inside the trigger guard, refusing him a second shot.
Then Lankford had his Browning out, pointed at Kostum’s face, and Chace had the Makarov in her hand, and Stepan was wailing, and Kostum was falling back against his seat, shaking his injured left hand. The look on his face was devoid of anger, even of pain, just an acknowledgment of his failure, and already Chace could see him finding his resolve. This wasn’t what Kostum had wanted, but in its way, it satisfied his obligations. He had tried, and he had failed.
Lankford was saying something, but Chace couldn’t hear him. She saw Kostum start slightly in his seat, glance down at his shirt, then look back to them. With the pistol in one hand, pointed at him, Chace leaned forward, digging into the folds of his shirt with the other. Kostum’s expression tightened with anger, but he didn’t move, and she found the phone nestled near his hip. When she pulled it out, her hearing had returned enough that she could dimly make out the trill of an incoming call.
“Get him out of the car,” Chace said to Lankford, then turned her attention to the phone.
It was another satellite model, not unlike the Iridium she’d brought with her to Tashkent in February. She set the Makarov in her lap, pulling the earpiece from the radio free while using her teeth to extend the antenna on the phone. She punched the receive button with her thumb and put the unit to her ear.
“Hello, Ruslan,” Chace said, and she hoped she wasn’t shouting.
There was a moment’s pause. “You have my son with you?”
Chace looked at the boy, his face stained with tears, snot bubbling over his upper lip, miserable in the backseat.
“I do. Where are you? I’ll bring him to you.”
“In a few minutes. After Sevara has boarded her helicopter.”
“Now,” Chace disagreed. “Or I don’t bring him to you at all.”
There was a second pause, Ruslan hesitating, trapped between conflicting desires.
“You kill her, you’ll never see your son again, Ruslan. Even if you do manage to disappear into Afghanistan for the rest of your life, you’ll never see Stepan again.”
“You will kill him?”
“I’ll take him back to Uzbekistan. Your sister’s husband is still there.”
His muttered curse came over the line.
“You’re running out of time, Ruslan.”
“Come toward the water,” he told her. “Quickly.”
He hung up.
Chace shifted the Makarov to her coat pocket, then opened her door and moved around the hood to the driver’s side, to climb back in. Lankford stood with Kostum, now at the side of the road, the Browning still pointed at him.
“Where are you going?”
“Ruslan’s down by the river. I’m going to get the missile.”
Lankford didn’t look away from Kostum. “You’re taking the kid with you?”
“He wants his son.”
“And Ruslan will just hand the Starstreak over in trade, will he?”
“For the boy’s sake, let’s hope so,” Chace said.
He’d taken a position another half-kilometer away, along a dried wash at the edge of the water, and Chace saw him from a distance, and thought that he’d picked a fine place to stage an assassination. She’d expected him to take higher ground, but instead, he’d gone for lower, using the shelter cut from the earth by the water long ago. It was a good spot, not unlike the one Chace had picked for the failed rendezvous with Porter nearly seven months earlier, and well within the maximum range of the Starstreak.
He had the MANPAD deployed, resting on his shoulder, nose to the ground. Chace guided the Cherokee toward him along the river’s edge, closing the distance as quickly as she could manage without giving him the impression she would run him down. When he thought she’d come far enough, he lifted the missile and pointed it at the car, indicating that she should stop.
Chace killed the engine, stared out at Ruslan through the shattered windshield. Behind her, still belted into his seat, she heard Stepan snuffle as the latest bout of his tears finally subsided.
“Step out of the car,” Ruslan called to her.
From the backseat she heard Stepan cry out, surprised and frightened and delighted all at once, hearing his father’s voice. Chace could hear the child moving, straining against the lap belt, caught a glimpse of the little boy’s reflection in the rearview mirror as he struggled against the safety restraint.
Chace got out of the car, slamming her door, then looking again to Ruslan. He was dressed much as he had been the last time she’d seen him. About two meters past him, resting in the dirt, was the crate for the Starstreak, opened and empty, and propped against it, a Kalashnikov. She wondered idly how he’d gotten himself and the missile into position, then realized there would have been a thousand ways to do so, that all it took was money to bribe the right people and the will to make it happen.
“You killed Kostum?” Ruslan asked.
She shook her head. He was still holding the Starstreak as before, the launch tube roughly parallel to the ground, but skewed away from her, his eye clear of the aiming unit. Chace turned, looking in the direction Ruslan faced. Across the water, the Uzbek minefield sloped upward, toward the electrified fence. She could see the bridge in the distance, and a couple of vehicles parked near the checkpoint, but not the Sikorsky.
“You’re waiting until she takes off,” Chace said.
“If my son had not been aboard, I would have shot her down before she landed.”
Stepan called out from inside the Cherokee, his voice climbing in volume and pitch. Ruslan didn’t answer, but she saw him look to the vehicle, and for a moment thought he might actually lower the Starstreak and go to his son.
But he didn’t.
“Then what?” Chace asked him. “You and Stepan disappear into Afghanistan, never to return?”
“It is a country made for hiding,” he answered.
“Zahidov’s dead.”
“A good start, but not enough.”
“Put it down, Ruslan.”
He shook his head. “I must do this.”
“Forget that she’s your sister. She’s the President of Uzbekistan.”
“She killed my father. She killed my wife!”
“Zahidov killed your wife.”
“At her request! At her pleasure! She is a monster, you know this!”
His voice was shaking now, churning with anger and desperation, with his need for Chace to understand. And she did understand—too well she understood. Blood cried for blood.
“She’s the President of Uzbekistan,” Chace repeated. “I can’t let you kill her. Please, put it down, Ruslan. You have your son, let that be enough.”
“It isn’t enough!” He glared at her, then turned his head slightly, suddenly, and she knew he was listening for the rumble of the helicopter lifting off from across the river. So far, there was only the running water of the Amu Darya and their own voices.
“It isn’t enough,” he repeated.
Chace turned, walking around the rear of the vehicle to the passenger side. She looked back toward the bridge as she did, thinking again that Ruslan had done an excellent job of picking his spot. The helo would be visible in the air as it turned back toward Termez. Fired from here, the Starstreak could hit it in mere seconds, and there was even a chance that the missile would never be seen coming.
When she reached Stepan’s door, Ruslan snapped, “Leave him inside.”
Inside the Cherokee, Stepan was looking at her, wide-eyed. Chace turned.
“Put it down.”
“I cannot.”
