The Colonel's Mistake (33 page)

“We are backing no one.”

“Aryanpur is running his operation from somewhere on Neft Dashlari. In Azeri waters. People will conclude that you are backing him whether you are or not. I’m doing you a favor by helping you to pinpoint his base. Instead of having an international incident explode under your nose, you can get ahead of the game, take out Aryanpur’s men yourself, and then sell all the intel you collect back to the Americans. Not a bad deal for you.”

“And you expect what, in return for this…favor?” A mean, but not entirely unfriendly, smile formed on Orkhan’s face.

Mark told him.

Orkhan appeared deep in thought. After a time he said, “Go back to your car. I need to speak with Aliyev.”

The aging Russian Mi-2 charter helicopter that transported Mark and Amato to Neft Dashlari was piloted by an Azeri Air Force captain who wore Levi’s jeans and a T-shirt that said
San Francisco Sucks
.

The two Azeris crewing the helicopter were also dressed like Americans; both were armed with M16 rifles.

Amato was wearing the same suit he’d had on since leaving Washington. He’d combed his wild gray hair, but his five o’clock shadow had grown into a stubbly beard. Around his waist he’d strapped a military belt with a large Glock semiautomatic pistol. He was a big man, and the juxtaposition of the gun and the business suit and the unshaven face made him look more than a little unhinged—and dangerous.

They flew east, screaming along the coast to the end of the Absheron Peninsula, and then over open water for another thirty miles until Neft Dashlari came into view. From the air it looked like a giant mutant spider, with a central mass of buildings surrounded by a vast snarl of stilt roads that led to oil derricks. Even from the air, Mark couldn’t see the eastern end of it.

The helicopter banked right and for five minutes followed a derelict stilt road that occasionally dipped below the shallow water. They shot past a few dilapidated industrial buildings, some on stilts,
some on small landfill islands. But then they hit a section where the road had been repaired and there were a few bright new buildings clad in yellow-painted steel and emblazoned with the names of oil companies Mark didn’t recognize.

The sky was overcast and threatening rain.

Amato held a GPS locater in his hand. “We’re close!” He had to shout to be heard above the roar of the rotors.

Mark turned his back to Amato and allowed himself to be handcuffed.

Minutes later, a floating helipad came into view. A large white circle surrounding a yellow bull’s-eye had been painted on the black rubber surface.

Mark reminded the pilot not to even touch down and the pilot flashed him a thumbs-up. A small guard shack sat in one corner of the landing pad. A man emerged from it and shot off a single flair.

“Good to go!” said Amato.

As the helicopter hovered a few feet above the landing platform, Amato grabbed Mark by his shirt collar, raised him to a standing position, and shoved him out the bay door. With his hands secured behind his back, Mark couldn’t steady himself. So when he stumbled onto the landing pad he fell on his face.

For a moment the roar of the helicopter was deafening and the wind intense. But soon the noise died down to a point where Mark could hear the lonely sound of the sea lapping up against the floating platform. He felt the butt of Amato’s gun on the back of his neck.

A second man emerged from the guard shack. Both he and the first carried AK-47s and were dressed like soldiers, but with no identifying marks on their uniforms.

Amato spoke to them sharply in Farsi. One of them raised what appeared to be a digital camcorder. He focused on Amato’s face, and then Mark’s. Not long after, the soldier with the camera received a call on his radio. Mark understood enough to realize that he and Amato had been positively identified.

He was led to the little guard shack where they stripped him naked, cutting away his shirt because of the handcuffs. They searched every pocket and inch of fabric. Then one of the men cold-cocked him on the side of his head. Mark thought he blacked out for a moment.

“Open your mouth!” ordered one of the soldiers.

His body was searched. When they were satisfied that he wasn’t hiding any physical paraphernalia, they dragged him back out onto the helipad.

Blood from Mark’s nose ran in small rivulets down his chest. His nakedness, and the rough wet rubber of the helipad beneath his bare feet, made him feel vulnerable and defenseless.

The Iranians spoke to Amato in Farsi and pointed to a flat-bottomed inflatable boat that was tied to the edge of the helipad.

“Get in,” said Amato. He gave Mark a push. At that point the Iranian soldiers stepped up, grabbed Mark by each of his arms, dragged him to the boat, then shoved him forward so that once again he fell flat on his face. Someone threw a blanket over him. The two Iranians climbed in the boat.

“Stay down,” said Amato.

Mark turned his head so that his left eye could see through a slit in the blanket. They motored quickly along a route that took them under several stilt roads and then followed a newer road along which men were working and derricks were actually
pumping. Little patches of oil floated all over the water. He saw a white van driving along one of the stilt roads.

After a while one of the Iranians kicked him in the gut and pulled the blanket completely over his head so that he couldn’t see anything. When the boat finally came to a stop, and the blanket was pulled away again, Mark found himself looking at a dismal concrete-block Soviet-era building that measured about a hundred feet long and was surrounded by water. The small scrap of landfill on which it sat had been reclaimed by the rising Caspian, leaving the ground floor about two feet under water. The stilt road which used to provide access to the building had fallen into the sea, leaving behind only a few rotting posts.

In the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, Mark saw the vague shape of a newer lime-green building with a shiny silver roof.

