Game On, Game Over

Excerpt

"The first meeting is close to being set up," Daryush said as the battered 4X4 jolted from rut to rut. "Gulab Turi is oldest among the tribal leaders. He has the most influence as well and if anyone can unite most of the tribes and turn them against the Taliban, it's him. I've laid some of the groundwork, but he wants to horse-trade for his cooperation. Get him on your side and he'll introduce you to the other leaders and make sure they fall into line." He wrestled the clutch to a lower gear and they lurched up the hill, more or less following the line of the track.

"How reluctant is Gulab?" John braced his knees against the dashboard and prayed he wouldn't pop his kneecaps.

Daryush's teeth gleamed in the black tangle of his beard. Despite some streaks of gray in his rough-cut hair and the deep lines at the corners of his eyes, his features were those of a man in his early thirties, a handful of years younger than John. "Not very. He doesn't want anyone telling him how to run his territory. Not the government over in Dushanbe, not the UN, the USA, Russia, or the fucking Taliban."

They were talking in Daryush's native Tajik, a language John spoke fluently, as he did Uzbek, Farsi, Russian, and assorted others both ancient and modern. His ability with the languages and dialects of Central Asia was one of the reasons why he'd been recruited straight out of Oxford by MI6. His photographic memory also proved an asset.

Once more he took up his usual role of negotiator, the intermediary between prospective allies, and he looked forward to both aspects of his current assignment, the overt and the covert. The Great Game, as immortalized by Rudyard Kipling, was alive and well and going strong. Only the protagonists changed.

Daryush Akramov and his brother Azad had worked for MI6 before, as 'trusted associates' rather than agents, and John certainly trusted both of them. They'd all been part of a particularly nasty mission in Northern Afghanistan six years ago. As much by luck as judgment, John had hauled them out of a potentially fatal situation. The brothers didn't forget.

"Any possible complications?" he asked the Tajik, wincing as the vehicle bucked over a series of deep potholes.

"Shaheen Jalil." Daryush waved his hand in a vaguely eastern direction. "He's in bed with the Taliban, but he's two days of bad roads from the Afghan border, not close enough to give them much active support. He's been putting pressure on the other leaders between him and the Afghans: Gulab, Mazdak Rudaki, and Jahandar Rakhmon. Mazdak is wobbling."

"And if Shaheen is removed from the equation?"

"His eldest son takes over. Ardshir is even more of a hardliner. He's a fanatic."

John frowned. The Tajik government must be well aware of the inherent instability of the area, yet they'd gone ahead and approved an international archaeological dig. Contacts in Dushanbe surmised the Tajik government was attempting to prove to the world they held total control over the region. So far, three months into the actual dirt archaeology, all was calm, but the situation could so quickly end in tragedy and blood.

"Okay," he said. "Last resort, we'll take them both out if we have to. Until then, we'll work around them."

"You're the boss," Daryush said easily. "There is another problem. American, this time."

"Damn. At the dig?" For the last three months, Daryush and his brother had been part of the small army ferrying in supplies, water, and the occasional visitor from Khorog and the much closer Ishkoshim, one of their jobs as the local jacks-of-all-trades.

"Not yet. Brent Babcock. He's a freelance journalist. He's been following some of the old Silk Roads, gathering material for a book, he says. Started out at Tashkurgan on the Chinese border, got as far as the Hanis Guesthouse in Ishkoshim two days ago. He's been asking questions about the Road and its offshoots. I'm driving him and his cameraman out to the dig in a couple of days. He's also asking about the political situation, border troubles, gems and drugs, and gunrunning."

"Bugger." Inquisitive Americans were difficult to get rid of, doubly so when they were journalists. The name sounded familiar as well. First chance he got, John would check him out. "Is he getting any answers?"

"Probably. He's throwing a lot of money around."

"Idiot. He's going to end up on the wrong end of a ransom deal if he isn't careful."

"Azad is keeping an eye on them," Daryush assured him, grinning again. Being the local odd-job men gave the brothers a great deal of useful leeway. No one ever seemed to question what they were doing and with whom they spent time. Which suited MI6 and John very well.

~

The excavation site lay in the mouth of a shallow valley stretching north-south, opening onto a wider east-west valley where a Silk Road ran in the 11th century. A caravanserai once stood there, but a long-ago earthquake partially destroyed the buildings, cracked the underground water cisterns, and changed the course of the spring. The loss of the water struck the death knell for the caravanserai, and it was never rebuilt. Rerouting of the Silk Road some miles south, closer to the Panj River, left the ruins largely untouched, if not entirely forgotten. A few centuries later another quake brought down the hillside, partially burying the site.

The museum in Tajikistan's capital city, Dushanbe, didn't have the funds or resources to excavate on its own, but international deals had been made and the dig was up and running with the assistance of postgraduate students and experts from three countries as well as Dushanbe University.

At John's request, Daryush stopped on the crest of the last rise, giving him a chance to look down on the excavations. Fortunately for the archaeologists, the site was far enough from Ishkoshim and the other outlying villages for it to have escaped being completely robbed out for building stone. Historically, only a few local farmers had used it as a quarry. Most of the outer walls of the caravanserai were visible. Originally the complex had probably been a large rectangle built of cream-colored stone, the northern section remained buried under ancient rock falls. Some exposed walls still stood several meters high, as did the ruined gate towers.

Neat trenches cut through the rubble of ages, and small figures swarmed about. Even from a distance, John could appreciate their purposefulness. On the near side of the site, a spoil heap grew, made of earth dug out of the trenches. It was regularly added to by archaeologists carrying buckets or pushing wheelbarrows. Close by, a team industriously sifted soil from the mound through fine-meshed sieves, separating dirt from tiny fragments; the samples for analysis would give them information on climate and vegetation. Their efforts were generating the growth of a second mound.

On the far side of the complex, the land rose again. There, on a small plateau, sat the encampment, a neatly laid out tent village with a central space for socializing and one very large tent which was probably the mess. One solid building stood out among the bright fabrics: a long, low prefabricated structure John guessed would house the finds, workrooms, and the Site Directors' offices. A range of portable toilets and washing facilities fed by a couple of tankers stood off to one side, a few of them partitioned from the others by a high screen.

Out of sight and an hour away to the south, ran the Panj River and the Afghanistan border. Once again, John doubted the sanity of the Dushanbe government and the participating universities.

"Okay?" Daryush asked but didn't wait for an answer. Instead he slammed the truck into gear and stamped on the accelerator, heading down the hill in a hail of scattered stones, the engine bellowing like an enraged bull.