Amy had taken Ning’s idea to Dr D – her boss at the Dallas-based Transnational Facilitator Unit – and Zara Asker, the chairwoman of CHERUB. While Alfie stayed at DESA to cover the increasingly remote possibility that Ethan would eventually turn up there, Amy, Ning and Ryan flew back to London.
Over two exhausting days, Amy, Dr D and Ted Brasker from TFU, plus CHERUB’s chief mission controller Ewart Asker, worked from CHERUB campus hammering out a plan for a two-pronged mission that would maximise their chances of finding Ethan and getting information on what Leonid was up to inside the Kremlin.
When they weren’t involved with the planning side of things, Ryan and Ning worked with a CIA expert on Central Asia, learning about Kyrgyz culture, customs and language. Ryan’s father had been Russian so he was fluent in a language spoken by more than half of the population in Bishkek, but Ning would have to get by with English and Mandarin.
There were only two direct flights a week from Britain to Kyrgyzstan, so the five-strong team had to fly to St Petersburg and spend a night in an airport hotel there before taking an early morning flight to Bishkek’s Manas International Airport.
Amy had a long and successful career as a CHERUB agent behind her, but her experience of running undercover operations was limited, so the big Texan Ted Brasker would be in overall charge of the operation.
Ning and Amy would form one unit. Their task was to locate Dan, get as much information as they could out of him, and then try to recruit him as a spy. The second team, comprising Ryan and Instructor Kazakov, would try making a more direct approach to the Kremlin.
The Mission Control and Training departments at CHERUB were completely separate, but this particular mission had been put together at short notice and although Kazakov was a training instructor not a mission controller, his background in Soviet Special Forces meant he was better suited to the operation than any of the available mission controllers.
To avoid being seen arriving together, Ted, Amy and Ning flew up front in business class, while Ryan and Kazakov slummed it in the cheap seats. Kyrgyzstan didn’t have a major tourist industry and Bishkek’s only big international-class hotel was closely watched by everyone from the Kyrgyz Secret Service to traffic cops hoping to shake down tourists, so a CIA liaison at the American embassy had arranged more discreet accommodation.
Amy picked up a hire car and drove to a small hostel with Ning, while Ted, Ryan and Kazakov travelled by taxi to a rented house. It was two storeys, with grubby carpets and a whiff of damp, but its location was ideal, close to the road up to the Kremlin, and like the homes of most wealthy people in Bishkek the house was enclosed by a high security wall that gave them excellent privacy.
The local CIA liaison had also got hold of two inconspicuous Toyota Corollas. Upon arrival, Ted removed large backpacks containing advanced bugging and surveillance gear from one of the trunks.
‘Nice equipment,’ Kazakov said, as he watched Ted unzipping bags filled with all the latest gadgets. ‘I hope your friend at the embassy was discreet when he set this place up.’
‘I don’t know the liaison and I’m not going to meet her unless something goes drastically wrong,’ Ted said, as he held one of the latest ultra-light stab vests up to the light. It was Ryan’s size, so he threw it his way. ‘All I know is, she’s done everything we asked her to do on very late notice.’
‘True,’ Kazakov said grudgingly. ‘But the Aramovs have eyes everywhere and you yanks aren’t known for your delicate touch in situations like this.’
Ted bristled, but Zara had warned him that Kazakov resented Americans because his brother had been killed by a US-supplied missile when he was fighting in Afghanistan.
‘So what’s the plan for today?’ Ryan asked.
‘There’s nothing sophisticated about this,’ Kazakov said. ‘We wait until it gets dark, drive up to the Kremlin and see if we can get inside for a nose around. In the meantime, you might as well get some rest.’
Ryan arched his back and reached his arms up in a big stretch. ‘All I’ve done for twenty-four hours is sit around in planes, hotels and airport lounges. The last thing I need is rest. I feel like a run, or a sparring session or something.’
Kazakov laughed. ‘You can run around the garden, but I don’t want you going outside the gates until we’ve got a better idea what’s out there. But I’ll spar with you if you like.’
