“You expect me—no, better—you expect the Tashkent COS to believe it was coincidence?”
“No. She probably made your guy as a member of the U.S. Mission, tried to use him for information. Where she picked him up, I can’t begin to guess. She’s under orders not to make contact with me until she’s located the missiles. I would guess—and it’s only a guess—that she made your FSO, then got everything she could off him, and indulged herself a bit in the process. That’s if she did actually sleep with him; she could have had him drawing her maps of Tashkent, for all we know.”
“Regular Mata Hari, this Chace.”
“A spiritual daughter, yes.”
Seale slowed, then stopped, and Crocker had to stop as well, turning back to face him. He couldn’t read anything in the American’s expression, no sign if he was buying the story or if he was merely allowing Crocker to dig himself in deeper.
“You have no contact with Chace at all?”
“None.”
“Then you don’t know where she is?”
“Tashkent, I presume.” Crocker frowned. “Why? Do you?”
Seale shook his head. “She checked out of the InterContinental the morning of the seventeenth, hasn’t been seen since. COS Tashkent hadn’t bothered to put her under hard surveillance—he was more concerned with the FSO.”
“It’s possible the trail has taken her out of the city, or even out of the country.”
“Chechnya, you mean?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“How’d you guys get on to the Starstreaks, anyway? Angela was sure she was giving you a gift, not confirming something you already know.”
“I don’t know,” Crocker said. “Barclay approached me, remember? I’m assuming he picked up word of the sale from D-Int, or another source entirely.”
“That’s possible.”
“You’d be doing me one hell of a favor if you get a line on where these things are, Julian. I don’t know how I can get word to Chace, but if CIA locates these Starstreaks and she can recover them . . .”
“Yeah, I get it.” Seale massaged his earlobe with a thumb and forefinger. “You know Malikov’s circling the drain?”
“Yes.”
“Looks like the daughter is going to take over,” Seale said. “She’s already had communication with State and the White House.”
“And State and the White House approve?”
“We want someone who’ll continue the relationship begun with her father, someone who’s on the same page about the war. We have to step carefully in Uzbekistan. Malikov’s a tried-and-true fucker, no doubt about it, and his daughter isn’t much better.”
“Then why support her?”
“You know why. We lose Uzstan, we’re down to Pakistan and southern Afghanistan as our primary staging areas in the region, and neither is what I’d call secure. We need good relations with Uzstan, at least for the foreseeable future. And if we put too much pressure on the country, either by pushing too hard on the human rights angle or by cutting off aid or whatnot, there’s a risk of alienating the leadership there. China’s awfully close to Uzbekistan, and the last thing Washington wants to see is the PRC replacing us in Uzbek affections.”
“There’s a son,” Crocker said. “Better bet than the daughter, if I recollect.”
“No, he’s a no-go,” Seale said. “Not enough support in-country. If the son tries to take over, it’ll get bloody. And since we’ve now got NATO troops on the ground in Uzstan, nobody wants to see that, either.”
Crocker considered, then nodded slightly, apparently agreeing. His cigarette had burned down to its filter, and he dropped it on the path, stepping on it with the toe of his shoe. What Seale was saying was true enough, but it raised a whole new set of questions. If the White House was backing Sevara enough that Seale knew about it, then the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister knew it, too. Which meant that either the Prime Minister was willing to oppose the White House covertly—hence his tasking Seccombe with the job of placing Ruslan in power—or Seccombe was playing him.
Correction: of course Seccombe was playing him. It meant that Seccombe was playing him in a very different way than Crocker had imagined.
He checked his watch, saw that it was already eight minutes past five. “I should get back.”
“I should, too. I’ll contact Tashkent, let them know why Chace was there, what she was doing. Maybe the COS can point her in the right direction.”
“If he can find her.”
“Oh, he can find her, Paul. Trust me. He can find her.”
Seale turned, heading away from him, back down the path, and it wasn’t until then that Crocker realized they hadn’t shaken hands upon meeting each other.
He wasn’t sure what to make of that.
CHAPTER 19
Uzbekistan—Tashkent—438–2 Raktaboshi,
Residence of Charles Riess
20 February, 2329 Hours (GMT+5:00)
Riess lived alone, in a semidetached house with a private courtyard. The house had been provided by the Chancery, but not without difficulty. When Riess had arrived in Tashkent, he’d found that the Mission was in the clutches of a housing shortage. As a single FSO, his rank notwithstanding, he found himself on the bottom of the placement list. He’d spent seven weeks in residence at the Sheraton while his belongings had languished in storage somewhere in Belgium, living out of the hotel before everything got sorted out.
When it finally had been taken care of, though, Riess had been pleasantly surprised with his home. It was far more spacious than he’d imagined, a two-bedroom, one with a supplied queen, one with two twins, with a modest dining room, kitchen, and ample living room. Like all Mission housing, it was government-furnished with the standard Drexel pieces, all of them functional and all of them lacking personality. Carpeting was gratis, a vacuum cleaner helpfully supplied to keep things tidy.
It had taken another month for his belongings to arrive, at which point Riess had been desperate to personalize the space. He’d set up his desktop, placed his books on his shelves, erected what he self-mockingly referred to as the Shrine, the three pictures of Rebecca he’d had ever since she’d passed away. He’d put a few photographs and posters up on the walls, and in the end felt he had accomplished the job of making the house more than just a dormitory. Not that he would spend much time there, but it was a matter of principle; he was looking at a three-year tour in Uzbekistan, he damn well wanted to like where he was resting his head at night.
Monday night he returned home a little before eleven from a dinner with three Representatives of the Oliy Majlis. The dinner had run long, and Riess had been forced to stay through the entire proceeding, not because the Reps in question were particularly important to the United States’ interests in Uzbekistan, but rather because leaving early would have told them very clearly that they weren’t. McColl, of course, had been dining with the DCM, entertaining a more senior group of the same.
The meal had been held at the home of one of the Reps, near the Earthquake Memorial off Abdulla Kodiry. Riess liked the memorial far more than he liked the dinner. A series of granite reliefs depicted the rebuilding of Tashkent, surrounding a central statue straddling a ragged tear in the earth. The statue was substantial, a heroic Uzbek male standing in front of an equally heroic Uzbek female, her hair flying, together shielding a not-so-heroic Uzbek child. A smaller block of granite, this one black, had the face of a clock carved on one side, the hands pointing to 5:22, the hour the earthquake had struck on April 26, 1966. It had been one hell of a quake, 7.5 on the Richter scale, and had devastated the city, leaving some three hundred thousand homeless. The Soviets had rallied, rebuilding the city, giving birth to modern Tashkent.