A Spring Betrayal

Chapter 27

“You’re sure this is the right address?” I asked as we pulled up down the street from an imposing building a couple of blocks away from Chui Prospekt.

The journey back to Bishkek had been just as tiring as the outbound leg, and I needed a shave, a bath, and a bed, not necessarily in that order. I smelled like an old goat, but at least I didn’t detect any sign of my shoulder turning septic. Saltanat, as always, smelled divine, and looked as if she’d had an uninterrupted eight hours’ sleep in a five-star hotel.

The house was on Frunze, in the elite district of town, where money bought you privacy, CCTV cameras, and very high concrete walls. Sunlight sparkled off the broken glass that ran along the top of the wall, further reinforced by a wire fence that I was certain would be electrified. Solid steel gates kept the world out, brutal spikes mounted at the top to impale intruders.

There was no sign of bodyguards, sentries, no-necked men with bulges under cheap leather jackets. Only the upper part of the house was visible, shuttered windows glaring down at the street. A massive satellite dish squatted on the roof. Whoever lived here would have enough clout to get Saltanat whisked back over the border, and me enjoying ten years no-star bed and board in whichever prison was most remote and unpleasant.

I said as much to Saltanat and she rewarded me with one of those enigmatic stares that lasted until I had to break eye contact.

“You want to drop this, Akyl?” she said, surprise in her voice. “Go back to your apartment and wait for your old colleagues to drag you down to the basement to discuss your crimes? And then life in prison, at least until your fellow inmates discover you were a policeman?”

I knew she was right. But we had to be more careful than going in guns blazing.

“No, I don’t want to drop it,” I said. “Gurminj was my friend as well as yours. There are the seven dead babies who deserve some justice. And the children in those films.”

I paused, swallowed. The saliva in my mouth tasted thick and oily, as if I’d gone for weeks without cleaning my teeth. Pain pressed into my shoulder, its fingers probing underneath the stitches, like a small creature trying to escape.

“Can you pass me the iPhone?” I asked.

Saltanat reached for her bag and handed it to me.

“What are you planning to do?” she asked.

I gave her the mirthless smile that had become my specialty ever since watching Usupov uncover those scraps of bodies in the field near Karakol.

“There’s such a thing as being too subtle, Saltanat. Sometimes you have to piss on the bushes and see what emerges. Like tethering a sheep up in the mountains and then lying in wait until the wolves come down.”

Saltanat raised an eyebrow. Perhaps I was being a bit too philosophical.

“I’m just going to make a quick call,” I said, and hit redial.

I listened to the dialing tone, which matched my heartbeat, rapid and worried.

And then I heard a voice.

“Da?”

A man’s voice, deep, cautious. Speaking in Russian, but not with a Kyrgyz or Russian accent. English or American, at a guess. The Voice. Raw, like skin scraped on gravel.

“A friend of yours lost his cell phone, and I’m sure he’d like it back.”

Silence. I cleared my throat and continued.

“These smartphones, not cheap, are they? So I’m sure there’s a reward for its safe return. With all its contacts, photos, and videos. Particularly the videos.”

More silence. Then the Voice again.

“What did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking maybe twenty-five thousand?”

“Twenty-five thousand som?”

“No,” I said. “Dollars.”

“Pashol na khui.”

“Well, I can certainly fuck off if that’s what you really want, but then you don’t get the smartphone back,” I said, putting a smile into my voice I certainly didn’t feel. “And then who knows whose hands it might fall into? Perhaps I should just hand it in at Sverdlovsky station. The police could probably trace the owner.”

“I’ll call you back,” the Voice said, broke the connection.

Saltanat looked over at me, genuine approval in her eyes.

“A small-time crook gets lucky, decides to try a spot of blackmail. Arranges a meet. Bites a bullet,” she said. “Except he’s not a small-time crook. And he doesn’t.”

I smiled again, the one that never reaches my eyes.

“Devious minds think alike, Saltanat. We’ve put the pot on the stove. Now we let the ingredients simmer. And speaking of which…”

“Yes?”

“I’m hungry.”

An hour later, back at the outside bar of the Umai Hotel, I finished off the last of the pelmeni dumplings a taciturn Rustam had brought us, sipped my chai. Saltanat had refused to eat, had instead worked her way through most of a Baltika beer, staring at me with obvious exasperation.

“Now your belly’s full,” she said, “how about we get back to work?”

I winked, knowing it would irritate her further.

“Wolves aren’t stupid, you know. When they see a sheep tethered, they wonder whether it’s a trap. So they hide up by the rocks or the trees, scenting the air to see if any hunters are nearby. Only when they’re satisfied there’s no danger do they race toward the sheep. Then the hunters open fire.”

“Thank you for the natural history lesson,” Saltanat said. “I understand the metaphor. But that’s not an answer.”

“We know where they are, not who they are. They don’t know who or where we are. So we have the advantage. But they know what we have, the danger it means for them. So they have to reach out to us.”

I tapped the iPhone.

“They’ll call, don’t worry.”

So we sat there as the shadows grew longer, smoked cigarette after cigarette, waiting for the call.

“Ten thousand dollars,” the Voice said, no introduction, no greeting, straight to business.

“No,” I said, and broke the connection, switched off the phone.

“Why did you do that?” Saltanat demanded, anger in her eyes.

“I want to show them we’re greedy, that we’ll be careless when it comes to the meet and exchange. And it puts them on the back foot, which isn’t a bad thing.”

I threw the remains of my cigarette out onto the grass.

“I’ll turn it back on in an hour. And I guarantee it will ring a minute later.”

Which was exactly what happened.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars, very well,” the Voice said. I was pretty sure it was an American voice, confident, no sign of hesitation or anger.

“It’s very expensive to keep me waiting,” I said, injecting a note of annoyance into my voice. “The price is now thirty thousand. Dollars.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Who are you? Circle of Brothers?”

I smiled. This was a dance only one person could lead. And if the American thought I might be connected to the organized crime gang spread throughout Russia and Central Asia, so much the better for piling on pressure.

“Call me Manas. The local superhero. Top dog. Bratski krug.”

“Very clever, Mr. Whoever-you-are.” Anger in the Voice now, the first hint of carelessness with an undercurrent of worry.

“I’m turning this mobile off in ten seconds,” I said, “and I won’t be switching it back on if we don’t agree now.”

I could sense the man’s hesitation, almost smell his desire to hit and stamp and kill me.

“Ten, nine, eight…”

“Okay, we have a deal, but where do we meet?” he asked.

“Instructions in an hour, call me,” I told him and switched off the phone again.

“What do we do until then?” Saltanat asked.

I nodded at the hotel.

“I’m sure Rustam has a room to spare,” I said and walked around the bar to where the cold beer was kept.

“Another Baltika?”

She shook her head, lit another cigarette, stared at the empty sky.