Avery slipped into his windbreaker and headed out. He left his Glock in the room, concealed in the suitcase. If the police stopped him on the streets, there’d be no explaining the gun, and he’d immediately be looking at jail time.
When he emerged from the service exit in the rear of the building, the blue Siena was already there. He climbed in. Aleksa drove around the building and turned right onto Leninsky Avenue, taking them deeper into the city. Avery once more closely watched the scenery and kept track of what direction they were going, trying to orientate himself to the layout of the city, in case he would need to get around on his own. He didn’t like being a passenger in an unfamiliar city.
She took him to Gorky Park, near Victory Square, on the Svislach River. Avery quietly followed her out of the car and onto a wide path into the park, passing a miniature train that rumbled slowly by, packed full of delighted children while their parents watched. Avery thought that he was definitely out of his element here.
The park was colorfully lit-up, and the cold, rainy weather wasn’t keeping anyone away. Sightseers, families, and couples filled the park grounds and gathered around attractions. Over two hundred years old, with a Ferris wheel, planetarium, and indoor ice rink, Gorky Park was a popular tourist attraction and a favorite spot of Belarusians. Even Lukashenko came here to ice skate. At this hour and with such a high volume of people, there was also a heavy uniformed police presence.
As they walked, neither Avery nor Aleksa attempted small talk, but the silence wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable. She seemed a bit more at ease now. He thought she was a bit like him, alone but content with her own company, a self-contained personality. Watching all the parents with kids having fun and young couples holding hands, Avery experienced the familiar feelings of detachment and wondered if Aleksa felt the same. He knew he definitely wouldn’t be doing this shit if he had other choices, but instead of going to medical school he’d joined the army.
A young boy, maybe five years old, laughed and cut across the path in front of them, paying no attention to where he was going. He stopped short of nearly running right into Aleksa. She quickly stopped, too, so as not to knock him over. She smiled down at him, putting him at ease, and waited until the boy’s mother caught up with him before continuing walking.
There was something pleasant and peaceful about being here, Avery thought. He was accustomed to the more fucked up parts of the world. It’d been a long time since he’d seen little kids simply having fun instead of starving. For a minute, he wasn’t thinking about Cramer, weapons, and looking out for surveillance, and he wondered if this was what it was like to be a normal person. He glanced over at Aleksa, watched her, and then something clicked in his mind, and he pushed the thought away, a fleeting glimpse of a life not meant for him, a pointless distraction.
“So maybe we can talk business,” Avery said.
Aleksa glanced over at him, and he thought he saw disappointment, but it lasted only for a second. “Maybe,” she said. “I still haven’t decided if I should trust you.”
“Yeah, well, the feeling’s mutual, if it makes you feel any better. It’s nothing personal. I just have a sort professional adversity to reporters.”
She thought that over, realizing they were both in a similar predicament as far as trust went. “You know, that does make me feel better. It puts us on an even level. But I still don’t know anything about you, other than you’ve travelled very far to watch hockey.”
“Look, does it really make any difference? You’re smart. You have a fair idea of what I am. You don’t need me to spell it out.” And he wasn’t going to question her intelligence and insult her by feeding her a line of bullshit. He knew her only doubt was as to whether or not she really wanted to take her chances with someone like him.
“Are you military?”
“No.”
“You look like a soldier.”
Avery recalled Dagar’s words at Port Said and wondered if he was really that easy to read. “I used to be in the army.”
“But you are no longer? You said you are self-employed.”
“That’s right. Look, if you don’t want to talk to me, okay, but tell me, so we don’t waste each other’s time.”
“You’re very impatient, aren’t you?”
They continued walking in silence. A young man with his wife or girlfriend eyed Aleksa lasciviously up and down as they passed.
Aleksa lit a cigarette and took a long drag on it. “I am already in danger, so I suppose I may as well take my chances with you.”
“Why’s that? Is taking pictures of airplanes a serious crime in Belarus?”
“It is when the airplanes belong to a close friend of the Kremlin and who is also fanatical about the privacy of his business. Litvin’s security saw me and chased me across the airport. I barely got away from them. I wouldn’t be the first Russian journalist to disappear.”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty dangerous career choice these days.”
“Do you know what was onboard that plane?”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
“According to the documentation I obtained, the cargo manifest consists of furniture that originated from Russia and is destined for a chain of shops in Dushanbe. The plane’s destination was a Russian-leased military airfield and not Dushanbe International, which is odd for a commercial transaction. Belarusian customs didn’t even inspect the cargo.”
Before continuing, Aleksa paused to take another drag. She studied Avery’s face closely, and he averted his glare.
“I’ve written about Litvin and GlobeEx before. I’ve done a lot of research into his business. This is the third flight that plane has made from Minsk to the Russian airfield in Tajikistan in the last nine weeks. I’ve heard rumors about the Kremlin arming the Taliban through proxy agents. I also confirmed that Russia commissioned the sale of a hundred-fifty Igla-S missiles and other hardware to Belarus. Last month, my contact here discovered that Litvin has been meeting with Belarus’s chief military acquisitions officer. Litvin paid cash for the missiles and other weapons, while the hardware remains listed in Belarusian inventories.”
“Why would Russia want to arm the Taliban? They’re fighting their own war against Islamic terrorists in the Caucasus.”
“True,” Aleksa said, “but it’s still in the Kremlin’s interests to see the West fail and militarily defeated in Afghanistan. Over the last decade, Russia has become increasingly threatened by American involvement in Central Asia. Imagine how the US would react if Russia started deploying troops in South America. Plus if NATO is bogged down in Afghanistan, they’ll be less inclined to take action in Ukraine or Moldova or Georgia when Russia decides to re-take Soviet territory. It’s also an opportunity to field test how their newest weapons will perform in combat against American equipment, and a resurgent Taliban will frighten the other former republics into cozying up to Russia.”
Avery wasn’t an expert on global politics or Kremlin strategy, but her analysis seemed sound.
“But there’s more. See, while I was originally trying to uncover Litvin’s arms deals, my contact here was investigating the security of old Soviet nuclear stockpiles in Belarus. We’re working closely together now. There came a point where our respective stories intersected.”
Alarm bells went off in the back of Avery’s mind. He had a feeling where this was going. He’d become fixated on Cramer and overlooked the IMU’s nuclear materials smuggling.
“The Kremlin has contracted GlobeEx to deliver several tons of highly enriched uranium from the Belarusian stockpile to Russia.” She studied Avery’s face. He thought must have done a bad job of hiding his reaction, because she added, “You look surprised.”
He was, but he shouldn’t have been. After all, an IMU courier had already been arrested in Tajikistan delivering a sample of uranium to the Taliban’s nuclear scientist. CIA and the Department of Energy’s chemical analysis had been unable to determine the source of the uranium, other than it appeared to be Soviet in origin.