The Colonel's Mistake (5 page)

Mark knew, however, that fear often trumped logic at the CIA. As a result, most Agency officers were white guys like himself, men who had to struggle to blend in with the locals in Azerbaijan and Iran. And it was on Iran that Daria, with her honey-toned skin and fluent command of Farsi, had been recruited to spy, using Azerbaijan as a base. Her posting had been a welcome exception, an exception Mark had hoped would mark the beginning of a new way of thinking at the CIA.

That hadn’t turned out to be the case. When Mark had quit the CIA, Daria was the only operations officer in Baku who wasn’t vanilla white. And Kaufman had never liked, or trusted, her.

Washington, DC

Colonel Henry Amato eyed his boss—National Security Advisor James Ellis—from the opposite side of an oval table. Ellis was a tall man, with a prominent chin, deep-set eyes, and a patrician air that had been perfected at Harvard and elite think tanks. On television, when he was wearing makeup and standing side by side with the president, he looked distinguished. But at ten to midnight, in a basement conference room beneath the West Wing of the White House, under fluorescent lights that exposed Ellis’s yellowing teeth and deep wrinkles, Amato thought cadaverous a better description.

And then there was the chewing.

Amato watched with disdain as Ellis methodically ground his jaw in small circles. It was a habit his boss lapsed into when other people were speaking, as if to suggest he was so engaged that he was literally chewing over what was being said. Which certainly wasn’t the case now.

At the moment, Ellis was pretending to listen to the director of national intelligence. Reading from a file marked
Top Secret
, the DNI was sharing preliminary satellite evidence and intelligence
reports that suggested a limited troop mobilization was underway in Iran.

Upon finishing, the DNI dropped the file on the table and shook his head. “Now maybe I’m grasping at straws, but I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that Campbell’s assassination has something to do with this activity in Iran. God knows what the Iranians are really up to, but the timing is too suspicious to ignore.”

Ellis said, “What’s your take, Henry?”

Instead of answering, Amato—who was Ellis’s top Iran advisor—remained perfectly still, as though standing at attention before a superior officer. The fluorescent lighting above was unnervingly bright and flickering a bit, contributing to his feeling of nausea.

“Henry?”

He hadn’t seen any of this coming. It was as if someone had cold-cocked him with a two-by-four.

He was a deacon at Saint Mary’s. A volunteer at Walter Reed. His wife had died two years ago but he’d remained faithful to her since her death, just as he had for the twenty-three years they’d been married. What sins he committed, he regularly confessed to God. As of a few days ago, he’d thought that all he needed to do was to soldier on through a few more years in government and then tolerate a quiet retirement.

And now this.

Daria had survived, but they would hunt her down. They had the men and the resources. Good God, he wasn’t prepared to shut down the whole operation, but he had to do something.

“Henry?” repeated Ellis, and this time his tone was sharper.

“Sorry, sir. I worked with Jack Campbell years ago and I confess the news of his death hit me pretty hard.” Amato turned to face the DNI. “I don’t see a link between the troop movements in Iran and
Campbell’s assassination,” he lied. “More likely what happened to Campbell is about settling old scores.”

“Old scores?” said the DNI.

“Well, of course Campbell had a long history with Iran.”

“I wasn’t aware.”

“Before the revolution in ’79, he helped coordinate training for SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police. After the revolution, when Ayatollah Khomeini ordered a review of all the old SAVAK records to see who’d been hunting down his followers, I’m sure Campbell’s name came up. Add to that the fact that Campbell took a hard line with Iran when he became the deputy sec. def., and it’s not hard to figure out why the mullahs might have targeted him. They’ve got long memories—they probably waited decades for the opportunity to present itself.”

The DNI asked a few more questions, then said, “Well, you could be right. Maybe Campbell’s assassination doesn’t have anything to do with the troop mobilization we’re seeing. But Campbell was a big player in his time, and if the Iranians think they can take him out and get away with it, they’ve got another thing coming.”

Mark let himself out of the Trudeau House the same way he’d come in, walked the ten blocks back to his apartment, and sat down at his desk in his spare bedroom, intending to work on his book. But after five minutes of staring at his computer screen and seeing nothing but the mutilated bodies of his former colleagues flash across his memory, he realized he was kidding himself. He was in shock. He wasn’t going to get any work done today. Nor could he just ignore all that had transpired since the night before.

Mark had helped train Daria. And as her station chief, he’d always looked out for her, just as he had the rest of his operations officers. Now that Logan was dead, she had no one in Azerbaijan to turn to for help.

But the thought of potentially sticking his neck out to help her any more than he already had was setting off alarm bells in his head. Don’t go being some kind of delusional do-gooder, he told himself. Fifty-fifty he’d just make the situation worse by meddling. He’d seen it happen time and time again. Wait for the Agency to restaff. Let them handle this mess.

But by then it might be too late.

“Shit,” he muttered and picked up his phone and dialed. After waiting on hold for a long time, his contact came on the line. Mark spoke to him briefly and then hung up.

