Checkmate

  Two minutes later, he was sitting at the Osprey’s console staring at Lambert’s face on the monitor. He quickly brought his boss up to speed.

  “Kuan-Yin Zhao,” Lambert murmured. “That’s a twist I wasn’t expecting.”

  “You and me both. But I know who can make sense of it.”

  “Tom Richards. I’ll get him over here. Unless your new friend Heng is lying, the CIA’s been running an op against Zhao. Now: About Ashgabat—give me that name again.”

  “Ailar Marjani.”

  The monitor went to split screen; Lambert on the right, Grimsdottir left. “Checking,” she said. “Okay, got him. Ailar Marjani is the former head of the KNB—Turkmenistan’s version of the CIA. He’s got a thick file. Bad guy, this one. Human rights abuses, bribery, weapons trafficking, ties to Hezbollah . . .”

  “Another Iranian link,” Fisher said.

  Lambert was silent for a few seconds, thinking. “Okay, I’m going to put Richards’s feet to the fire on Zhao.”

  “And tell him he needs to get Heng out; the man’s burnt out. He’s going to slip up.”

  “I will. So: You feel up to a little jaunt to Ashgabat?”

  “I always feel like a little jaunt to Ashgabat. You get me there, I’ll get Marjani.”

  IN truth, Fisher had never been to Ashgabat, and so he had the same stereotypes in mind that most westerners did about the Central Asian republics—that they were backward, remote, dusty, and harsh. And while this was true for the rural areas, Ashgabat was, Fisher realized as his plane banked over the city, a stunning exception.

  Nestled in a bowl between the southern edge of the Garagum Desert, which covers ninety percent of the country, and the Köpetdag Mountain Range, a belt of ten-thousand-foot peaks along the Iranian border, Ashgabat is a modern city of five million souls, with clean cobblestone sidewalks and plazas, fountains and monuments, a mix of traditional Islamic architecture and modern building design, and a network of small irrigation canals that feed the city’s lush gardens and parks.

  And memorials. Lots and lots of memorials, most of them dedicated to one man: Turkemenistan’s President for Life Atayevich Niyazov, or Serdar Saparmurat Turkmenbashi—the Great Leader of the Turkmens. A former Soviet bureaucrat, Niyazov ruled his country with absolute authority. His visage was everywhere—in murals, on the sides of buses, on coffee mugs and T-shirts, in classrooms and museums, and on statues: Niyazov riding a stallion; Niyazov holding a baby; Niyazov sternly staring at accused criminals; Niyazov attending museum galas and government balls. He had changed the Turkmen alphabet, renamed the months and days of the year, and written the Ruhnama, or Book of the Soul, a practical and spiritual guidebook every Turkmen citizen is required to own.

  Along with all the trappings of what was clearly a dictatorship, Fisher knew Niyazov’s iron hand was backed up by a vast network of secret police and intelligence agencies. The sooner he could get to Ailar Marjani and get out of Ashgabat, the better.

  This was the kind of place where a man could disappear and never be heard from again.

  GETTING here so quickly had taken a lot of time in the air and Lambert’s significant pull.

  Ninety minutes after leaving the Zhoushan Archipelago, the Osprey touched down at Kadena Air Force Base, where Fisher was met by a tech sergeant, who drove him to a waiting F-15D Eagle. He was suited up, helped into the rear seat, and given a two-word briefing by the pilot: “Touch nothing.” Five minutes later, the Eagle was airborne and heading southwest.

  Exhausted, Fisher was quickly asleep, only waking for the Eagle’s midair refueling with a KC-135 Stratotanker, then again for the landing in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was met by another sergeant, this one of the Army variety, who drove him to a waiting Gulfstream V that Fisher assumed was part of the small fleet of executive jets the CIA maintained.

  The flight from Kabul lasted a bare two hours, and now, eight hours after he swam away from Cezi Maji, the Gulfstream’s tires touched down with a squeal on Ashgabat Airport’s runway.

