Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition) (14 page)

The soldier
stopped ten feet from Avery. He turned to face the concrete wall of the hangar.
His hands moved in front of his waist, and Avery saw the motion of the right
hand lowering his zipper and heard the steady stream of urine flow against the
wall and into the grass.

Not taking his
eyes off the soldier, Avery’s left hand moved slowly from his rifle to the belt
strap on the ModGear vest and found the handle of Cold Steel Tanto. He withdrew
the blade from the sheath and transferred the knife to his right hand. He
sprung up and closed the distance to the soldier.

The Russian
reacted to the sound, snapping his head fast around to the right. The cigarette
dropped from his mouth and fluttered to the ground. He saw the black shape
coming at him through the night, and the gleam of the blade in the air.

Before the soldier
could react or utter a word, Avery was behind him clamping his gloved hand hard
over the soldier’s mouth, his forearm pressed against his shoulder, restraining
him.

Avery jerked the
soldier’s head back and slammed the seven inch steel blade through the side of
his neck. He heaved the knife back with a hard jerk, cutting through and
severing the jugular vein and carotid artery. Avery left the knife in place,
buried deep to the hilt. The soldier struggled for his life. He thrashed and
squirmed in Avery’s arms, but was unable to utter a sound as blood quickly
filled his windpipe, and he choked and gagged on it. Avery gently guided the
soldier facedown to the ground, and held him still until he expired.

Then he withdrew
his knife. Blood immediately poured out from the gaping wound in the soldier’s
neck, saturating the soil.

Avery wiped his
blade clean on the soldier’s jacket and stood up. He glanced down at the unmoving
body. In Yazgulam, he’d executed Babayev without hesitation. Given the
opportunity, he’d sure as hell do it again, too, because Otabek Babayev had
murdered countless people and was an enemy. This soldier wasn’t an enemy, just
a young kid who cared more about seeing his parents again and fucking his
girlfriend, and given a shit job by the army. Killing him was a vile, dirty
thing, but there’d been no way around it.

Avery continued
forward and cautiously around the corner of the hangar.

Still within the
cover of the dark and the shadows of by the nearby trees, he stopped,
deactivated his night vision and scanned the tarmac with his scope. He saw the
open cargo hold of the Antonov and the Ural trucks parked near it. He couldn’t
see the remaining three soldiers, but he heard them chatting.

Avery checked in
once more with Mockingbird, who informed him that everyone else was still in
the back of the hangar, standing around and shooting the shit. Avery signaled
Mockingbird to give him that distraction.

From where he
stood, Avery did not see the flash of light emanating sporadically from
Mockingbird’s position in the field on the other side of the runway, but it caught
the soldiers’ attention. Avery heard the Russian small talk suddenly stop, one
of the voices talking over the others and pointing out the anomaly. Then the
soldiers started across the tarmac toward the field to investigate.

Avery heard
Poacher’s voice in his ear, telling him the coast was clear. Keeping his head
down, Avery sprinted ahead in a low crouch, scanning for threats along the way
and keeping his finger poised over his rifle’s trigger guard. His eyes locked
onto the nearest truck, its back facing him. The tailgate was still lowered,
but it looked high. Five feet, he thought, too high to jump. He pushed his legs
harder and picked up the pace. He reached out, laid the rifle down on the bed,
placed both hands atop the lowered tailgate, and sprung off his legs, lifting himself
off the ground. He muscled up onto the bed and snatched the rifle back up.

It was dark
inside the trailer, under the heavy tarpaulin draped over the bed. The reach of
the outside lamp’s glow extended only to the first couple feet of the platform’s
fourteen foot length. Wooden boards were erected to form a wall around the bed,
supporting the heavy duty tarp. Crates, boxes, and steel cases were stacked
everywhere, almost completely covering the thirty-two square foot platform,
leaving barely enough room to move.

Avery pulled the
mini Maglite flashlight from his vest, switched it on, and held it between his
teeth. He shined the red light over one of the long, metal cases. He couldn’t
read the entire Russian inscription printed on the side, but he was able to
identify the important bit. The 9K38 designation ominously stood out. NATO
agencies referred to the 9K38 Igla-S, the newest model of Russia’s man portable
surface-to-air missile, as SA-24 Grinch.

One of the huge
advantages from which the US and its allies greatly benefited was air
superiority, much like the Red Army during the early years of the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan. The beginning of the end for the Russians in
Afghanistan was the day CIA started supplying the Afghan mujahedeen with
Stinger missiles. SA-24 could easily knock Apaches and Blackhawks, or C-130s
full of troops, out of the sky.