Minutes later he was on the street, starting up his Russian-made Niva, a boxy four-wheel-drive car that he’d purchased after going on a professor’s salary.

He headed north toward the center of the Absheron Peninsula, a scarred and grossly polluted spit of land fifty miles long that jutted out into the Caspian Sea. The roads were crowded with an unruly mix of sleek Western cars—BMWs, Mercedes, Land Cruisers—and old Russian jalopies that belched noxious fumes. He passed decrepit Soviet factories, some languishing, some completely abandoned, many of which sat right next to gleaming new high-rises. Gas pipelines, huge billboards with photos of the current president, and piles of garbage lined the sides of the road.

Near the Balaxani oil fields—a purgatorial wasteland of oil sludge and rusting nodding-donkey oil pumps—he pulled over and bought pistachios from a guy who was selling them out of the back of his battered truck.

Just beyond the oil fields the landscape opened up; interspersed among the hellish images of industrial waste were a few green fields. When Mark came to a collection of vacant buildings on the left-hand side of the road, he pulled into an adjacent gravel lot and parked in front of a tall cypress tree, next to a stray dog. A minute later a black Mercedes pulled up next to him. A driver got out of the car and opened the rear door.

“It is really you, Sava?” The dark-haired man who emerged spoke in heavily accented English. He wore a charcoal-gray suit, a conservative red tie, and long and pointed black leather shoes that reminded Mark of witches. His face showed the beginning of a very early five o’clock shadow and he had a large Turkic nose. “I see this car,” he said, frowning and pointing at Mark’s Niva, “and I think maybe a gypsy, or even a Kurd, has come!”

Mark smiled. “I’ve been downsizing.”

“Downsizing, what is downsizing?”

“Downsizing is what you do when you start to teach,” said Mark, switching to Azeri.

They shook hands.

“Ah yes. I remember. Western University. I have to admit I wasn’t sure you were being completely—how do I put it—
open
with me when you told me of your intentions. But my people tell me you actually do teach classes. They learn much from you.”

“I’ve wondered about some of my students.”

“My men have been attentive, I hope.”

“Very. Thank you for coming, Orkhan.”

Orkhan Gambar was the Azeri minister of national security. Given that the United States and Azerbaijan were on good terms, Mark’s affiliation with the CIA had been known to Orkhan and they’d frequently exchanged information. But since the CIA’s presence in Azerbaijan wasn’t officially acknowledged, their meetings had been held in secret. Often they had met here.

“Come.” Orkhan lightly guided Mark by the elbow as his driver produced an M-16 rifle and began to stand guard. “We talk by the fire.”

Mark followed Orkhan down a series of worn stone steps, into the bottom of a little depression. A white plastic table and three white plastic chairs had been set up a few feet away from a hillside that had been burning ever since an underground reservoir of natural gas had caught fire decades ago. A few enterprising Azeris had tried to set up a tea shop near the flames, but the tourists had proved few and the shop had gone out of business.

Orkhan settled into a chair and pulled it up close to the fire. On previous occasions he’d told Mark that getting extremely hot
for a half hour or so made one feel cooler for the rest of the day. All Azeris know this, he’d said.

Mark sat down next to him now and pulled out the bag of pistachios, certain that Orkhan wouldn’t be fasting during Ramadan.

“You remembered. This is why we get along so well.”

That and the fact that the US government had sent an ocean of what was supposed to have been counterterrorism money Orkhan’s way, thought Mark.

Not for the first time he considered that Azerbaijan was a country with a lot of things going for it. Though its people were predominantly Shiite Muslims, they were tolerant of Christians and Jews. Women could wear whatever they wanted without risking being stoned to death. In the south there were vast forests and lush groves of citrus trees. To the north, the snowcapped mountains and picturesque little villages almost could have been Switzerland were it not for the general lack of indoor plumbing. And the coastal center was rich with oil. But the country was also hopelessly corrupt. Mark had little doubt that plenty of America’s money had gone directly into Orkhan’s pocket. That was why they got along so well. But the pistachios didn’t hurt either.

“How is your family, Orkhan?”

They exchanged pleasantries for a while. Then Orkhan asked about Nika. Although Nika had made the mistake of marrying a Russian when she was twenty-four—a marriage that had lasted only six months because all Russians are thieves and drunks—he indicated that she came from a decent family and that her job as a professor of English literature at Western University appeared to be secure.

“But you must tell her not to smoke around her child,” Orkhan said. “This is very bad for children, I hear. I see she does this at her home.”

“I wasn’t aware.”

Orkhan sat back and smiled, a hard smile that showed his teeth. Mark caught a glimpse of a gold crown in the back and recalled that the Ministry of National Security was the Azeri equivalent of the old KGB. They even occupied the same building that the KGB had operated out of, and had wound up employing many of the same people—people like Orkhan.

“Surely you know she and her child share a bedroom at her parents’ house? It is in this bedroom that she smokes. You must get her to stop.”

Mark shrugged, as though a little bored by the small talk. “You make a good point.”