitstorm you won’t believe if you don’t hand over that kid. There’s a lot going down right now, as we speak, that you could screw up.”
“Let me break it down for you, Val. Daria doesn’t care whether your operation goes to hell. She cares about the kid. And she’s not going to let the kid go until she’s certain that turning him over to you is the right thing to do. And you know what, I won’t either. So why don’t you and the rest of your buddies at Near East go suck on that.”
Ignoring the insult, Rosten said, “It is the right thing to do for Muhammad. You have my word. The kid’s parents got hit and now we’re trying to help him.”
“He keeps talking about a person named Anna. Apparently she’s someone who helped take care of him. He misses her. What’s up with that? Is this Anna dead? Is she in Bahrain?”
Rosten took a second to look Mark over before answering.
“If you don’t turn over that kid, this is what’s going to happen. First, I’m ordering all your assets, domestic and foreign, frozen. Then I’m going to put the word out to DoD and State and every station around the world that you’re actively working against the interests of the United States and not someone to do business with. I’ll put the word out to foreign intelligence services too. Your mercenary work will come to an abrupt end.”
Not with Central Eurasia, thought Mark. And he wasn’t too worried about the money either. He’d lose a few thousand or so, but ninety-nine percent of his cash — over half a million dollars, the result of six months of splitting profits with Holtz — he’d stashed in secret accounts not tied to his name. “I’m not asking for much, Val. Just a little reassurance — beyond your word — that we’re doing right by the kid. And I’ll remind you, as I reminded Kaufman — I’m an approved Agency contractor with a top-secret clearance. If that’s not good enough, if this is a compartmentalized op, I’m sure you can ram through the necessary approvals that will let you bring me on board.”
As if Mark hadn’t spoken, Rosten said, “Then I’m going to go after your fuck-buddy Daria.”
Mark smiled at Rosten. It wasn’t a nice smile.
“That fund she’s been building for her orphanage project. She can kiss that good-bye.”