The Leveling

The floor is damp. Almost muddy. Water’s getting in from somewhere.

Decker slowly made his way over to another wall, and here, up near where the brick wall met the concrete slab of the basement floor, he felt a damp, flaky substance on the brick and mortar. He put a finger to his mouth and tasted salt.

When Decker had patched up the leaky basement walls of his family home in New Hampshire, he’d tasted that same salt.

It came from disintegrating mortar, or from the soil behind the mortar. He knew it had to have leeched through the porous wall, pushed through by the water, before crystallizing. There was no leaky bathroom right above him. The only place that water could have come from was from rain or snow.

Which meant the salt patch on the wall had to be close to the exterior of whatever building he was in.

Decker felt the mortar joints. Behind the salt crystals, they were damp and soft. He hammered his elbow right into the center of the soft spot, and felt a little movement.





24




MARK STOOD UP and walked slowly over to the basement window. Outside lay a pile of yellow snow. He could faintly smell the cat piss even though the window was closed. With his back turned to Daria, he said, “Holtz said Deck had a thing for you.”

They’d all known each other back in Baku. Mark hadn’t been surprised by what Holtz had said. Daria, scarred or not, was the kind of woman who attracted a lot of guys. Some were attracted to her broad smile, some to her high cheekbones, some—he counted himself in this group—to her quick wit and natural intelligence.

Mark figured Deck—not exactly the most sophisticated guy—had probably just fancied her ass.

Daria’s chair creaked as she adjusted herself in it. Eventually she said, “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Did you have any contact with Deck—conversations or e-mails or whatever—after you left Turkmenistan?”

“He sent one e-mail right after I left.”

“Saying what?”

“That he wanted to meet me here in Almaty after he got done with the job in Turkmenistan.”

“How’d you respond?”

“I didn’t. I mean, I like John well enough, but…anyway, I didn’t want him around when I was working here.”

“So you two weren’t—”

“No.”

Mark decided Decker was actually a pretty good guy. And a lot more sophisticated than people gave him credit for.

“And nothing since then?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Meaning?”

Daria pulled out a new-looking smartphone from the pocket of her hotel-uniform blazer, tapped the touch pad a few times, stared at the screen for a moment, and then handed the phone to Mark.

“What do you think?” she said.

Meet me in front of Turkmenbashi Ruhy Mosque, Tuesday noon. If not Tuesday, Wednesday, noon. Sincerely, John Decker.

Below that e-mail was another consisting of just three letters.

“What does W-T-F mean?” asked Mark, reading the second e-mail. “Is that a code or something?”

Daria gave him a funny look. “That’s how I responded to the e-mail with the photos attached to it.”

“With a code?”

“No not a code.” Her mouth formed a big, broad, pretty smile. “It just means, you know, ‘what’s up with this?’ I was asking whoever sent the photos why they sent them.”

Mark didn’t get it, but he didn’t feel like pressing the point. He studied the e-mail that had allegedly been sent by Decker.

Located on the outskirts of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, the Turkmenbashi Ruhy Mosque was, he knew, the largest mosque in Central Asia. But it was also a bit of a joke—few Muslims actually worshipped there because the Soviet bureaucrat-turned-dictator who’d ordered it built had inscribed his personal words of wisdom all over it, right next to verses from the Qur’an. Attendance at prayers was more likely to consist of ten worshippers than the ten thousand the mosque could hold. Mark doubted that Decker had even heard of the place.

“He would never sign off on an e-mail with sincerely,” Mark also noted.

“With me he always signed off as D or Deck.”

“And he wouldn’t use any capital letters,” said Mark. “Worth a trip to Ashgabat, though.”

“Yeah, if we show up at the mosque tomorrow and act polite—”

“You know the kind of operation I’m talking about.”

“It’s Monday night. How are you going to get a visa for Turkmenistan by tomorrow? It takes them a week just to open a piece of mail, much less process a visa.”

Mark knew Daria was right. The Turkmen government was vigilant about keeping foreigners out of their country. Even his black diplomatic passport wouldn’t let him cut any corners. But someone would be at the Turkmen embassy at this hour, and bribes to rush through visas weren’t exactly unheard of. He eyed the sack of counterfeit money.

“That’s evidence,” said Daria.

“One or two bills would be enough to prove your point about Chinese meddling. You can take a picture of the rest.”