C
HAPTER
15
Z
almay’s hideout was a cramped adobe house with a half-collapsed wall and rubble on the floor. Among the few amenities were a couple of chairs, a blanket, and a small battery-operated radio, left there, he gathered, by Zalmay, himself. Morgan tore the blanket into strips and used them to tie Baz securely to some pipes under a cracked porcelain sink.
“This is crazy, Cobra!” he protested. “I have not betrayed you!”
“That’s not a chance I’m willing to take,” Morgan said, tightening the knot around Baz’s wrists.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“Just sit tight and be quiet, and you’ll be fine,” he said, gagging Baz’s mouth with another of the strips. Morgan knew he could be jeopardizing the mission by sparing the driver’s life. In the old days, he would have killed a man for less. Maybe he was going soft, but he was willing to give Baz the benefit of the doubt—or at least enough to keep him alive for now.
Morgan walked into the next room, bringing a chair and motioning for Zalmay to follow him. He took the small radio and turned it up as loud as it would go—the broadcast was scratchy, and the speakers weren’t exactly potent—to drown out their conversation. Then he sat, removed his fake beard, and cracked open his first-aid kit. He lifted his shirt to examine the slash. The bleeding had all but stopped, dried blood crusting on his skin. Although not too deep, it would need stitches. He poured ethyl alcohol onto a piece of gauze and began to dab at it, which allowed the blood to flow more freely. It stung like hell, but he had long ago learned to suppress the pain. He scrubbed it harder, to clean as deeply as possible. The alternative was risking a deadly infection.
“Zalmay,” he said to the young man, who was pale at the sight of the seeping blood. Morgan began to suture his wound as he spoke. “Sit down. I think it’s time you answered some of my questions. I want you to tell me what you and Cougar were doing in Kandahar.”
Zalmay pulled up another chair and sat facing Morgan. Having finished the sutures, Morgan took a good look at the boy for the first time. Zalmay was a skinny kid, no older than twenty-five and probably younger. He had dark olive skin, with large eyes and a wholesome-looking face marred by deep grooves of worry and anxiety.
“I will tell you what I can,” Zalmay began. “What Cougar and I learned, it is damaging to many people. He believed it was the work of many to keep it quiet, a . . . what is the word?”
“A conspiracy?” Morgan suggested, as he secured a wad of gauze over his wound with surgical tape.
“Yes, a conspiracy. To hide Acevedo’s connections with a local drug lord, a powerful man in Kandahar named Bacha Marwat.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him. What’s his relationship with Acevedo?”
“He is one of the great opium traders in the region,” said Zalmay. His tone made it clear he had no love for the man. “He has many, many farmers under his command, who altogether harvest tons and tons of poppies. But transporting opium is not easy. Acevedo has many big planes that take off and land every week in their own airfields, with no oversight but their own. Cougar and I found out that this is how Marwat’s opium is getting out of Afghanistan.”
Morgan wiped his hands of blood, put his shirt back on, and took the memory card from his pocket. He took out the cheap digital camera and batteries he had instructed Zalmay to buy on their way over as he watched over Baz in the car. He put the batteries in the camera, then inserted the little black plastic memory card in the appropriate slot. He turned on the camera, and switched to the replay function. It showed that there were ninety-seven images in all, which he began to click through. In the first several frames, he could see a plane clearly marked with Acevedo International’s logo, a curled eagle’s claw. After that, there were crates, each filled with bags. Another series of pictures showed the contents of one of the bags spilled open: opium.
He paused to take this in. If Acevedo International was running opium for a local warlord, the charge against them was more serious than just drug trafficking, or even war profiteering. Much of Afghanistan’s drug money ended up funding the Taliban or other insurgents—usually as protection money, or a way to keep the Americans busy. This was out-and-out treason. If it were true, this kid had evidence that could bring down one of the most powerful corporations in the world. A lot of very rich and influential people would want to silence him. And now it was Morgan’s duty to get him safely back to the United States.
Morgan looked up at Zalmay and couldn’t help feeling sorry for this jumpy and confused kid, who was not that much older than Alex. “How did you get involved with Marwat?” Morgan asked.
“Because of my English. I was a translator for Marwat’s men.”
“Why did you turn on him? Did Cougar promise you money?”
“No,” said Zalmay, with an offended scowl. “No, he did not promise me money. I did it because it was correct. Because I see it as the will of Allah. The man I worked for, he has connections with the Taliban. He forces all the farmers to grow poppies and pays them less for the crops than the price of wheat. They are starving, but they cannot stop working, or Marwat’s men will kill them. The longer I worked for him, the more I discovered what he did, and the more I hated myself for it. I stayed in his service because I needed the money, and because I was scared and alone and they provided me with some protection and security. But every time I accepted payment, I felt that I was unworthy to live.”
