Matthew Palmer - Enemy of the Good

“It is too soon. We need more time.”

“There is no more time.”

“When do you plan to do this thing?”

“Six days from now.”

Tashtanbek was quiet for a moment as he thought about that answer.

“That is not nearly enough time to get the young men back from abroad.”

“I know.”

“Who then will fight? We are a village of old men, women, and children. All of the villages in the district are the same.”

“I know.”

“And that does not give you pause?”

“It gives me hope.”

Tashtanbek’s face actually betrayed an emotion, if confusion could be considered an emotion.

Ruslan explained what he had in mind.

When he had finished, his grandfather laughed.

It was a good omen.

Patience was one of the many virtues that an education in classical music was supposed to instill. Kate must have been absent that day. For her, the wait was excruciating. She wanted to see Ruslan right now. To warn him. But also to touch him. To hold him close and rail against the machine, the powerful forces colluding to rip her lover away from her and carry him off to some black pit where demons shaped like men flay the skin and flesh from the bones of those unfortunate enough to fall into the insatiable maw of the security apparatus.

Murzaev had told her to wait. To be patient. To check in through the usual channel for further instructions. Even on a clean phone, the spy had been characteristically evasive. But Kate was left with the impression that Murzaev was not entirely certain where Ruslan was at the moment, or when he would be back.

Kate did not want to go back to the office and face her accusers. At least not right away. Instead, after her brief exchange with Murzaev, she went to Ala-Too Square, not because she expected to find Ruslan there building a palisade to defend the foot soldiers of Boldu, but because she wanted to feel close to him. Wherever he was, and whatever he was doing, she knew he was thinking about this place. Ground zero for his dreams of a free Kyrgyzstan. Maybe he was thinking about her as well. She hoped so.

It was warm, and the sky was blue and streaked with the thin cirrus clouds called mares’ tails. Kate did not want to read too much into that as a sign. She was a rationalist, and not a big believer in God, the gods, or Jungian synchronicity. But it cheered her nonetheless.

There was a café on the west side of the square with a view of the comically heroic statue of Manas. Kate sat at one of the outside tables and ordered a double espresso. As she sipped her coffee, Kate looked out on the square and tried to picture it filled with protestors singing, beating drums, and staring down the rifle barrels of the Special Police. Maybe Ruslan was right. Maybe the regime was brittle, its support limited to a relatively small number of the Bishkek-based elite who had grown rich and fat off Eraliev’s largesse. Maybe the Kyrgyz people were ready to rise up against their overlords. If they did, Kate vowed to herself that she would stand with them, no matter where her government came down. Crespo, she realized with a flash of insight that was as uncomfortable as it was clarifying, had been right to doubt her.

That evening, she opened a bottle of decent Spanish rioja and drank too much as she played Chopin until her fingers cramped. Her sleep was fitful and troubled by dreams.

The next morning, Kate woke late, hungover and dehydrated. Breakfast was half a liter of orange juice and three Advil. She forced herself to go for a run. The first mile was agony, but as the blood started to flow, her headache receded and her mood improved. It was Saturday and there was nothing she had to do but wait. Once Kate accepted that reality, it was oddly liberating. Since being picked up off the street by Murzaev’s snatch-and-grab crew, Kate had started varying her routes and times the way she was supposed to. She picked her way almost at random through the backstreets and green spaces of Bishkek, mulling over what Ruslan and Boldu were planning and what she could do to help. At this point, there were too many variables and it was impossible to know where she might be able to plug into the equation.

At the end of the run, she stopped by the newsstand and bought one of the local papers, resisting the urge to open it up right there and look for a note. The moment she was back in her apartment, however, she flipped quickly through every page and was disappointed to find nothing.

Uncertain about what else to do with her time, Kate drove out to the stables where she had met with Ruslan alone. The caretakers, Myrzakan and Adilet, were home and they welcomed Kate with affectionate hugs and salty bowls of kumys . Myrzakan helped her saddle the stallion Aravan, and Kate rode him up to the djailoo where she and Ruslan had played their game of kiss-the-girl. Kate smiled when she thought about how she had pulled back on the reins just a little bit at the end of the race, just enough to lose.

Adilet had packed the saddlebag with a liter bottle of water, a goatskin bag of harsh red wine, some flatbread, and cheese and dried meat wrapped in wax paper. Kate stopped by a bend in the stream and ate lunch while Aravan grazed on the sweet spring grass. Frogs croaked in the shallows and a gray heron marched elegantly along the far bank looking for a meal. It was a peaceful scene, but Kate kept replaying in her mind the last, unpleasant exchange in her uncle’s office and Crespo’s whispered warning.

They’re going to kill him.

The implication was clear. A report on the conversation would be shared with Kyrgyz authorities, the GKNB or the Special Police. They would hunt Ruslan down, turning over every rock and stone until they found him. And they would murder him because there was at least a chance that he was Seitek, and Eraliev was so afraid of Boldu that he would happily kill a thousand innocents for a five percent chance that one of them was his nemesis.

Kate was certain that it was Brass who was leaking intel to the Kyrgyz security services, likely at the instruction of Winston Crandle. And it was hard to escape the conclusion that her uncle knew what was happening. Maybe it was part of a quid pro quo in the base negotiations. It would hardly be the first time the U.S. government had sacrificed its long-term interests for a short-term gain.

Kate knew one thing with a clarity that was so intense as to be almost painful. She needed to talk to Ruslan.

Mounting Aravan, she rode back to the stable and helped Myrzakan unsaddle the big stallion and rub him down. Promising to return soon, Kate drove back to town and, tamping down any expectations, stopped at the newsstand for a copy of Vecherniy Bishkek .

She did not wait to get back to her apartment. Sitting in the driver’s seat, she opened the paper to the back pages. A small blue note card fluttered out onto the floor. Kate’s heart beat faster as she picked it up. The message was simple.

Tomorrow. 45 Oberon St. Apartment 04. 23:00.

The note did not say so, but Kate felt strongly that Ruslan would be there. Somehow that would make everything okay.

The next day, at precisely nine o’clock, Kate hit the buzzer next to the number 2 in the entryway of a block of ugly concrete apartments painted a dull yellow. It was a transitional neighborhood, part residential and part industrial. Kate had driven a circuitous route, looking to see if she could spot anyone following her. As near as she could tell with her limited training and experience, she was clean.

The door clicked open and Kate walked down a short flight of stairs to a garden-level apartment with a crooked number 2 nailed to the door.