Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition) (19 page)

Poacher
reluctantly agreed.

In truth, Avery
preferred going in alone. As much as he valued Sideshow’s help in Tajikistan,
he was better off on his own.

Avery breezed through security and
customs at Dushanbe International. He’d arrived early and was confident no one
observed him board the Aeroflot Tupolev. He was concerned not only with the
GKNB, but also the Russians. If Ramzin’s people spotted him boarding a flight to
Russia, the game was up before it began. Before departing, Reaper forged a
Tajik entry stamp on his Nick Ambrose passport. He’d only know for sure he was clean
when he landed in Sochi or Minsk and wasn’t immediately picked up by the
authorities.

 Avery slept
through the three hour flight. The Tupolev landed at Sochi International
Airport, located in the city of the same name on Russia’s Black Sea coast, late
Friday morning. Following the recent terrorist mass transit bombings in nearby
Volgograd, there was heightened security; including Interior Ministry OMON special
police troops with body armor and submachine guns. They eyed every foreigner
with suspicion, and Avery was glad to board his flight to Moscow.

At Sheremetyevo,
he had a ninety minute layover before the two hour, eleven minute flight to
Minsk. This was his first time in the Russian capital, but he didn’t leave the
airport to go sightseeing. Instead, he ate an overpriced sandwich from a
concession stand, drank a Coke for the caffeine boost, and spent the entire
three hours in a soft, cushioned armchair in the departures lounge,
people-watching, before his final flight. Fortunately, the jet lag wouldn’t be
too bad. The time zone change was fairly minor, and it was always easier to
travel west and gain time than go east and lose it.

The ninety
minute Belavia flight to Minsk was the quickest of his three flights, and the
Boeing 737 landed early Friday evening and taxied to Gate 2.

In the terminal,
Avery immediately maneuvered ahead of the other travelers and rushed to the
second floor of the arrivals sector to get in line for his migration card. With
that in hand, he was directed through passport control and then, finally,
customs, where his luggage was once again searched. The customs officer asked
him the routine questions about the nature of his visit and business and the
length of his stay, listened with disinterest to Avery’s practiced responses, and
finally stamped his Nick Ambrose passport and allowed him through.

Avery wasn’t
sure where he was going next, but it was important to act like he had a
purpose. He stopped at the nearest information kiosk and studied the large
directional display depicting the layout of the airport. Then he took a three
minute walk to the nearest men’s room, where he took his time inside the stall
and washing up at the sink.

Next, he took
another walk to the closest news stand, where he picked up an English-language
paper and a pack of cigarettes. From there, he went to the cocktail lounge,
ordered another Coke, and sat around for a bit, before finally proceeding to
Gate 4, on the opposite side of the airport, where he was to meet the contact.

He hadn’t needed
to piss, didn’t care about the latest headlines, and certainly hadn’t been
craving a drink. It was simply cover for action. If any Belarusian KGB were
observing him or airport security watching from the surveillance cameras, they
would have not realized that Avery had just conducted a mini-dry clean run. But
they likely were not observing, because the SDR came up dry.

Avery stepped
outside through the sliding glass doors. The air was cool and smelled of fresh
rain. Night had already descended over Minsk and there was the sound of car horns
blaring, traffic whizzing past on the highway, and mostly Russian-speaking
voices.

He stood near a
concrete post and set his suitcase down on the sidewalk, produced a cigarette,
and lit it. He wasn’t a smoker, but looking like an uneasy flyer enjoying the
opportunity to finally light up would buy him a few more minutes to stand in
place, scope out his surroundings, and scan faces. He kept his posture relaxed
and comfortable, but his eyes never rested. They observed and took in
everything around him, keeping track of people and vehicles and noting their
placement. People walked busily past him without even glancing his way.

Twenty-five feet
away, he watched the lines of stopped taxis and cars waiting to pick up newly arrived
passengers or make drop-offs. Irritated policemen yelled at drivers to move
their illegally stopped vehicles, horns blared, and steady streams of traffic
flowed in both directions on the double lanes of the M2.

He was looking
out for a blue 1998 Fiat Siena. And a minute later, he spotted it, off to his
left, pulled over on the shoulder, lights blinking, eight car lengths away,
behind the taxi pick-up lane, facing him. The Siena’s windows were lightly
tinted, so he was unable to see inside, but he could distinctly make out the
silhouette of a single occupant in the driver’s seat.

Avery waited two
more minutes before taking one last drag on the cigarette. Then he dropped it
and ground it out beneath the sole of his boot. He glanced right once, then
left, and started toward the Siena.

Within five
feet, the passenger side window rolled halfway down.

The driver was a
woman. Early thirties, Avery assessed, fit looking, East European, with shoulder-length
auburn hair, high cheekbones, and no cosmetics. She wore a light blue North
Face fleece with jeans. Both her hands were planted on the wheel. She gripped it
tight, because her knuckles went white. She appeared alert and defensive, but
not intimidated, and Avery supposed that being a reporter she was likely
accustomed to meeting with unsavory strangers under unusual circumstances and
taking risks to run down a story.   

Avery’s eyes
swept over the rear seats, checking that were was no one else in the car.

 “
Usun, et meie ühine sõber korraldas sa mulle
küüti
,” he said in Estonian. His enunciation
of the memorized statement left much to be desired. He’d just told her that he
believed their mutual friend had arranged for her to pick him up.  

If it was a
trap, that meant they’d been reading her e-mails and would know the recognition
phrase. That may have occurred to her, too, because she didn’t appear too
relieved. “I am always happy to help a friend,” she responded in good English.
“My name is Aleksa. You should get in before someone notices us.”

Avery realized
he’d been standing out here too long, and a cop, some twenty feet away, was
watching them now, getting ready to blow his whistle and yell at them. Avery
opened the passenger door and slipped in. He moved the seat back and set his
suitcase on the floor.

