He then jogged outside and made a quick OPSAT call to Grimsdottir and Lambert, who immediately contacted the Joint Chiefs, who, in turn, hearing that Fisher’s goose chase had yielded results, detached a Chinook transport helicopter and a pair of Apache attack helos from the fight in Bishkek. Ninety minutes later, Fisher was joined by a trio of Ranger fire teams, who secured the tank and set up a defensive perimeter around the cave’s entrance.
His job done, Fisher walked back into the cave and sat down with Carmen.
Two hours after that, even as the tank itself was being secured for transport, a sample of the Manas fungus inside was already in the air and on its way back to Andrews Air Force Base, where it was handed over to Dr. Russo and her team from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s CMLS Directorate, who rushed it back to her laboratory for study.
As the chairman of the Joint Chiefs had predicted, the battle for Bishkek was a short one, lasting just under six hours. Even as the ousted former president and his cabinet were escorted back to the main government building, Omurbai and his core followers tried to escape the city and slip into the mountains to the north, but a platoon of Eighty-second Airborne soldiers was already ahead of him, orbiting in Chinooks above the roads leaving the city. Most of the soldiers accompanying Omurbai surrendered without a fight, but Omurbai and a handful of his most fanatical henchmen tried to fight their way through the roadblock. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered though they were, the Kyrgyz fought to the death until only Omurbai remained. As the U.S. soldiers approached, Omurbai used the last bullet in his AK-47 to kill himself.
Six hours after the battle ended, the Romanian Serviciul de Informaţii Externe, which had helped spirit Fisher from North Korea, did the CIA one more favor, delivering to Kim Jong-il’s foreign minister a letter from the president of the United States, in both English and North Korean. The letter’s contents, while fully couched in the language of diplomatic protocol, was blunt in its message:
We’re in possession of Omurbai’s Chytridiomycota fungus; we’ve engineered a neutralizer; we know you helped Omurbai overthrow the government in Kyrgyzstan; we know you helped develop the fungus; we know you intended to use the fungus to destroy the Caspian Basin oil reserves.
We’re watching you, and if you don’t behave, we’re going to tell the whole world and then jerk your country out from under you.
The response from the foreign minister was prompt and promising, if not agreeable:
The government of North Korea denies any official involvement in the events in Kyrgyzstan but is investigating certain rogue elements in its intelligence services who may have been in unauthorized contact with Bolot Omurbai.
The president’s reference to the Chytridiomycota neutralizer, while not quite a lie, was in fact anticipatory. Four days after Shirley Russo and her team began its reverse engineering of Omurbai’s Manas fungus, they created and began manufacturing in mass quantities an easily dispersible agent that killed Chytridiomycota on contact.
Fisher took the chair opposite Carmen and studied the board. He frowned and muttered, “You moved these.”
She laughed. “No, I didn’t. I’m just winning.”
“Huh.”
Fisher was glad to see her smile, something she’d been doing more of in the month since she’d arrived at the CIA safe house/private hospital. Designed to treat both the physical and mental wounds suffered by case officers and covert operatives in the field, the hospital had similarly worked its magic on Carmen.
In the four months she was held by the North Koreans, she’d been systematically broken down with both drug therapy and stress conditioning. She still had frequent nightmares, Fisher was told, but those were fading, and the doctors expected her to make a full recovery. Carmen’s parents had flown in from Houston a week after she was admitted and rented a house in Richmond so they could easily make the daily drive to visit her.
Carmen’s memories of her kidnapping and subsequent captivity were fuzzy, as was her recollection of what happened in the cave. To Fisher’s chagrin, however, she vividly remembered him shooting her and relentlessly teased him about it.
They played chess for another hour until Fisher admitted defeat and laid down his king.
“You look mad,” Carmen said.
“Don’t like losing.”
“Something tells me you don’t lose very often. You’re not going to shoot me, are you?”
Fisher sighed wearily.
“Sorry,” Carmen replied. “Couldn’t resist. Last time, I promise.” Her smile faded, and she leaned forward and placed her hands over his. “I don’t think I ever thanked you.”
“For shooting you?” Fisher replied. “Happy to oblige.”
“For saving me. For stopping me. For bringing me back home. Thank you, Sam.”
Fisher smiled. “Happy to oblige.”
They chatted for a few minutes more, then Fisher stood up. “Sorry, I have a plane to catch.”
“Business?” Carmen asked.
“Not really.”
“Where to?”
“Toronto.”
The truth was, Fisher wasn’t looking forward to the trip, but he owed Calvin Stewart as much. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to tell the man’s widow anything of value, save the fact her husband was a genuine hero. What he could do, however, with the help of the CIA, was hand her a bank passbook that she would find contained enough money to see her safely through her golden years and the Stewart children through college.
“Travel safe, then.”
“And you,” Fisher replied. “They tell you when you can go home yet?”
“No. But when you come back, if I’m not here, you know where to find me.”
“I do. Good-bye, Carmen.” Fisher turned and started to walk away, then stopped and looked back. “Keep practicing. I’ll want a rematch.”
Carmen laughed. “Deal.”