Matthew Palmer - Enemy of the Good

“Not for those of us who live here.” Valentina’s response was passionate, bordering on angry. “Freedom. Dignity. These are the only things that matter. And they are not especially complex ideas.”

“Val, you can’t do this alone. I’ve seen it up close. I’ve lost family to it. We can help you. I can help you. I did it in Cuba.” Kate made the argument with force and conviction, but the still fresh memories of losing the fight with the chargé d’affaires and the RSO in the embassy’s Tank weighed on her. When it all hit the fan, could she really count on her own government with its infuriating inclination to hesitate, vacillate, and hedge its bets? Unconsciously, she ran a finger along the now largely healed laceration at her temple.

“What are you offering?” Val asked.

“First and foremost is validation. If the United States and other governments start highlighting Boldu as a legitimate expression of democratic ideals rather than anarchists or just a bunch of disaffected kids, it would strengthen your hand. You’d get attention to the cause, converts, allies. You’d raise the costs for the regime of simply quashing you under the boot of the GKNB and the Special Police. There would be more positive media attention, not only in the West but here at home as well. We could train your supporters in grassroots organization, poll watching, and public relations. The nuts-and-bolts stuff of a democracy movement. And, if you need it and want it… but only if you need it and want it… we could help you with money.”

Val sipped her coffee and seemed to be thinking over carefully what Kate had said.

“Do you remember Dr. Geisler?” she asked finally.

“How could I forget? Eleventh-grade honors literature. It was a requirement for the IB diploma.” Both Kate and Valentina had been part of the international baccalaureate program at ISB, an intense standardized curriculum that made it easier for globe-hopping third-culture kids to move from school to school.

“Remember how he was always force-feeding us Goethe?”

“It was better than the philosophy class we took with him senior year. All that Nietzsche and Kant with his accent so strong it was like listening to it in the original German.”

“I suspect you also remember when he had us read Faust .”

“It’s not like that, Val.”

“Isn’t it? The good doctor bartered earthly success in exchange for his soul. I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“So does that cast me in the role of Mephistopheles?”

“You tell me.”

“If I remember right, Faust made it to heaven in the end. Thanks to the grace of the eternal feminine. That sounds more like you and me.”

“Goethe didn’t have the courage of his own convictions. And he was kind of a sap. If he were alive today, he’d be writing romantic comedies for some cable channel. But it’s an old tale, and most versions end with Mephistopheles carrying Faust’s soul to hell.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. I’m not asking you to sell your soul or sign some contract reeking of sulfur and written in blood. I just want to meet with Seitek and offer my help. Our help. He doesn’t have to take it. I just want him to hear me out.”

Valentina finished her coffee. She turned the cup upside down on its saucer as though she were a village woman about to read Kate’s fortune in the pattern of the grinds at the bottom of the cup. But she had been drinking a latte rather than a Turkish coffee and the old ways of the village did not mesh well with the modern world.

Valentina reached into her purse and pulled out a violet five-hundred-som note. She held it up so that Kate could see the face on the front before setting it down on the table to cover the cost of the coffees.

The five-hundred-som bill featured an image of Sayakbay Karalaev, a renowned Manaschi, one of the reciters of the Epic of Manas . It was a good omen.

Valentina stood up.

“Don’t look for me,” she said. “I’ll come to you.”

“Iwant to get her out of there.”

Ruslan was emphatic, and his tone brooked no argument. He got one anyway. Such was leadership in a democracy.

“Bermet’s in Number One. She might as well be on the moon. All you’d accomplish is to get her rescuers killed.”

Daniar Nogoev was a good man, loyal to the cause and absolutely fearless, at least when it came to his own personal safety. Nogoev was a Red Army veteran, an infantry officer who had fought the mujahideen in the harsh, unforgiving mountains of Afghanistan. He was in his sixties, reliant on bifocals, and what was left of his hair was steel gray, but he still carried himself like a soldier. His courage was beyond question. When the subject at hand was a risk to the movement, however, Nogoev could sometimes be, in Ruslan’s opinion, overly cautious.

Meetings of the council were always dangerous. This was the inner circle, the only people in Boldu who knew that Ruslan was Seitek. One security slip and the GKNB could decapitate the entire movement. They were all of them sensitive to what had happened to Azattyk. None were eager to repeat that mistake. A bottle of vodka shared among them helped to take the edge off the tension.

They were meeting in an apartment, one of hundreds in a nondescript block of concrete high-rises. The eight members of the Boldu Council sat in a rough circle in the living room on mismatched chairs. The shades were drawn. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony no. 5 played on the radio to help mask their conversation from any listening devices. A single floor lamp in the corner of the room cast dark shadows. Conspirators’ shadows. The apartment belonged to Nogoev’s sister. Family ties were the closest proxy they had to a thorough background check. Even so, this was the one and only time they would meet here.

“What do we know?” Ruslan asked. “Askar, what have you learned?”

“It’s not good,” Askar Murzaev replied, choosing his words carefully, clearly concerned that an inaccurate word or an undisciplined phrase could push the Boldu leader into a rash decision that would cost lives they could not afford to lose. Murzaev measured all his words, spending them reluctantly as though each were a gold coin in a miser’s purse. He was short and slight with features that were so Asian he could have passed for Chinese. His stock-in-trade was information. Murzaev had spent nearly fifteen years in the military intelligence directorate. He had been purged after exposing a major case of military contracting fraud that led back to Eraliev’s brother-in-law. In truth, Murzaev had been lucky to escape with his head still fixed to his shoulders. Few who crossed the Eraliev family could make the same claim.

He kept his cards close to his chest, a habit that Ruslan both understood and respected, but one that could be infuriating if you were playing as partners.

“Tell me,” Ruslan demanded.

“We have some supporters on the prison staff, not guards unfortunately. Just clerical. So there are some gaps. What we know is that Bermet spent the last six days in solitary confinement. There will be a show trial in three days’ time. It shouldn’t last more than a day or two. Then, I’m afraid, she is likely to be sent to the Pit for interrogation.”

Ruslan shook his head.

“I won’t allow that.”

“She won’t last long,” Murzaev said. “Two days. Maybe three. She’ll tell Torquemada everything she knows. Please tell me that she doesn’t know your name.”

That was the risk. As awful as Ruslan felt about Bermet’s sacrificing herself to keep him from getting caught, Murzaev and the others on the council had to think first about what she knew. What she could be compelled to divulge. Boldu was extremely security conscious, bordering on paranoid. The group used a cell structure to minimize the number of activists that any one prisoner or turncoat could betray. As far as the Kyrgyz system was concerned, Ruslan Usenov was living a comfortable life somewhere in Europe. If they knew his real identity, the security services could and would threaten his family. Ruslan had no close relatives in the capital. His father was dead and his mother was safely in exile, but he had grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles, all of whom would be targets for revenge. He kept a low profile as Boldu gathered its strength, but Ruslan believed that the time to strike was approaching rapidly.