Matthew Palmer - Enemy of the Good

He turned to Kate as though she were just another of his soldiers and put his hands on her shoulders. His eyes shone with a heady mix of confidence and eagerness. Kate could see that this was a man soldiers would gladly follow into battle. That men like Murzaev and Nogoev were ready to fight and die for Ruslan was a testament to his own qualities as a leader. Age was irrelevant. By the time he was thirty, Alexander had conquered half of the known world. Boldu’s ambitions were considerably more modest.

“Are you sure that your brother knows what to do?” Kate asked for the tenth time.

“I assure you that no one is better than Vladimir at making trouble. For the obshchak , the borders of the prison are porous. The gangs exist half inside the prison system and half outside. Vladimir and I were able to exchange messages almost in real time. He’s organized the riots for two o’clock. We’ll show up twenty minutes later as part of the riot response. And they’ll let us in through the main gate.”

“And after that?”

“The political prisoners are kept separate from the general population. Ruslan and Askar will be in Building D. This is Torquemada’s lair and it is well defended. My hope is that many of the guards on duty at Building D will be pulled in to help put down the riot elsewhere in the compound.”

“But there’s no way to know, is there?”

“Life has no guarantees.”

“If it comes to it, do we have enough firepower to fight our way in and fight our way out?”

“Let’s go find out, shall we?”

Nogoev’s confidence was infectious, no less so for Kate’s suspicion that it was entirely feigned. Soldiers on the eve of battle, a Marine Corps friend with two tours in Iraq had once told her, wanted nothing more from their commanding officers than reassurance, and lying to them was not only expedient, it was a moral imperative. Up until this moment, Kate had not really understood that position. Now she welcomed Nogoev’s blithe dismissal of the dangers ahead of them and cared little about whether his promises were true.

Kate climbed into the back of the Black Maria. Metal benches had been welded hastily to the walls. At first, the young Scythians continued their banter: light, confident, and boastful. But as the truck bounced down the potholed streets toward Prison Number One, they grew quiet and introspective.

After a thirty-minute ride, the truck stopped. The pass-through between the cargo compartment and the cab had been left open. Kate could head Nogoev’s exchange with the nervous gate guard.

“What’s the situation?” Nogoev demanded.

“I don’t know. There’s a riot. The obshchak have taken some of the guards captive. At least one of the blocks is on fire. It’s out of control.”

“Casualties?”

“I’m not sure. There have been a few reports over the radio about guards being hurt, but I don’t know how many or how bad.”

“What about weapons?”

“The prisoners had knives and clubs and at least one pistol. Now they have more, whatever they took from the guards. And if they get into the armory, god help us all.”

The guard sounded scared, and Kate had the feeling that he was right on the edge of tossing his weapon and badge into the nearest storm drain and running back to his village.

“Okay. Settle down, son. Open the gates.”

“I’m sorry, sir. We’re on lockdown. The gates are supposed to stay closed in lockdown.”

“Goddamn it. There’s a riot in there and I have a truck full of Special Police whose job it is to break up riots. But they can’t do that from out here. Now open the fucking gates or I will make sure that you are held personally responsible for the fate of your fellow guards being held as guests of the obshchak . And when they put you in prison, I will see to it that you end up serving your time inside this exact same fucking prison. Do you understand?”

Nogoev was so completely convincing in this role that Kate had to remind herself that it was, in fact, all an act.

There was a grinding sound of metal on stone as the massive gate slid open on its tracks. An unpleasant crawling sensation shot up Kate’s spine, the same feeling she got from a knife set to a sharpening steel. A feeling of dread.

The Scythians around her all sat up straighter at the prospect of imminent action. A few rechecked the weapons they had already checked multiple times.

The truck stopped and the rear doors swung open. The Scythians unloaded quickly and spread out in a semicircle between the truck and the prison buildings. Orange flames licked through the windows of one of the buildings and black smoke poured through a hole in the roof. Small bands of prisoners in matching blue uniforms were running across the courtyard brandishing homemade weapons. There were four buildings on the compound, but one stood out. It was made of concrete rather than crumbling brick, and the bars on the windows were polished steel rather than rusty wrought iron. The front door was massive and metal and imposing. This, Kate knew, was Building D, home to Kyrgyzstan’s Tier I political prisoners and anyone else deemed a threat to Eraliev and his family.

The door was guarded by two men, but they were as uncertain, anxious, and inexperienced as the gate guards. Nogoev ordered them to open the door and they obeyed unquestioningly. Thirty seconds later they were both lying facedown on the concrete with their wrists and ankles bound tightly with flex cuffs.

Following the plan, the Scythians moved in pairs through the door and began a methodical search of the building. Kate had teamed with Nogoev, who had agreed to allow her to come on the mission but only if she stayed close to him.

There were a few guards and clerical staff in the front room. One guard reached for his gun and was shot by three different Scythians almost simultaneously. The others surrendered without a fight. Nogoev ordered them into a holding room and set a pair of Scythians to stand guard.

“Come on, Daniar,” Kate said. “Basement level. I’m sure that’s where Chalibashvili is keeping them.”

“Why so sure?”

“Because rats and snakes like the dark.”

They found a stairwell and started down with a pair of Scythians following close behind to provide cover. The stairs went down deep. Building D was an iceberg, with most of its horrors lying beneath the surface.

Four stories down, a steel fire door opened up into a dark corridor lined with rough-cut stone. This level had not been excavated. It had been cut out of bedrock. The walls were damp and slightly slimy to the touch. Plain metal doors were set into the walls at irregular intervals. There were no numbers or nameplates on the doors, just a small slide at eye level that could be opened so the jailers could talk to their charges, or spy on them.

Nogoev slid the first one open.

“Ruslan?” he asked. “Are you there?”

The only sound from within was the jabbering of a madman. The next two cells were empty. It quickly became apparent that there were too many cells to search one at a time.

“We need to find the Turnkey.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a who. The chief jailer. His name is Karimov and he plays Renfield to Chalibashvili’s Dracula.”

“How do we find him?”

Nogoev sniffed the air.

“It’s lunchtime.”

Kate copied Nogoev, and underneath the smell of mold she could detect garlic and chili and fried mutton. The ingredients of paloo .

“We used this same trick in Afghanistan when the Muj retreated to their caves. The smell of dal still makes me sick.”

The odor of paloo was clearly coming from the corridor on their right. They followed it to another split where the cooking smells led to the left. Kate could hear it now, the sizzling sound of frying sheep fat. There was a light coming from an open door up ahead, and Nogoev and their Scythian escorts raised their Heckler & Koch machine pistols to the ready position.