She’d started awake with a panic then, afraid she’d blown the pickup. By her watch, she’d slept for all of two minutes. She’d gotten out of the vehicle again, smoked more of Tozim’s cigarettes, and by then it was time to get moving. She’d climbed back behind the wheel, turned the nose of the car east, and found a dirt track used by the border guards that took her back to the bridge.
She saw the van, parked on the slope, before she stopped the Lada. Her watch read exactly nine minutes to eight, and when she looked south, across the river, she could see the Afghan checkpoint. She shut off the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition, then pulled out the radio set, fitting the earpiece into place before switching the unit on and slipping it into her pocket. She climbed out of the car, and had to fight to keep herself from gagging. The air was rank from the river, fouled with a mix of chemical runoff and human waste, an odor that invaded the sinuses and clung to the back of her throat. The heat augmented it, and Chace hoped the stench wouldn’t be quite so strong from the bridge, but expected that it would be worse.
There was a crackle in her ear, and then a man’s voice, gravelly and American. “Shere Khan, this is Baloo, respond.”
She keyed her radio, watching the activity of the guards on the Uzbek side of the bridge, walking their patrol along the concrete roadblocks. “Go ahead.”
“Proceed as planned.”
“You have a location on Kaa?”
There was a hiss in her ear as the CIA man, Tower, paused while keeping the line open. “We have overwatch on Kaa. You may proceed as planned.”
Chace moved around to the hood of the car, only marginally relieved by the news. She glanced again to the van parked off the main road leading to the bridge, saw the flash of a lens. She wondered who was in the vehicle with Tower, handling the camera. Perhaps it was Riess, and she liked that idea. Riess had been a part of it the last time; it seemed right to her that he participate again now.
“Should I say cheese?” she asked. “Where’s Bagheera?”
Lankford’s voice broke in, choppier than Tower’s had been. “We’re in position, holding.”
She turned her attention back to the bridge, following it across the river to the Afghan side, over a kilometer away. She could see movement at the checkpoint, vehicles, but without optics had no hope of making out Lankford and Kostum’s position.
“Understood,” Chace said.
“Here they come,” Tower said.
Chace heard the cars coming along the main road first, the helicopter second, coming from the center of Termez. The helo looked like another Sikorsky, or perhaps it was the same Sikorsky that had pursued her when she’d run in the Audi, she couldn’t be certain. She watched as two Uzbek Army Jeeps led a black Mercedes-Benz, a third Jeep following, off the main road at the summit of the slope, where the helicopter was lovingly settling to the earth, blowing clouds of dust as it came in to land. For a second time, she wished she had optics, could confirm that the boy was in the helo.
The Sikorsky’s rotors slowed, then stopped, and she saw activity around the Benz, figures moving, passengers shifting from the helo to the car. She imagined, rather than heard, the sound of the vehicle doors slamming, the engines starting, and then the convoy was moving again, the two Jeeps again taking the lead back to the road, the Benz close behind. The line of cars started down the road, past the parked van, toward the foot of the bridge.
Trying to ignore the stench from the river, Chace began walking toward the checkpoint.
CHAPTER 47
Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—
Termez, “Friendship Bridge”
29 August, 0754 Hours (GMT+5:00)
The windows on the Benz were tinted, and Riess couldn’t see who rode inside as the minor motorcade passed them, making its way down to the bridge. He’d switched to the camera, and as soon as the last Jeep passed, put the lens back on Tara-not-Tracy, now walking slowly along the access road to the foot of the bridge. She was wearing the same clothes he’d last seen her in, right down—he suspected—to the blood-spattered boots, but with the addition of sunglasses.
“You going to tell me what’s going on?” Riess asked as he took another two shots, then moved his focus to the Benz, now coming to a halt perhaps ten yards from the checkpoint.
“You know what’s going on,” Tower said.
“What’s with all the code names? Who’s Bagheera?”
“He’s with Shere Khan, on the Afghan side. Take a look across the bridge.”
“And Kaa? Ikki?”
“Just take a look at the Afghan side, Chuck, tell me what you see.”
Riess panned the lens from the Benz, its doors still closed, to the foot of the bridge, then followed its line across the muddy water of the river to the Afghan side, settling his view again on the cluster of newly painted buildings there. He’d maxed the telephoto and could make out figures, but not much detail. There was a fair amount of activity, Afghan border guards at their posts, and an SUV of some sort, what he thought might be a Jeep Cherokee, parked near the gate at the far side of the bridge. A thin black-haired man in civilian clothes was speaking to one of the border guards, another man with him, Afghani from the way he was dressed. Riess could make out a smear of white around the man’s right hand, as if it was wrapped in a scarf or otherwise bandaged.
“I’ve got two men, one of them could be Ruslan if he’s gone native,” Riess said.
“It’s not Ruslan,” Tower told him. “He’s in Mazar-i, lying low.”
Riess lowered the camera slightly, puzzled. “He thinks it’s a setup?”
“He’s got a reason to be paranoid.”
“Is it a setup?”
“Yeah, but Ruslan’s not the target.”
“Who’s Ikki?”
Tower grinned. “Uzbek military. I was talking to an Army captain named Arkitov.”
“About?”
“Security. Eyes on the road, Chuck, c’mon. You’re supposed to be documenting this for the Ambassador.”
Riess bit back more questions, brought the camera up once more, locating Tara-not-Tracy again, still strolling toward the Uzbek checkpoint. He snapped off three pictures in quick succession.
“One for the scrapbook?” Tower asked him.
“Bite me,” Riess said. “Sir.”
Tower laughed.
Riess next moved the camera to the bridge, where the border guards had all come to attention. The soldiers in the Jeeps had already leaped down, fanning out to form a perimeter. For a second, it seemed vaguely silly to him, until Riess remembered where they were, and that to the right sniper with the right rifle, one thousand meters could be considered an easy shot to make.
An aide jumped out from the front of the Benz, running around to the passenger door and opening it, and Riess snapped another set of photographs as he watched Sevara Malikov-Ganiev emerge from the vehicle. She’d adopted a more conservative style of dress since ascending to the Presidency, wearing a tailored business suit that Riess guessed was linen, her hair up, sunglasses hiding her eyes. She took the man’s offered hand, and Riess saw that she was holding a small, plush lion in her other. Once she was out of the car, she turned back to help Stepan out of the vehicle.