Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition) (5 page)

Avery arched an
eyebrow. “Nobody knew what Wilkes was doing in Khorugh?” He noted the younger
man’s reaction and added, “I’m not being critical. I’m not here to find
scapegoats for the Seventh Floor. That’s the Office of Security’s job, but I do
need to know what’s been going on around here, if I’m going to do my job.”

“The only time
I’ve ever seen Khorugh come up is pertaining to CERTITUDE, one of our top Tajik
agents.”

 “Has anyone
been in contact with CERTITUDE?”

“No longer
possible,” Gerald said. “Earlier today, I learned through police sources that
he was found dead outside Khorugh, just twenty miles away from where Wilkes was
killed. My source provided the forensics and pathology reports, which show that
they were killed by the same weapon, a Makarov 9mm, and within several hours of
each other. We communicated with CERTITUDE through a shared e-mail account.
Only Cramer, CERTITUDE, and I have access to it. There weren’t any messages, and
nothing about a Sunday meeting.”

“Tell me about CERTITUDE,”
Avery said.

“He’s a Pamiri
trader, does business in Gorno-Badakhshan and Afghanistan. He has tribal
connections with the warlords. Before he was killed, we’d tasked him, at
Wilkes’ insistence, with checking out a construction project underway in
Gorno-Badakhshan and financed by a Ukrainian firm.”

“What kind of
construction project?”

“Ostensibly,
it’s a cement factory for humanitarian and development projects in
Gorno-Badakhshan for a firm called Tajikistan Cement Investment and Development
Company. We first caught wind of it a few months back, while investigating
Pakistanis who had links to this company, including associates of Ali Masood
Jafari.”

“The Pakistani
nuclear scientist,” Avery said.

 “Cramer looked
into it personally and decided it wasn’t worth further expenditure of
resources. But for some reason it really caught Wilkes’ attention. It became a
point of contention between Cramer and Wilkes. He resented Wilkes coming in and
tying up resources to cover old ground.”

“And you’re
thinking IMU is involved?” Avery asked.

“That’s the consensus
around here.”

“Why’s that? IMU
hasn’t claimed responsibility, no one has.”

“IMU involvement
would be consistent with recent events around here,” Gerald said. “Since all
this stuff with the nuclear smuggling came up and the IMU-Afghanistan
connection, we’ve targeted IMU cells across the region, especially in the
Fergana Valley. We called it PINION. It was a joint op with Tashkent station. We
placed a penetration agent codenamed CREST, a Northern Alliance Uzbek who
worked with our forces in Afghanistan, inside the IMU hierarchy. After two
months, CREST dropped off the grid. A week later, Tajik police in Kanibadam
discovered his mutilated body. Over the next several days, we lost three more
highly placed agents. Our counterterrorism networks in the country are
basically blown, and, across the border, Tashkent station is feeling the
repercussions, too. It was a serious cluster fuck.”

 PINION hadn’t
been included in the files Culler had provided Avery.

“We don’t have
any names or suspects yet. Well, that’s not entirely true. The Uzbek National
Security Service identified an operative code-named Karakurt as the killer of
two of our PINION agents. This is the first we’ve ever heard of him. I’ve run
it through our allies, and no one else has anything on him either.”

“Karakurt?”
asked Avery. He didn’t recall the name from Culler’s briefing packet.

“It’s a venomous
spider indigenous to the Astrakhan region of Russia. It’s one of the deadliest
spiders in the world.”

“Did you run
this through Ghazan?” 

“GKNB has
nothing. But according to the Germans, there’s a particularly brutal and
efficient Krasnaya Mafiya enforcer called Karakurt who comes from the Caucasus
and has links to extremist groups in the former Soviet Union. We don’t have a
physical description or name and no idea where to begin looking. Hell, he might
not even exist.”

Avery filed away
this bit of information about Karakurt. His instincts told him it could be
important.

There was
silence for several seconds as Avery digested this new information. Then he
said, “I’m going to need access to Cramer’s office and all of his files.”

Avery was aware of their GKNB watchers
observing them as they walked from the Forerunner, through Post One, and into
the embassy. Even without Gerald’s advance warning, they’d still be easy to
spot, two of them sitting in an Opel with official government plates. Avery
shook his head. He wasn’t even here an hour, and already the Tajiks managed to make
his job more difficult.

At Post One,
Avery signed in using his Anderson identity. Then Gerald led him up a staircase
to the third floor, through a cipher-lock door into the CIA station, and showed
him into Cramer’s office.

The office was
exactly what Avery would have expected of Cramer. It was clean and sparse,
everything neatly organized, just as he’d compartmentalized as all aspects of
his life, with very few personal effects, other than books and a couple framed
pictures on the wall. Large political and topographical maps of the region
adorned the opposite wall.

The pictures
weren’t the typical ones with the CIA director or secretary of state or some
other VIP that adorned the walls of so many Agency careerists. These pictures
showed Cramer rugging it in the mountains of Afghanistan, with Northern
Alliance tribesmen and bearded American Special Forces soldiers on horseback. Another
showed a much younger Cramer standing in front of the wreckage of a Soviet
Mi-24 gunship, beside an Afghan mujahedeen carrying a Stinger launch tube.