Avery took some
pictures, and moved over to one of the wooden crates. He used his Cold Steel
Tanto to pry the lid open. He shined his light into the crate on the brand new
AK-12 rifles in cellophane wrappers. Then he replaced the lid and hammered the
nails back into their holes with the butt of his knife.

He moved onto
the next crate and found RPG launchers.

The next crate,
a smaller one, contained Czech-manufactured night vision equipment and
encrypted tactical communications gear. Another crate contained Dragunov long
range sniper rifles. There were a dozen more crates, plus the cargo on the
other trucks, all of it factory fresh military gear.

Avery took the
GPS receiver out of his pocket and dropped it into one of the crates and
replaced the lid.

He gave
everything a quick once-over, to make sure all of the cargo was secure and
appeared untouched. Then he started for the tailgate, and froze.

Through the flaps
at the end of the bed, Avery saw the Russians and Taliban returning from the
operations building, some six hundred yards away. He retreated as far back on
the platform as he could and squatted.

 He watched the
approaching entourage, the faces becoming clearer as they drew closer.

It took a few
seconds for his mind to completely register what he saw. He blinked, wondering
if Poacher was seeing this, then he detached the Trijicon scope from the rifle’s
mounting and raised it to his eye.

Walking between
Ramzin and Mullah Arzad, Robert Cramer wore a pair of faded blue jeans and an
open leather jacket over a flannel shirt. He wore sunglasses. Stubble growth,
which hadn’t been there in the IMU’s video less than three days earlier,
shadowed his face. In fact, Cramer’s condition appeared to have miraculously
improved since Avery last saw him. His lip was cut, and there was a scrape
across his forehead, but he walked with his familiar air of authority, relaxed
and at ease, and he did not at all resemble the beaten, broken down hostage the
IMU had flaunted.

The wind picked
up and caught the flap of Cramer’s jacket, blowing it back a little and
exposing the chest holster and the pistol it held. Probably a Beretta, Avery
thought. Cramer always favored Berettas. His head turned, and he exchanged
words with the Russians.

The sight somehow
didn’t surprise Avery. The only thing that surprised him was the lack of
reaction he felt. Part of him wanted to give Cramer the benefit of the doubt that
perhaps he was involved in some serious deep cover, black ops spook shit, or maybe
running his own penetration op unilaterally, out of fear of the security breach
at Dushanbe station.

But the facts
and events of the last five days didn’t lie.

In Avery’s mind,
the mission parameters changed completely. There wasn’t anything he could do
about the Taliban or the weapons now, and he didn’t care what Culler or Langley
wanted. He was going to track down Cramer, somehow, wherever he went, whatever
he did, however long it took, and put a bullet in his goddamned head.

Avery shifted
his scope and directed the reticule over the Russian, the one with the shaved
head who bossed everyone else around. Only now, getting a close-up look at the
man’s face, Avery was able to clearly make out his features.

Avery frowned.

He could have
sworn that he’d just killed this fucker the previous night.

Indeed, the
Russian bore an uncanny resemblance, almost identical, to the Slavic tango taken
down at the IMU’s Yazgulam safe house. He had the same bone structure and face,
the same cruel, brown eyes, and even the same spider tattoo emblazoned over the
left side of his neck. But it wasn’t the same man. Avery could see the slightly
shaded hairline around the man’s head and the bare, shiny scalp. Although
sporting a shaved a head, the man in Yazgulam hadn’t been in the process of naturally
balding. Plus Number Two here had a tiny scar on the right side of his
forehead. He also looked a little taller. Brothers, Avery thought. They could
have been twins.

Avery snapped
some pictures with the camera, capturing Cramer, the Russian, and Arzad in
individual shots and also wide shots showing them all together.

One of the
soldiers re-appeared, jogging over to the tattooed Russian. Avery thought the
soldier explained that they’d seen something odd in the field, but nobody
seemed concerned about it.

Cramer shook
hands with Ramzin and Arzad and then followed the tattooed Russian and his goons
up the ramp into the back of the Antonov with the flight crew. A few minutes
later the ramp lifted, sealing them inside, while the Taliban headed for their
trucks.

Avery tensed and
watched as one Afghan walked directly his way, his eyes looking into the
darkness of the cargo hold. The Afghan stepped right up to the back of the
truck and slammed the tailgate shut. He tugged on it once to make sure it was
secure, then he turned and walked around the truck, and Avery heard the driver
side door creak open and close.

