"You're a long way from home, comrade," he announced heartily.
"— words out of my mouth," the captain replied. Laughed. Finally released Gant's grip. "A bloody helicopter at a filling station? You must be the squadron joker!"
"Ran out of fuel," Gant complained.
"Long way from home. Not as far as you, man. I'm just hitching a ride to Bukhara, then on to Samarkand." His accent was Moscow, perhaps Ukrainian — Kiev? European Russia. The master race. Gant's own accent — his mother's accent — was distinctive. "You're Georgian, by your accent?" the young captain added.
"Yes," Gant replied. "From Surami — you know it, the thermal resort." His shoulders shrugged.
"Away from the Black Sea?" Gant merely nodded. "Don't know it," the captain continued. "One-horse town, is it?"
"Just about." His voice was easier, lighter. He spun the web of conversation, rank, and comradeship. Then the captain asked:
"Afghanistan, if I'm not mistaken?" His eyes were sharper as he studied Gant. They were alert, as if studying some mental list of explanations. The night and the distances leaped at Gant, reminding him that the Hind was misplaced by hundreds of miles, was suspicious here.
He was suddenly aware of his own cover story. Where was he going? From where? Alma-Ata, army headquarters, was eight hunted miles to the east. His cover was now outdated, an obvious fake.
Beneath their conversation, their camaraderie and humor, the fear continued to flow like a river. Gant shivered. The wind seemed to be strengthening. Yet the two Uzbeks seemed oblivious to it; they were smoking near the pumps. Gant heard his teeth chattering and the captain grin.
"Adamov," the captain announced.
What is my name? His identity lay in his breast pocket, with his papers.
What is my name?
He had forgotten his cover name.
The captain s eyes glazed with suspicion.
9: Heart of the Matter
"Let's find ourselves some coffee. This Uzbek moron can fill the helicopter on his own. My driver can keep him company."
Gant realized that the captain's words, as he gestured toward the low wooden bungalow, were meant to extend the moment of suspicion. Just how long would this pilot take to introduce himself, explain himself? The moment was a rubber band being stretched to breaking.
"What in hell are you doing getting down from a cabbage truck, comrade?" Gant exclaimed, forcing laughter. "A captain in the GRU — not quite the right sort of transport, huh?" His hands came out, palms up. Friend, harmless, they suggested, while his voice asked who are you, man?
The captain was disconcerted, but it might have been no more than his resentment of the familiarity of Gant's tone. It was the captain who should patronize, if either of them did.
"Just finished a job up-country," he replied, his hand still patting at Gant's shoulder and turning him toward the wooden building, where a grubby light filtered through thin, unlined curtains. The wind moaned, rattling the corrugated plastic above his head, making drooping rotor blades of the Hind quiver. There was a sense of Mutual cursing in the conversation between the truck driver and the parage owner; racial suspicion and hatred. "Some of these fucking Muslims are giving trouble — don't want to fight their Islamic brothers in Afghanistan. You know what they're like. Pigs." He spat obviously and loudly, turning toward the two Uzbeks as he did so. The wind carried the gobbet of spitde and splashed it against the side of the gas pump, near the bending garage owner's head, which did not ^rn or look up. The truck driver's eyes flickered, but the expression died as easily as a match flame in the wind. "Pigs," the GRU captain repeated, evidently convinced of the manifest truth of his generalization. "We shot a few — a number of the conspirators and mutineers were tried and executed according to military law," he corrected himself solemnly. His eyes were smiling and flinty with satisfaction. Then he belched, and Gant smelled the drink on his breath for the first time. "All done by the book, according to the book, for the book." Captain Adamov grinned. "Bang!" He strutted a few steps, hand curled at the end of his outstretched arm. His trigger finger squeezed perhaps half a dozen times as he paused behind remembered necks, watched remembered corpses.
Gant, controlling the shiver that the mime had induced, watched Adamov as he returned to his side, nudging him. 'The rest of them have been shipped off now," he remarked. "A few more GRU and GLAVPUR people among their officers, of course."
"Where—" Gant cleared his throat, glancing at the dial of the gas pump still spinning as his tanks filled. After the underbelly tanks, the auxiliary tank in the cabin. It would be minutes yet. "Where was this, comrade?" The driver and the garage owner were gabbing rapidly in Uzbek, their words still carrying the strong accent of hatred.
Pig, pig, Russian pig…
The words became a remembered litany in his head. He had heard them often, through the thin, cracked-plaster wall as he lay next to his sisters cot. Only understanding years later what it must have been that his mother was refusing his drunken, demanding father. He shook his head. Adamov seemed confused.
"Where was this little problem?" Gant asked.
"Oh, barracks outside Khiva. Low-grade conscripts. They had some of their officers tied up — full of hashish and threats, the whole lot of them." He grinned. "Making demands — you know them. Cut the balls off one poor sod and shoved them down his throat." He sighed theatrically. "Not a lot of resistance, once we'd explained the position to them and the hashish wore off"
"How come you're here now? Must have been a big operation?' Gant shrugged as convincingly as the cold would allow.
"What do you mean?" Adamov protested, as if he suspected the presence of another policeman.
Gant understood. Adamov had been due some leave, had perhaps wangled or forged the papers granting him a few days off in
Samarkand before he reported back to headquarters. His presence there was a weakness, but the man was still dangerous.
Degree of cover, training prompted him. Imagine you're standing there naked, reddening with embarrassment until you can put on some clothes. What can you add to your cover? Remember background, experience, training, anecdote, expertise, rank. Convince them you are who you say you are.
Afghanistan — you're just back from there, Gant instructed himself, and find that Adamov is fighting the good fight right here— Uzbek pigs.
"OK, coffee it is," Gant said. "Borzov, by the way," he added, remembering his cover name easily now. Adamov nodded, relaxed by the identity he felt was emerging.
"Good, good." Adamovs hand came back to Gant's shoulder. They moved together toward the low house, bending slightly into the increasing wind. Which nagged at Gant's awareness. His mind estimated the wind speed, considered takeoff, flying.
Twelve-twenty, he saw, glancing surreptitiously at his watch. Time wasting. Cover story.
"Cleared your desk early, mm?" he asked with assumed heartiness.
Adamov glanced at him with renewed suspicion, then relaxed.
"Just so, man. Cleared my desk early." He pointed an index finger, then curled it shut in a squeezing gesture. Hero of the slaughter. He laughed. "I like it. Cleared my desk early." His laughter was snatched away by the wind after it had buffeted Gant.
Adamov had enjoyed the killing — perhaps he had even been given his early leave for services rendered? Gant shivered. Adamov said abruptly: "I recognize the unit badges on the MiL, the IDs. Alma-Atas your home base, then?" He hardly paused before he added: "Then you must know old Georgi Karpov? He must have keen posted to Kabul the same time as you were — same flight, or squadron, or whatever you call it in the FAAs. How is he, old Georgi, mm?"