BooksBarbecue
Back A Shadow Intelligence Save as PDF
Chapters (58)
  1. Cover
  2. Also by Oliver Harris
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. THIRTEEN
  16. FOURTEEN
  17. FIFTEEN
  18. SIXTEEN
  19. SEVENTEEN
  20. EIGHTEEN
  21. NINETEEN
  22. TWENTY
  23. TWENTY-ONE
  24. TWENTY-TWO
  25. TWENTY-THREE
  26. TWENTY-FOUR
  27. TWENTY-FIVE
  28. TWENTY-SIX
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. TWENTY-NINE
  32. THIRTY
  33. THIRTY-ONE
  34. THIRTY-TWO
  35. THIRTY-THREE
  36. THIRTY-FOUR
  37. THIRTY-FIVE
  38. THIRTY-SIX
  39. THIRTY-SEVEN
  40. THIRTY-EIGHT
  41. THIRTY-NINE
  42. FORTY
  43. FORTY-ONE
  44. FORTY-TWO
  45. FORTY-THREE
  46. FORTY-FOUR
  47. FORTY-FIVE
  48. FORTY-SIX
  49. FORTY-SEVEN
  50. FORTY-EIGHT
  51. FORTY-NINE
  52. FIFTY
  53. FIFTY-ONE
  54. FIFTY-TWO
  55. FIFTY-THREE
  56. FIFTY-FOUR
  57. FIFTY-FIVE
  58. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Terrorism, the cab driver had said. I thought of the evident security tension and wondered what it indicated beneath the surface. Kazakhstan wasn’t a hotbed of radicalism. Even if the Soviets hadn’t spent fifty years trying to stifle religion, Islam was a relatively late addition, a sheet laid over older creeds involving tribe and land. The Islam that did take root was Sufi-inflected, mystical, superstitious. Still, Kazakhstan bordered the northwest of China, Xinjiang province, where you found 12 million oppressed Muslims occasionally losing patience. Uzbekistan, to the south, had been having its little resurgence. In the other direction was Chechnya. Quite a neighbourhood.

I stopped at the edge of the river, a spot where I could see the embankment and anyone on it in both directions. A few defiant fishermen had carved holes in the ice, huddling under plastic windbreaks that encased them like body bags. No sledgers or skaters yet. No visible surveillance.

I returned to the hotel, collected my hire car and drove to the block of flats on Malakhov Street. I parked across the road and looked up at the windows. They were still open, light still on. No police vehicles around.

I bought a local paper for the sake of blending in, then looked for cafés near police stations.

The one I eventually chose didn’t have a name, as far as I could tell. It had a view of the central police station. It was also a block from the grandiose construction housing the Deputy President’s office and the Ministry of Oil and Gas. Cheap cafés near important buildings were a potential gold mine: you found cleaners, maintenance staff, security guards, employees having affairs – all sorts of lures to a spy. It had just gone 8 a.m. Inside: ten men and women. Two tables of uniformed police, heads dipping to noodles and soups. A boy of nineteen or twenty continually mopped greying slush from the floor. A gruff man behind the counter took my order of coffee and one of the hard-looking pastries that sheltered beneath clingfilm. I sat for a moment watching the vast Ministry building. It takes three or four minutes to become inconspicuous. I sipped my coffee, waited. Listened.