Fatal Conceit by Robert K. Tanenbaum Read Free Book Online Page A

he will meet with us, but we must keep moving until he feels it is safe.”
    Traveling mostly at night, always on little-used rural back roads or even trails through the heavily wooded, mountainous region, sometimes on horseback, as well as on foot and in the occasional borrowed truck, they continued the game of cat and mouse. Then on Thursday evening, a week after they first crossed the border, the team assembled in a clearing where they’d camped to discuss whether to declare the mission a failure and return to the States. Lucy, as the team’s interpreter, had gone to Zakayev with their decision to pack it in.
    â€œNot yet, please. I was just about to tell you,” Zakayev, who had been to a nearby town to get her next instructions, said. “Tomorrow we will be taken by a lorry to a location where in two days’ time, on Saturday evening, Lom Daudov will meet with you.”
    â€œWhy two days?” Lucy asked.
    Zakayev shrugged. “Because that is how long it will be.”
    Lucy reported back to the others, who decided to make one more attempt to rendezvous with the separatist guerilla leader. “If he doesn’t show, we’re done,” she went back and told the young woman.
    Riding in an old Russian transport, the team arrived the next night at a walled and gated compound near the town of Zandaq. Hustled inside, out of sight of any prying eyes, they’d been surprised to learn that another group of Americans was already there, Deputy Chief of Mission David Huff from the U.S. embassy in Grozny and his security detachment. The tall, middle-aged diplomat had not been particularly forthcoming about his purpose other than to say he was there on a “trade mission to better our relations with the locals and help them normalize relations with Moscow and the West.”
    â€œI must say, we’ve been waiting here for more than a day but so far the man we’re trying to meet with hasn’t showed,” Huff complained. “Now we’re told it’s going to be Saturday evening.”He said he was just as surprised to see them but seemed to know enough to not ask questions, and Lucy didn’t volunteer any information.
    So they waited, risking discovery. The Russians were apparently aware of Huff’s presence and purported reason for his visit to the region. But Lucy, Ned, and the rest of their team were in Chechnya without permission, even if their purpose was to apprehend, or kill, a terrorist. Like some old Mission: Impossible episode, Jaxon had told the team that if they were caught by the Russians, the American government would deny sending them. And all for one man, Lucy thought, Amir Al-Sistani .
    The situation was shaky. After their arrival, the other members of Lucy’s team had met with Huff’s men and weren’t happy about the security situation. For one thing, they were surprised that the men traveling with Huff were so lightly armed—nothing heavier than M4 carbines—in such a dangerous part of the world. The U.S. State Department had long ago warned American citizens against visiting the region. There were a multitude of factions fighting the Russians in Chechnya. Some were no more than organized crime syndicates and warlords intent on plundering the country; others fought to create an Islamic state; and still others were Chechen patriots who wanted a secular government that wasn’t under the control of Moscow, though even they came in many guises, from socialists, to moderate Muslims, to republicans. When the factions weren’t battling the Russians, they were often warring among themselves. The wisdom of traveling about such a country with only a small, lightly armed security team was questionable.
    Relying more on stealth, Lucy’s team wasn’t much better armed. Ned carried an M24, bolt-action sniper’s rifle, just in case they found Al-Sistani and there was no way to capture him, but the other men carried