Safe from the government, safe from would-be muggers. He ignored the shouted plaints of taxi drivers promising good rates to the nearby city and focused on a battered UAZ-469. The utilitarian Russian jeep had probably rolled off the assembly line about the same time Cabrillo was being pottie trained. The bodywork was a blend of bare metal patches, matte dun paint, and dust, and was so dented and wrinkled it looked like the skin of a shar-pei.

The young man standing next to it holding a cigarette in one hand and a handwritten placard with the name Smith on it in the other watched the crowds exiting the terminal with the predatory patience of a hunting falcon. When he saw Cabrillo break from the pack of travelers negotiating cab fares and stride toward him, he ditched the smoke and plastered on a tobacco-stained smile.

“Mr. Smith, yes?”

“I’m Smith,” Cabrillo said, and accepted an outstretched hand for an enthusiastic shake.

“I am Osman,” the young man said with an almost impenetrable accent. “Welcome to Uzbekistan. You are indeed most welcome. I am told to meet you here with my most fine desert truck, and, as you can see, she is a beautiful.”

Russian was the universal tongue among the various tribes and subtribes in the region, and Cabrillo could have saved the rental representative from speaking tortured English, but there were few Canadian photojournalists fluent in it, so he stuck to English.

“She is beautiful,” Juan replied, casting a sidelong glance at the small trickle of oil that oozed from under the chassis.

“I am not told that you will need driver, yes?”

That was the guy’s angle, Juan realized. Hiring out a 4×4 was one thing, a nonnegotiable fee listed on the company’s archaic website. Osman wanted the lucrative contract to be Cabrillo’s driver and personal tour guide for the four days Cabrillo had contracted for the UAZ.

“You were not told that because I do not need a driver.”

Then Cabrillo threw him a bone. “I would be happy to pay you if you can get me extra cans of gasoline.”

“So you go deep into desert?”

“Not so deep that I cannot return.”

The Uzbek thought this was a grand joke and laughed until he coughed. He lit another smoke.

Juan enjoyed an occasional cigar so didn’t begrudge anyone a hit of nicotine, but he couldn’t imagine smoking cigarettes in a dust bowl, choking with so much grit that his teeth felt like sandpaper and his lungs like two half-empty bags of cement.

“Okay,” Osman replied decisively, then asked, a bit shier, “Maybe after you drop me at my office in town?”