  FISHER didn’t leave the plane, but waited, sprawled in one of the cabin’s reclining seats, as the simulated engine warning light that had put them down here was checked. Night was just falling when the airport’s maintenance supervisor popped his head through the side door and told the pilot no problem had been found. They were cleared to leave.

  Once airborne, the pilot radioed the Ashgabat tower and requested permission to circle a few times to ensure the warning light didn’t reappear, then proceeded in a low southeasterly arc away from the airport.

  “Eight hundred feet,” the pilot called over the intercom. “Drop in three minutes.”

  Fisher was already strapping on his parafoil pack.

  A thousand feet above and four miles from Ashgabat, Fisher jumped out the Gulfstream’s side door. He waited for two beats, then pulled the toggle, heard the whoosh-whump of the parafoil deploying, and was jerked upward.

  Ailar Marjani’s retirement was without financial worry, Grimsdottir had reported. The former Turkmen spymaster had built an arabesque mansion eight miles from Ashgabat in the foothills of the Köpetdag.

  Fisher followed the flashing waypoint marker on his OPSAT, and touched down in the rolling, grassy hills that lay between the city and the mountains. Even in the darkness, Fisher was struck by the landscape; had he not known better, he might have mistaken it for the western Dakotas or eastern Montana. The night was warm, hovering around seventy degrees, the sky clear and cloudless. A slight breeze swished the grass around his knees.

  He donned his gear, took a bearing on the OPSAT, and started jogging.

  AFTER a mile, he topped a hill and stopped. He lay down on his belly and pulled out his binoculars.

  Even from a mile away, Marjani’s home was impossible to miss, a sprawling structure of whitewashed rectangles and arches stacked atop one another and nestled at the base of an escarpment. Every window in Marjani’s home blazed with light. Fisher scanned each one but saw no one. Clusters of palms rose from various points on the grounds, each one lit from beneath by an spotlight. Fisher counted two fountains that he could see, each a glistening plume of water.

  He kept moving, using the troughs of the hills to make his way to within a quarter mile. He crawled up a hillock and through the grass. At this range, he could see a lone guard standing to the left of the arched driveway entrance. Through the entrance he could see a courtyard of hedges, and at the center, a glowing kidney-shaped pool. The guard wasn’t so much standing as he was vertically reclined against the arch, his AK-47 propped against the wall a few feet away. Fisher wasn’t even sure the man was awake.

  He maneuvered to the left, crawling through the grass until he was at an angle, fifty yards from the arch. He pulled the SC-20 from its back holster, zoomed in on the guard, then panned through the arch, looking for more guards. There were none. Same on the infrared side. He refocused on the guard and laid the recticle over the man’s chest.

  He squeezed the trigger. The guard spasmed once, then slumped back against the wall and slid down into a pile. Fisher shifted his aim, shot out the ground spotlight, then shifted again and waited for another guard to come investigate the outage. Five minutes passed. No one came.

  He holstered the SC-20, then crawled ahead until the entrance arch blocked the mansion’s upper windows, then got up and sprinted the remaining distance. He snatched up the AK-47, tossed it into the high grass, then grabbed the man’s collar and dragged him through the arch. He turned left and stopped behind a shrub.

  He heard the crunch of gravel to his right. He turned. A man walked down the driveway and stopped at the arch. An AK was slung over his shoulder. The man looked left, then right, then called, “Ashiq?”

  Damnit.

  48

  FISHER took off his headpiece, laid it aside, then lowered himself onto his haunches, leaned against the wall, and dropped his chin to his chest. He drew his pistol and held it out of sight against his thigh.

  “Ashiq?” the man called a
gain.

  Fisher let out a pained groan. In the corner of his eye, he saw the man turn. Fisher feebly raised his arm and let it fall.

  “Ashiq!”

  The man rushed across the driveway. As he drew even with shrubs, Fisher raised the pistol and shot him in the forehead. The man made an umph, then sprawled face-first in the dirt beside Fisher. Fisher grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him deeper into the shadows and laid him next to the first guard.

  Two down.

  HE took his time with the rest of the grounds, using the shadows and the landscaping to pick his way around the inner wall, eyes and ears alert for more guards as he periodically scanned the windows for signs of movment.

