Matthew Palmer - Enemy of the Good

They needn’t have bothered.

The Turnkey was alone. And he was far from imposing. Karimov stood little more than five feet tall, with a prominent stoop to his shoulders. His arms were thin and bony. His hairline had receded like a spring tide. He looked up as Kate and Nogoev stepped into the room, his head turned slightly to one side, and Kate could see that his left eye was a dead milky white.

The room looked like it was used primarily as an office, with file cabinets, a desk, and a computer. But Karimov had also set up a small kitchen with a hotplate and a cast-iron skillet. The paloo looked excellent.

“What do you want, Captain?” Karimov asked, visibly annoyed and addressing Nogoev by the rank patch sewn onto the sleeve of his stolen uniform.

“Two of your prisoners,” Nogoev answered calmly as he leveled the machine pistol at Karimov’s head.

“You’re not the police, are you?”

“No.”

“Who are you then?”

“A man with a gun. But if you don’t do exactly as I ask, you can just call me Death.”

The jailer seemed unfazed by the threat.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve worked down here a long time. Death and I are old friends. He looks nothing like you. I’d ask you to lunch, but I’m afraid there’s only enough for one.”

As he spoke, the Turnkey moved his head back and forth as he trained his good eye on Nogoev and then Kate. The Scythians were visible by the doorframe, but he ignored them.

Nogoev stepped over to the hotplate and picked up the skillet with a gloved hand. He dumped the paloo on the floor and held the hot metal pan up along the side of Karimov’s face.

The jailer’s equanimity seemed to falter.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

“Where is Ruslan Usenov?”

“You’re Boldu?”

“Where is he?”

“I’ve tripped the alarm. Help is coming.”

“Can they get here before I count to three?”

“They’re on their way.”

“One.”

“You don’t have time to free him and save yourselves.”

“Two.”

“The Georgian will find you. You can’t hide from him. No one can.”

“Three.”

As he said this, Nogoev grabbed the back of Karimov’s head with his free hand and pressed it against the bottom of the skillet. The jailer screamed and the smell of burnt human skin mixed sickeningly with the mutton-fat smell of the paloo .

When Nogoev released him, Kate could see the ugly red burn marks on his face and the bubbly skin where the blisters would soon form. Her stomach turned. As much as she wanted to find Ruslan and free him, this was torture, and ten minutes ago Kate believed firmly that it was never acceptable. As Murzaev had said about her kidnapping, however, it was complicated.

The Turnkey grabbed the side of his face and cursed in a mixture of Russian and Kyrgyz.

“You will die screaming,” he promised.

“Where is Ruslan Usenov?” Nogoev repeated. He held up the skillet in front of Karimov’s good eye and moved it slowly toward the unburned side of his face.

“Not far,” Karimov squeaked.

“Show me.”

The jailer led them through the subterranean maze, stopping before one of the doors, no different than any other.

“You’re sure this is it?” Nogoev asked. “Because if it’s not, I don’t see any reason you should keep that one good eye.”

“I know where they all are,” Karimov replied, and Kate could hear in his voice how much pain he was in.

Kate opened the slide in the door. The room was pitch black.

“Ruslan? Are you there?”

“Katie?”

“Are you all right?”

“Thirsty. How long have I been in here?”

“Two days. Open the damn door.” This last she addressed to the jailer.

Karimov fumbled with the keys at his belt before finding the one he was after. With the muzzle of Nogoev’s machine pistol pressed up against his neck, he opened the door.

Ruslan stumbled out, blinking in the unaccustomed light. He looked worn and pale and he staggered slightly. Kate undid her chin strap and dropped her helmet to the ground. Then she hugged Ruslan hard and kissed him on the mouth.

When she finally released him, Ruslan grabbed Nogoev in a bear hug.

“Thank you, Daniar. I knew you would come.”

“One more, dwarf,” Nogoev said to Karimov. “Where’s Askar Murzaev?”

“The Georgian took him for questioning,” Karimov protested. “I don’t know where he is.”

Nogoev pushed the muzzle of the machine pistol up against the Turnkey’s one good eye.

“Think harder.”

Appropriately incentivized, Karimov acknowledged that he may, in fact, have at least a good idea as to Murzaev’s whereabouts. He led them upstairs one level. The third sub-basement looked more like an ordinary jail than a castle dungeon, with whitewashed concrete walls and numbered cells.

“I want you to understand,” Karimov said when they stopped in front of the door to the room where Murzaev was being kept. “I had nothing to do with the interrogation. Not my department. That’s the Georgian. I’m just the innkeeper.” His one good eye blinked rapidly and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down nervously.

“Open the goddamn door.”

Murzaev was not in good shape. He was lying naked on a thin rubberized mattress on a metal bed. A single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling cast a harsh light. The old spymaster was badly bruised. His face was swollen and there were burn marks on his chest where, Kate suspected, Chalibashvili had hooked electrodes to his flesh.

Nogoev helped his friend to his feet with a surprising gentleness. Murzaev stirred groggily. When he tried to speak, Kate saw that his front teeth were broken. Torquemada had worked him over hard.

“Don’t try to talk,” Nogoev said. “And don’t worry about identifying the man who did this. We know who it was.”

As he said this, Nogoev leveled his machine pistol at Karimov’s chest. The Turnkey squealed in fear.

“It wasn’t me. I’m not involved in the questioning.”

“I don’t really care.” The muscles in Nogoev’s right arm tensed and the gun shifted up slightly to point straight at Karimov’s forehead.

“Don’t do it, Daniar.” The tone of command in Ruslan’s voice was unmistakable. This was not a suggestion.

Nogoev looked at him, but the gun did not waver.

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because we’re better than that. Better than him. He’ll get what’s coming to him, I promise you. But in a court, representing the will of the people. Not like this.”

The muzzle shifted back and forth just a little but did not drop.

“No, Daniar,” Kate said. “I still need him.”

“We have Ruslan. That’s what we came for. We have to go. Now.”

“I’m not going to get another chance like this.” She turned to the jailer. “Zamira Ishenbaev. Where is she? You know where they all are. You said so yourself.”

There was a flicker of recognition on the jailer’s face, maybe as he connected Kate with the aunt she so resembled.

Gunfire in the corridor cut short any answer he might have given.

“The Special Police are here,” one of the Scythians shouted from the hall. “The real ones.”

“We need to get out of here,” Nogoev said.

Karimov, evidently still uncertain about Nogoev’s ultimate intentions, seized the moment of distraction to break for the door and step out into the hall, running in the direction of his putative rescuers and waving his arms wildly. They shot him before he had covered five feet, and the Turnkey’s last few moments of life were spent twitching like a fish in a pool of his own blood. Kate knew that her best chance for finding her aunt alive had died with him.