Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition) (4 page)

He felt an added
pressure now, though. Usually his was the only life on the line. He took
comfort in knowing that if he fucked up, he was dead or in jail, which wouldn’t
matter to anyone else. He didn’t like being responsible for someone else’s life.
It had been different when he was in the army, working as part of a larger,
cohesive unit. But later, with SAD in Iraq, when he’d been tasked with locating
and rescuing an aid worker taken hostage, and failed to bring her out by a
matter of minutes, instead recovering a decapitated body, he’d decided he
wanted only to look out for himself. The fact that he personally knew Cramer
only added to the burden.

“What’s the
opposition?” Avery asked, trying to move his thoughts forward.

“No one has
claimed responsibility, and there’s no physical evidence left behind, but we
believe it’s terrorism, and that means either al-Qaeda or IMU.”

Avery had dealt
with plenty of both during his time in Afghanistan.

The Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan was created after the collapse of the Soviet Union and
was a close ally of the Taliban. Its membership comprised Central Asian
Muslims, many of whom have served in the Russian military, and they had a
reputation for being fierce and vicious fighters.

Avery had seen
firsthand what they were capable of doing and sincerely hoped that those
animals didn’t have Cramer. Avery would rather be killed outright than spend a
few days held captive by IMU or al-Qaeda or Taliban. He prepared himself for
the worst and realized the odds were against bringing Bob out alive.

“When do I
leave?”

“Immediately,”
Culler said. “There’s a Learjet being prepped at Andrews Air Force Base. It’s
ready to take off when you are, and will take you directly to Dushanbe. You can
read the briefing materials on the flight. Gerald Rashid, one of the people on
Bob’s staff and acting chief
of station, will meet you on the ground. You
can stop at the Point to pick up whatever equipment you need.”

The Point, code
named ISOLATION TROPIC, was the Defense Department’s Harvey Point Defense
Testing Activity Facility, in North Carolina. This was where CIA based its
Special Activities Division and trained foreign paramilitary forces, from
Kosovar separatists to Palestinian Authority security forces. The Point also retained
an armory of sanitized American-made and foreign-manufactured weapons and
equipment.

“I’ll have twenty
thousand dollars deposited into your personal account,” Culler said. “And
you’ll have another ten thousand upfront for expenses.”

“What’s my cover
for action?” Avery asked. This was important. He was accustomed to working
without official cover, but under the circumstances, having to interact with
others involved in the investigation, he doubted that would be the case this
time.

“You’ll have
diplomatic cover as a special investigator from State, so if the worst happens you’ll
be declared persona non grata and kicked out of the country and not welcome
back. You can contact me through the embassy.”

“I want a team from
SAD or independent contractors standing by. Guys who can keep their mouths shut
and follow orders. If I pinpoint Bob’s location and need to make a hot
extraction, I’ll need them.”

“It’s already
arranged,” Culler said. “A friend of yours—Poacher’s team is being redeployed
to Tajikistan from the Afghan-Paki area of operations and will be on stand-by
for any direct action contingences. I’m glad you’re onboard, Avery.”

10:00AM.

Avery’s first
glimpse of Tajikistan came from 36,000 feet. Peering through the Learjet’s
window, he watched as the terrain below shifted from flat, barren rock to fields
of green to massive mountain ranges, some of which at the peaks of the Tian
Shan were topped with glaciers, which fed lakes and rivers. He saw small
villages scattered across the landscape, connected by unpaved roads, and he saw
the Fergana Valley’s fertile plains and rolling hills.

A new day was
already well underway in this country, and it was now almost two days since
Cramer left the American embassy. Two days of Cramer possibly undergoing
torture and revealing his encyclopedic knowledge of CIA secrets. Two days since
Tom Wilkes became a corpse, leaving a wife and three children back home to
suffer unspeakable anguish.

CIA officers are
trained to withstand interrogation, but nobody was expected to hold out indefinitely
against extreme torture. Everyone, even seasoned officers like Avery and
Cramer, had their breaking point. Langley’s desk heads and division chiefs
understood this harsh reality and could only hope that a captured officer would
at least hold out long enough for them work on ways to mitigate the damage of
blown ops and extract at-risk personnel.

But this was
different. It wasn’t just a few agents or active ops in Tajikistan that were
potentially compromised. Robert Cramer knew clandestine officers, agents, safe
houses, and ongoing operations across Afghanistan, western China, Iran, Pakistan,
and Russia. The potential damage was severe. If compromised it could easily take
several years for the National Clandestine Service to rebuild its networks and capabilities
in these countries.

The Learjet’s
only passenger, Avery shared the cabin with one member of the flight crew who
knew better than to talk to him or ask questions. Avery had slept through most
of the flight, never knowing when the next chance might come while deployed.

The jet was
flown by two ex-USAF pilots who were accustomed to making unusual flights with
unusual passengers. Avery presumed that the aircraft was previously used for
rendition flights. A section of four seats near the front of the cabin had been
removed to create additional space, and old blood stains speckled the carpet.

