Mirage

Mina nodded neutrally.

Arkin Kamsin offered a pack of Pakistani-made cigarettes to Cabrillo. Refusing this wasn’t a gesture of rudeness but unmanliness. One-upping the man, Juan produced a pack of Marlboros, a currency as universal as gold. He plucked one for himself and handed the pack to the Uzbek, then made a cutting gesture when Kamsin wanted to give it back after taking one for himself. The gesture brought a small smile to the functionary as he tucked the pack into a shirt pocket.

Cabrillo let the cigarette smolder in his fingers while Kamsin dragged deep on his and allowed feathers of smoke to drift from both nostrils.

Hospitality rituals complete, the man leaned forward so his belly spilled over his imitation leather belt. “Your associate was somewhat vague about why you wanted to meet with Karl’s widow.”

That reality still hadn’t sunk in because Mina flinched at the word.

“Why was he in Moscow?” Juan evaded the question with one of his own.

“Research,” Kamsin replied.

“What type?”

“Technical research on the old Soviet systems of canals. Much of that information is archived in Moscow.”

Cabrillo had to take a gamble. He didn’t know if Kamsin was here to protect his employee’s widow or his own ministry, and without laying cards on the table, he and the Uzbek could verbally spar for hours without getting anywhere.

“May I be blunt?” he asked. Kamsin made an inviting gesture with his hands and leaned back into the plastic-covered sofa. It crinkled like old newsprint. “I represent a Canadian environmental group. We believe that Mrs. Petrovski’s husband was deliberately killed because of something he found here and was researching in Moscow.”

Cabrillo had played his hole card. It was up to Kamsin to finish the game.

He and Mina exchanged a look, and Juan knew immediately that this possibility had been discussed already and that it was most likely the truth.

“How is it that you speak Russian so well, Mr. Smith?” Kamsin asked when he’d glanced back at the Chairman.

“I have an ear for languages,” Juan told him truthfully. “Give me a few weeks and I will be able to speak Uzbek.” That too was the truth.

“But you do not speak our language now?”

“No.”

“I will trust you.”

He then turned to Mina, and the two of them spoke for several minutes. It was clear the conversation was distressing the widow. What was less clear was Kamsin’s tones and intentions. Was he telling her to keep quiet and get this foreigner out of her house or was he being convinced by her that they finally had an ally who believed her husband’s death had been anything but accidental?

Finally, it was Mina who took up the thread of the conversation. “We don’t know what Karl found. A few days before he went off to Moscow he had been surveying the lake bed north of here as part of his job. He came back very excited about something but wouldn’t tell me what he had found until he had verified his discovery.”

“He wouldn’t tell me either,” Arkin Kamsin added. “But he managed to convince me to authorize the travel expense. Karl was like that. I trusted him completely. Any man who spent five minutes with him would.”

“How far north?” Juan asked. With the Aral Sea shrunk to a quarter of its size, there were tens of thousands of miles of exposed seafloor between here and the Kazakh border.

“We do not know.”

That statement hung in the hot air for several seconds.

“But there is someone who might,” Mina said.

Juan cocked an eyebrow in her direction.

“He often traveled with old Yusuf,” she explained. “He was once a fisherman on the Aral before the waters went away. Now he is just an old man, but Karl claimed that Yusuf knew the lake bed as sure as he’d once known its surface.”

“Did you question him about where Karl had gone?”

“Of course,” Kamsin said. “But like many of the old-timers, his directions were vague. He talked about certain islands and winds and how the earth felt. He could give us nothing concrete.”

“And you didn’t want to go out and look for yourselves?” Juan asked, already suspecting the answer.

“If what Karl found got him killed…” Kamsin replied, his voice trailing off.

“I understand,” Juan said to both of them. Kamsin had a job, a life he would not want to jeopardize, and had probably been living in fear that his ignorance might still not keep him safe. Mina’s motivation for not investigating further was nibbling chocolate in the next room. “What about Yusuf? Would he be willing to go back?”

Kamsin had to think for a moment. “It is possible. He didn’t volunteer when Mina and I first questioned him, but we didn’t exactly ask to be shown either.”

“Of course,” Juan said, knowing both were embarrassed by not following through on what had gotten Karl Petrovski murdered.

The Uzbek people had only been independent from Russia for twenty years. These two were old enough to remember what life was like under a Stalinist regime. People didn’t ask questions, didn’t make eye contact with strangers, and never made themselves noticeable to anyone else. It was the only way to stay safe. As much as Karl’s death hurt both Mina and Kamsin, they wouldn’t — couldn’t — do anything but accept the official ruling from Moscow and move on.

“Does the term ‘eerie boat’ mean anything to either of you?” Cabrillo asked in the uncomfortable silence.

The pair exchanged perplexed looks. “There are many boats out on the lake bed,” Kamsin replied. “I know none called Eerie.”

“Karl never mentioned it to me either,” Mina added. “Is this what Karl died for?”

“I don’t know, and it is perhaps best if you forget I asked.”

They nodded knowingly.

“Why don’t I take you to meet Yusuf?” Kamsin offered. “I am sorry, but he speaks only Uzbek. I would be more than happy to translate for you.”

“You are most kind,” Juan said, getting to his feet. He pulled two more Hershey bars from his satchel and handed them to Mina Petrovski. “For your daughters. For later.”

Wherever his investigation took him was a place she could not visit. Karl was dead. Knowing why would not bring him back. Ideology was for the others, her look said to him. I must be pragmatic.

As soon as they were outside, Arkin grabbed Cabrillo’s arm and stared into his eyes. “Will there be justice?”

Juan glanced back at the house, an already-empty shell, only its occupants hadn’t moved on. “For Mina?” he threw the question back at the academician.

“For any of us?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here?”

Juan took a second, which surprised him. “Because a friend died in my arms and I thought that I could at least give him justice. Is that enough?”

“For us? Here? I guess it has to be.”

The two remained mostly silent on the drive to find Yusuf, the only words exchanged were directions as Cabrillo steered through the empty city. The buildings seemed little more than façades and lifeless husks.

Yusuf lived down by the harbor in the rusted carapace that had once been a fishing boat. Arkin didn’t think the old man had owned this particular one, but he’d moved into the hulk nevertheless. The boat, like all the others in the harbor, sat on the ground, sand piled up to the gunwales in some places. Juan sca

Cabrillo stopped in the dust next to the boat. The two men stepped out.

Kamsin shouted a greeting to the derelict boat, and Cabrillo spotted movement through a porthole in the cabin below the pilothouse. Methuselah was a teenager compared to the man who trod out onto the craft’s broad rear deck. He wore robes and a head scarf and leaned on a cane made of gnarled wood. Wisps of pure white hair coiled from under the scarf while the lower part of his face was covered in a beard befitting a fairy-tale wizard. His cheeks and eyes were sunken. One eye was a dark brown, almost black, while the other was covered with the milky film of cataracts. He had an ancient AK-47 slung over one buzzard-like shoulder.