Private Wars

“Wait a second—”

“I’ll be in my office,” Crocker cut in. “Minder One to see me on completion of briefing.”

He headed out of the room, leaving her to stare after him. And she knew already how she was supposed to “deal” with Ruslan Malikov.

Kate buzzed Crocker the moment Chace entered the office, and Chace heard the answering buzz immediately, and Kate said, “You can go on in.”

She pushed into the inner office, let the door slide shut behind her, and then said, “You can’t really expect me to go and kill him.”

“That’s why I’m sending two of you,” Crocker said, eyes on the papers on his desk.

“Boss . . .”

He looked up, angry. “If you can’t do the job, Tara, you shouldn’t have come back.”

That stung, and she let him know it. “It has nothing to do with my ability to do it, it’s my willingness. It’s a bad op.”

“If you’re twitched—”

“It’s not mission twitch! Jesus Christ, Paul, it’s my bloody fault Ruslan’s there to begin with!”

“I’m not certain I agree.”

“If I’d gotten him and his son out of the country as planned—”

“You did everything you could.”

“I didn’t have a fallback!”

“A fallback wouldn’t have helped, and you know it.”

“Why send me? Why aren’t you sending Nicky with Chris?”

“You’ve met Ruslan, you’ll be able to get close to him.”

“I’ve met him, he’ll see me coming, and he’ll know exactly why I’m there! Chris and I’ll end up shot before I get a word in edgewise. Aside from the fact that Western women don’t just wander around the Afghan countryside.”

“Find a burka.”

“I don’t find that remotely amusing.”

“I don’t find any of this remotely amusing, Tara,” Crocker snarled, slamming a hand down on his desk. “As the CIA has so eagerly pointed out, and as our dear new C has cheerfully confirmed, the Powers That Be consider Ruslan Malikov our problem, and they want it swept under the carpet, and they want it swept there now.”

“He won’t be convinced, sir. I won’t be able to talk him out of anything.”

“You’re authorized to use any means necessary to dissuade him.”

“I heard the conops—I was present for the briefing.” Chace paused, caught her breath, realizing that her heart was pounding. She didn’t mind being worked up over this, but she was vaguely embarrassed to find that she wasn’t even bothering to try to hide the fact.

“You realize that if he’s under this warlord’s protection then he’s more than likely protected by Pashtunwali?” she asked. “You know what that means?”

“Yes, I seem to recall that particular issue of National Geographic, Tara. December ’03, was it?”

“The mocking is good, I like that a lot. Ruslan’s been granted sanctuary. It’s why bin Laden got away in the first fucking instance, boss, it’s the same bloody thing.”

“Bin Laden was trying to stay hidden. It’s quite obvious Ruslan isn’t. Besides, Kostum is ethnic Uzbek, not Pashtun.”

“Which doesn’t mean he isn’t beholden to Pashtunwali! If he was fighting the Soviets, he’s an Afghani, not an Uzbek, he’s going to be part of the culture. And if Kostum has given Ruslan Malikov sanctuary, then Kostum and all of his men are now duty-bound to protect him. That means that if I so much as try to harm a hair on Ruslan’s head, they’ll kill me.”

“Then let’s hope it won’t come to that.”

“I’m not seeing any other option!”

Crocker shot out of his chair as if on a wire, sending the seat banging back into the wall, beneath the window. “Then you’d damn well better find one!”

Chace caught herself, turned away, as embarrassed by his outburst as by her own. She heard Crocker moving, the chair being righted and replaced at the desk. She looked out the window at the late-summer afternoon, the traffic on distant Lambeth Bridge.

“This stinks,” she said. “And it’s wrong.”

“No,” Crocker said. “What was wrong was sending you into Tashkent in the first place so Seccombe could spring his MANPAD surprise on Sir Frances Barclay. That was wrong. What this is now is the endgame, it’s the resolution of something that started in February—hell, of something that started five years ago. So, yes, maybe it’s wrong, but it’s not a different wrong, Tara, it’s the same wrong it always was. And it’s come home to roost, and I’m sending you to deal with it because I can’t send Chris alone and because you know Ruslan.”

“We exchanged perhaps five hundred words,” Chace said.

“That’s five hundred more than Nicky and Chris combined.”

“Shit,” Chace said emphatically.

“I concur.” He held out his pack of cigarettes.

After a second, Chace grabbed one, then his lighter. She dropped the lighter back on his desk, then began pacing around the room.

“You have time to get Tamsin squared away?” Crocker asked.

“There’s a Tristar scheduled out of Brize Norton at oh-four-twenty tomorrow morning, troops and supplies,” Chace said. “Two stops before landing in Mazar-i-Sharif to resupply the support base there. Mission Planning is checking with MOD, and you’ll have to get onto the Vice Chief of the Air Staff most likely, but unless someone suddenly comes to their senses, it looks like Chris and I will be on the flight. I’ve already called Val, Missi will stay with Tam until Val can come down to stay with her.”

Crocker didn’t speak for several seconds, then said, “I was thinking. If you ever need a sitter in a hurry, Jennie could watch her.”

Chace stopped her pacing, staring at him in disbelief. “Did you just offer your wife as a babysitter for my daughter?”

“She taught nursery school for twenty years,” Crocker said, lamely. “And there’s Sabrina and Ariel, they’d be glad to help.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this your way of apologizing for handing me a bag of shit?”

Crocker considered, then said, “I suppose.”

“You realize that it’s still a bag of shit?”

“Yes,” Crocker agreed. “Yes, it most certainly is.”