Avery’s luggage filled the seats near him. He travelled
with a black backpack, and two heavy diplomatic lockboxes whose content would
be immune from search or seizure by Tajik authorities. The duffel bag and
backpack were filled with a few extra changes of clothes, laptop computer with
encrypted hard drive, high calorie protein and granola bars, and bottled water.
Lots of bottled water.

The much larger and heavier cases contained his
standard assortment of gear and equipment, including an M4A1 5.56mm carbine
assault rifle with collapsible stock, suppressor, scope, tripod, and several
spare magazines; Desert Eagle .50 semi-automatic pistol, Cold Steel combat
knife, night vision device, urban ballistic vest, and a small assortment of surveillance
equipment.  A shoulder holster worn under his black windbreaker held his Glock
17, and he wore a new pair of Colombia hiking boots.

When he left for a job, Avery didn’t always know what
may come up, so he always went prepared with basic kit. He’d also retain the
option of contacting Culler and procuring any other equipment he may need, most
likely by way of diplomatic pouch, but that was best left as an absolute last
resort. Obtaining gear from Langley meant money and resources and that
invariably involved bean counters creating paper trails and records.

It felt good to have something to do again, to have
purpose and be needed. Over two months since his last job, and Avery started to
feel the sink into the familiar, purposeless void that inevitably clouded his
mind in between jobs. Thinking that way, while Cramer was quite possibly being
beaten and tortured, waiting to have his head chopped off by fanatics, and
another man was already dead, made Avery feel callous, but it was the truth.

 He’d spent the majority of the past fifteen weeks,
since returning from his last job, routine bodyguard work in Tripoli, at his
ranch house in the backwoods of West Virginia. When there wasn’t a job, he
trained hard and stayed focused. He ran five miles four days a week. Each day,
he targeted a different muscle group with weightlifting. Once a week, he
practiced with firearms, either on the makeshift range in his backyard, or he’d
make the drive to Quantico or the Point, where he’d also tackle the obstacle
courses, the Kill House, or defensive driving courses to keep those skills
sharp. Once a month, he’d make a day-trip rock climbing and hiking.

The confines of
the jet’s cabin became stifling.

He wanted to get
on the ground and get to work. The feelings of wasting time and waiting were
always the worst for him, even more so now, with a life on the line.

A text from an
old friend named Jack helped reign in some of the anxiety. Before leaving the
US, Avery had contacted the former Special Forces NCO who currently did work
for the Agency in the Hindu Kush, asking him if he had any local contacts. And
he did. A Tajik named Dagar Nabiyev, who had worked as a fixer for the Northern
Alliance during the Afghan war, was expected in Dushanbe later that day. Jack
provided a time and place where Avery could find him.

Avery responded
to the text with thanks and told Jack to call him on his regular number next
time he was in the States.

___

The Learjet was received at a section of
Dushanbe International Airport reserved for military and diplomatic flights,
but this was rather misleading, as Dushanbe International resembled something
more akin to a medium-sized airfield rather than a modern international
airport. The military section was in reality two run-down hangars, one currently
under Russian lease, the other used by Tajik troops.

The buildings
and major infrastructure of the airport were built in 1964, and even some of
the original structures from the 1920s and ‘30s remained intact. The main
complex, terminals, and hangars had seen little renovation over the last fifty
years. The Airbuses and the Boeings at the gates were the only things modern
about the place.

A spotless
black, armor-plated Toyota Forerunner with tinted windows sat on the apron in
front of the hangar, reflecting sunlight. Avery cringed.
The embassy
vehicles screamed US Government and would easily stand out on Dushanbe’s
streets. Nearby, there was a Russian-made GAZ jeep painted drab olive green
with rooftop-mounted sirens and lights. It looked dirty, rundown, and all the
more pitiful parked ten feet away from American opulence and luxury.

The Learjet had
barely come to a complete halt, and Avery was already on his feet and gathering
his things and sliding his arms through the straps of his backpack and putting
on his mirror sunglasses and cap. Alerted to his urgency, one of the flight crew
stopped what he was doing and opened the cabin door and collapsed the foldable staircase.

Avery picked up
both of his cases and was quickly out the door and down the narrow stairs. The
temperature was seventy-five degree, dry but with a light and pleasant breeze.
After the time spent aboard the plane, breathing recycled air, it was a
pleasant change.

He covered the
twenty-five feet to the groups of waiting Americans and Tajiks.

He didn’t know
what Gerald Rashid looked like, but one of the men in front of him appeared to
be of Central Asian descent. Avery knew from the files supplied by Culler that
Rashid’s father was the grandson of Pakistani immigrants and his mother a
native New Yorker.  He wore khakis and a sky blue Oxford shirt. He was a bit taller
than Avery’s five foot eleven, but lanky, easily fifteen pounds lighter than
Avery’s one-ninety-five. He looked young, more like a college grad than a GS-11.

