buildings. He bolted over the chain-link fence, hustling to the right and back around, running the whole way though he didn’t think the men in the car had given chase.
It took a good ten minutes to work his way back around to the street where Sheremetev lived, and he waited another ten minutes against the alley of a garage to see if the Lada reappeared. Finally, he went to Sheremetev’s door, knocking discreetly at first, then pounding to make sure he was heard. When no one answered, Ferg decided to play tourist — he reached into the pocket of his coat and took out a set of picklocks so he could sightsee inside.
The dead bolt at the front was about as secure as any tumbler lock in the West, which meant it took him nearly five seconds to open.
“Sheremetev,” said Ferguson, closing the door behind him. “Yo!”
Middle-class opulence in Kyrgyzstan was still a work in progress and, like most other city residents, Sheremetev hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it. His front room looked like a combination bedroom, den, and storage area. A small TV sat on a pile of books perched between two bookcases on the right. A daybed with tangled sheets sat opposite it. There were some paintings on the wall — Kandinsky as drawn by a five-year-old. Tall piles of newspapers and magazines sat against the rear wall; one of them had a lamp on it.
Ferguson walked toward the open doorway at the back, stepping over a pair of pajama bottoms on the floor.
The next room was a kitchen. Sheremetev sat with his back to him, head slumping over his chest as if he were dozing.
“What the hell, Sheremetev, sleeping off a drunk?” said Ferguson, stepping into the room.
It was only then he realized there was a pool of blood on the floor. Sheremetev had been shot once in the back of the head, slightly off center.
“Shit,” said Ferguson.
He might have said more but there was a knock on the door.
Hugh Conners and Stephen Rankin sat in the front seat of the van, Conners sipping tea from his thermos and Rankin sliding his thumb obsessively back and forth against the trigger housing of his Uzi pistol. They’d lost track of the CIA officer after he started playing with the kids and had circled around to Sheremetev’s apartment just in time to see a black Vax-21063 Zhighuli — better known as a Lada — pull up in front. Two men had gotten out and gone to the front door.
“Got a walkie-talkie,” said Rankin, pointing out the man waiting at the front door. “Think they’re cops or mafiya?”
Before Conners could answer, the man at the door knocked, then stepped back and drew a Makarova from a holster beneath his coat. Then he shot through the lock and rammed inside the apartment.
“Shit,” said Rankin.
Conners grabbed him before he could jump out.
“He’s out already,” said Conners, pointing at the small LED screen propped on the transmission hump. “Relax.”
Conners flicked the key and started the truck.
“Siren,” said Rankin.
“Yup,” said Conners.
“He fucking likes to cut it close.”
“That he does.”
As the siren grew louder, Conners reached down next to the seat and located his Beretta. He was just about to suggest they get out and take a look when something in the mirror caught his eye. In the next moment the back of the truck flew open.
“About fuckin’ time,” said Rankin.
“Relax, Skip,” Ferguson told him, closing the door behind him and coming forward in the open van. “Dad, get us the hell out of here.”
“Good idea,” said Conners, putting the car in gear. He saw a flashing light behind him as he pulled out; one of the men from the Lada jumped into the roadway, his hand out to halt him.
Conners stomped on the gas pedal. The man in the road was obviously rather thickheaded, for he blinked several times before ducking off to the side, barely missing getting run over. Conners wheeled the van down a narrow street to the left, then screeched his wheels on the hard pavement of the main drag. There was a knot of traffic ahead, so he slapped the van down a side street, taking out a clothesline but emerging on the cross street otherwise intact. He took a right and managed to get two more blocks before running into a dead end and having to turn around.
“We’re going back the way we came,” Ferguson told him calmly as he turned.
“That’ll confuse the shit out of them,” said Rankin.
“Let’s just drive to the Fiat,” said Ferguson.
“You really think that’s necessary?” said Rankin. He hated the little car.
“Yeah.”
“Cops,” said Conners, as a car with the light and siren passed on the street. Its driver immediately hit the brakes and pulled into a 180, slamming against a car that had been following.
“Guess you’re right,” said Conners. He started to turn down the next block, then saw that there was an intersection with a traffic light ahead; he feinted right, then went straight through, barely missing two cars in the intersection.
“They’re coming for us. Gonna have to clip ‘em,” said Rankin, looking back.
“Hate to do that,” said Ferguson.
“Gonna have to.”
“We won’t make the Fiat, Ferg,” said Conners.
“All right, the dump then,” Ferguson said.
“Place smells like hell,” said Conners.
“The rest of the town doesn’t?”
They took a corner a little too tightly, making one of the leaning telephone poles lean a little farther. Conners pushed the van left down a long dirt road, dust whipping behind them. The entrance to one of the waste areas was ahead, but they’d noticed yesterday that there was no fence and no attendants farther down the road. Inside the waste area they took a sharp turn past a stack of boulders, zigzagging down a hill constructed of treated ash from the furnaces. The police siren had begun to fade, though all three men assumed it was still in pursuit.
The road led down to the main area of the dump, where a pair of forklifts were heaving masses of compacted waste from one pile to another. Behind them, smoke curled from a ribbon of smoldering flames. A large orange dump truck blocked their path, spreading ash either to extend the road or smother the fire.
“This is where we get out,” said Ferguson, at the back door.
Conners grabbed his gun and the ruck holding their small laptop computer as Rankin and Ferg jumped out the other side with their own gear. Someone shouted something, but they didn’t stop to listen, running toward the front of the dump truck. Conners, called “Dad” because at thirty-five he was the oldest of the group, fell in at the tail end of the formation as they climbed across a pile of trash. His stomach turned over three or four times with the stench before they reached the far side.
A flock of birds — they looked like vultures, only uglier — swirled a few feet over the surface. Garbage stretched halfway up the ravine on the left, but to the right was an administrative building and then an abandoned factory shed, which was where they had put their second hideaway vehicle, a 1986 Honda Accord.
A large excavator threw its claw around the base of the refuse heap so close that Conners ducked to the right. He immediately lost his balance, tumbling into the decomposed household waste. Choking, he felt himself lifted up and for a moment thought the claw had him — but it was only Ferguson, pulling him from the muck.
“Not the time for a swim.” The CIA officer pushed him upright, steering toward the administration building.
Two workers stopped and stared at them as they ran. Undoubtedly others had noticed them — it was, after all, the middle of the day, and they didn’t particularly look like they belonged. But no one bothered them, either out of sheer surprise or because Rankin and Conners both had their guns in their hands.