One of the Iranian soldiers tied the boat to a rusted metal stanchion, then waded in knee-deep water to a door. A new soldier emerged from inside the building and a frantic conversation about where to take Mark ensued.

“Stand up.” Amato jammed the butt of his pistol into the back of Mark’s neck. “Get out of the boat.”

Mark stepped into the water. It was warm and smelled of oil. Beneath his bare feet lay an algae-covered concrete staircase. He slipped a bit before righting himself.

Upon entering the building he saw two Iranian soldiers, one of whom punched him in the gut before dragging him down a hallway.

He imagined he was back in Baku, in his apartment, on his balcony. The sun was setting. It was warm. Pain was just an illusory sensation that his mind could shut down if it needed to, he told himself. Put it aside.

The soldiers took him to a cramped room—an old dorm, Mark thought—with a bare minimum of space for the two Soviet laborers who would have been crammed into it back in the day. After hitting him again, the Iranians secured his hands to a bolt on the floor. Because his hands were cuffed behind his back it was a struggle to keep his head above the two feet of water sloshing about in the room. Eventually he realized that if he just took a deep breath, and then relaxed and let himself slip fully under until he needed to take another breath, he’d be better off.

Oily water slipped into his ears. The muffled sounds echoing throughout the building had an unreal and distorted quality to them. He heard a door slamming and what could have been more yelling. But no sounds of motorboats or gunfire, which is what he was hoping to hear. He wondered whether he’d pushed his luck too far this time, and whether Amato had even activated the GPS signaling device on his phone.

He wondered whether he’d been foolish to have trusted Amato.

After a while, Mark was brought to a larger room, the old cafeteria he guessed. In it were four soldiers, an older-looking Iranian, and Amato. Everyone stood in knee-deep water.

Amato looked crazy.

His jaw was closed, his chin was jutting out, his nostrils were flared like a bull’s, and he seemed to have grown a few inches taller. This wasn’t a man feigning anger, thought Mark. This was a man on the verge of exploding.

A second later, he saw why.

Mark had been prepared to see Daria in a bad way. And he’d thought that his own brushes over the years with intense brutality had dulled his ability to be deeply affected by such depths of depravity.

But he’d been wrong.

Seeing her there, tucked away in a corner, drug-addled and shivering, stripped and beaten and broken, abandoned like a piece of garbage that had floated in with the sea, cut him more that he had thought he was capable of being cut.

He forced himself to stare at her for a moment. Her eyes were glassy and fixed on the motion of the water below her. She gave no acknowledgment that she’d seen him.

“Daria!” he said.

Someone hit him and he fell to his knees. She still didn’t look up. “Daria!” he called again.

This time one of the Iranians jammed his head under the water until he began to choke. When he was released, he heard Amato talking to the older Iranian, the interrogator, a man of average height with an angular face, a bony nose, and a trim black beard. They were arguing in Farsi about how to conduct the interrogation. It was just Amato stalling for time, Mark knew.

After a little more back-and-forth the Iranian interrogator shrugged and ordered that Mark be tied flat on his back to a bench, the top of which rested an inch below the surface of the water. He ordered that Daria be similarly restrained on an identical bench.

“Hold on, Daria. You’re going to be OK,” Mark called out as they strapped him down. He had no idea whether this was true, or whether, given the state she was in, it would be possible for her to ever be OK again.

After his outburst, one of the Iranians kicked Mark in the side. A few of his ribs cracked. If Daria had heard his words of encouragement, she gave no indication.

Amato appeared above him and demanded to know who he’d told about the stolen uranium.

Mark detected a note of hesitation in Amato’s voice. And asking about the uranium straight away pegged him as someone unfamiliar with interrogation techniques.

“What you tell me will be matched against what she’s already—” Amato turned away from Mark. “What the hell are you doing!”

Mark raised his head. The bench to which Daria had been strapped had been turned on its side by one of the soldiers. Daria’s legs were kicking underwater.

“Answer the question.” The Iranian interrogator spoke to Mark in clear, calm British-accented English. “When you do, we’ll let her breathe.”

“One person,” said Mark. “John Decker is his name. For Christ’s sake, let her up.”

“Tell me about this John Decker.”

“He’s a former SEAL, I worked with him in Baku.”

“Where is he now?”

“He’s dead, killed in France.”

“I’ll need to know more than that.”

“He’s an independent contractor, I hired him to help me. Let her up! I’m not telling you anything else until you let her breathe.”

“She’s no good to us if you kill her!” bellowed Amato.

The interrogator gave Amato a questioning look. “Very well,” he said.

The bench to which Daria was strapped was righted. She coughed up water and gasped for air. Mark listened to her desperately trying to breathe. At least she was still trying, he thought.

Directly above him, Mark saw Amato’s face and was afraid the man might do something rash. Four armed soldiers stood in the room. There was no way Amato could take them all on at once. But he clearly wasn’t capable of completely concealing his concern for Daria.

Next it was Daria’s turn to be questioned and Mark’s turn to be held underwater. He couldn’t hear what she said, which was the point. It was a violent twist on the classic interrogation tactic of going back and forth between two people in separate rooms, playing one off the other and comparing information. He was under for a long time, but instead of struggling he tried to distance himself from the pain by envisioning his raging need for oxygen
as something that was a removable part of himself, a desire that he could calmly exhale out and let float away on the water.