As the last words came out, Kazakov charged forward. Ryan squealed and vaulted the couch but Kazakov got an arm around his waist. Ryan tried to spin out and hit Kazakov with a high kick, but the grey-haired Ukrainian knew that move was coming.
Kazakov neatly snatched Ryan’s flying ankle and twisted it. Ryan’s other leg buckled and he ended up with his back pinned to stained carpet and his ankles trapped painfully beneath his buttocks.
Kazakov smiled. ‘You’ve lost sharpness since basic training. I might have to remedy that when we get back to campus.’
But to show he wasn’t serious, Kazakov gave the tip of Ryan’s nose a playful flick before letting him up.
As Ryan found his feet, he saw that Ted was killing himself laughing.
‘What’s so funny?’ Ryan asked, as he pulled up his trousers.
‘You,’ Ted said. ‘The EEEEK noise you made when Kazakov lunged at you. You sounded like a five-year-old.’
‘Well he’s five times my size,’ Ryan said defensively. ‘Why don’t you two spar? After all, Mr Kazakov’s ex-Soviet Spetsnaz, you were a US Navy SEAL. It’d be like, The Cold War – Part Two!’
‘I could kick his arse,’ Kazakov said, half seriously. ‘But on this operation Agent Brasker is my commanding officer, so my training dictates that I should allow him to win, in order not to undermine the command structure of the operation.’
Ted smiled. ‘Spoken like a true soldier. But on a serious note, Ryan, if you’re not tired you can help me sort out all this equipment. I need to know what we’ve got, what you’ll need for tonight’s operation and what we need to pack up and send over to the girls.’
*
The last few days had been so frantic that Ning hadn’t given much thought to her own emotions. But her eyes glazed over as the drive from Manas Airport to a hostel north of the city centre stirred up memories of the worst time of her life.
Over a few days the previous year, Ning had discovered that her stepfather wasn’t an honest businessman but a criminal who’d tricked thousands of girls into becoming prostitutes. She’d then been forced to flee China and ended up in Kyrgyzstan where she watched Leonid Aramov’s goons brutally torture her stepmother.
‘We never heard anything about my dad, did we?’ Ning said, as the hire car’s sat-nav directed them past grim low-rise housing.
‘No,’ Amy said, touched by Ning’s sadness but also slightly irritated because she was driving in a strange town and needed to concentrate. ‘How do you feel about him?’
‘It’s odd,’ Ning said. ‘On the one hand, I know what my stepdad did to all those girls and it makes me sick. But I still think of him coming home from work and sitting in his recliner. When I was little he used to let me pour him whisky and Coke. I’d cuddle on his lap as he sat watching the news, with the ice cubes chinking in his glass.’
‘Almost like two separate people,’ Amy said.
Ning nodded in agreement, as the car turned on to a muddy track with a livestock market up ahead.
‘Dead end,’ Amy said, as she gave the sat-nav screen evil eyes and put the car into reverse.
After a while, Amy worked out that she’d mistyped a Russian character into the sat-nav and located the hostel down a side street that they’d already passed twice.
The hostel had begun life as a Soviet-style concrete office block. A sunshine-yellow paint job on the outside hadn’t done much to make the building more enticing, but the inside was funky, with headlamps off old cars stuck to the wall behind the reception counter, piped rock music and a lively crowd of hardcore backpackers hanging around a communal kitchen right besid
e the main lobby.
Upstairs the shared toilet and showers were less enticing and Amy flung the window of their little twin bunk room straight open to get rid of a musty smell.
‘It’s like a prison,’ Ning said. ‘I guess we won’t be here long, at least.’
‘Quick shower, change clothes, grab a bite,’ Amy said. ‘Then I say we head straight back out to try finding Dan.’
19. LOCKS
Despite the clean-up, Ethan still got a new girl delivering his food. She was curvy, aged about twenty, with a tight T-shirt stretched over huge tits. Her manner seemed abrupt when she slid a plate between the cell bars, but to Ethan’s delight she spoke English as she handed over a small plastic bottle filled with white powder.
‘For your bad stomach,’ she explained. ‘It’s made for cows but we use it too. Mix it in your food to mask the taste.’