  He found only one other guard, strolling along a topiary-lined gravel path on the east side of the house. Fisher waited for him to pass, then stepped out, clamped a hand over his mouth, and plunged the Sykes into the hollow beside his collarbone. The man stiffened, jerked once, went limp. Fisher dragged him out of sight.

  He made his way to the rear of the house and to the glassed-in patio overlooking a second swimming pool. Unlike the floors above, the patio was dark. Save for the gurgling of the pool’s aerators and the distant hum of the air conditioners, all was quiet.

  The patio door was made of flimsy aluminum, with a push-button latch that took him fifteen seconds to pick. He slipped inside. A wave of cool air washed over him. He took a moment to breath it in, let it cool his face.

  Marjani clearly had a fondness for the color white and shades of white. The walls, leather couches, and carpet were cream, with a few Turkmen art and sculpture pieces scattered around the room. On the far side, a stairway led upward.

  Crouched over, he took the steps one at time, until he could see through the black wrought-iron balustrade. Predictably, the room was done mostly in white, with a rough-hewn tile floor inlaid with robin’s-egg-blue mosaics. There was a seating area beneath the windows, through which he could see the driveway arch.

  Fisher climbed the rest of steps, then searched the level, finding a gourmet kitchen in stainless steel, a formal dining room, and a bookcase-lined den. He moved to the second floor: a home gym, three guest bedrooms, and a bathroom with a steam shower, sauna, and whirlpool tub.

  He was halfway up the steps to the third floor when he heard voices. He froze. It was a television.

  “Welcome back to American Idol. Our next contestant is performing—” Then static, followed by, “But Ricky—” Then more static, and then the theme to Gilligan’s Island.

  Fisher smiled ruefully. Marjani was putting his golden years to good use.

  He found the former Turkmen minister in a small room overlooking the rear pool. The man was sprawled in a white leather recliner, a bag of potato chips in his lap, the remote aimed at the TV. Fisher backed through the arch, searched the remainder of the floor, then returned. On the TV screen, Gilligan and a chimp were playing catch with a coconut.

  Fisher flipped off the lights, dropped his NV goggles into place, and stepped behind Marjani’s chair just as the man was sitting up. Fisher laid the Sykes across Marjani’s neck and said, “Not a sound. Your guards are dead. If you don’t want to the join them, you’ll do as I say.”

  Grimsdottir’s brief had said Marjani had a fair grasp of English, and his rapid nodding confirmed it. “Who are you, what do you want?”

  The two classic questions, Fisher thought. Over the years he’d found that noncombatants usually said, “Please don’t kill me,” when someone put a knife to their throat. With bad guys, it was always a variation of what Marjani had just asked, with a slight edge of indignation to their voice.

  Fisher whispered in his ear, “To answer your first question, none of your business. To answer your second question, I want to kill you, but I’m going to give you a chance to talk me out of it.”

  HE dragged Marjani down the hall, flipping off lights as he went, until they were in the master bedroom. He grabbed a pillow off the bed, then marched Marjani into the bathroom and shoved him into the whirlpool tub. He shut the door and sat down on the toilet next to the tub. Marjani was a fat man with slicked-back black hair and a lopsided mustache. He reminded Fisher of a stock villain in a Western.

  Fisher hadn’t turned on the bathroom lights; it was pitch black. In the glow of his NV goggles, he could see Marnaji’s eyes darting around, his hands clamped on the edge of the rub. His face glistened with sweat. Fisher let him sit in the dark, letting it the silence stretch on until finally Marjani blurted, “Is anyone there? Hey, is—”

  “I’m here.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We’ve been through that. I’m going to ask you some questions. If I don’t like the answers, you’re going to die in that tub. No more Gilligan’s Island, no more I Love Lucy, understand?”

  “Do you know who I am? You can’t do this!”

  Fisher drew the Sykes and lightly jabbed Marjani in the thigh. He yelped and curled up, trying to make himself small.

