Covert Action (Command and Control Book 5), page 26
“Good thinking,” Gao said. “We’ll bring the defector in and do a full debriefing.”
“Is that the best course of action, sir?” Fang said. “I don’t trust the MSS and . . . ” She hesitated again. “I overstepped. The asset insisted that he wants to speak to the man in charge. I—I agreed to the meeting.” Fang covered her face with her hands. Gao had never seen her so upset.
“This is all my fault, General. I’ll take this to the MSS right away—”
Gao put his arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay, Xiaomei. You did the right thing.” She leaned against him for just a moment, then pulled away.
“Are you sure?” She seemed on the verge of tears.
Was he sure? Taking a meeting with an unknown informant was risky, but if it gave them intel about a possible attack on the Jade Spike ceremony, it would be worth it. Gao looked at his open laptop. How many more times could he submit reports to Beijing that said no progress?
Gao nodded decisively. “We can’t waste this opportunity,” he declared, as much for his own benefit as for Fang’s. “Where is the meeting?”
Gao tried to ignore the butterflies the size of eagles that fluttered and flapped in his stomach. From behind dark glasses and the tinted windows of the Range Rover, the dry mountainous landscape flashed by. Afternoon shadows were just beginning to creep down the western slopes.
They were less than a hundred kilometers from the PLA base, a little more than an hour away. With luck, they’d be back inside the security perimeter before dark. He imagined a triumphant return, flush with fresh intel. Despite their months of effort and millions of dollars, he alone had done what the vaunted Chinese security services could not: found a spy inside the ranks of the SIF.
It’s all up to me, he thought. This is why the General Secretary selected me for this job.
He was the Hero of Tashkent. He had vision. He had agency. He knew how to seize an opportunity and spin it into pure gold. His heroic efforts would ensure the security of the Samarkand ceremony.
Gao cast a glance at Captain Fang on the seat next to him. He supposed every hero needed a sidekick. He and Xiaomei would save the day. Together.
Like him, Fang was dressed in civilian clothes. She wore blue jeans that hugged her figure and a sand-colored sleeveless shirt that showed off her toned arms. With sunglasses and her hair pulled back into a ponytail, she looked young, carefree, and absolutely gorgeous.
Her only acknowledgment to local customs was a royal blue headscarf with silver threads running through it. For now, she’d tied it loosely at her throat. It made her look like a model on an exotic photo shoot.
Dressed in khakis and a polo shirt, Gao felt dowdy and old. He was thick around the middle and his thinning hair was more gray than black now. Stress, he told himself when he looked in the mirror. Not age, stress. He was still a young man.
As they were getting into the car, Xiaomei took his arm and whispered, “You’re doing the right thing, Yichen. I can feel it.”
The words thrilled him, made him feel decades younger and eager to go on this dangerous mission with this beauty by his side.
In the front seats, Wei and their driver also wore civilian clothes. For the afternoon, they would play Chinese tourists. Gao realized that during his entire tour in the region, he’d never been off base without a security detail, and certainly not in civilian clothes. The feeling was somehow terrifying and exciting at the same time.
They were on their own. Gao had told no one at the base where they were going. They couldn’t risk intel getting out. His stomach churned afresh.
Wei’s head bowed over his tablet and his mobile phone, monitoring communications with their asset. The driver looked up from the GPS map on the dashboard. “Five more minutes,” he announced.
The sense of lightness in Gao’s guts threatened to erupt. He had trained as a special operations soldier, and at one point in his career, an operation like this one would have been almost routine. But when was the last time he'd led a field operation? It had been a long time—a very long time.
The Range Rover climbed a rise in the road and rounded a bend. Before them lay the Gissarak Dam. The driver pulled to the side of the road and stopped. Golden dust whirled around the car.
Sunlight gleamed off the reservoir that stretched away to the horizon. The two-lane highway ran down to the dam and across the top, then disappeared into the brown hills on the other side.
From the passenger seat, Wei spoke. “Drive to the dam and stop in the center.”
The driver frowned. “I don’t like it.”
Fang looked at Gao. He tried to interpret her expression, but failed. He leaned forward between the seats. “Do it,” he ordered.
The driver coasted down the hill and onto the road that crossed the dam. To their right was a spillway, where a mist of silvery spray floated in the air. To their left, the flat blue of the reservoir reflected the afternoon sun. Except for a meter-high concrete barrier on either side of the road, they were wide open, exposed on all sides. Gao imagined an RPG rocketing down from the hills, and his stomach did a fresh series of somersaults.
When they reached the center of the dam, the driver applied the brakes. “I’m turning the car around,” he announced and executed a three-point turn.
“What now?” Fang asked Wei.
“The general gets out,” Wei said. “The asset is on his way.”
“I’m coming with you,” Fang announced. When Gao started to protest, she waved him off. “It's not an argument, sir. I got you into this. Besides, you might need a translator.”
“Tell him there will be two people, a man and a woman,” she ordered Wei.
