The Leveling

A guy in a black T-shirt with bulging arms and a radio headset kept watch from behind the tall, wrought-iron perimeter fence. A couple of Turkmen soldiers in camouflage uniforms walked back and forth along the outside of the fence.

Daria stopped about fifty feet from the entrance. Mark opened the rear door and dragged Thompson out onto the sidewalk. One of the Turkmen soldiers yelled at him to stop.

Mark hopped back in the car as Daria punched her foot down on the accelerator.

As they sped off toward the northern outskirts of the city, Daria said, “They’re going to come looking for us. The Americans. The Chinese. The Turkmen. Everyone.”

Mark didn’t respond for a while. But as they were passing over the bridge that spanned the Kara-Kum Canal, the artificial waterway that ran almost the entire length of the country, he said, “They’ll come looking for me, you mean. You’re not on the CIA’s radar, and no one saw you at the arch. If you act now, you can probably make it out of the country safely.”

“We need to call Holtz.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“And we should call him now, before the Agency puts someone on him. He’s our only lead on Decker.”





39




DECKER HOBBLED DOWN the gentle slope on the right side of the road, but as soon as the couple who’d helped him had driven out of sight, he retraced his steps, climbing backward so the prints made by his bare feet would still appear to be going downhill. He couldn’t bend his left leg, but by keeping it locked at the knee, he was able to use it like a crutch.

Fighting through the pain, he half jogged, half limped up the road a bit then began to climb the steep slope above it. About halfway up, he collapsed behind a large rock as his pursuers raced by in the green Peugeot. They would catch up with the couple soon, he knew. And when they did, the couple would bring everyone back to this place. But with any luck, his pursuers would think that he’d gone down the hill in the direction of the houses below. That’s what a rational person would do.

He still had a chance. The mountains here were huge. Desolate and bare, but huge. All he needed was someplace safe to hole up in for a day, so that his pursuers would be forced to further widen their search and spread themselves thin. The terrain would be as unforgiving for them as it was for him.

Decker took out one of the pruning shears’ blades and used it to stab open one of the Coke cans. He downed it all in a few seconds, carefully put the empty in one of his jacket pockets, ate two handfuls of sugared almonds, and began to climb again. The pain in his leg from the bullet wound was excruciating, but the pain in his bare feet, swollen from the bastinado and bleeding from the sharp rocks on the mountainside that had pierced his soles, was worse. After five minutes, he collapsed.

He ate more sugared almonds, drank another can of Coke, and forced himself to continue.

At the top of the ravine, a long patch of melting snow lay in a hollow hidden from the road but exposed to the surrounding hills. Decker placed his hands on top of the snow and let them numb up while the sun warmed his face. For there to be snow in April, he reasoned, he had to be at a relatively high altitude.

Which way was the coast? He looked up at the sky, blinking from the brightness. The sun was halfway between high noon and the horizon. Was it morning or afternoon? Which direction was he facing?

He was trained to survive in the wilderness for weeks on end, to orient himself by the sun and stars, to use natural cover as camouflage. But his mind was freezing up. He looked at the whiteness of the snow and began to get dizzy. Moss grew on the north sides of trees, but nothing at all grew up here. Deep in his gut he felt a sharp stab of pain, his stomach revolting against the sudden influx of food and drink.

He should find a hole to hide in and camouflage himself.

Far below, where he knew the road must be, a car skidded to a stop.

The bottle of Smirnoff slipped out of his jacket as he struggled to stand. He slumped back down into the snow, opened the vodka, and poured it over where he knew the bullet wounds on his leg must be. The vodka soaked into the grease-stained work pants and the wound beneath burned. Decker clenched his teeth. His eyes wanted to tear up, but he was still too dehydrated to form tears.

The air was cool and fresh, and he breathed in as deeply as he could, savoring the clean taste of it.

He poured vodka into his swollen hands, soaking his fingers, then poured all that was left into his cupped palms and brought the alcohol to his face, trying to disinfect the cuts as best he could.

Buying time, that’s all you’re doing. Fighting off infection for as long as you can.