Riess showed Lydia his middle finger and took the offered beer from Walker’s somewhat unfocused grip. He drank it while leading a rendition of “The Real Story of Gilligan’s Island,” then started a second while joining in on the traditional version of Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” before excusing himself to the restroom. He used the sink first, running water to wipe the sweat from his face and the grime from his hands, then wet a paper towel to use in cleaning his skinned knee. When he finished, the only other patron in the men’s room had departed, and Riess moved to the toilet stall, where he dropped his sweats, sat on the toilet, and only then retrieved the note.
It was written in English, which surprised him, all in careful block capitals, painstakingly laid onto the paper.
CHARLES—I KNOW WHAT MY DINA WAS DOING FOR YOU AND YOUR AMBASSADOR, AND FOR THIS MY SISTER HAVE HER MURDER.MY FATHER IS SICK AND NOT FOR LAST LONG. IT WILL BE BETWEEN MY SISTER AND MYSELF THAT IS TO RULE. I AM YOUR MAN NOW. I WANT FOR MY COUNTRY MORE TO BE LIKE YOURS. I WILL DO WHAT EVER IT WILL TAKES.MY SISTER KNOWS THIS AND WILL TRY TO HAVE ME MURDER SOON.I WILL DO WHAT EVER IT TAKES.
The note was unsigned, and Riess figured that was because a signature didn’t much matter. He read it again, slower, just to be sure he understood what was being said, then got to his feet, pulling up his sweats. He flushed the toilet, and used the rush of water to hide the noise of the tearing paper. He waited until the toilet refilled, dropped the fragments into the bowl, and flushed a second time. When the bowl refilled again with nothing but dirty water, he left the stall, relieved to see that he was still alone in the bathroom.
Riess returned to the bar in time for another drink and the second chorus of “Put Your Thighs on My Shoulders,” then sang the raunchiest version of “Rawhide” he knew as a duet with Lydia. They were on the third verse when the management asked them, politely, to leave.
He took a cab home, showered, changed, and then called the Residence using the house phone. The line had been checked by the Embassy’s security staff only three weeks ago as part of their standard evaluation, and Riess was as certain as he could be that it wasn’t bugged. Even so, when the Ambassador came on the line, he kept things vague, asking when would be a good time to come see him.
“This what I think it is?” Ambassador Garret asked him.
“Yes, sir.”
“DCM is hosting a dinner tonight at his residence for a couple of the DPMs, including that bastard from the Ministry of the Interior, Ganiev. Come late, Chuck. Come very late. Hour of the wolf.”
“Hour of the wolf,” Riess agreed.
“How?” Ambassador Garret asked.
“They boiled her to death,” Riess answered. He tried to make the declaration merely factual. He failed.
“Jesus Christ.” Garret passed a broad hand over his face, wiping the sleep away from his eyes. “Jesus Christ, she’s his daughter-in-law, she’s married to Ruslan, and Malikov let the NSS lobster-pot her?”
“The Ministry of the Interior is claiming it was Hizb-ut-Tahir.”
“I know what they’re claiming. Jesus Christ.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Ambassador closed his eyes, then opened them again. “She gave you up. If they tortured her, she gave you up.”
“I think it’s a safe assumption, yes, sir.”
“When was the last time you met with her?”
“On the second, so that’s nine days ago now. That’s where I got the videotape.”
Garret frowned, remembering the recording. “Why’d they kill her?”
“It might have gotten out of control. They’re not terribly gentle about these things.”
“But they can be, Chuck, they can be. They could have fixed it so they got what they wanted and then sent her back home.”
“She would have told her husband.”
Garret looked at him, his brow creasing, thinking. “Maybe.”
“You think there’s something else to it?”
“I think that Dina Malikov was alive on Thursday, dead by Friday, and today, Saturday, her husband arranged a meeting with you to say that he wants to play ball. The timing makes me nervous.”
“I got the impression from his note that he’d been looking for an opportunity for a while, sir,” Riess said. “Dina’s death may have been the impetus he needed to make the move.”
“Which may be why they killed her in the first place. If it was the old man who did it.”
Riess heard the doubt in his voice. “You think it was Sevara?”
“I think Sevara wants the crown, Chuck. And if Malikov really is coming up on his last legs, she may be trying to clear the way for a run at the throne.”
Riess considered, watching as Garret looked away from him to the grandfather clock ticking solidly in the corner study’s corner. The Ambassador’s mouth tightened to a line, and then he used his broad hands on the broader armrests of his easy chair to push himself to his feet.
“Four in the fucking morning,” he said. “Let’s go to the kitchen. I need some coffee.”
The house was silent and dark. The trip from Riess’ house downtown to the Residence on the outskirts of Tashkent normally took half an hour, but at three in the morning, Riess had been able to make it in half that time. The roads had been almost entirely vacant, and he’d driven quickly, in an attempt to flush any possible tails. He hadn’t seen any, but that didn’t give him much confidence that he’d gone undetected. It didn’t really matter; he was known in the Embassy as the Ambassador’s legman, much to the annoyance of his immediate superior, Political Counselor T. Lindsay McColl. If Riess was called out to the Residence at half past three in the morning, then it was unusual, but not unheard of.
Riess followed the Ambassador through the house, Garret alternately switching on lights to illuminate their way, turning off others as they no longer needed them. Riess wondered if it was a security measure or a habit. Maybe he did it to keep from disturbing his wife. Whatever it was, Riess was certain there was a purpose to it. In his experience, there was very little that Kenneth Garret, the United States Ambassador to Uzbekistan, did without a very good reason.
Riess’ immediate superior in the Mission, McColl, as uptight and self-righteous a Europeanist as Riess had ever met in the Foreign Service, consistently referred to Garret as “the Grizzly,” though never while in earshot of the Ambassador. McColl did a poor job of hiding his resentment of Garret, a resentment born, Riess supposed, more of envy than of anything else. Both men shared the same political rank at State, and McColl not only had seniority, but a pedigree, and felt that Garret had robbed him of his rightful ambassadorship. The nickname was meant, therefore, as an insult of the highest order.
But limping after Garret through the Residence, Riess thought it was anything but. Six foot three and easily two hundred and forty pounds, everything on Garret had that ursine sense of scale and restrained power, from the breadth of his chest and the strength in his shoulders down to the thickness of each of his fingers. In all the time Riess had known him, first serving as a junior political officer at the embassy in St. Petersburg where Garret had been posted as Deputy Chief of Mission, and now, six years later, serving as his legman in Tashkent, he’d never once seen Garret exhibit anything but an absolute, controlled calm. No matter what he did, if he laughed, if he despaired, it was all with the same gravitas.
People underestimated the Ambassador to their peril, and while Riess himself had never heard Garret talk about it, it was well known among the Mission staffers just how tall the man could stand. No new arrival to the Chancery in Uzbekistan could make it more than a week before hearing the infamous “Fuck Off, Senator” story.
It went something like this:
Seems that Kenneth Garret had spent a year at CENTCOM as a political adviser after one of his DCM stints. His job had been primarily to offer political insight and counsel to General Anthony Zinni. After CENTCOM, Garret had rotated back to State, and then, the following year, had been nominated as Ambassador to Kuwait by the