‘Your English is good,’ Ethan said. ‘Where did you learn?’
‘We learn in school, but I polished it working as a pool guard at a resort in South Africa,’ the girl explained. ‘Lots of English speakers.’
Ethan wasn’t sure what to say. ‘So you’re a good swimmer?’
The girl tutted. ‘No, they made me a life guard because I can’t swim.’
Boredom was driving Ethan insane, so he ignored the bad vibe and tried getting a couple more sentences out of the girl before she walked out and plunged him back into twilight.
‘Is South Africa far from here?’
‘I certainly wouldn’t want to walk to the border,’ the girl said, before putting a finger to her lips and making a shush sound. ‘I’m not supposed to talk with you.’
Ethan was pleased with himself for wheedling out the fact that he was in a country that bordered South Africa, but the boredom was really getting to him and he shouted desperately as the young woman headed out.
‘Please try and get me a book or something.’
When the door clanked he looked down at his food. After being taken out to shower the previous day, Ethan was starting to feel less shaky and his appetite was returning. He never got cutlery and his plate was always a disposable polystyrene job.
Until now, he’d only been given vegetables or meat off the bone so he was surprised to see a chop – possibly lamb, although with such a variety of animals on Kessie’s ranch it might easily have been something more exotic.
Ethan picked up the chop and as he bit off his first chunk of meat he realised that the T-shaped bone running through the middle tapered down to a point. Maybe if he chewed all the meat off and sharpened the narrow end by rubbing it against the concrete floor he’d have himself some kind of weapon.
*
There were no detailed photographic street maps of Bishkek on the Internet, or in the CIA’s database, but there were good-quality overhead satellite maps. While Ning didn’t know the exact address of the apartment where Dan had hidden her, she knew that it was an X-shaped three-storey block, with two identical cousins nearby.
But Bishkek had hundreds of near-identical Soviet-era housing blocks, so Ning used other factors to try identifying it: a lake she’d seen when she peeked from a window of Dan’s apartment and the fact that he had a car but chose to walk to the local market because it was very close.
Using this info, Ning had pinpointed an area in the east of the city, then picked out several X-shaped housing developments within a kilometre of a large oval street market.
Kyrgyzstan was one of the world’s poorest countries and eastern Bishkek was one of the city’s poorest zones. Amy drove past ragged people, on roads with potholes big enough to wreck a car’s suspension if you took them too fast, or get you wedged if you went too slowly.
The first street they drove to was wrong, but Ning smiled as they neared the second of her pinpointed locations.
‘This is totally it,’ she said. ‘Park over by that building.’
‘You’re certain?’ Amy asked.
‘I recognise the graffiti,’ Ning said. ‘And see all those plastic sheets behind the bins? There’s an old man who lives in there, scavenging food out of the rubbish bins.’
‘OK,’ Amy said. ‘But everyone will notice two foreigners arriving in a nice hire car. It’s best if we park a couple of streets away and walk.’
The pavements – where they existed – were as much of an adventure as the roads. They were badly cracked and you had to step over open manholes whose metal covers had been stolen for scrap.
‘I hope our car doesn’t get wrecked,’ Amy said, looking back. ‘Dr D doesn’t like it when TFU has to pay an unexpected bill.’
‘I just hope Dan’s not moved away,’ Ning said anxiously.
The uneven stairs and whiff of piss stirred memories as Ning led Amy through a broken security gate and up to the first floor. Dan’s apartment was the third from the stairs, and one of the few things that had changed since Ning was last here was that a large steel plate had been fitted over his door. There were also scorch marks around the doorframe, indicating some kind of attempted arson.
‘He might have moved away,’ Ning said warily.
‘Only one way to find out,’ Amy replied, as she pressed the doorbell.
She waited a full minute before ringing again.
‘It’s the middle of the day,’ Ning said. ‘He might well be at work.’
She crouched down to peek through the letterbox, but could only see into the dark confines of a fully enclosed metal box.
‘Well, whoever lives here, they’re not home,’ Amy said.
Ning nodded. ‘I didn’t see Dan’s car downstairs.’