A wave of anguish passed over his face. He turned away, and spoke with a trembling intensity. “My parents were killed in the beginning of the war. The invasion made the Taliban even more cruel and fanatical, perhaps because it made them feel their power slipping away. My mother and my father were wealthy city Tajiks who opposed the Pashtun Taliban. They had Western sensibilities, and my mother did not like to wear the
chadri
—what you may know as the burqa. One day, an angry mob of Taliban loyalists caught them on the street. They called my father a dog and my mother a whore and stoned them to death. This was when I was only a boy. I have been on my own since, and I have made many compromises to survive.” He looked right into Morgan’s eyes. “I am helping Cougar because I wish to do something worthy. This is my redemption.”
Morgan had known many foreign collaborators in his life, and each had his own reason to help. A great many wanted money or asylum, and many did defect as a matter of principle. But rarely had he seen anyone so certain in his purpose as this kid.
“Well, Zalmay,” Morgan said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for. And if you’re telling the truth, it means we’re on the same side, and I’m going to do everything I can to help you. Just one more thing.” Morgan knew that this would be a shock to the young man, and so he had waited to tell him. Morgan turned down the radio. The gaudy pop music played in stark context to the solemnity of the moment. “Did you know that Cougar was found dead in Kandahar?”
Zalmay looked at him with wide, pitiful eyes. “No,” he whispered. “It cannot be.”
“I’m sorry, Zalmay. His death came as a shock to me, too. He was a great friend of mine.”
“And mine,” Zalmay said weakly.
Morgan could tell that it was more than mere friendship for Zalmay, however. If the young man had found some sort of paternal protection among men like Marwat’s, then a man like Conley would have been much closer to a father figure to this orphan.
Shit. This must be hell on the kid
.
“Listen. We can’t bring him back. But what we can do is finish what you two started together and stick it to the people who did this to him. Everything’s prepared to get you into the United States. What do you say to that?”
“I say, we shall do it,” said Zalmay, with angry resolve.
Morgan nodded at him. “Now we have to figure out how to—“ He was interrupted by muffled yells coming from the next room. Before he could even get up to see what was happening, Baz was hushed by two whispers from a silenced weapon. And then
she
appeared in the doorway.
The figure in the burqa stood in stony silence, a faceless ghost, the sky blue of her garment contrasting with the black of the pistol she held in her left hand. She was looking right at Morgan through the mesh covering her face. She had the drop on him, and he had no way to defend himself. She took careful aim.
Zalmay sprang up with a bloodcurdling howl and charged at her. She turned the gun toward him and fired wildly, too fast to aim. Two shots missed their mark; two pierced his chest. He staggered but maintained his momentum. She fired again, aiming straight for his heart this time. He crashed to the ground at her feet.
Without wasting a millisecond, she turned the gun toward Morgan and pulled the trigger.
Click
.
There was a flicker of recognition between them. Judging his own gun to be too far out of his reach, Morgan lunged straight at her instead. But with a lightning-quick about-face, she evaded him and dashed out the door as quickly as she had come in. Morgan ran after her, passing Baz, the poor bastard, still tied to the pipe, dead, in a pool of his own blood.
Morgan rushed into the street and saw her sprinting to his left, only a few yards ahead. He set off after her. His knee still ached and kept him from running at full sprint, but it was obvious her restrictive garments were cramping her speed. Within a block, he was hot on her heels.
With a final push, he grabbed at her, clutching cloth. She stumbled and fell; her head covering remained in his hand. She rolled on the dusty street, ending up on her back, so that he could see her face. It was striking, if a bit lined with age, haughty and high-cheeked, framed by short blond hair: a face he knew all too well.
“Natasha?
T
?”
She looked at him contemptuously and then at something behind him. He lifted his eyes from her. His single-minded chase had made him oblivious to everything around him, but now he saw that a number of men were running toward them. They had obviously spotted him as a foreigner. And even if she was obviously not one of their own, this was a culture of honor; he could easily get killed by a mob. They held back, but they were clearly ready to rush him and do some violence. He would be able to manage this, but not if he had to take Natasha prisoner at the same time. Plus, he knew very well that if he so much as touched her, he would be lynched. Begrudgingly, he cast her a look that said,
you win this time
. He turned around and dashed back to the safe house. A dozen indignant Afghans were left in his wake, screaming their resentments at him, but fortunately none followed him.
When Morgan got to the house, he saw that Zalmay still lay where he had fallen, his blood pooling on the ground. Morgan checked for a pulse. Nothing.
Morgan gritted his teeth. If it weren’t for this kid, T would have killed them both. He wished he had time to take care of the body, but he wasn’t safe staying in this place. T would find her way back at any moment. Morgan picked up the camera containing the memory card, his gun, and the car keys and ran out to Baz’s taxi.
