Liberty

POSTSCRIPT

Snow driven by a bitter wind swept across the vast, barren steppes of central Asia. It was a dry snow, accumulating on top of the frozen earth and the existing crusted snow patches at a rate of less than a quarter inch per hour because the temperature was ten degrees below zero. It streaked horizontally through the headlights of the truck and reduced visibility to yards.

The driver fought the wheel with both his gloved hands as the wind pushed against the side of the truck. “Not too much farther, I think,” he said to the man in the right seat, Frouq al-Zuair, who huddled deeper into his heavy coat. The truck’s heater was incapable of raising the temperature inside the cab above the freezing level. Drafts coming around the edges of the ill-fitting doors and through rusted holes in the floorboards didn’t help.

“Is the van still following?” Zuair asked the driver.

“It’s back there.”

Both men felt relieved when they spotted a gleam of light in the snowy darkness ahead. Sure enough, it proved to be a naked bulb mounted high on a pole beside a gate. On each side of the gate a high wire fence ran away into the darkness.

The driver turned off the road and pulled to a stop beside the guard shack, in front of the barrier. Frouq al-Zuair steeled himself and opened the truck door. The icy wind was vicious. He hustled around the front of the truck and jerked open the door to the guard shack. The soldiers inside were huddled around a heater. Several had their backs to it.

“I am Ashruf,” Zuair said in Russian. “I came to see General Petrov.”

Two of the soldiers went outside to inspect the trucks while one of the others made a telephone call. When he hung up he nodded at the remaining Russians, who went outside to raise the gate. Zuair got back in the truck.

The inspection took another two minutes to complete, then the gate opened and one of the guards waved the truck and van through.

The wind seemed to become fiercer as the truck and the van that followed it left the guard shack behind. The vehicles bumped and jostled over the frozen ruts in the road, occasionally sliding, as they crossed a low ridge and descended toward a lit compound, the only light in that black universe.

There was another gate on the compound. An armed guard waved them through.

They passed two idling tanks, then stopped in front of a well-lit single-story building. Zuair went inside. General Petrov and two officers were there, as well as the long-haired woman he had seen the last time he was here. She was wearing an ankle-length fur coat and a fur hat.

“We want four warheads, Petrov.” He glanced around the room. “Where is the sample?”

“The weapons are still in the magazine. They told you the price? Four million American?”

“We brought three million. We will not pay four.”

“For that price you get three warheads. Your friends in Saudi Arabia are rich and can afford to pay us for the large risk we are taking.”

Zuair was obstinate. “Then I have come all this way for nothing.”

They haggled while the woman lit a cigarette, seemingly bored. At last Petrov capitulated. “This time I will give you four bombs for three million. But if you come again, the price is a million each. Not a penny less. It takes money to play this game.”

The Arab went to the door, motioned to the men in the van that sat behind the truck. Five of them brought in dark green duffel bags.

They remained in the room while one of the army officers emptied the bags upon the table. The woman got out her equipment and began inspecting random bills as the army officers counted the bundles. When they finished that task, they began counting the bills in random bundles. They arranged the bundles in stacks.

“It’s real currency,” Anna Modin said finally, after ten minutes of inspection.

After huddling with the army officers, who compared their tallies, Petrov announced, “We are satisfied. Three million.”

He led the way out into the snow and climbed into the cab of a truck full of troops. The truck got under way, leading Zuair and his friends in their own vehicles.

The snow and wind had not eased. If anything, it was worse. The little caravan passed twenty or so magazines before it stopped in front of one.

As Zuair climbed out of the truck cab, a series of floodlights atop the magazine and on the opposite side illuminated, temporarily blinding him.

He heard the ripping of a machine gun, felt something hammering into the truck door. Then something slammed into his legs, knocking him to the frozen earth.

Someone screaming … He heard someone screaming.

He reached into his coat, tried to pull his pistol free as the first machine gun was joined by others. He was lying on his side and the weapon was under him. He struggled to roll over but he couldn’t feel his legs. Then something hit him in the arm and he lost feeling in it.

The shooting continued, long bursts from multiple weapons. How long it continued Zuair didn’t know, but finally all the shooting stopped.

He was lying on his side, feeling the warmth of his own blood soaking his clothes and coat when a foot rolled him over. General Petrov stood there, a pistol in his hand. He grinned at Frouq al-Zuair, pointed the pistol at his head.

The Russian bent down. He placed the muzzle of the pistol against Zuair’s forehead, then reached into his coat and tugged at the Arab’s pistol. When he pulled it out, he straightened.

“Put them all in the truck, then back it into the magazine,” Petrov shouted. “The van, too.”

Rough hands seized Zuair, lifted him bodily and carried him around behind the truck. The cargo door was open, and the soldiers — there were now four of them holding him — tossed him into the empty bay. The shock of hitting the hard floor drew a groan of agony from Zuair. Other bodies were tossed into the truck. At least one other man was still alive, because he, too, groaned.

Finally the door closed. A minute or so later the truck started and began to move.

When the motion stopped and the truck engine was turned off, Zuair struggled to move with his good arm. A body lay across his injured legs. The shock of the bullets was beginning to wear off.

Fighting intense pain, Frouq al-Zuair managed to lift his head from the bed of the truck. He could see nothing in the darkness.

Then he heard the fireproof steel door of the magazine slam shut.

His strength failed him. He collapsed and lay still. He listened to the moans of the other man who still lived, but they stopped after a bit.

Cold. The blood from his wounds had soaked his clothes, and now the cold attacked the wetness.

He tried to crawl but lacked the strength. Murdered by infidel Russians! He was cursing them when he passed out from loss of blood.

Sometime later that night his heart stopped.

When General Petrov returned to the compound, he went straight into the single-story building. The stacks of money were still on the table. Anna Modin was seated where he had left her, but another man, a tall, lean man wearing a blue suit under an open coat stood relaxed, with his feet apart, at the far end of the room.

Petrov faced the stranger. “Who are you?” he demanded.

The man’s hand swept up. There was a pistol in it, one wearing a large silencer. The gun had been hidden by the folds of the coat. “Doesn’t matter,” he said.

Petrov glanced at Anna Modin, who was lighting a cigarette. Their eyes met as she lowered the lighter.

“Where are my men?” the general demanded in a hollow voice.

“They suddenly realized that they wanted to be somewhere else,” the stranger said. “Are the Arabs dead?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do with the truck and van?”

Petrov licked his lips. “They’re in an empty magazine with the bodies.”

“Why did you kill them?”

“The risk was too great. Someone was bound to talk eventually, and the whispers would get to Moscow. Whispers always do, don’t they?” Petrov shrugged, then dived sideways and grabbed for the pistol in his belt holster.

Janos Ilin’s first bullet missed Petrov, but his second didn’t. Nor did the third.

When Petrov ceased moving, Ilin walked toward him. Petrov’s eyes followed him.

“Why?” said Petrov.

“An American naval officer asked a favor of me. This was it.”

With that comment Ilin aimed the pistol at the center of Petrov’s forehead and pulled the trigger again. Petrov’s head jerked under the impact of the bullet, then his eyes ceased to focus and he stared fixedly at nothing.

“What are we going to do with the money?” Anna Modin asked Ilin.

“Someone has to pay for the war against terrorism,” Ilin said. “It might as well be the terrorists.”