The boy looked confused, Riess thought, and frightened. Stepan had been dressed in what Riess supposed were his best clothes, very Western, and for a moment he had to wonder if Sevara ordered from Baby Gap or the like. Stepan sported toddler chinos and a blue button-down shirt, and he tugged after him in one hand a backpack, made for a child at least five years older than he, with the image of a Disney character large on its outward side.
As Riess watched, Sevara crouched down on her haunches, setting her free hand on the boy’s shoulder, speaking to him, and he could tell she was trying to reassure the boy. She clasped his hand and began walking him toward the bridge.
Riess moved his view back toward the Lada, trying to find Tara-not-Tracy, and saw that she was already halfway to the checkpoint. Her pace hadn’t increased. Three soldiers were heading toward her, and they intercepted her with twenty feet to go, two of the three leveling their weapons at her.
“What the hell . . . ?”
“Easy, Chuck. It’s a search, that’s all.”
Tower was right, and Riess snapped off another half-dozen shots, filling the camera’s data card, as the third soldier searched Tara-not-Tracy, hands efficiently running over her body. He swapped cards quickly, and when he brought the camera back up again, she was continuing toward President Malikov and Stepan, the soldiers following after her.
Tara-not-Tracy slowed, then stopped, leaving ten feet between herself and Stepan, President Malikov, and the foot of the bridge.
“Moment of truth,” Tower said.
CHAPTER 48
Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—
Termez, “Friendship Bridge”
29 August, 0758 Hours (GMT+5:00)
Chace stopped, keeping her hands loose at her sides, palms open. She could see that the boy had been crying, and she thought about how often she’d seen him cry, and she sincerely hoped that this would be the last time. He held the oversized backpack by its strap. It only made the child seem smaller, more vulnerable.
She smiled at Stepan, and, without looking away from him, said, “Madam President.”
“You’re the one taking him across?” President Malikov-Ganiev’s English was flawless.
“Yes, ma’am.”
President Malikov tilted her head, issued an order in Uzbek. One of the soldiers, an officer, stepped forward, and she spoke to him again. The officer saluted, then sprinted back to the foot of the bridge, calling out. Chace looked away from Stepan long enough to confirm what the officer was doing, watched as he was handed a set of binoculars and then climbed up onto one of the checkered cement roadblocks to get a better view of the Afghan side.
Chace put her attention back on the child, the boy still watching her warily.
“Hello, Stepan,” she said to him in English. “My name’s Tara. I don’t know if you remember me.”
Beside the boy, President Sevara Malikov-Ganiev tilted her head slightly, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. Then she looked down to Stepan and spoke in Uzbek softly, and the contrast between the voice she’d used to issue her orders to the soldier and tone she used on the boy was stark.
Stepan stared up at Chace, then spoke in response, so softly that, even if it had been in English, she doubted she’d have understood it.
President Malikov turned back to Chace, saying in English, “My nephew says he remembers you. You’re the one who tried to take Stepan and his father out of the country back in February?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re the one that Ahtam tortured.”
Chace looked at President Malikov-Ganiev, trying to read her expression behind the sunglasses, her tone. There was nothing in it one way or another to indicate approval of what had been done to her, or disapproval.
“One of the many,” Chace answered, and her voice was flat.
From the bridge, the officer came jogging back, delivering another salute and then speaking quickly. President Malikov-Ganiev frowned, and the officer stepped back.
“Where is my brother?” the President asked Chace. “Why can they not find him?”
“He’s waiting in Mazar-i-Sharif, Madam President. He was afraid of another attempt on his life.”
President Malikov-Ganiev’s frown went from annoyance to anger, and she hissed softly, cursing. Chace caught the name “Ahtam,” but nothing else.
“So you bring Stepan across, and then you two join my brother in Mazar-i-Sharif,” the President said to Chace.
“Yes, ma’am.”
For a moment, President Malikov-Ganiev didn’t move, and Chace was certain the woman was staring at her from behind her sunglasses. Then she bent back down to Stepan and spoke to him again. Stepan responded, just as quietly as he had the first time, and President Malikov-Ganiev seemed to repeat herself, her voice gaining an edge. The boy looked up at her with wide eyes, then to Chace, and then to the bridge.
The President turned to Chace. She held out the stuffed animal in her hand. “Take him and go.”
“Thank you, Madam President,” Chace said. She took the stuffed lion, and then she reached out for Stepan’s hand.
The boy hesitated, and President Malikov-Ganiev snapped at him, and the anger in her voice was unmistakable. Stepan flinched, then offered Chace his hand, and she took it, felt it small and a little cold in her own.
“It’ll be all right,” Chace told Stepan.
“Go,” President Malikov-Ganiev said. “Go, and never come back. Tell my brother, he never comes back.”
Chace turned away without answering, holding the boy’s hand. After a half-dozen steps, she stopped and took his backpack, slipping her arm through the strap, hoisting it onto her shoulder. She offered Stepan her hand once more, and this time he took it without hesitation.
Ahead of them, the border guards stepped aside, watching them advance. Chace heard the clack of a switch being thrown nearby. Another guard moved to the gates, pushing them apart.
Walking alongside the railroad tracks, Chace and Stepan stepped onto the bridge and began the thousand-meter walk into Afghanistan.
CHAPTER 49
Uzbekistan—Surkhan Darya Province—
Termez, “Friendship Bridge”
29 August, 0800 Hours (GMT+5:00)
It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than he had hoped.
Zahidov had thought he would get Ruslan and his turd offspring, but Ruslan was nowhere to be found on the Afghan side. That had disappointed him. He’d wanted Ruslan to witness what would happen, to see it with his own eyes.
But then he’d seen the blond woman, the British spy, the woman who had given him nothing but pain, physical and more, and it drove away the disappointment, replacing it with a joy he hadn’t felt since he’d last been in Sevara’s arms. This was justice, and if he had believed in God, he would have offered a prayer of thanks.