The two
five-shelf bookcases were packed with volumes on Islam, post-Soviet Russian
politics, philosophy, biographies, and the geography, history, economics, and
politics of the region. Most visitors were amused to find John le Carrè and
Frederick Forsyth hardcovers thrown in, too, but Avery didn’t care for fiction.

 “When Bob left
the embassy, he was on his way to meet an agent,” Avery said. “Who was this
agent?”

“CK/SCINIPH is
an FSB captain assigned to the Russian military contingent based at Ayni. He’s
one of our most valuable Russian agents in the country.”

“Did Cramer ever
make that meet?”

“We’re not sure.
We haven’t been in contact with SCINIPH yet.”

“Why the hell
not? He may be the last person to have seen Cramer alive.”

“SCINIPH is
spooked, understandably so, and wants to hang low. Plus he’s going to be
reluctant to start working with a new handler, someone he doesn’t know. He
always dealt with Cramer, and no one else. Darren was going to see him tonight,
if SCINIPH doesn’t call it off again. Maybe we’ll know more then.”

Gerald’s cell
phone vibrated in his pocket. Grateful for the interruption and not having to
explain himself further, he answered it. He listened for half a minute,
acknowledged what he was told, and ended the call.

“This is it,” he
told Avery urgently. He walked behind Cramer’s desk and dropped into the chair
and turned on the computer.

Avery came over
and stood behind him, looking over the younger man’s shoulder.

Gerald opened
the web browser and logged into Intelink, the secure Internet network used by
American intelligence agencies. He downloaded a file, and Windows Media Player
popped open on the screen.

“This showed up
three hours ago on a jihadist propaganda website. Analysts have just confirmed
its authenticity.”

The video was of
poor, grainy quality and looked like countless others to have appeared on the
Internet over the years, first made popular by Iraqi insurgents.

Cramer sat in a
chair. Two men wearing black ski masks stood on either side of him, towering
over him. They were dressed in mismatched, ill-fitting camouflaged combat
fatigues. One man carried an AK-47. The other held the long, curved blade of an
Arab Jambiya dagger against Cramer’s throat. The IMU flag, bearing an open
Koran against a blue globe within concentric yellow and black rings, covered
the wall behind them.

Cramer appeared
pale, bruised, battered, and bloodied. One eye was puffy and swollen shut, the
other black and blue. His hair was disheveled. His white shirt was wrinkled and
torn, with tiny dark stains on it from where the blood had dripped down from
his face. His shoulders were hunched forward, like it was too painful for him to
sit up straight. He stared into the camera with a vacant, downtrodden
expression. It was a look Avery had never seen on Cramer before. He appeared
completely defeated, worn out, and succumbed to despair, like a man who had
already suffered greatly and knew that painful death was imminent and
inescapable but also a welcome relief.

Avery felt
uncomfortable seeing Cramer wounded and vulnerable. He remembered Cramer in the
Afghan mountains, drawing up a battle plan with the tribal leaders of the
Northern Alliance, confronting the enemy head-on. He’d always been confident
and self-assured, a natural leader.

One of the
masked men spoke in Uzbek. The English translation appeared in captions transposed
over the bottom of the screen. Then there was silence. The masked man nudged
Cramer’s throat with the blade, prodding him. Cramer barely moved, but on cue
he finally spoke. His voice sounded coarse and weak as he stated his name and
identified himself as a senior officer of the Central Intelligence Agency
assigned to the Republic of Tajikistan. He stated that he was being held
prisoner by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and that he was an enemy of the
people of Islam. The masked man with the dagger then said that Cramer was to be
tried for war crimes committed against the Muslim people. The IMU spokesman
vowed that there would be no negotiating for Cramer’s release and that only
God’s judgment would spare him.

The video ended.

Gerald replayed
it once more.

Then he sat back
in silence, staring at the screen with Avery, letting it sink in.

“I also have the
video analysis,” Gerald said. He opened this file and skimmed through the
contents. “But it doesn’t appear to offer any relevant insight. They did voice
analysis and facial recognition to confirm that it’s really Bob. The voiceprint
of the IMU spokesman doesn’t match anything NSA has on file, but their analysts
confirm he’s a native Uzbek speaker. From the environment on screen and
ambient, background noise, they’re unable to determine a location where this
was recorded.”

Gerald continued
clicking and kept reading quietly. After a minute, he raised his eyebrows and
exclaimed, “Oh, shit!”

“What is it?”
Avery asked.

 “The Russians
positively identified the IMU speaker as Otabek Babayev.”

Avery leaned in
to look over Gerald’s shoulder at the file he’d just opened. At the top was a
picture of a man with a long, scarred face, scraggly salt and pepper beard, and
angry, hateful eyes.  

“So what’s his
story?”

“Babayev is a
nasty, hardcore Jihadist piece of work,” Gerald explained. “He was a part of
Namangani’s inner circle in the IMU. He graduated from an Iranian training camp
in the Fergana Valley and fought in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan, but
he didn’t appear on our radar until last year when he assassinated the Indian
ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, blew up a school bus full of kids in Kabul, and
beheaded an American aid worker in Kandahar. We’re also pretty sure he
personally tortured and executed at least two of our PINION agents. He’ll work
for any jihadist group that can afford him. He’s sold his services to the
Taliban and Laskhar-e Taiba. If this guy is holding Cramer, then that’s some
seriously fucked up bad news.”

