“Nice to see you too,” called a different voice from the street.
Mark turned. Behind and below him on the sidewalk was his friend, former Navy SEAL John Decker.
“Watch out for the water,” said Mark.
“Making friends in the neighborhood, I see.”
Decker wore khaki shorts — perhaps the only person in Bishkek to be doing so, even though it was summer — flip-flops, and a loose yellow T-shirt that accentuated his massive biceps.
“Did you hear what he called me?”
“You ever think of working for the State Department? You’d make a good diplomat.”
“What are you doing here?”
Mark was the owner Global Intelligence Solutions, a small spies-for-hire firm based in Bishkek. He and his firm helped provide security for CIA and State Department employees operating out of the embassy in Bishkek, did intel work for multinationals operating in Central Asia, translated communications that had been intercepted by the NSA, and showered cash on local politicians and businessmen in exchange for confidential information.
Decker was Mark’s right-hand man and had been running the day-to-day operation of the business for the last ten days while Mark took what amounted to paternity leave. But Decker lived across town in a tiny one-bedroom house with his Australian girlfriend; if some routine problem had come up, he would have just called.
Upon considering Mark’s question, Decker’s expression changed, as though he’d just remembered why he’d come. “Listen, you got a sec?”
“Sure.” Decker proceeded to just stand there, without saying anything, so Mark added, “Why don’t you come on up?”
Mark was always struck by how much smaller his apartment looked with Decker — who was a broad-shouldered six-foot-four — standing in it. That Decker was wearing shorts didn’t help; his hairy legs cried out for more personal space than Mark’s apartment could offer.
“Hi, Deck,” said Daria, who was still in the kitchen.
“Hey, Daria.”
“How’ve you been?”
“Great. Wow, you look good — whoa!” Decker turned his head. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Know what?” asked Mark as he sat back down at the kitchen table, opposite Daria. Decker remained standing.
“You know, that it was chow time.”
Daria laughed. “Good Lord, Deck. You can’t see anything.”
Lila was still nursing, but Daria had exercised discretion when it came to how she’d arranged things.
“I know, it’s just that I didn’t want to, ah, invade your privacy.”
“You’re not,” said Mark. “Well, actually, you are. Why?”
Decker scratched his close-cropped blond hair and turned to Mark. “Got a call about an hour ago, boss. Didn’t want to bother you, but…shit, I’m sorry. I got some really, really bad news. Larry’s dead.”
3
Daria ran her hand slowly over Lila’s head as she looked at Mark. Then she leaned over across the table and touched his hand. “I’m sorry, hon. I’m sorry.” She’d never liked Larry Bowlan — he’d always treated her like a china doll that he was afraid he might break, while with Mark it was all business and backslaps. So for her, the news of Larry’s death, while unwelcome, was not a cause for grief. But Mark had known Larry for a long, long time. And for Mark, she grieved.
He just sat there, staring through her.
“I took the call from our embassy in Tbilisi,” said Decker. “I wrote down the name of the hospital where he’s at.”
Daria had only been to the Georgian capital twice, and both stays had been brief. But she knew it was a little corner of the world that Mark knew intimately, because it was where he’d gotten his start in the spy business.
Mark shook his head and placed a hand on his forehead.
“How did he die?” asked Daria.
“I think they’re thinking he just had a heart attack or something. They’re doing some tests at the morgue.”
“He passed away at the hospital?”
“No, at the hotel he was staying in. The cleaning lady found him. I mean, Larry was kind of old.”
“Was he on a job?” Daria asked.
Larry Bowlan had been Mark’s very first boss at the CIA. But after Bowlan had retired for good from the Agency seven months ago, he’d come to work for Mark.
“Yeah.”
Daria just nodded. Because Georgia was on friendly terms with the United States and a crucial transit hub for oil that flowed from the Caspian region to the Mediterranean Sea, she was certain that the CIA had their own assets in country that they could have used. She was guessing that the only reason they’d hired Mark’s firm was that the head of the CIA’s Central Eurasia Division — a guy Mark knew well — had wanted to make an end run around the bureaucracy. And the only reason for making an end run around the bureaucracy would be if the job was kind of sketchy. She didn’t need, or particularly want, to know more.
“The other thing,” said Decker, “is that Larry had already finished the job and filed a preliminary report. So I don’t know what the point of anyone killing him would be.”
“He liked his booze,” said Mark. Larry had only been seventy-two, but he’d looked older.
“That he did,” agreed Daria. Bowlan, she gathered, had been something of a bon vivant in his younger years.
“Was there alcohol in the hotel room?” asked Mark. “Did he just drink himself to death?”
“I don’t know,” said Decker. “But this is the deal. Regardless of how or why he died, we can’t just leave him there. I mean, I suppose we can, but…”
“No,” said Mark. “He’s got a mother who’s…” He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe this. He’s got a mother who’s in her nineties who he still calls every week. And a brother he sees every once in a while. We can’t just leave him there.”
“No mother should ever have to outlive her child,” said Daria.
“We’ve got to call his family,” said Mark. “Arrange for the body to be transported back, all that crap. Do this right. Damn.”
Damn is right, thought Daria. Because she knew who Mark meant when he said we.
“Go,” said Daria. “You’ve already arranged to take time off anyway. It’ll be easy.”
Larry had been Mark’s friend and employee. On top of that, now that Larry was gone, she was pretty sure Mark was the only person at his firm who spoke even a little Georgian. She hated the thought of him leaving, but knew that he wouldn’t feel right dumping this on one of his other employees, even Decker.
“That’s not why I took the time off,” said Mark.
He was a good man, thought Daria. Instead of running away when learning she was pregnant, he’d proposed. True, the jarringly quick civil marriage ceremony at the embassy had been less than romantic — but that had been as much her doing as his. He was forty-six, she thirty-four. They’d both spent the better part of their lives operating in the shadows.
She hadn’t wanted a fancy ceremony, wouldn’t have known whom to invite, or where to have it. But she had wanted a honeymoon, to spend time with him, and their two-week postwedding trip to Tuscany had been absolutely lovely. Then for the delivery, he’d been right there with her, holding her hand. He’d helped prepare her first sitz bath, had brought home-cooked food into the hospital, and hadn’t complained once about taking shifts with the baby in the middle of the night. She’d cherished this past week. They’d felt like a family, a real family, not just two battered ex-spies trying to atone — at least in her case, Mark wasn’t the atoning type — for past misdeeds.