Amy hadn’t risked going through airport security carrying a lock gun, but she always kept a basic torque wrench and some old-skool manual lock picks in her make-up bag.
‘Haven’t done one of these in a while,’ Amy said, as she inspected the deadlock. ‘No sign of an alarm and it’s pretty quiet around here. Do you think we should have a poke around inside?’
Ning nodded. ‘If we find Dan’s stuff, we’ll be certain he still lives here. I’ll keep my ears open for anyone on the stairs.’
Amy fumbled through pots of foundation and eyeliner before digging her lock picks out of her shoulder bag. She’d expected to have to put in quite an effort with the deadlock, but while the brand name of a reputable lock maker was etched on the plate over the keyhole, the mechanism inside was a cheap knock-off that yielded to a twist of the torque wrench and a slight jiggle of a lock pick. The latch was even easier.
‘I suppose the counterfeit industry does have its upsides,’ Amy said, as she gave Ning a smile. ‘Let’s go.’
Ning instantly knew that Dan still lived here just from the coat rack and the battered trainers by the door.
‘Let’s have a discreet rummage,’ Amy said. ‘Work out what he’s been up to. And keep an eye out for a phone bill or a SIM card package. His new mobile number would be a godsend.’
The apartment only comprised a bathroom and a single room with a fold-out bed and kitchen units. As Amy passed the sliding bathroom door, a muscular arm shot out. It grabbed her around the neck and jerked her backwards into the bathroom.
But Amy was far stronger than her assailant expected and she released the arm by twisting the thumb digging into her neck, then swung back, catching a man’s nose with the point of her elbow.
‘It’s Dan,’ Ning shouted desperately as she caught a glimpse. But Amy was committed to a solid gut punch.
Dan doubled backwards into his bathroom and crashed into his shower cubicle. He was badly winded and he tore the shower curtain off its hooks as he fell.
Ning rushed forward as Amy sprang back.
‘Dan, it’s me!’ Ning said.
Ning almost cried as she made eye contact with the young man who’d saved her life. Dan’s happiness was veiled by pain and confusion, but even with blood dripping from his nose the beefy seventeen-year-old managed to smile.
‘Why you here?’ he gasped, speaking in stilted English.
Amy pulle
d a packet of tissues out of her bag. ‘Give him those to stop the bleeding.’
‘It’s a long story,’ Ning said. ‘Why didn’t you answer the door?’
‘I was shower,’ Dan said, as he used the edge of the sink to pull himself up. ‘I sing in shower, so I not hear. When I step out, I watch the lock turn, although I never give anyone my key.’
Dan staggered out of his bathroom, wearing only underpants. One hand clutched his stomach and the other clamped the bloody tissues to his nose. Even in a baggy grey sweatsuit Amy was clearly a babe and Dan was shamed by his defeat as he walked up to his tiny dining table and sat down.
‘You punch really hard,’ Dan told Amy, as he looked her up and down. ‘I watch many Ultimate Fighting. I think you could win there!’
With free weights, an X-box, big-screen TV, a very lax attitude to cleanliness and posters of naked women all over the wall, Dan’s apartment looked more like the home of some macho nutter than the kind of lad who’d put his life on the line to save Ning.
‘I hate that you come back here,’ Dan told Ning. ‘It’s dangerous.’
‘After I left I met good people,’ Ning said, remembering that she wasn’t supposed to specifically mention CHERUB under any circumstances. ‘Amy works for the CIA. I brought her here because they need to know what’s going on inside the Kremlin.’
Amy clicked into interrogator mode, and adopted her most soothing voice. ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you,’ she began. ‘Ning tells me you’re a good person who hates doing bad things. We need to know what’s going on inside the Kremlin right now. And I’m in a position to help you, if you’re prepared to work with us.’
‘Help how?’ Dan asked.
‘Depends what you want,’ Amy said. ‘Money? Education? A new life? America is the richest country in the world, and right now you’re in the fortunate position of having information that America wants.’
Dan’s nose had stopped bleeding and he put his hands behind his head and laughed, showing off bulging shoulders and pectorals in the process.