Matthew Palmer - Enemy of the Good

“I’ll do my job. Do my duty.”

“I’m sure you will. But how would you define your duty? Don’t you worry that you’ll be inclined to shade your understanding of U.S. interests in the direction of Kyrgyz interests?”

“I’m fortunate then that they align. I work on democracy, and a democratic Kyrgyzstan is good for the Kyrgyz people and good for the United States. Everyone wins.”

“For now maybe. But that could change in a heartbeat. Our strategic interests lie in getting agreement for a long-term lease on the Birlik air base. That’s about containing a rising China and beating back a challenge from a resurgent Russia. That’s grown-up geopolitics. Democracy promotion. Human rights. NGOs. Rainbows and unicorns. That’s social work. It’s the policy of luxury, and right now, Ms. Hollister, we cannot afford luxuries. We need to pay the mortgage on our superpower status. National security is not a good fit for people with delicate sensibilities.”

“That’s short-term thinking,” Kate protested weakly. “Longer term we need allies and partners in this region, not vassals and client states.”

Crespo snorted derisively.

“You’re young. It’s okay to believe that when you’re young. But you’re also awfully close to this particular problem set. Too close for my comfort. And I don’t give a rat’s ass if you go running to your uncle.”

Kate shook her head. She had no intention of complaining to the ambassador.

“Siz echteke tushungon joksuz.”

It was a common enough Kyrgyz expression that in a few short words managed to combine “you don’t understand me” with “you have no idea what’s going on” and “you’re something of an idiot.”

Crespo just looked at her, blinking. Maybe he spoke some Russian, not that the CIA would give him much chance to practice it by speaking to actual Russians, but it didn’t seem like he had a word of Kyrgyz.

“Don’t get confused about who you are,” he said finally. “Who you work for.”

“I don’t see how knowing this country and having empathy for the people here can be a bad thing.”

Crespo leaned forward in his chair until his face was no more than eight inches from Kate’s. She could see the muscles in his jaw clenched tight and there was a twitch at the corner of one eye.

“Because sometimes, sweetie, you have to take your favorite dog out behind the barn and shoot it.”

Kate was shaken by her conversation with Crespo. She had expected some friction in her new post because of her last name and the assumption that she owed her position to nepotism. She had not anticipated suspicion and hostility from her colleagues because of her mother, because of her ties to this country.

Crespo’s accusations stung because they were not entirely without foundation. Kate was self-aware enough to know that her identity was somewhat ambiguous, her sense of American-ness occasionally tenuous. But she was a professional, damn it, and Crespo was trying to strip her of that. Kate resolved not to let him succeed.

Nor would she run to her uncle and complain about Crespo’s bullying. Once she started down that road, she would never be anything but the ambassador’s niece. She would fight her own battles.

So if the CIA wouldn’t help, Kate would just have to find Valentina on her own.

She started, naturally, online. There was no trace of Val on social media, no Facebook page or Instagram account or Twitter handle. There were not many people in Kate’s age cohort who had not left a thick trail behind them as they blundered clumsily through cyberspace. That Valentina had managed to do so seemed to indicate a deliberate effort not to be found.

Kate’s next shot in the dark was the alumni office at the International School of Bishkek. The school was located on the outskirts of town where land was cheap. A high brick wall topped with rusty barbed wire surrounded the campus. The gate was guarded and entry was controlled by a metal arm mounted on a fulcrum. The security overkill was an outgrowth of a special fund established by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security to harden soft targets overseas that were in some way linked to the United States. International schools around the world were big beneficiaries of the program, and competed aggressively for security dollars for the oldest of bureaucratic reasons. Because they could. Thanks to the largesse of diplomatic security, ISB had acquired a state-of-the-art sprinkler system, biometric ID badges and card readers, and a roving patrol that was expensively trained in surveillance detection.

None of this was strictly necessary. The terrorist threat in Kyrgyzstan was low. But Kate understood the logic. Al-Qaeda had a penchant for attacking the United States where it was strong—downtown Manhattan, fortress embassies in Africa, even a warship making a port call in Yemen—but its affiliates and franchisees were somewhat less discriminating. They were perfectly content to target the United States where it was weak. American facilities around the world were engaged in a security arms race. The competition was with themselves. And the loser was dead.

American diplomatic license plates were something of a golden ticket at ISB. The guard lifted the gate without even bothering to check Kate’s ID. The school had changed little in ten years. Three two-story concrete and glass buildings were clustered around an open green space that served as a sports field, parade ground, picnic spot, and dance floor, depending on the season and the occasion. Walnut trees lined the far end of the field along with a few wizened apple trees that produced small, sour fruit that the boys used to throw at one another as they showed off for the girls.

Kate parked in the gravel lot and was somewhat surprised to find a soft, gauzy feeling of nostalgia creeping up on her as she walked across the field to the main building. Kate was only twenty-nine. Too young, she thought, to be sentimental about her youth. But her four years here at ISB had been good ones, and were the last in which she had anything that most people would recognize as a family.

Just on the other side of the main doors, Mrs. Larson was sitting behind the reception desk, as she had every morning when Kate was a student. She was an Australian national married to a Kyrgyz, who had arrived in Bishkek at about the same time Kyrgyzstan had become a country. For more than twenty years, she had been a fixture at the school, serving as registrar, guidance counselor, head librarian, substitute teacher, and informal life mentor to generations of ISB grads. Kate was aware that she must have a first name, but none of the students had known what it was. She was simply Mrs. Larson, and she had not changed. She was wearing the same type of pastel sweater set that she had worn back then. Her gray shoulder-length hair was held in place with a black hair band, and a pair of glasses with rectangular lenses and a tortoiseshell frame was perched at the end of her nose.

Mrs. Larson smiled broadly when she saw Kate and walked around the desk to give her a hug.

“Look at you,” she said. “Our little Katie, the American diplomat. And so lovely as well.”

Kate blushed.

“It’s nice to be back, Mrs. Larson.”

“Your father would have been so proud of you, dear. And I’m so sorry about what happened to your parents. Such a terrible tragedy.”

“Thank you.” There was a small lump in her throat. Kate knew that this was a conversation she would have many times over in the next few months. But that did nothing to make it easier. Being back in Bishkek made it feel as though her parents’ deaths were only a few weeks in the past.