  Fisher said, “How about that? Can I do that?”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Sit up, straighten your legs, remove your shoes and socks, and rest your arms on the sides of the tub.”

  “What?”

  “You have three seconds.”

  Marjani complied.

  “Two weeks ago you had houseguests,” Fisher began. “A Chinese man with two bodyguards, and an Iranian with his own bodyguards. What did they talk about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  That was true. Heng had said he’d met with the Iranian alone.

  “How long were they here?”

  “Two, maybe three hours.”

  That was also true. Using what he already knew, Fisher was establishing a baseline, gauging Marjani’s tone, facial expressions, inflection.

  “Who was in the room during this meeting?”

  “Just the Chinese and the other one,” Marjani replied. He’d hesitated slightly at “other one.”

  “Did they arrive separately or together?”

  “Separately. Why are you—”

  “Who is the Iranian?”

  Fisher reached out and jabbed Marjani in the foot. Not so gently this time. Marjani screamed, reached for his foot. “Don’t move,” Fisher said, “or I’ll take you toe off.”

  Reluctantly, Marjani leaned back. His lower lip was trembling.

  Almost there, Fisher thought. The stress of being blind and not knowing when or where the next jab was coming was quickly breaking Marjani down.

  Fisher hooked Marjani’s pinky toe with the tip of the Sykes and stretched it backward. Marjani flinched, drew back his lips until his teeth showed. “Don’t . . . please don’t. . . .”

  “Give me the Iranian’s name.”

  Marjani hesitated, squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know, please. . . .”

  Fisher let the blade rest between his toes for five more seconds, then removed it. “Do you want to reconsider your answer?”

  “I don’t know who he is, I swear. He showed up and—”

  Fisher picked up the pillow and tossed it into Marjani’s lap. “What . . . what is this?”

  “It’s a pillow,” Fisher said. “Put it over your face.”

  “What? Why?”

  “The gunshot is going to be loud in here.”

  All the color drained from Marjani’s face. “Please, I can’t. . . .”

  Fisher let him sob for a half a minute, then said, “Do you want to change your answer? Do you want to tell me who the Iranian is?”

  Marjani nodded and started talking.

  49

  WHEN Marjani finished talking, Fisher had some answers and a lot more questions.

  He darted Marjani, bound his hands and feet with flexi-cuffs, then fireman-carried him down to the garage, where he found a gleaming-white H1 Alpha Hummer. He shoved Marjani in the back, bound his feet to one of the tie-down eyelets, then climbed into the front seat. The keys were in the ignition.

  Thirty seconds later, he wa
s rolling the down the driveway, the air conditioner blowing at full blast. He turned left at the arch and headed northwest, headlights off as he kept to the depressions and used the moonlight to guide him. He drove for fifteen minutes until the hills began to smooth out into the fringe of the Garagum Desert. He coasted to a stop and shut off the engine. He keyed his subdermal.

  “Pike, this is Sickle, over.”

  “Go ahead, Sickle,” Bird replied. After refueling at Kabul, Redding and the Osprey had followed an hour behind the Gulfstream, slipping across the Turkmenistan border and setting down sixty miles from Ashgabat in the desert.

  “Request extraction, break; two passengers, break; map coordinates one-two-two-point-five by three-two-point-three; beacon is transmitting, over.”

  “Roger, Sickle, en route.”

  THE Osprey appeared twelve minutes later, skimming low over the ground, its rotor blades glinting in the moonlight.

  “I have visual on you, Pike,” Fisher said. “Confirm same.” He flipped the Hummer’s fog lights on and off.

  “Confirm, Sickle, we have you.”

  The Osprey put down a hundred yards away atop a small hillock, and Redding came down the ramp to help Fisher with Marjani. “Friend of yours?” Redding asked.

  “He doesn’t think so, but he’s going to come in handy.”

  While Redding took care of their passenger, Fisher walked forward to the cockpit. “Bird, how’re we looking on radar?”

  “Fine. Hell, Turkmenistan hasn’t got a military radar station for a thousand miles. We could sit here for days.” He glanced at Fisher. “We’re not going to sit here for days, are we?”