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

Russian-made AK-47s so that wearing native clothing, they might pass as locals without close inspection. But they had to travel light and sought to avoid confrontations.
    Although she was sure that Ned kept some of his reservations to himself so as not to frighten her, he did tell her that the ex-military men on both security teams weren’t happy about their position from a tactical standpoint. The compound was enclosed by a thick, eight-foot-high stone wall with only one iron gate leading in or out; however, it was surrounded on three sides by thickly wooded hills from which an enemy could move close and then fire down into the complex. While sufficient, perhaps, to deter ill-equipped and poorly led brigands, the compound had clearly not been built to turn back a determined assault.
    â€œWho are these separatist guys anyway?” Ned complained.
    â€œWell, they’d describe themselves to you as patriots, like George Washington,” she said. “After the Soviet Union fell apart, the separatists declared Chechnya an independent republic. But the Russians—who don’t want to lose Chechen oil refineries and pipelines—weren’t having it. The Russians claim Chechnya is a state in their Russian federation and doesn’t have the right to secede and they’ve fought two wars over it. The Chechens actually won the first one in 1996, though the Russians essentially destroyed the country’s infrastructure and economy, and even after the peace treaty was signed they stationed two brigades here. Then in 1999, the Russians attacked again, using the pretext that it was necessary to stop Chechen terrorism and organized crime. There was a series of bombings in Moscow that killed about three hundred civilians; the Russian government blamed separatists, but there’s pretty good evidence the bombs were planted by the Russian Secret Police to justify the military campaign. This time they were able to gain control over most of the territory and cities, and set up a pro-Moscow regime. They were brutal on the civilian population and most of the best-known separatist leaders were killed, including a former president of the republic. But the separatists keep waging a guerilla war that the Russians haven’t been able to break.”
    Never one for politics, Ned accepted the explanation and wentoff to scout the area around the compound with other members of the security team. As she waited, Lucy tried to get to know the two Chechens in the compound. One was her guide and the other was a small, thin man, Bula Umarov, who Zakayev said was one of Daudov’s advisers. He’d been sent ahead to begin the discussions with Huff’s “trade mission,” which Lucy suspected was more than it seemed.
    Zakayev introduced Lucy to Umarov when they found him sitting alone in an interior courtyard of the main house, and she’d taken an almost immediate dislike to him. He had a pockmarked face and feral, shifty eyes—“like a Harlem rat,” she later told Ned—and wouldn’t look directly at her. That in itself wasn’t unusual in a Muslim country where men were often uncomfortable around Western women, and he was polite enough. But something about him made her skin crawl, and she’d noted a quirk about his way of speaking that troubled her as well.
    Lucy not only spoke flawless Chechen, she also had an ear for local dialects and couldn’t quite place his. “What part of Chechnya are you from?” she asked after speaking to him for a few minutes.
    Something had flashed briefly in those rodent eyes. Alarm or fear, she wasn’t sure, but something that put him on alert before he smiled slightly and nodded. “I am from Mozdok, on the northwest side of the country,” he said.
    â€œAh, I see,” Lucy replied. “I’d like to visit there sometime to expand my knowledge of Chechen regional differences; there is an ever so slight variation in how