The Leveling

Mark glanced back at his minders from the Ministry of National Security. One of them shrugged. Orkhan had approved payment for the flight home but evidently hadn’t been more specific than that.

“Make it first.”




While waiting for his flight, Mark ate a plate of bad lamb kebabs and downed a half-liter bottle of extra-strong Xirdalan beer—the local favorite—at the Holiday Inn bar.

As he watched BBC News on a flat-screen television and nursed a second beer, he remembered that he was scheduled to teach a senior seminar on American foreign policy during the Cold War the next morning.

At a computer station in the Holiday Inn, he composed his resignation—effective immediately—to the chairman of the International Relations Department, added a vague apology for the abruptness of his departure, CC’d half a dozen colleagues, and clicked Send. That done, he turned to the long list of unopened e-mails in his account.

He deleted the solicitations to visit porn sites or buy Viagra that had slipped past his spam filter. There were a few notices from Western University concerning changes to the spring schedule, which he deleted as well.

Then he came to an e-mail with a blank subject line. It had been sent from [email protected]. Someone with the e-mail address of [email protected] had been CC’d.

If he’d been on his own computer, he might not have opened the e-mail for fear of downloading a virus. But at the Holiday Inn, what did he care?




“What are you doing?” demanded one of his minders, jogging to keep up with Mark.

“I need to back up some files.”

“Slow down.”

“No.”

Mark bought two thumb drives at a little hotel store just off the main atrium. Back at the Holiday Inn business center, he made two copies of the photo files. Then he deleted all the e-mails in his online account and changed his password.

“Change in plans,” he told his minders. “I’m not going to London.”

“There is no choice, sir. Minister Gambar has insisted that we witness you leaving the country.”

Mark recalled with photographic precision the departure list he’d seen in the airport terminal, comforted by the fact that he was naturally reverting back to his hypervigilant self. He considered about ten flights that were departing soon before deciding, “Flight nine eighty to Bishkek takes off in fifteen minutes.”

“Why there?”

“Personal business.”

That e-mail had been sent just ten hours before someone had tried to kill him. If he hadn’t been at the conference in Tbilisi, he would have downloaded all his e-mails to his laptop first thing in the morning, just like he always did.

That’s why someone had stolen his laptop.

Nobody gives a shit about your book.

Whoever had tried to kill him, whoever had ransacked his apartment, had done so because of something to do with those photos.

But why take the backup files too? Maybe they’d been looking for passwords. Like passwords to his e-mail account, so they’d be able to get the photos.

He might never get his old life back, but he wasn’t going to be driven out of town with his tail between his legs. At least not until he figured out who was doing the driving, and what could be done to stop them.

Running to catch up, Mark’s minder said, “The flight to Bishkek will already have boarded.”

Mark thought about the assassin in the library, and his conversation with Orkhan, and his stolen book, and the indignity of his ruined tomato plants, and the rushed and unprofessional resignation letter he’d just written to Western University. He thought about the view from his apartment that he would never see again and the casual way the Azeri security forces had been ashing their cigarettes on one of his plates.

Then he thought about the picture with the arm in it, an arm that he was now virtually certain he recognized.

“Then insist that they hold the plane until I’m on it. Airport security will listen to you.”

“You don’t have a visa.”

There was a reason why Mark had kept his black diplomatic passport. “I don’t need one.”





14


Washington, DC



“CENTCOM IS REQUESTING that the uss stennis divert to the Arabian Gulf.”

The president steepled his hands and waited for his chief of staff to continue.

“So that when you come to a decision, whatever course you choose won’t be limited by a lack of assets in the region. If you approve the request, the Iranians are sure to protest. You can expect a complaint to be filed with the Swiss embassy in Tehran.”

If the USS Stennis was ordered to the Arabian Gulf, three aircraft carriers would be patrolling just off the coast of Iran. The Eisenhower was already in the Persian Gulf, and the Nimitz was in the Arabian Sea.

Two aircraft carriers was normal. But three? That was an anomaly.

“If the Iranians protest, tell them the Stennis will be replacing the Nimitz,” said the president.

“They’ll know that the Nimitz has only been on patrol for one month and isn’t due for replacement.”

“Then we’ll tell them the Nimitz is experiencing mechanical problems and needs to be recalled early.”