The woman put
the Siena into gear, accelerated, and merged smoothly into the oncoming traffic
on the M2. Over the next ten minutes, she made numerous lane changes and exited
the highway, doubled back, and re-entered the highway, heading once more in the
original direction. Avery didn’t know where they were going or the route she
intended to take, but he recognized a dry cleaning run when he saw one.

“We are being
followed,” she soon announced, glancing into the rearview mirror. Then she
looked back over at Avery, looking for a reaction, but he didn’t give her one.
She was testing him. An amateur would have panicked and turned around excitedly
in his seat to get a look, asking a dozen questions.

“They’re not
here for me.” Avery was confident no one had tracked him here.

“I wouldn’t be
so sure,” she said. “I told no one where I was going, and I know I wasn’t
followed here. The car has government plates; KGB or police. It’s likely
routine. Maybe you caught someone’s attention at the airport. Or perhaps they
checked the registration number on this car.”

“Is this your car?”
Avery asked.                                                                     

“No, it belongs
to a friend, but he is someone the authorities like to monitor.”

Avery was ready
to ditch this woman and go it alone, but he’d garner KGB scrutiny now anyway
just by association with her.

She took the M2
into Minsk.

It was 8:30PM.

The city was
well lit. With shiny glass and steel buildings, plenty of green grass and
trees, including temperate forests preserved as parks, and recently refurbished
streets, Minsk’s modern, clean look was a sharp contrast to Dushanbe’s drab,
dusty squalor. Founded in 1067, Minsk is one of Europe’s oldest cities,
although it never flourished until annexed by Russia, and there were plenty of
examples of its pre-Soviet and medieval architecture on display. Nearly all of
the cars on the streets were of East European manufacture, and the newest
models were probably from the mid-to-late ’90s. Advertisements for the hockey
championship adorned billboards, buses, and trains everywhere.

“I still haven’t
gotten your name,” Aleksa said, “or should I keep calling you Mockingbird?”

Avery didn’t
recognize her accent, but it wasn’t difficult to surmise that it was Estonian. Her
English was good, and he thought she’d likely spent time in the West. She was
still tense and had her guard up. He didn’t hold that against her. He would
too, in her position. Plus he knew he wasn’t the best at making strangers feel
comfortable or relaxed around him, so he didn’t try.

“Call me Nick.”

He wondered if
Aleksa was her real name and decided it probably was.

A reporter could
be just as bad as a spy. They were just as nosey, but not as subtle about it. She
likely saw him as a source and would probe and pry for information. Why else
would she meet him?

“So what’s the
plan?”

“The plan, Nick,
is that I will drop you off at Sputnik Hotel. That is where the KGB men behind
us will lose interest in you since the staff at the front desk report to them
and will notify them of any visitors you receive or when you leave the
building, should the KGB instruct them to do so. I’ll give you my cell number
in case you need to reach me, but it would be best not to use the hotel phones
or make any calls inside your room. Wait thirty minutes, then take the
stairwell to the ground floor and leave through the service exit. I’ll meet you
there, after the KGB has lost interest in me, and we’ll go someplace safe to
talk.”

“Are you sure
you’re only a journalist?”

“Well, I suppose
we have to do things differently in this part of the world than in America. You
are an American, are you not?”

“Canadian,
actually.” Avery knew she didn’t believe it. “Oh, I almost forgot.”

He rummaged
through his pockets and produced an extra set of hockey tickets. He handed them
to her. She glanced down at the tickets and frowned. “Hockey?” she said. “You
know, most tourists come to Minsk for the ballet or opera, something a little
more cultured. Anyway, I thought it was another interest of yours that brought
you to Minsk.”

“Oh, you mean watching
airplanes? Nah, that’s strictly for business.”

He explained
that if the authorities did question her about what she was doing with a
Canadian who’d come to see the championship, she’d tell them that she’d met
Nick Ambrose on Facebook and planned to show him around and go to a game with
him. He didn’t know a thing about Facebook or making friends, but he thought it
sounded plausible.

“And what is
your business exactly?” she asked.

“I’m
self-employed.”

She pulled up
near the Sputnik, a wide, five story building located outside of the city’s
downtown area and known for being one of the older and more economical hotels
in Minsk. It was run by the government agency Minotrel, which reported to the
KGB. But the targets of interest to the KGB tended not to stay in a place like
this. The spies, diplomats, and businessmen were all at the Crowne Plaza or
Minsk Hotel.

Avery left Aleksa
behind and checked in at the front desk. The clerk stamped his migration card
and asked about his visit to Minsk. When Avery mentioned hockey, the man’s face
lit up and he started going off about the championship. Fortunately, his
English was poor, so Avery wasn’t forced to fake his way through a conversation
trying not to let on that he didn’t know a thing about hockey other than the
quick Wikipedia research he’d done on teams and players. He wasn’t the only
hockey fan in the building. A group of loud, drunk German hooligans clad in
jerseys stumbled past on their way outside.

The clerk gave
Avery his key, and Avery proceeded to his fourth floor business-class room. It
was small, drab, and stuffy, with a tatty door that looked like it’d blow over
any minute, an uncomfortable bed, tiny chairs, ugly green carpeting and
wallpaper, a foul smelling fridge, and a huge boxy TV with a small screen. The
room looked like it was stuck somewhere in the eighties. But Avery didn’t care
about the decor, and he’d told the clerk that he’d be away most of the time for
the games and sightseeing.

Avery turned on
the TV. The reception was poor. It offered mostly local or German stations.

He went to a
local channel with coverage of the championship games. It would be a good idea
to know what teams were doing what. Plus it was for the benefit of anyone who
might be listening by audio surveillance or anyone that would visit his room
while he was away.