The Leveling

“I am not speaking of the SAT. I am speaking of his performance after the shooting.”


After first running away in a panic, Heydar had returned with false bravado and piss-stained pants to try to belatedly kick at the corpse. His bodyguard had held him back.

“Don’t be too hard on him,” said Mark. “He’s still young.”

“It is not his age, of course. Did you act this way at his age?”

“I don’t know.”

As if Mark hadn’t spoken, Orkhan said, “Did I act this way at his age? Of course not. It is the person, not the age.”

“He’ll learn from it. He’s a good kid.”

Orkhan waved his hand dismissively, paused, then said, “There was no identification on the body of the assassin.”

“Tattoos? Any items we can trace?”

“Possibly. But…” Orkhan shifted in his seat. “But we must first speak of other matters.”

Mark waited for Orkhan to elaborate, but instead Orkhan just sat there looking as if he’d detected an embarrassing smell. “What other matters?” asked Mark.

“Heydar’s bodyguard has informed me that the assassin was aiming at you, not Heydar.”

Mark took a moment to let that bit of information sink in.

“Of course you realized this,” said Orkhan.

Mark hadn’t.

“And you were wise not to try to run,” said Orkhan. “Heydar’s bodyguard had a clear shot, and you did nothing to interfere with that. Allowing professionals to do their job is often the best course of action in cases such as this. Few can resist the temptation to panic, however. You have my respect.”

It was interesting, Mark thought, how a person could live off their résumé long after whatever skills they might have once possessed had atrophied. “The shooter probably thought I was the one guarding Heydar. And wanted to take me out first.”

“You do not look like a bodyguard.”

Mark couldn’t argue with that. His height was average, as was his build. Good qualities for a spy, not for a bodyguard.

Orkhan added, “I must also tell you that the only thing the assassin was carrying, besides his gun, was a photo of you. You will not take offense, I hope, when I tell you that I was relieved. Evidently Heydar was not the target. You were.”





4


Kazakhstan, a Slum Outside Almaty



FORMER CIA OPERATIONS officer Daria Buckingham strode quickly past a ramshackle street stand packed with cheap liter bottles of soda and rotgut vodka, past a stinking heap of trash—old coffee grounds and dirty diapers and apple cores and greasy auto parts—and past a cluster of small children playing in the dirt road. But she didn’t notice any of it; all she could think of was money.

How much would she need? The number kept growing. Whatever it was, she’d find a way to get it. She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life, but she wasn’t going to screw this up.

She turned down an alley framed by mud-brick walls and stepped over a wet trench that reeked of sewage. Though she was only a few kilometers from the modern, tree-lined center of Almaty, she was deep in the slums, in another world entirely.

At a metal door, where kids’ plastic riding toys had been piled up in two unruly heaps on either side, she knocked.

An old man wearing a blue flannel shirt and traditional brown tubeteika skullcap answered.

“I’m here to see the director,” she said in Kazakh, a language she could get by in because of her fluency with Azeri, which, like Kazakh, was a Turkic language.

Daria saw the old man fixate for a moment on her face. She wondered whether he could see the scars.

“He’s expecting me,” she added.

The old man stepped back, gesturing that she should follow. He led her to a small foyer. The concrete floor was pitted and stained. An open door led to a much larger room, which looked equally dreary. In the distance Daria heard a child crying and a woman’s voice rising in anger. The blue plaster walls were cracked and soiled from the waist down with grime from the hands of young children. She thought of all the little hands, and then forced herself not to. Sympathy wouldn’t help them, or her.

“Wait here.” The old man gestured to a rickety wood school chair. “I will bring tea.”

Forget the tea, just bring me to the director, Daria wanted to say, but she held her tongue and took a seat.

Patience was needed in these situations, she knew. The director would be suspicious of her intentions. It would take time. She would need to sit and listen for hours for even a modicum of trust to be established.

Her cell phone vibrated, interrupting her thoughts. A new e-mail had just come in. She glanced at the time stamp; the message had actually been sent eleven hours earlier, but with the lousy cell reception it had only just come through.

She didn’t recognize the sender’s address, so she clicked off her phone. Whatever it was, it could wait.





5


Baku, Azerbaijan