As he drove away, he opened the glove compartment, ran his hands under the seats, searching until he found what he was looking for, what he knew had to be there—a tiny electronic bug, stuck to the bottom of the mat on the passenger’s side. So this was how Natasha had known where his rendezvous with Zalmay would be, and this was how she had found them afterward.
Sorry I doubted you, Baz
, he thought, as he tossed the bug out the window.
He popped the battery into the back of the cell phone that Baz had given him. He had to make two phone calls. The first was to Jenny. She didn’t pick up, so he left her a message on her voice mail. The second call was to Fastia.
“Two hours according to plan. But,” he added bitterly, “only one passenger.” Fastia acknowledged, and they hung up. Morgan removed the phone’s battery again.
T. Shit.
He didn’t know what it meant, but he did know one thing—he could no longer trust the CIA. If she was involved, there had to be a traitor on the inside. To go back to the Agency without knowing who it was would be as good as suicide. He was, and would remain, completely on his own.
C
HAPTER
16
M
organ sat in the stretch limo, dressed to kill in a tailored tux. Even though he was still a fresh-faced youth—this was barely two years after Libya—he had the broad-shouldered frame of a man, with a look of grizzled determination to match. But their destination that night was rather more pleasant than the Libyan Sahara. They were headed to a charity ball at the DC Mandarin Oriental Hotel. It was a swanky event, full of diplomats, politicos, businessmen, and other assorted Washington bigwigs. Champagne, caviar, and expensive women—a playground of the rich and powerful. But Morgan would be going in on business.
The suit sitting across from him, an unnamed Agency case officer with droopy, dead eyes and a deep, rasping voice who was balancing a glass of expensive Scotch on the rocks on his knee, proffered a folder taken out of his briefcase.
“Natasha Vasiliyevna. She’s here as a member of the Ambassador’s security detail, but the word is she’s intelligence. We’ve had reports that she’s looking to defect.”
Morgan opened the folder, in which there was a letter-sized photograph of a woman. Blonde, with high cheekbones and intense, piercing blue eyes looking at something off to the side. A deadly beauty.
“She’s a looker,” Morgan said.
“Say what you want about the Russkies,” said the suit. “One thing the commie bastards have is taste.”
“She doesn’t look Russian,” said Morgan. “Looks more Swedish to me.”
“On her mother’s side,” said the Agency man. “An Olympic gymnast.”
“Good genes. How’d she end up in Russia?”
“Her mother was one of those few people who defected
into
the USSR,” he said, with a sneer.
“And now her daughter wants out,” said Morgan blankly, his eyes transfixed by the photograph. “Ironic. Why doesn’t she just walk out the door?”
“She’s concerned that the Foreign Intelligence Service won’t take too kindly to it. She wants assurances of safety and protection.”
“Can’t say I blame her.” In spite of himself, Morgan was stirred by the thought of meeting her in person, to see her beauty and intensity up close. He could immediately see himself being lured in by her, however, and that frightened him. “How do we know this isn’t a ploy?” If there was one thing he had learned from his work, it was that there could be multiple levels of deception going on with any given interaction.
“That’s how she’ll play it, of course. Her bosses will believe it is
she
who wants to turn
you
. They will expect her to extract information from you—which we will provide, just enough for them to get a taste.”
“And what if it turns out we are the ones she’s playing?”
“We have, of course, foreseen the possibility. It is part of your task to determine her true intentions.”
“And how do you want me to accomplish that?” asked Morgan, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s my understanding that you have a particular . . .
talent
in dealing with women. Exploit it.”
Morgan looked at him wordlessly as the limousine pulled in to the red carpet at the Mandarin Oriental.
“We’re counting on you, Cobra. Break a leg,” said the Agency man.
“Anyone gets in my way, and I’ll break two,” Morgan said, and he walked out onto the red carpet.
Morgan quietly scoped the schmoozing crowd of sharply dressed and well-coiffed jet-setters. This Natasha was gorgeous, if her picture was any indication, but he felt that even she wouldn’t stand out too much in this milieu. Everything was perfect, as one would expect. The waiters made the rounds in a precise dance, and the stiff-necked private bodyguards were so numerous that men in black suits practically lined the walls. And the people spoke with a canned wit so smooth, it seemed thoroughly rehearsed.
Then he saw her, and he realized how wrong he had been. She did stand out, even among the surgically enhanced escorts and trophy wives who populated the ballroom. She was wearing a plain black dress, with her light-blond hair done up. Seeing her like that, Morgan noticed that Natasha Vasiliyevna was not only a beauty among beauties; there was something that seemed far more alive in her, something almost animal-like, which was so different from the glossy sheen of all the polished personas in attendance.
Natasha had been cornered by some young heir type, and though they were out of earshot, she was visibly ignoring him and surveying the room instead. Still, the boy nattered on with the obliviousness that overconfident, underexperienced, privileged youths always seemed to display when talking to a member of the opposite sex who was not completely fascinated by them.
