“Ah,” the sheik said, nodding. “The American .50 caliber rifle. I have one myself. But… two kilometers?”
“He is, as I mentioned, very good,” Wangen noted.
“Formidable,” the sheik said. “And does this formidable American have ladies to keep him formidable?”
“That was what the van was carrying,” Mike said, shrugging. “Girls who had been picked up from farms to be sent to town as they say. To be whores in other words.” He looked at the woman for a moment, then averted his eyes. “It’s nearly impossible to find their farms and the families would not accept them back anyway.”
“Of course not,” the sheik said, frowning. “Are these the women you intend to make up your hareem?”
“Nothing else to do with them,” Mike said, shrugging. “We hit the impact point of our two cultures. In your culture they are considered damaged goods. In mine they are considered specially protected. I intend to land somewhere in the middle. I considered various things to do with them. The most obvious, from my perspective, is to bring them into my household as concubines.” He’d used English for the word since he hadn’t figured out the right Russian term.
“Keeping teenage girls is not easy,” the sheik said, smiling and handing over his finished cigarette again. “I suggest the stick on regular occasions. It reminds them who owns the home.”
“I will take the suggestion to heart,” Mike said, smiling faintly and taking another sip of coffee syrup. “However, neither Georgian culture nor my own has a background for exactly what I’ve ended up with. There are whore masters, of course, but…”
“Pimps are unworthy to approach a true hareem,” the sheik said, shaking his head. “The hareem is a place of peace and contemplation; pimps would turn it into a place of sex, pure and simple.”
“Well, I’m not going to discount the sex aspect,” Mike said, wrinkling his brow.
“Of course not,” the sheik said. “But the hareem is far more than sex. A hareem that is well run is where the lord goes to regain his sanity from the day of stress. There is much that he can delegate, but the ultimate responsibility lands upon the lord. That is day-to-day stress that, also, is unknown in your society. Very few have that sort of stress laid upon them. For the lord must not talk about his problems to his followers, lest they lose faith in him. He must hold it all in, all upon himself. The hareem is where he goes to escape that. It is only in the hareem that he can discuss his problems, for the women of the hareem are closed from the outside. They do not talk outside the hareem and thus the fears and problems of the lord stay safe. Thus the women of the hareem must be trained in far more than simply sexual arts. They must be trained to soothe and please their master, to remove the stress, not add to it. Thus, we have the problem of teenage girls, who are a problem all of their own.”
“That they are,” Mike said, thinking about Katya and then inserting Katrina in addition.
“You need an assistant,” the sheik said.
“Agreed,” Mike replied, raising an eyebrow. “I seek your wisdom in that.”
“Anastasia?” the sheik said, looking at the woman. “You are over time to leave the hareem.”
“Yes, my lord,” the woman said, nodding and keeping her eyes down.
“This would be a good choice for you, I think,” the sheik said. “You will go with him.”
“Yes, my lord,” the woman said, nodding.
“It is done,” the sheik said, waving his hands. “Go and prepare to leave.”
Mike started to open his mouth and then froze at a small gesture from Wangen. It seemed like a hell of a cold way to get sent out of the only life the girl had known for… probably a decade at least.
“She will be ready to leave shortly,” the sheik said, dismissing the girl with another wave. “Her replacement has already been trained. This is better for her, I think. She is educated, but after living in the hareem it is hard to adjust to the outside. She would probably have found work managing girls for a pimp in some brothel. This is much the better course. She is old, of course, but she will be adequate for some time to come.”
“My thanks,” Mike said, letting out a breath that held much unsaid.
“I may have need to call upon you at some time,” the sheik admitted. “Nothing that the American government would find amiss, I assure you. But I have my own security concerns, concerns that also concern the American government. Having a man who is… good with his hands, who owes me a favor is useful.”
“A friend in need is a friend in deed,” Mike said, noncommittally. “I take it you have my number.”
“I do,” the sheik said. “And American military scrambler codes.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mike wasn’t sure of the protocol when Anastasia came out the door but he boarded the car, first followed by the girl, then Wangen. Her bags, three, had already been loaded in the trunk so they pulled out with a last wave to the sheik.
“Back to the Hilton, Tom,” Wangen said, letting out a breath as the car cleared the gates. “Drop Mr. Jenkins and his friend off, then to the embassy.”
“Airport,” Mike said, getting out his sat phone. “I have to get back to Georgia. If that’s okay?”
“Fine,” Wangen said. “It’s closer than the Hilton. What about your luggage?”
“I had it sent to the plane,” Mike said. “I’m on a bit of tight schedule.”
“Problems at home?” Wangen asked, curiously.
“A festival,” Mike replied, shrugging. “Then we’re starting training on the militia. They’re starting issue today. Nielson and Adams have that well in hand, but I’d like to be around in case there are problems. And I definitely need to be there for the festival.”
He called Hardesty and made sure they were ready for a late take-off, then leaned back in the seat as the limo bumped over the roads to Samarkand.
“What can we talk about?” Mike asked.
“I dunno,” Wangen said. “How much are you going to be discussing around your new harem manager?”
“Otryad wants to be president,” Anastasia said. “He knows that he’d get American backing if the choice is him or Dulmaa.”
“Probably,” Wangen admitted. He looked at Mike and shrugged. “Dulmaa is… well, he runs as an Islamic fundamentalist, but not as fundamental as, say, the mullahs in Iran. He’s more of a conservative in the local sense. The usual riff about cleaning up the corruption but he’s as deep in the take as anyone. But he’s not a friend of the U.S. He’d be hard pressed to toss us out, but he could make things harder for us. We’d much prefer Otryad over Dulmaa.”
“I’m not going to take out a major presidential candidate,” Mike said, shaking his head. “Ain’t gonna happen. Wouldn’t be prudent.”
“Otryad is not going to ask for help with that,” Anastasia said. “Dulmaa has to live. But he is closely supported by others, including the Dar Al Islami party. Their head is Farhad Bazarhuv, also untouchable. But they are a front for the Islamic radicals. It is those he fears and wants help with.”
“Islamic radicals I do,” Mike said, breathing out. “I take it you’re not going to assign Delta or Army of Northern Virginia on it?” ANV was known by a half a dozen acronyms, all of them false, but it was the blackest of black ops units, existing in a nebulous world somewhere between the military and CIA. Mike had ended up in its hospital, twice, a place where the patients didn’t even have a name, just a number. The personnel for ANV were drawn from the military, but after they left they never returned. Even Deltas came back in when they had too much rank for the relatively small force. ANV operatives just disappeared into the night and fog.