it.”
Crocker shook his head angrily. “No, that one’s not mine. I have more than my share of ghosts, but Tom Wallace is not one of them. He is not one of them, and I won’t let you put that blame on me. You brought him into it, not me. You went to Tom for help, not me.”
“Of course I went to Tom for help! What else was I supposed to do? You’d fucking abandoned me! You were supposed to protect me, damn you!”
“I did! For God’s sake, I did everything in my power to keep you safe!”
“Safe? You were going to sell me to the Saudis!”
“It wasn’t me!”
A blue Ford, a squat and square little car, came around the bend ahead of them, and Crocker braked hard, turning the wheel, and Chace heard the tires on the Volvo leave the tarmac, felt the vehicle vibrate as it slid onto gravel. The Ford passed by, hitting its horn, and Chace winced in expectation of the inevitable sound of scraping metal, but it never came.
“It wasn’t me,” Crocker insisted.
She ended up giving him directions around Pendleside, through Foulridge and then the villages of Blacko and Roughlee, finally pointing him to Newchurch-in-Pendle. Crocker parked them on a steep incline, and they walked uphill another hundred meters or so, to the Church of St. Mary. Chace opened the gate, descended onto the grounds, surrounded by ancient gravestones and slabs. The first recorded construction on the site dated back to 1250, though the current building, a small stone nave and chapel with a squat tower, was most likely built four centuries later. The church and its grounds served as a minor tourist attraction, purportedly linked to the infamous Pendle Witches. Nine women had been hanged in 1612, and one had died in her prison cell. Two of the dead were said to be buried in the yard. Chace suspected it was utter nonsense; the women in question had both been convicted of witchcraft, and, thus declared to be in league with devil, would never have been interred on holy ground.
Etched into the stone tower was a small, odd oval. Called the Eye of God, it was said to have been added as a ward against the witches who had once roamed the nearby hills. Now it overlooked the steps down from the road, the trees, and the distant Forest of Trawden, part of the larger Forest of Pendle.
Chace walked down past the church, finally stopping on the grass beside one of the weathered grave slabs. The wind snapped at her coat and trousers, making the temperature feel even colder. From behind her came the ring of Crocker’s lighter opening, closing, and the scent of his tobacco whipped past her, torn through the air in the wind. She’d given up smoking as soon as she’d learned she was pregnant, just as she had given up alcohol, and it pleased her to discover that the proximity of Crocker’s cigarettes failed to entice. She’d had a few drinks since Tamsin had been born, wine at dinner, whiskey on occasion, but thus far, that was the only vice of hers to have returned home.
“There’s a job,” Crocker said.
“I don’t want a job. I have a job, I’m Tamsin’s mother.” She turned, looking up the slope at him, her expression daring him to call her a liar.
Crocker squinted past her, into the wind, into the distance, and decided to continue as if he hadn’t heard. “It’s in Uzbekistan, and it needs to happen soon, within the week. Have you been following the news?”
Chace refused to answer.
“You know the strategic importance,” Crocker said. “You know that Uzbekistan is considered a crucial ally. The Americans have been using the country as a staging ground for their operations, working with the Uzbeks to gather intelligence on al-Qaeda, on what’s happening in northern Afghanistan. They’ve built air bases, put troops on the ground, all manner of infrastructure and support for personnel and operations.
“You know the human rights angle. What happened with Ambassador McInnes.”
She simply stared at him, trying to resist his attempt to draw her in. Robert McInnes had been the U.K.’s Ambassador to Uzbekistan, recalled in late 2004 because of his insistence on publicizing Uzbekistan’s appalling record on human rights. He’d made the papers, in particular the
It had stuck in Chace’s memory because, among his targets, McInnes had pointed a finger directly at SIS, accusing the Firm of profiting from the questionable intelligence gained from these torture sessions. McInnes had been recalled to London following his final outburst and forced out of the Foreign Service within a week of his return home. The last she’d read, the former Ambassador had retained an attorney and was planning on suing the Government.
“President Malikov is not long for this world, Tara,” Crocker said. “The old man’s got two kids, and it’s anyone’s guess which one of them will take over when he goes. There’s a daughter—”
“Sevara Mihailovna Malikov-Ganiev.” She shook her head, angry that she’d taken the bait, unsure whether or not he was testing her, or if he was expecting a faulty memory. Whichever, it was galling. “The son’s name is Ruslam Mihailovich Malikov.”
“Ruslan Mihailovich,” Crocker corrected. “Roughly four days ago, Ruslan’s wife was arrested, tortured, and murdered, most likely by the NSS, possibly by Sevara’s agents. We think Ruslan may be next on Sevara’s hit list, that she’s preparing to clear the way for a run at her father’s position.”
“Ruslan should probably leave, then.”
“Yes, well, what you don’t know is that Ruslan Mihailovich also has a two-year-old son, Stepan Ruslanovich.”
Chace folded her arms across her chest. “So he should take the boy with him.”
“Your job is to get them out of the country,” Crocker said. “Both of them. Get them out, and bring them safely back to England.”
She stared at him.
“We’ve been told that Ruslan is pro-West, that he’s a reformer in the making. If you can confirm that as well, so much the better. We get him here, we can discuss the viability of a coup, either against his father or against his sister, whomever, depending on the situation. Since you’ll already have a working relationship with Ruslan, you’ll be expected to help facilitate and implement that also.”
Chace continued to stare at him.
Crocker drew a last time from his cigarette, then dropped the butt, watching as the cinder died in the wet grass. From inside his overcoat he withdrew a large gray envelope, creased lengthwise from where he’d carried it, folded, in an inside pocket. He held the envelope out to Chace, who made no move to take it.
“There’s one hundred and fifty thousand pounds in an account at HSBC,” Crocker said. “It should cover expenses for the operation, anything that might arise. I’ve included contact protocols as well; you’re to report directly to me on this, and not through official channels. The documents enclosed, and the account, are in the name of Carlisle, Tracy Elizabeth, the same identity you used during Dandelion, you remember.”
“You’re recycling a cover?” She looked at him, now even more suspicious.
“There’s no reason to believe it was compromised. It’s still current, all the paper, right up to the passport.”
“It was used. That’s what compromises it.”
“Would you take the damn envelope, please?”
“I don’t want the envelope, Paul. I don’t want what’s inside it. I don’t want the job.”
Crocker lowered his hand, the wind catching the envelope in his grip, bending it skyward, as if trying to make it into a kite. Chace saw his eyes flick along the fence that bordered the lane, as paranoid as she was that they might be observed. Somewhere, from farther below on the hillside, they heard a child’s laughter.
“There’s nobody else,” he said. “It has to be you.”
“There should be three others else,” Chace responded. “Unless you’ve managed to kill all of them, too, and as I saw Nicky only Sunday last, you’d have been working damn quick at it.”
“I can’t use the Minders.”
“Go to Cheng.”
“Cheng’s in Washington, and that’s beside the point. I’ve been asked to keep the involved parties to a