His lips were still moving when Morgan approached. “—it’s just this full-body sensation, and I’m telling you, you’ve never experienced anything like it. It’s just wave after wave of—excuse me, can I help you?”
“Yeah. You can get the hell out of here.”
Natasha looked at him, intrigued.
The young man said in a huff, “Hey, buddy, do you know who I am?”
“What you are is leaving,” he said. “Now.”
The kid frowned. This lack of deference was obviously a new experience for him. He turned to face Morgan, chest puffed out, hands made into fists, in his best imitation of a tough guy. “What if I don’t?”
Morgan turned to face him. The other man was taller, but Morgan was a fighter, and it showed. “Don’t tell me you’re actually threatening me,” he said dismissively. He noticed that the kid had looked toward his bodyguard. “I wouldn’t,” said Morgan.
“Oh, yeah? Why not?”
“I’m not afraid of a fight. But you, on the other hand . . .”
“I know karate and capoeira.”
“And I’ve killed a man with my bare hands. Now listen. You get out of here now, or I start breaking fingers. How many do you think I can get to before your bodyguard pulls me off of you?”
The kid recoiled, then turned to walk away. “Savage plebeian,” he said under his breath as he went.
Morgan was left alone next to Natasha, who had been ostentatiously ignoring the interaction. “Lovely crowd, aren’t they?” said Morgan nonchalantly.
“Give a trained monkey a decent suit and a professional haircut, and he would fit right in,” she replied, without missing a beat. She had only the slightest accent.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Dressing a monkey in a suit would constitute
fun
, and I don’t think they allow that here.”
“I think they do,” she said without looking at him, “but only if it comes here to die.”
Morgan chuckled. “Sounds like you’re not crazy about being here.”
“I am counting the minutes to when I can leave this excruciating event.”
“Funny,” Morgan retorted. “I’ve been told that you’re actually fairly eager to stay.”
Her cunning eyes flashed on him with immediate understanding. “Perhaps,” she said. “Now that you’re here.”
Natasha opened the door to her suite at the Mandarin and pulled him in by his tie for an aggressive kiss. Her breath was fragrant, like wine, and her kisses were fervent, almost desperate. She held his head in her hands, leaning her forehead into his, noses scrunched up against each other. She breathed heavily with desire and smiled.
She was a subtle seductress. A lesser manipulator would have just used her body, leering stares, pure sex. But this, this was passion—real passion, calculating as it might have been. This was, without a doubt, a cat-and-mouse game, but it was unclear who was which. Both their masks were layers deep, and there was no way of telling how far down sincerity was, if it was there at all.
Morgan walked into the room warily. As assassinations went, this was the oldest trick in the book, and he would not fall for it, not even for a woman like Natasha. But there wasn’t anyone else in the suite. All that caught his eye was—
“Is that a checkerboard?” he asked, with a hint of authentic enthusiasm. It was the first chink in the armor, a tiny wrench in the works of their mutual manipulation. It was a touch of sincerity, of something genuine in what would have been, for both of them, a completely fabricated interaction.
“My favorite pastime,” she said. “It helps to while away the long hours of boredom. Do you?”
“Do I play? I’ve only been wiping the floor with any opponent since I was eight.”
“Then we play,” she said, decisively. “We shall find out if you can wipe the floor with me.”
She set up the board, and she chose black. They sat across from each other.
“Care to make it interesting?” he said.
“And how do you propose that?”
“An item of clothing for each captured piece,” he said.
“That’s hardly fair, is it? Capture six of my pieces, and I’ll be . . .” She smiled and blushed—a blush that Morgan suspected was not born of modesty. “I suppose that would be acceptable.”
She made her opening gambit, and he made his. As they made their plays, Morgan began to get a feel for her style. It seemed naïve, unsophisticated. He captured one of her pieces. With an alluring smile, she slowly removed a shoe, black and high-heeled, letting him get a look at her stockinged leg. She placed the shoe on the table next to the board.
This is going to be easy
, he thought. And then he lost three pieces in one move. There went a jacket, a tie, and a shoe. Only then did he realize she’d been toying with him, leading him to underestimate her, get overconfident. She was a far more subtle player than he’d realized. He thought,
this is going to be fun
.
“I hope you have as many moves in bed as you have on the checkerboard,” he said.
And then the game really began. She, like he, seemed to be able to see many turns ahead. Every move became a sally or parry in complex strategies as each player tried to find an opening.
The game progressed, and Natasha was down to her dress and nothing more. He advanced, but it had been a trap—and there went his shirt. But the move had left her vulnerable. He took another one of hers.
She smiled slyly and pulled him in, by the hair, for a kiss. Then she turned her back to him, slowly unzipped her little black dress, and let it fall to her ankles. They never finished the game.