“There’s a son,” Crocker said. “Better bet than the daughter, if I recollect.”
“No, he’s a no-go,” Seale said. “Not enough support in-country. If the son tries to take over, it’ll get bloody. And since we’ve now got NATO troops on the ground in Uzstan, nobody wants to see that, either.”
Crocker considered, then nodded slightly, apparently agreeing. His cigarette had burned down to its filter, and he dropped it on the path, stepping on it with the toe of his shoe. What Seale was saying was true enough, but it raised a whole new set of questions. If the White House was backing Sevara enough that Seale knew about it, then the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister knew it, too. Which meant that either the Prime Minister was willing to oppose the White House covertly—hence his tasking Seccombe with the job of placing Ruslan in power—or Seccombe was playing him.
Correction: of course Seccombe was playing him. It meant that Seccombe was playing him in a very different way than Crocker had imagined.
He checked his watch, saw that it was already eight minutes past five. “I should get back.”
“I should, too. I’ll contact Tashkent, let them know why Chace was there, what she was doing. Maybe the COS can point her in the right direction.”
“If he can find her.”
“Oh, he can find her, Paul. Trust me. He can find her.”
Seale turned, heading away from him, back down the path, and it wasn’t until then that Crocker realized they hadn’t shaken hands upon meeting each other.
He wasn’t sure what to make of that.
CHAPTER 19
Uzbekistan—Tashkent—438–2 Raktaboshi,
Residence of Charles Riess
20 February, 2329 Hours (GMT+5:00)
Riess lived alone, in a semidetached house with a private courtyard. The house had been provided by the Chancery, but not without difficulty. When Riess had arrived in Tashkent, he’d found that the Mission was in the clutches of a housing shortage. As a single FSO, his rank notwithstanding, he found himself on the bottom of the placement list. He’d spent seven weeks in residence at the Sheraton while his belongings had languished in storage somewhere in Belgium, living out of the hotel before everything got sorted out.
When it finally had been taken care of, though, Riess had been pleasantly surprised with his home. It was far more spacious than he’d imagined, a two-bedroom, one with a supplied queen, one with two twins, with a modest dining room, kitchen, and ample living room. Like all Mission housing, it was government-furnished with the standard Drexel pieces, all of them functional and all of them lacking personality. Carpeting was gratis, a vacuum cleaner helpfully supplied to keep things tidy.
It had taken another month for his belongings to arrive, at which point Riess had been desperate to personalize the space. He’d set up his desktop, placed his books on his shelves, erected what he self-mockingly referred to as the Shrine, the three pictures of Rebecca he’d had ever since she’d passed away. He’d put a few photographs and posters up on the walls, and in the end felt he had accomplished the job of making the house more than just a dormitory. Not that he would spend much time there, but it was a matter of principle; he was looking at a three-year tour in Uzbekistan, he damn well wanted to like where he was resting his head at night.
Monday night he returned home a little before eleven from a dinner with three Representatives of the Oliy Majlis. The dinner had run long, and Riess had been forced to stay through the entire proceeding, not because the Reps in question were particularly important to the United States’ interests in Uzbekistan, but rather because leaving early would have told them very clearly that they weren’t. McColl, of course, had been dining with the DCM, entertaining a more senior group of the same.
The meal had been held at the home of one of the Reps, near the Earthquake Memorial off Abdulla Kodiry. Riess liked the memorial far more than he liked the dinner. A series of granite reliefs depicted the rebuilding of Tashkent, surrounding a central statue straddling a ragged tear in the earth. The statue was substantial, a heroic Uzbek male standing in front of an equally heroic Uzbek female, her hair flying, together shielding a not-so-heroic Uzbek child. A smaller block of granite, this one black, had the face of a clock carved on one side, the hands pointing to 5:22, the hour the earthquake had struck on April 26, 1966. It had been one hell of a quake, 7.5 on the Richter scale, and had devastated the city, leaving some three hundred thousand homeless. The Soviets had rallied, rebuilding the city, giving birth to modern Tashkent.
Riess had taken a walk through the memorial after dinner, stretching his legs and trying to clear his head. Ostensibly, the purpose of the meal had been part social, part an opportunity to discuss changes in the irrigation system around the Aral. But like Riess, the Reps knew a lost cause when they saw one, and so most of the talk had centered on other things: concerns about Islamic extremists infiltrating the country, deteriorating relations with Turkmenistan, and finally, the rumors surrounding President Malikov’s illness. Consensus at the table had been that Sevara would succeed her father.
“Not Ruslan?” Riess had asked.
“Not unless you know something we don’t,” one of the Reps had responded, laughing.
So he’d walked the memorial, thinking about his last conversation with the Ambassador, thinking about Tracy Carlisle. Wondering why it was that she hadn’t lifted Ruslan and his son as yet. He didn’t know what to make of her, and he still didn’t know what to make of his night with her, and the visit from Tower that had come in its wake had only served to cloud the matter further.
The fact was, Riess felt out of his depth.
McColl had come into the office grumpier than usual that morning, about twenty minutes after Tower’s departure, and peeved at something the Ambassador had apparently said to S. Whatever it was, it had made its way back to McColl, and McColl, having no recourse, took it out on Riess in the form of busywork. That kept Riess chained to his desk, and it was almost noon before he could manufacture a reason to speak to the Ambassador.
“I can give you three minutes,” Garret told him when Riess entered the office.
“Then I’ll make it fast. Tower knows something is going on. He knows I was at the InterContinental, that I met with Carlisle.”
Riess expected surprise, or at least concern, but Garret exhibited neither. “I figured he might. What’d you tell him?”
“That she was an old friend.” Riess hesitated, then added, “I was with her for about four hours.”
“In her room?”
