Daria stood up, shouldered the bag of money, flipped a lock of hair out of her face, and began walking toward the door. Then she turned to face Mark.
“Did you ever consider that whoever came after you might also be after me? I might not have been stupid enough to use an e-mail address that sent them straight to my door, like you did, but encryption software isn’t perfect. There’s a digital trail that they can use to track me down if whoever came after you has enough money and expertise. I’m not safe here any more than you were safe in Baku. Did you ever think about that?”
“I didn’t even know you were involved until now. Where are you going?”
“First the Turkmen embassy on Abay Street to get myself a five-day transit visa, then the President Hotel in Ashgabat, which is where Decker and I and everyone else involved in the negotiations stayed while we were over there. I’ll see if I can pick up any leads at the hotel. Then I’ll go to the meeting at the mosque.”
Mark doubted that the few hundred dollars in US cash he had on hand would be enough for the bribes that would be needed to secure a visa. Prior experience suggested it would cost several thousand. Maybe more, given that it was after-hours.
“You know I can help, Daria.”
“Yeah, but help at what? I’m going over there to help Decker. That’s my main objective. I have to know you’re OK with that. If you can get your life back in the process and I can get some peace of mind, that’s great too, but…”
“If I can help Deck, I will. You have my word.”
Daria let out a genuine, spontaneous laugh.
“That wasn’t meant to be a joke,” said Mark.
“Are you forgetting I know you?”
“Come on, Daria. I bullshit people when I need to bullshit them, but I’m not bullshitting you now.”
After a long time she gave a slight nod.
“Thank you,” said Mark.
25
Decker almost passed out from the pain when he first sank his swollen hands into the dirt behind the two-layer-thick portion of the brick wall he’d removed. But after a couple of minutes, his injured fingers numbed up and he began to use them like little spades. Each shovelful of dirt he placed quietly on the ground.
He focused on his training. Even when things seem hopeless, keep pushing, keep probing any way you can. Make every effort to escape.
Knock this out.
Above him, he heard voices arguing, but he couldn’t tell what about.
When light appeared in the cracks around the trapdoor, he spread out the bricks and pile of dirt on the ground and tamped it down, slipped his legs back through his arms so that his hands were behind him, limped to a spot beneath the trapdoor, and carefully positioned his body so that it hid his handiwork. He couldn’t let anyone come down to get him.
“I’m hungry!” Decker called out, his voice barely a whisper. The trapdoor creaked and the guard lifting it groaned. “Please.”
The man with the black turban appeared from above.
“Don’t shut the door,” said Decker. “I can’t stand it down here.”
“If you agree to help us, you may eat as much as you like.”
“I’ll help you,” said Decker.
“You may breathe fresh air. Why should you live like an animal?”
“I’ll tell you where my partner is, and why I was sent here.”
“Then climb up.”
Decker struggled to ascend the rickety wooden ladder they lowered down. When he’d almost reached the top, two guards hooked their hands under his armpits and pulled him out the rest of the way.
“Now what was it you wanted to tell me?” asked the man in the black turban.
Decker didn’t say anything. When the question was repeated, he turned his head and waited for the blow.
PART II
26
“What the hell is he doing here?” asked Daria.
She and Mark had landed at Saparmurat Turkmenbashi International Airport at dawn. Even with approved visas, purchased for the Turkmen equivalent of five thousand dollars apiece, they’d spent an hour in airport limbo before an officious luggage inspector was assigned to search their bags. Then they’d spent another half hour waiting for an aging nurse to inspect them, as if they were livestock, for communicable diseases. Then they’d spent another half hour answering routine questions posed by grim-faced bureaucrats who wore hats with comical upturned brims and who wrote painfully slowly in giant ledger books.
It was nearly nine before they were able to catch a cab to the President Hotel.
And now, when they stepped into the cavernous front lobby, intending to start questioning the staff about Decker, they instead ran into Bruce Holtz.
“You got me,” said Mark.
“You didn’t tell him we were coming?”
“Nope.”
Holtz was slumped in a green-and-gold easy chair. Above him hung an enormous crystal chandelier. Two other men in business suits sat at tables nearby. Other than that, the place was empty, which didn’t surprise Mark. He’d stayed at the President a few years back, while visiting the CIA station in Ashgabat. It was like a lot of things in Ashgabat: superficially fancy, but pretty crappy when you actually got to know it. Its main draw was that it was located right next to the Oil and Gas Ministry.
Holtz looked up when Daria and Mark approached.
“Hello, Bruce,” said Mark.
Holtz took a sip of coffee and motioned to the small table in front of him, upon which sat a basket filled with breakfast pastries. “Join me, please. They brought too much.”
He wore a dark custom-made suit with Gucci wingtip shoes, a gold tie, and gold, diamond-studded cufflinks. His hair was slicked back; a pair of sunglasses, with the Prada logo displayed prominently in gold on the frame, were folded on the table. Mark thought he looked ridiculous, like a Russian gangster on holiday, but he couldn’t fault Holtz for it. That kind of look commanded respect in these parts.
“I take it this is not a coincidence,” said Mark.
“I figured you’d show up here eventually.”
Mark sat down in an adjacent easy chair.
Daria seemed to prefer standing to sitting next to Holtz. “What do you want, Bruce?” she asked.
Holtz turned, as if noticing Daria for the first time. “I see you found her,” he said to Mark, and then he raised his finger for the lounge waitress. “Coffee?”
Mark grabbed a raspberry danish from the basket in middle of the table. “Don’t bother. Cut to the chase, Bruce.”
“You know, Sava, sometimes you can come off as rude.”
“I’ve been told.”
“It occurred to me that we might be in a position to help each other.”
Mark said nothing.
Holtz added, “And that maybe I could have been a little more helpful when you first came to me. Like about where you should start your search for Decker. In fact, I’ll give you a hint right now — not here.”
“If you know where we should be looking, why haven’t you started looking for him yourself?” Daria asked.
Mark could guess at the answer to that question.
Turkmenistan was one of the strangest countries on earth. It had been ruled for years by a megalomaniac who called himself Turkmenbashi, and was now ruled by the late dictator’s dentist. Burdened with an ungodly bureaucracy and obsessed with secrecy, it was as though the Cold War had never ended. Holtz spoke some Russian, which evidently had been enough for him to help the State Department connect with higher-level government types in Ashgabat — Russian was the common language of Central Asia — but he couldn’t navigate the absurdities of Turkmenistan without speaking Turkmen himself. Which he didn’t.