Matthew Palmer - Enemy of the Good

“Don’t worry about it. It’s my pleasure. Not much going on here on the weekend. I’m Gabby, by the way, Gabby Rider. I’m the ECON officer and your cubicle mate. I’m also your sponsor.”

New arrivals at embassies around the world were assigned sponsors who would show them around town, introduce them to the embassy community, and stock their refrigerators so they would not get mugged on their first night in town looking for a convenience store. Sponsors were assigned by the community liaison officer, or CLO—a position typically filled by an embassy spouse, usually female and always unnaturally chirpy. The CLO was responsible for embassy morale, and the position was predicated on the belief that the psychological impact of intestinal parasites, car jackings, and intrusive surveillance by the intelligence services could be papered over with Halloween parties, children’s play groups, and adult pub crawls. In assigning sponsors, CLOs typically tried to pair like with like. That Gabby was not wearing a ring suggested that she was “the other single woman” in the small embassy fishbowl, and the CLO had decided that they would be friends. It was social engineering on the most micro level and Kate found it irritating.

She promised herself that she would not take it out on poor Gabby, who was just doing her job.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. Looks like you had a rough trip.” Gabby touched her temple in the same place where Kate’s bandage was visible. Underneath were three stitches.

“I had an accident on my last day in Havana.”

“Then how about I drive into town. The traffic here can be a bit nuts. The car’s out front, and I thought we’d just go straight to your apartment. You must be beat.”

Kate’s smile this time was genuine as she contemplated first a shower and then a nap.

“I’d like that, thanks. I’m looking forward to a little downtime.”

“You won’t get much, I’m afraid. The ambassador has asked you to dinner tonight at the residence. Just the two of you.”

Kate shook her head resignedly.

“Yeah. I thought that might happen.”

“Are you two…?”

“Yes.” Kate’s answer was just a little too quick and curt to be polite.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just…”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m hoping no one treats me different. I’m here to work.”

“Of course.”

Kate was expecting the typical embassy airport pickup vehicle, an armored SUV suitable for urban warfare. But Gabby had brought her own car, a cherry red Mustang GT convertible with a white racing stripe.

“Sweet ride.”

“Only one in the country,” Gabby said proudly. “Straight up American muscle. An ambassador for the United States in its own right.”

“V-8?”

“Accept no substitute.”

Gabby shot up several notches in Kate’s estimation. Maybe it was shallow to like someone because of her taste in cars, but so be it. Gabby gained another notch when Kate saw that she had opted for the six-speed manual transmission.

“You do any racing?”

“As a kid. Karting mostly. Both of my brothers were real gearheads. The older one tried his luck at racing for a while, but could never make a real go of it. He runs a Ford dealership outside of Indianapolis.”

“So you got a good deal.”

“The very best.”

Kate’s bags just fit in the Mustang’s undersized trunk. In an embassy Suburban, the drive into town from Manas airport took almost an hour. They made it in less than half that time, as Gabby pushed the sporty Mustang down the two-line “highway” with reckless abandon.

It was all familiar to Kate. Change was slow to come in this part of the world. Donkeys grazed in the fields on either side of the road. Small farm stands lined the route, piled high with fresh melons and tomatoes, cabbages, beets, and apples. In the middle distance, the awesome Ala-Too mountain range dominated the landscape.

Traffic was light on a Sunday afternoon, which was all to the good as Gabby passed overloaded trucks and underpowered Russian Ladas like they were standing still.

Farmland gave way to an industrial belt around the city and then to residential neighborhoods closer to the center. Kate’s building was on a relatively modern, or at least post-Soviet, apartment block no more than half a mile from the embassy.

“You’ve got a good building,” Gabby said. “There are a couple of government muckety-mucks who live here, some of Eraliev’s cronies. So the power never goes out. Me, I’m not so lucky. Blackouts once a week minimum.”

The apartment was pleasant enough, with two bedrooms, a small balcony, and a kitchen with Italian appliances.

“Anything you need?” Gabby asked after she had helped Kate get settled.

“I’m good for now.”

“Great. Dinner at the residence is at seven-thirty. Do you need me to pick you up? I don’t mind.”

“No. That’s okay. I know my way around.”

A shower and a catnap made her feel almost human. There was an iron in the embassy “welcome kit,” which included linens and kitchenware to see her through the two or three months it would take for her household effects to make the trip from Havana. Kate ironed out the wrinkles in a black knee-length dress. She used minimal makeup, just lip gloss and enough foundation to hide the darks circles under her eyes. The pearl necklace that she chose as her one piece of jewelry used to belong to her mother.

Kate took a look in the mirror, running a brush quickly over a last undisciplined strand of hair. Not bad, she decided, as long as she was grading on the jet-lag curve.

There was a taxi stand a block and a half from the apartment. She had noticed it from the passenger seat of Gabby’s Mustang. It was already dark, but street crime in Bishkek was not a serious problem. There were too many police and the punishments were sufficiently severe to ensure that neither petty larceny nor armed robbery was seen as an attractive profession.

There was crime in Kyrgyzstan, of course, but it was organized and high-level. At times, it was also somewhat misleadingly called politics.

It was only a ten-minute ride to the ambassador’s residence. Kate did not have any local currency, which was called som from the Kyrgyz word for “pure,” but the driver was only too happy to accept five dollars. The residence was a Georgian mansion in an upscale neighboorhood set back from the road behind a high fence and wrought-iron gates. The grounds were spectacular, with mature trees, a tennis court, and a swimming pool. The pool was formally considered an “emergency water containment facility” on the theory that the residence was the alternate safe haven for embassy personnel in the event of an insurrection or natural disaster and the huddled masses would need something to drink. The bean counters at State drew the line at luxury, but did not mind paying for security.

Kate knew the residence well. She had attended scores of diplomatic parties and embassy functions there over the years. The house itself was a graceful building with a wide stone portico and an enormous American flag that hung limply in the windless night air from a pole affixed to the butter yellow façade.

The guard at the front gate recognized her.

“Miss Kate. It’s been a long time.”

“Nine years, Mehmut. It’s nice to see you.”

They spoke Kyrgyz together, a language in which Kate was almost as comfortable as she was with English. Although written with the Cyrillic script, Kyrgyz was closer to Turkish than to Russian. Language was intimately bound up with identity, and Kate’s mother had made certain from the cradle that she would grow up fluent in Kyrgyz as well as Russian.