Tom Callaghan - A Spring Betrayal

We passed a farmer’s wooden cart, a sour-looking donkey trudging away at the front. Graves hit the horn, but the donkey plodded on, the farmer giving us a sideways scowl as we passed. The donkey didn’t even do that. A motorbike overtook us, its rider anonymous in leathers and a full-face helmet, revving the engine and disappearing into the distance.

We drove on for three or four kilometers, and then, rounding a bend, we saw the motorcycle lying on its side, wheels still slowly spinning. The rider lay face down a few feet away, one arm thrown out above his head, the other folded beneath his body. The only way we could pass was by driving into the ditch on either side of the road.

Graves swore, and applied the brake, so we slowed to a halt about five meters away.

“You stay here,” he ordered, opened the car door. As his foot touched the ground, the motorcyclist rolled over, producing a gun from underneath his body, aiming it in our direction.

Graves scrambled underneath the driver’s seat and came up with a Makarov. I ducked down as a bullet shattered the windshield and embedded itself in the driver’s headrest. I managed to twist around and grab the door handle. Graves crouched behind his open door, returning fire, but by now the assassin was shielded by the cover of his bike. I heard a bullet thud into the door; time to go. Another bang, and the car lurched forward and sideways; the gunman must have hit one of the front tires. I threw myself out of the passenger door, landing and rolling onto my bad shoulder. I struggled to my feet, ran for the safety of the ditch. It was only a few feet away, but my shoulder blades tensed, waiting for a bullet to rip through my spine. A lifetime later, I was face down in mud and sheep shit, wondering how to get the handcuffs off.

I didn’t know whether the gunman was out to get Graves, or me, or both of us, so I decided my best plan was to stay where I was and hope they’d forgotten me in the turmoil. I risked a quick look, saw Graves pull the trigger on an empty magazine. As he reached inside the car to reload, I seized my moment, levered myself up onto my feet, ran toward the shelter of some birch trees.

I looked back to see the motorcyclist jump up, pull the bike back onto two wheels, and race in hot pursuit. Graves was back behind the wheel of the car, the engine stalled, or maybe hit by a not-so-stray bullet. There didn’t seem much point in trying to outrun a motorbike, so I tried to make myself invisible behind the trees. If that didn’t work, maybe I could throw my remaining shoe at him.

The motorbike came toward me, rider crouched over the handlebars, weaving from left to right to be less of a target.

“Climb on!” the rider yelled, twisted the throttle. I stood still for a few seconds, and then ran forward and hoisted one leg over the pillion. Even before I was properly balanced, we set off over rough ground that had me bouncing up and down. We didn’t stop until we were well out of range, braking so suddenly my nose slammed into the leather jacket in front of me.

I watched as gauntleted hands removed the helmet.

“Do I have to do everything for you, Akyl?” the voice demanded. Honey spilled over vanilla ice cream.

“I was really pissed off with you when I found out you’d gone,” Saltanat said, sipping at a cup of hot chai . We were sitting in a small coffee shop in Tungush, on our way back into Bishkek.

“I was pretty sure you would have gone either to the Ibraimova apartment or to keep watch outside Graves’s house. So I borrowed a motorbike, well, stole it, arrived at your apartment just in time to see Kurmanalieva supervising two of her thugs dumping you in the trunk of her car. I couldn’t tell whether you were dead or unconscious, so I followed them back to Graves’s house, waited outside.”

Saltanat took another sip, then lit a cigarette, watching the smoke rise upward.

“I wasn’t going to storm the house. I had no idea where you were, how many people were there. So I waited, put in the call to Kurmanalieva. I saw her drive away, waited some more. Then Graves drove out, so I followed you. You know the rest.”

Saltanat had snapped the linking chain of the handcuffs, but I was still wearing fancy bracelets. The waitress had noticed them as she brought us our tea, and I’d made some joke about a bet gone wrong. She didn’t laugh, simply looked at me as if I was crazy, slapped down the chyoht and walked away. Saltanat didn’t laugh either.

“I’m beginning to think you’re a liability, Akyl,” she said, staring at the tip of her cigarette, her eyes refusing to meet mine. I felt my heart stop, kick-start, and turn over, my throat suddenly parched and sore.

“That sounds like the start of a familiar song,” I said. “One of those traditional songs about parting lovers, and eternal tears and all that stuff.”

“No,” Saltanat said, and I could see she was choosing her words with great care, “I’m not saying that. But we have to end this, Akyl. I don’t just mean nailing Graves for the murders, avenging Gurminj. But we go two steps forward, one step back, one step forward, three steps back.”

It was as close to a declaration of sorts that I’d ever heard her make.

She paused, stubbed out her cigarette, started to reach for another, then put down the pack.

“Give me your wallet,” she said. I picked up the chyoht and looked at the total.

“I was going to pay,” I said, starting to count out a handful of som notes.

“No, give me your wallet,” she repeated, and then plucked it out of my fingers.

“This is what I’m talking about, Akyl,” she said, flipping past the slots for my non-existent credit cards. She pulled out a passport-sized photograph, and held it up for me to see. Chinara, on the Ferris wheel.

“I won’t compete with a dead woman,” Saltanat said, and I could hear the determination in her voice.

I took the photo from her and started to tear it up, but Saltanat reached over the table to stop me.

“Nice gesture, I appreciate you making it,” she said, “but you need to decide what is important to you.”

“What do you want me to do?” I said.

“You’re the detective, solve the mystery,” she said. “And anyway, it’s not about what I want you to do, it’s what you want to do. I’m not looking for a lapdog.”

I nodded, afraid words would fail me if I tried to talk about her, about Chinara, what they both meant to me. Can you love two people without betraying each of them with the other, even after death? I didn’t have an answer. I wasn’t even sure there was one.

We stood up, and I put the money for the bill on the table.

“Just a couple of things; where are we going to stay tonight? The safe house is out, my apartment’s out, the hotel’s out. And more important,” and I held up my wrists, clanking the handcuffs together, “when can I get rid of the jewelry?”

“You’re such a dead shot, why didn’t you put two into Graves when you had the chance?” I said, pouring champagne for Saltanat, mineral water for myself.

“Wouldn’t you rather he stood trial, be exposed for the monster he is?” she replied. “I want him to know his empire and his reputation are crumbling around him.”

“Nice idea, but who knows how many judges and lawyers and politicians are on his payroll,” I said. “So he has a dungeon in his basement? He’s an adult. The films? He knows nothing about them, they’re probably fakes anyway. The thugs he surrounds himself with? He’s a rich man in a poor country, he needs security.”

I looked around at the suite Saltanat had booked at the Hyatt Regency, the best hotel in Bishkek, and the most expensive. I assumed Uzbek state security were picking up the bill; Saltanat had argued no one would expect a fugitive from justice to hide out in such a palace, that we were more likely to find anonymity here than in some backwater where the management were paid to make tip-offs to the police. I didn’t know whether she was right or not but it had to be better than staying in Penitentiary One for fifteen years.