Seconds later, the
V-8 engine started up, and the truck jerked into motion and fell into line
behind the others. The trucks drove off the tarmac and headed for the winding
road cutting through the forest onto the highway.

Avery moved to
the tailgate and looked out past the canvas flaps at the tall trees and the
patch of road highlighted by the truck’s taillights. He estimated they were
doing maybe twenty miles per hour. About two miles away now, he heard the sound
of jet engines powering up and carrying the big Antonov transporter down the
runway.

Avery secured
his rifle to his vest, stepped over the tailgate, and jumped. Smacking against
the pavement, he tucked and rolled, hoping the driver didn’t him in his mirrors
for the second he was exposed in the glow of the taillights, before the
darkness enveloped and concealed him. The truck continued down the road,
staying with the convoy, while Avery got up and ran for the safety and cover of
the forest.

Overhead, there
were blinking lights in the sky and the clamor of jet engines as the Antonov
ascended into the night.

They returned to the safe house at 2:45AM.
Avery had made his exfil through the forest without incident, and later linked
up with Reaper on the highway. On the drive back, they’d discussed the recon,
but nobody felt comfortable commenting on the nature of Cramer’s appearance, especially
not Poacher. Of the group, he was the only one other than Avery to have
personally known and worked with Cramer. Cramer was the one who had pulled
strings and got Poacher into the Agency. Avery knew how to read Poacher, and
the ex-army NCO’s sullen expression and silence hinted at the disillusionment
and betrayal he felt.  

Avery supposed
that he should have experienced something similar. But he didn’t and was glad
for it. That type of clouded thinking would only impair his judgment. He only
felt resentment and anger. And a new overwhelming sense of purpose. He felt
driven now, like he was whenever he was on the trail of a high value target in
Afghanistan or Iraq. It made little difference that this HVT was an American,
someone he’d once fought beside. Avery didn’t do sentimentality. Maybe later,
after this was over, but until then, this was just another job, Cramer another
enemy that needed to be put down.

Upon reaching
the safe house, Avery’s first course of action was to use Sideshow’s encrypted
satellite phone to place a call to the secure cell that Matt Culler always
carried and left turned on 24/7 at home or work. CIA employees are prohibited from
brining cell phones into headquarters, but unofficial exceptions are made for
certain senior personnel.

Nine thousand
miles away, it neared 6:00PM Wednesday, still the previous day, in Washington,
so Avery didn’t have to worry about waking up Culler, not that he would have
cared anyway. Culler knew that Avery only called him from the field when it was
something important.

Culler was still
in his seventh floor office, adjacent to D/NCS’s office suite when he took
Avery’s call. It was normal for Culler to put in ten-plus hours a day at work. He
sounded not at all pleased to hear Avery’s voice. In fact, his rather vitriolic,
expletive-laced tirade caught Avery off-guard.

Avery barely had
a chance to get in a word before Culler chastised him over the anonymous tip
given to AMEMBASSY Dushanbe leading to a house full of dead bodies in Yazgulam.
He told Avery that he should have called in as soon as he thought he had a
solid lead on Cramer’s location. He also mentioned something about the FBI
being concerned about Otabek Babayev having been restrained and shot multiple
times.

Avery kept calm.
He didn’t try to defend his actions, instead patiently allowing Culler to
unleash. The man didn’t possess all the facts, and Avery knew Culler’s mindset
would change once he heard about Ayni. This wasn’t how Culler normally acted.
He was thoughtful and not prone to reactionary outbursts. Something else was
going on, and Avery was sure it involved an irate D/CIA and D/NCS.

 Finally, Culler
informed Avery that the FBI forensics team that examined the IMU house in
Yazgulam discovered Cramer’s fingerprints and DNA there, as well as two teeth
and several fingernails that also belonged to the Dushanbe station chief. The
blood was likewise confirmed to be Cramer’s.

The FBI also
recovered another video from the digital camera in the house, Culler told
Avery, fatigue and resignation in his voice, frustration over his seeming
failure to save Cramer. The video showed Cramer’s graphic execution by way of
having his throat sliced at the hands of masked IMU members. The voice analysis
identified his killer as Otabek Babayev.

It must have
been a pretty convincing performance and production, Avery thought, because
Culler also said that both FBI and CIA analysts vouched the video’s
authenticity.