“Nick Anderson,”
Avery said, using his cover name.

“Gerald Rashid.”
He lowered his voice. “Sorry about the Tajiks showing up. State tipped them
off. They’re not happy about your being here.”

“Who isn’t? The
Tajiks or State?”

“Well, both,”
Gerald said. He turned and waved toward a short Tajik with a bushy mustache. “This
is Sergei Ghazan, Ministry of Internal Affairs. He’s heading up the Tajik end
of the investigation.”

As he approached
them, Sergei Ghazan oozed insincere courtesy, and Avery took an immediate
disliking to him. “Welcome to the Republic of Tajikistan, Mister Anderson.
First, let me assure you that my government’s law enforcement and security
branches are doing everything within their power to find those responsible for
these crimes committed against your citizens. I have been authorized to provide
you any possible assistance, but first there are formalities that we must
undergo. Given the emergency and the necessity to save time, your arrival has
already been cleared through immigration, but I will need to verify your credentials
and have the contents of your cases declared.”

Avery produced
his ID, diplomatic credentials, and official documents bearing the State
Department seal. Ghazan took these and gave them a cursory examination. Avery
said, “As you can see, the contents of these cases are diplomatic materials and
are exempt from search. My superiors thank you in advance for your cooperation.
I’m sure the secretary of state will express to your government his
appreciation.”

Ghazan frowned
and shoved the documents back. He also gave Avery a card. “These are the numbers
to my office and my personal cell phone. Please, feel free to contact me at any
time if there is anything at all I may assist you with. We are fully committed
to seeing that these criminals are found and brought to justice.”

“I appreciate
that, sir.” Avery struggled to sound cordial and decided it best to be sparse
with his words. He hated diplomatic shit where everyone acted polite while
knowingly lying to each other’s faces and trying to fuck each other over. “At
the moment, I need to confer with my colleagues, but I’ll contact you if
there’s anything I need.”

They parted
ways, and the Tajiks watched the Americans pile into the Forerunner. Avery and Gerald
sat in the back row of seats. An embassy security officer sat up front.

“Is Ghazan
really from the interior ministry?” Avery asked as soon as the doors were shut
and the driver pulled away. An obvious, unmarked Tajik chase car appeared behind
them. 

“What do you
think?”

“I think he’s
Tajik KGB.”

“He’s a full
colonel in GKNB’s counterintelligence section,” Gerald confirmed. “He heads a
specialized tactical unit that we funded, trained, and equipped. But instead of
targeting drug traffickers and terrorists, he goes after the president’s
political opponents.”

Avery wasn’t
surprised. Many authoritarian regimes were exploiting the war on terror to receive
aid from the West and crack down on internal dissent.

“His people make
half-ass attempts to compromise our people,” Gerald continued. “Fortunately,
he’s not very good. He’s washed up, spends most of his time hitting his wife, and
chugging vodka with the Russian station chief.”

 “Is he getting in
the way?”

“He’s a minor
nuisance. He showed up today to get a good look at you and make his presence
known, try to intimidate you a bit. He’s given us briefings on local bandits
and terrorist threats, but that’s to advance an agenda. President Rahmon views
this as an opportunity to make a move against the warlords in Gorno-Badakhshan
and solidify his power. Ghazan’s secondary objective is to get close to us,
identify our agents, and penetrate our ops here.”

 “Oh, I’m sure Ghazan’s
very eager to help. He’d love to rescue Cramer from Muslim terrorists, and then
thoroughly debrief him.”

“Yeah, and no
doubt FSB will be sitting in on the debriefing.”  

Although SVR was
Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, the Federal Security Bureau— domestic internal
security—still operated within the former Soviet republics. In the countries
whose governments maintained favorable relations with Moscow, like Tajikistan
or Belarus, FSB cooperated with the security services. In Western-aligned
countries, like Georgia, Moldova, or Ukraine, FSB acted subversively.

“What sort of
help has Ghazan been offering?” Avery asked.

“He has watchers
around the embassy twenty-four hours, and all embassy staff is now entitled to
a tail, same with any Americans coming in from Dushanbe International, and you
can bet that’ll include you. Colonel Ghazan apologizes for the inconvenience
and stresses it’s simply a security precaution.”

 “Ghazan will
know that Cramer’s Agency. That’ll be obvious to anyone. But do the Tajiks know
about Wilkes, too?”

“We’ve identified
Tom as a lost tourist.”

 “Right, an
American tourist driving around Gorno-Badakhshan, near the Afghan border,
alone, I suppose that’s completely common.”

“Hey, it was the
best we could do,” Gerald said. Somewhat defensively, too, Avery observed. But he
didn’t hold that against him. Gerald was essentially acting chief of station
now, and he had a lot on his plate. “We didn’t know Wilkes was going to Khorugh
and we had no cover prepared for his unannounced trip. It took everyone by
surprise when his body turned up there.”