Avery thought
Langley would now turn to Moscow for assistance. The Russian special services,
which actively pursued terrorists in Central Asia and the Caucasus, might have
a lead. Plus Otabek Babayev was at the top of their hit list. CIA would also
press Uzbekistan’s National Security Service to go after IMU targets within
that country in the hopes of producing some new intel on Cramer’s location and
captors. Inside Tajikistan, Dushanbe station would be working closely with the
GKNB now.

Unfortunately, Avery
had been involved with too many hostage recovery operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan to believe that this would produce a desirable outcome.

“Well,” Gerald
said, “at least we know what we’re dealing with and where to focus our
resources. There’s no more speculation about what happened to Bob.”

But Avery still wasn’t
convinced. “Maybe.”

Gerald frowned. “What
do you mean ‘maybe’? There’s no maybe about it.”

“It’s supposed
to look like IMU, no doubt about that, but the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
did not orchestrate this. I’d bet money on it.”

“You just saw it
with your own eyes. What more do you need?”

“Come on,” Avery
scoffed. “You’re going to tell me IMU blew one of your covert ops, penetrated a
CIA station, systematically rolled up a whole agent network, assassinated an
officer, and then grabbed the station chief? This Babayev asshole might be the
new terrorist threat in the region, but he’s not
that
good. We
annihilated IMU’s forces and took out their leadership when we first went into
Afghanistan. They’ve just recently started putting themselves back together. They
couldn’t pull off something this sophisticated without significant outside help.
The IMU’s also more interested in smuggling heroin.”

“Maybe, but they
still lend their operatives out to other regional militant and terrorist groups
all the time—Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda, Haqqani Network, Hezbi
Islami, take your pick—for the occasional bombing or assassination. Outsourcing
terrorism. Anyone of them would love to get their hands on one of our station
chiefs.”

“And that may be
the full extent of IMU involvement here,” Avery conceded. “You said yourself
that Babayev is a freelancer, a mercenary. The operations against your network
were the work of professional intelligence operators. Maybe IMU assets were
used or involved as smokescreen or to provide muscle, but it was at the
direction of another player. I think we’re looking at a false flag op.”

 “Iran?” asked
Gerald. “We’ve investigated links between Babayev and Qods Force. We know
they’ve met on at least two occasions within the last six months.”

“Possibly,”
Avery said. “The Iranians are capable and have the resources.”

Iran was also
known to covertly meddle in the affairs of the poor, unstable Central Asian
republics, having previously launched a terrorist campaign to undermine the
government in Azerbaijan, and maintained ties to a wide variety of terrorist
groups around the globe. Iranian intelligence also maintained an active
presence in Tajikistan.

“Frankly, it’s
not worth the time discussing it until we learn more. Otherwise, it’s just
speculation, conjecture, wasting time, and I’m not here for that. I’ll leave
that to the analysts.”

“Hey, I was originally
an analyst,” Gerald said defensively. “After Georgetown I started out in the
Directorate of Intelligence, Near East Division. Then someone discovered I
spoke Farsi and Pashtu like a native. There was a shortage of fluent speakers
on the Operations side, so they put me through the Farm and sent me to Kabul as
an interpreter. So here I am.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, what are you
going to do from here?”

“The first thing
I need is my own safe house. No way am I working out of the embassy.”

“Sideshow has
already established a safe house.”

“Sideshow?”
asked Avery.

“Codename for your
back-up from the Point.” The designation for Poacher’s team changed with each
deployment, and this was the first Avery heard of their current cryptonym. “They’re
here on Canadian passports, and GKNB doesn’t give a shit about Canadians,
especially if they’re writers and photojournalists researching a travel book on
the Stans.”

That would work.
Avery wanted to stay close to Poacher’s team in case he needed them.

“I can provide
you with a vehicle and security escort,” Gerald offered.

“Like the shiny
black tank with USG plates that picked me up from the airport? I’ll pass. I’d
like to not have Ghazan’s goons watching my every move or give the IMU an easy
target.”

“I’m sure we can
arrange for more discrete transportation,” Gerald said.

“I’ll take care
of it.”

“What about the
security officer?”

Avery frowned. “What
about the security officer?”

“New order from
the director’s office. No Agency personnel are to leave the embassy or travel
anywhere in the country without an armed security escort until further notice.”

“Yeah, see, I
don’t go in for that kind of stupid shit.”

Avery had been in
Iraq at the height of the insurgency war. Case officers meeting and recruiting agents
travelled in Hummvees with an entourage of bodyguards in flak vests carrying
assault rifles, sometimes with a helicopter escort if they were going into a
really bad part of town. As a result, insurgents easily identified Iraqis collaborating
with the American-led occupation.

“You may not
have a choice,” Gerald said. “DCM and RSO want to meet with you to discuss your
assignment here before you undertake any action.”