“God damn it, Avery,”
Culler said. “If you’d gone into that house just one day earlier, we could have
gotten him out alive. Why the hell didn’t you call it in when you got the
location from Gurgakov?”

Looking at it
from Cramer’s perspective, Avery decided, this was simply the next logical
step. He supposed that Cramer would have had to fake his death for all of this
to work. Otherwise CIA would continue searching for him, and someone, somewhere
would find a lead at some point.

“Are you there,
Avery?”

To Culler’s surprise
and irritation, Avery didn’t react to the news of Cramer’s murder. Instead, he relayed
his version of events from Tajikistan, telling Culler in detail what he saw at
Ayni, but omitting the part about Cramer for the moment. He informed Culler
about the placement of the GPS tracker onboard the truck and provided the
technical specifications and the frequency it transmitted on.

 “Well, at least
we got something out of this mess,” Culler grumbled. Babayev’s death was no
small matter either. It was a significant blow to al-Qaeda-allied terrorists in
the region. “Did you find anything else?”

“Oh, yeah,”
Avery said, as though it was an afterthought. “Cramer’s not dead. The IMU, the
execution, whatever it is you saw, it’s all bullshit. Convincingly done, I’m
sure, but bullshit nonetheless. I saw Cramer at Ayni, less than two hours ago,
along with SCINIPH and Adeib Arzad, and he was very much alive, with his throat
intact. Poacher can corroborate. We saw him board a cargo plane full of drugs
and Russians.”

“Jesus H. Christ,”
Culler muttered. Then there was a prolonged silence over the phone, as he took
several seconds to absorb this. Culler was rarely at a loss for words. “I’ll put
out an alert for that Antonov. We’re going to find out who owns that jet and
where it’s headed, and POTUS is sure as hell going to demand some answers from
Putin’s gang.”

“No, don’t do
anything, Matt. If you do that, Cramer will disappear, and we’ll never find
him. We need to keep this quiet. Don’t make any inquiries. Don’t pass this
information along, just sit on it for now.”

“What the hell
are you talking about? Cramer’s probably on his way to the Lubyanka right now.
The Russians launched a false flag op to grab our station chief. I have to go
to D/NCS with this right away.”

“Okay,” Avery
said, realizing what Culler was thinking. “Let me explain. Cramer’s not a
prisoner, and I’m not sure if the Kremlin sanctioned this. Cramer’s working
with
these Russians, and he seemed to be on pretty friendly terms with our old
friend Mullah Arzad, too.”

“What?”
   “That’s right.”

Several seconds
of silence followed as Culler absorbed this.

 “To be clear,
so there’s no misunderstanding here, you’re insinuating that-”

“Cramer’s dirty.
He’s involved in an arms-for-drugs scheme, and he probably compromised Dushanbe
station’s agents.”

 “You’re
absolutely certain of this?”

“I’m pretty
fucking certain, Matt. I’ll send you the photos over Intelink. He faked his
kidnapping by the IMU, just like they then staged his execution. It’s the only
way you’d stop the search for him. He knows the Agency will never give up
looking for him as long as they believe he’s alive, not with all the shit
stored in his head, but eventually you will give up looking for a corpse. He
knows exactly how Langley will react, every step of the way.”

“If what you’re
saying is true, this is a total cluster fuck. How the hell am I supposed to go
to D/NCS with this?”

“Leave Cramer to
me,” Avery said. “I’ll find him. Tell D/NCS if you need to, but urge him to
keep it quiet. Issue a press release. Announce Cramer’s death by the IMU and
put up a new star on the Memorial Wall. Cramer will be listening to the news. Let
him think he’s gotten away with it and that we’re searching Tajikistan for a
corpse. Then, when I do find him, I’ll take care of it, and you won’t have to
deal with the blowback. Just think of the cluster fuck when the senate launches
a full investigation into Agency ops. Fuck, they’ll probably completely
dismantle the National Clandestine Service by the time they’re through. Best to
let the world believe the IMU abducted, tortured, and killed Cramer, at least
for now. Until I can find him and bring him in.”

“Do you have any
idea what you’re saying?”

“It’s for the
best, sir, to keep it quiet.”

“No, not that.”
Culler sounded exasperated. He didn’t like it, but he agreed with Avery on that
part.

