conversation into a single sentence: “We better get guns if we plan on staying.”
Their papers said they were part of a Mormon charity group running a clinic at the far end of town. The soldiers knew all about the clinic and pointed out the building, a red-roofed one-story at the end of the main street. The walls had last been painted white; the outer coat was chipped away in a dozen places, each revealing a different shade. Two Russian soldiers with a dog were standing outside the clinic, eying them warily as they drove by.
“Explosives dog,” Conners said.
“Yeah.”
They drove along to the end of the block, then turned left. The buildings abruptly disappeared; on both sides the lots were covered with rubble that seemed to run all the way back to the mountains in the distance. They got out and grabbed two suitcases packed with medicine, along with smaller bags. Conners holstered the Makarova in plain view—a fifty-ruble note would take care of the “fine” assessed to foreigners who broke the law against possessing weapons.
Assuming the guards weren’t in a bad mood.
They didn’t seem to be, and in fact didn’t mention the pistol. The dog sniffed them and stood back, waiting while the soldiers looked through the bag of medicines; they took a bottle of Tylenol but nothing else.
Cleared inside, they found Sister Mariah Baxter, the director of the clinic. She pulled a stray strand of her long black hair back behind her ears as she inspected their gifts, eying the wares suspiciously but taking them nonetheless. A forty-year-old missionary from Utah, Sister Baxter knew how the game was played; she called over one of the nurses and told her to take the two men to Mr. T, who served as the clinic’s unofficial security officer.
Conners was surprised to find that Mr. T was barely twenty and skinnier than a rake handle. The Chechen nodded when Guns told him they needed information.
“We want to find out about a man named Kiro, who operates around here,” Guns told him in Russian.
Mr. T shook his head and clamped his teeth tightly together, his face flushing as Guns switched to Chechen and tried cajoling him with the few words he knew well. Conners took a step backward, his gaze drifting through the door back out into the large open room of the clinic. Half the room was a waiting area; the rest looked like triage stations where nurses tried to determine what was wrong with the patients. There were some slings for broken arms and bandages that might cover deep flesh wounds, but for the most part the people had less-visible ailments, probably a lot of the same stuff that people went to the doctor for in New Jersey—headaches and viruses and walking pneumonia, pregnancies, ear infections, coughs that wouldn’t go away. The difference was that here, with sanitary conditions for shit, food scarce, and medicine difficult to obtain, even a cold might be fatal.
Guns, meanwhile, fumbled with the words as he tried to get information from Mr. T. He had listened to Chechen language files for the past two days on the MP3 player, refreshing his memory, but it was difficult to get into the rhythm of the language. Mr. T wasn’t helping either, though obviously he knew who Kiro was.
“Think I should pound him?” he finally asked Conners.
The question caught Conners by surprise. “What good’s that going to do?”
“Scare him so he’ll talk.”
“He’s already pissing his pants,” said Connors. “If Kiro is that scary, odds are Sister Baxter knows who he is.”
Mr. T started to move past Guns to leave the room. Instinctively, the Marine threw his hand out to bar his way. The Chechen glared, but moved back and sat down.
“Don’t hit him until I come back,” said Conners.
He found Sister Baxter cleaning a scabbed knee on a nine-year-old girl. Conners watched her fingers daub the wound. They were a man’s hands, rough and worn, too big
Their papers said they were part of a Mormon charity group running a clinic at the far end of town. The soldiers knew all about the clinic and pointed out the building, a red-roofed one-story at the end of the main street. The walls had last been painted white; the outer coat was chipped away in a dozen places, each revealing a different shade. Two Russian soldiers with a dog were standing outside the clinic, eying them warily as they drove by.
“Explosives dog,” Conners said.
“Yeah.”
They drove along to the end of the block, then turned left. The buildings abruptly disappeared; on both sides the lots were covered with rubble that seemed to run all the way back to the mountains in the distance. They got out and grabbed two suitcases packed with medicine, along with smaller bags. Conners holstered the Makarova in plain view—a fifty-ruble note would take care of the “fine” assessed to foreigners who broke the law against possessing weapons.
Assuming the guards weren’t in a bad mood.
They didn’t seem to be, and in fact didn’t mention the pistol. The dog sniffed them and stood back, waiting while the soldiers looked through the bag of medicines; they took a bottle of Tylenol but nothing else.
Cleared inside, they found Sister Mariah Baxter, the director of the clinic. She pulled a stray strand of her long black hair back behind her ears as she inspected their gifts, eying the wares suspiciously but taking them nonetheless. A forty-year-old missionary from Utah, Sister Baxter knew how the game was played; she called over one of the nurses and told her to take the two men to Mr. T, who served as the clinic’s unofficial security officer.
Conners was surprised to find that Mr. T was barely twenty and skinnier than a rake handle. The Chechen nodded when Guns told him they needed information.
“We want to find out about a man named Kiro, who operates around here,” Guns told him in Russian.
Mr. T shook his head and clamped his teeth tightly together, his face flushing as Guns switched to Chechen and tried cajoling him with the few words he knew well. Conners took a step backward, his gaze drifting through the door back out into the large open room of the clinic. Half the room was a waiting area; the rest looked like triage stations where nurses tried to determine what was wrong with the patients. There were some slings for broken arms and bandages that might cover deep flesh wounds, but for the most part the people had less-visible ailments, probably a lot of the same stuff that people went to the doctor for in New Jersey—headaches and viruses and walking pneumonia, pregnancies, ear infections, coughs that wouldn’t go away. The difference was that here, with sanitary conditions for shit, food scarce, and medicine difficult to obtain, even a cold might be fatal.
Guns, meanwhile, fumbled with the words as he tried to get information from Mr. T. He had listened to Chechen language files for the past two days on the MP3 player, refreshing his memory, but it was difficult to get into the rhythm of the language. Mr. T wasn’t helping either, though obviously he knew who Kiro was.
“Think I should pound him?” he finally asked Conners.
The question caught Conners by surprise. “What good’s that going to do?”
“Scare him so he’ll talk.”
“He’s already pissing his pants,” said Connors. “If Kiro is that scary, odds are Sister Baxter knows who he is.”
Mr. T started to move past Guns to leave the room. Instinctively, the Marine threw his hand out to bar his way. The Chechen glared, but moved back and sat down.
“Don’t hit him until I come back,” said Conners.
He found Sister Baxter cleaning a scabbed knee on a nine-year-old girl. Conners watched her fingers daub the wound. They were a man’s hands, rough and worn, too big
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