The media and
the Agency’s enemies in congress would love to find out about a senior CIA
officer involved in arming America’s enemies. It would quickly become a
political issue. Conspiracy theories would run rampant. The fallout would have
lasting and damaging consequences to American intelligence operations. All
serving CIA officers would likely be investigated, and the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence would invariably demand new oversight and tighter
control over the CIA operations branch. It was not an exaggeration to say that
the National Clandestine Service might not even survive the scandal, or the
service would at least become so completely neutered as to make it ineffective,
which amounted to the same thing.

“Just before you
called,” said Culler, “I informed the director of national intelligence and the
president’s national security adviser that Cramer was executed by Uzbek
terrorists. D/CIA was preparing to visit his ex-wife to give her the news. Now
you’re telling me Bob’s alive and aiding and abetting our enemies.”

 “I’m pretty
sure, Matt, unless you’re leaving something out? Unless Cramer’s in the middle
of some super secret spook shit, which I don’t believe to be the case, because
that would mean you sent me to Tajikistan under false pretenses. And you
wouldn’t play those kinds of games with me, would you?”

“Let me be
clear. If you saw Cramer at a Russian airfield with the Taliban, he is mostly
certainly not operating within official parameters. As of this morning, as far
as everyone here at Langley is concerned, Robert Cramer died in IMU captivity
at the hands of Otabek Babayev and we’re looking for a body to bring back
home.”

“Yeah,” said
Avery. “That’s what I thought. Look, Matt, there’s something else that’s really
bothering me about this.”

“What can
possibly be worse?”

“Cramer’s been
the top priority at Langley the last couple days, but he wasn’t the only reason
you sent me here.”

Culler paused,
and Avery pictured the gears moving in his head. “Wilkes.”  

“He was
investigating a nuclear smuggling pipeline when he was killed, along with CERTITUDE,
who’d been tasked with identifying Pakistani nuclear scientists working with
the Taliban. I’m just a trigger puller, not a fancy Ivy League analyst, but it’s
pretty clear that Cramer’s dealing in more than guns and missiles.”

“It doesn’t make
sense,” Culler said. “We’re pulling out of Afghanistan.”

“Yeah, and
Cramer’s not too happy about that, after devoting the last several years of his
life there. And with the foreign occupiers leaving, don’t you think the Taliban
are thinking about retaking power, and keeping it this time? Maybe with WMD
capacity.”

 “All right, for
now, until we learn more, we’ll play it your way. I have other shit to deal
with at the moment, like a shipment of missiles headed for Afghanistan. And
Avery, if you find Cramer…”

“You don’t have
to worry about that. I’ll handle it.”

“There can be no
mistakes on this. We need to be absolutely certain of Cramer’s complicity
before taking direct action. Are we clear?”

“Clear,” Avery
said, impatient. “Trust me, I’d like to give Cramer the benefit of the doubt,
too, but there’s no mistaking what I saw.”

“One more thing,
Avery.”

“Yes?”

“I want Cramer alive,
if possible. Once you get him, he’s going to our darkest black site for
interrogation. We need to know the extent of the damage and just how badly he’s
compromised our operations and assets. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Culler ended the
call.

 “I’ve got a
lead on that Antonov,” Mockingbird announced before Avery even set the phone
down. Mockingbird’s laptop glowed in front of him in the darkened apartment. Poacher
entered the room. “It’s registered to GlobeEx Transport, an air freight company
owned by Aleksander Litvin.”

The name meant
nothing to Avery, but Mockingbird, who’d done two years at CIA’s Counterproliferation
Center, knew all about Litvin and gave Avery the rundown.

Aleksander
Litvin, an ethnic Ukrainian from Donetsk, was a former Soviet Air Force major
assigned to the Navigation and Air Transport Regiment, which was once responsible
for delivering arms to anti-Western Third World dictators and insurgents. His
talent for languages and overseas experience saw him transferred to GRU, military
intelligence, for assignments in Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua.

After the Cold
War, Litvin started an air freight company delivering Red Army hardware for
sale on the international black market. Thanks to the numerous African wars of
the 1990s, Litvin’s business grew rapidly. He now owned and operated an air
cargo fleet of Antonov and Ilyushin jets, delivering everything from AK-47s and
RPGs to T-81 tanks and Mi-24 gunships to any government, African rebel, South
American guerilla, or Asian militia with enough cash, blood diamonds, or drugs
to pay for it. In the last year alone, he’d been spotted in Burma, Iran, North
Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and Vietnam. He survived a suspected Mossad assassination
attempt last year, when he was in Beirut, negotiating a deal with Hezbollah to
upgrade their Katyusha rockets with guidance systems.