Gao’s knees felt like jelly and he worried they might not support him when he stepped out of the car. He pulled on the door latch anyway. When the seal of the air-conditioned cabin was broken, warm air scented with moisture rushed in.
Gao placed one foot on the cement roadway and tested his weight. His legs trembled, but held. As he stepped away from the car, Fang joined him. To his surprise, he felt her hand sneak into the crook of his bare elbow. Her grip tingled against his skin and his legs felt suddenly stronger.
Wei called through the open window. “That’s him.”
On the other side of the dam, a car came into view. An ancient Toyota sedan, faded yellow with patches of rust. It approached them slowly and stopped ten meters away.
A man got out of the car, but left the door open and the engine running. He was in his mid-thirties, with a close-cropped beard and sunglasses. He wore blue jeans, a long-sleeved denim shirt, and a blue tubeteika on his head. He walked toward them.
“You are General Gao?” He had a soft voice and spoke in halting English.
“I am. You have information for me,” Gao said.
The man nodded nervously. He looked to his right and left where wide-open space stretched for kilometers, as if suddenly aware of how vulnerable he was. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed again and again.
“Well?” Gao demanded.
The man opened his mouth and closed it again. Gao shifted his feet. This was wrong, so very wrong. What had he gotten himself into?
Fang stepped forward and spoke in Tajik. Instantly, the young man's face cleared. Fang turned to Gao. “He says he’s more comfortable speaking in Tajik. I can translate, sir.”
Relief flooded through Gao. He listened as Fang and the source went back and forth.
“He says he wants 10,000 U.S. dollars or equivalent in Euros,” she said.
Gao kept his face impassive, but in his mind, he was throwing a massive party. If this guy could get them inside the SIF, he was worth a hundred times that amount.
“Find out what he knows,” he ordered Fang.
Ten minutes passed. Gao could not understand a word of the conversation, but he could read Fang’s expression. Her face showed surprise, then her eyes narrowed and she questioned the young man intently. His voice rose as if he was angry and his hand gestures became sharp and forceful.
Finally, Fang turned to Gao. She leaned close and spoke in a low voice.
“This is very serious, sir. He says the SIF has a plan to attack Samarkand during the Jade Spike ceremony. He claims they’ve infiltrated the facility—”
She broke off suddenly and turned back to the young man, launching another volley of questions at him. He answered in short, clipped replies.
Fang turned back to Gao. “He says he won’t give me details until he has the money.”
Gao folded his arms. Getting that much money would take time. He would need to involve the MSS, and they were a territorial bunch. As soon as they found out about his asset, those greedy bastards would fall all over themselves taking credit for the operation. He and Xiaomei would be lucky to be a footnote in their report.
No, Gao decided, I need something valuable, intel that no one else has.
He shook his head. “Tell him I need specifics to get the money.”
Fang tried again, pressing the young man harder.
Gao’s eye roved over the landscape. This was taking too long. He turned back toward the Range Rover. “Tell him no deal,” he called over his shoulder to Fang.
“Yichen, wait.”
Gao turned. Walking away, he thought. Works every time. He was the Hero of Tashkent and he took no shit from terrorists.
“He says the attack is focused on one person,” Fang reported. “An assassination.”
Gao faced the Tajik man. In very deliberate English, he asked, “Who is the target? If you tell me now, I will give you more money.”
The man listened, then nodded his head that he understood. He opened his mouth.
Then his mouth opened wider, gaping larger than Gao would have thought possible. Through the yawning space where the man’s mouth had been, Gao could see the other side of the dam.
Gao felt a splash of something warm across his face. He stared stupidly as the man's body crumpled to the warm concrete. His brain registered that the man had been shot, but Gao’s body stood frozen in place.
Fang tackled him. He hit the ground on his back, his head bouncing off the concrete. She pushed him hard against the roadside barrier.
“Sniper!” she screamed in his face.
Their driver threw the car into reverse and backed to their position. Fang sprang to her feet, wrenched open the rear door, and hauled Gao’s body into the car, pushing him to the floor. She leaped on top of him.
“Go, go, go!” she shouted.
The driver needed no encouragement. The rear door slammed shut from the force of the acceleration.
The Range Rover jinked back and forth across the roadway as the driver tried to evade the sniper. A window exploded in a shower of glass shards. A spray of red painted the ceiling of the car. The car weaved again and Wei’s body flopped between the seats.
Gao saw a flash of shadow pass over the car as they reached the safety of the hills. The Range Rover screamed up the incline, catching air as it crested the hill. Gao and Fang’s bodies levitated, then slammed back down to the hard floor of the vehicle.
Fang’s face was only a few centimeters from his. She cradled his face with her hands. Her eyes were wild with fear, her cheeks flushed. Gao saw she had a streak of red blood across her cheekbone.
“Yichen,” she whispered, “I thought I lost you.”
Then she kissed him.
37
Moscow, Russia
It was cold, windy, and raining hard at Sheremetyevo Airport.
When the door of the jet opened, the cabin filled with the smell of wet asphalt and jet fuel. The pilot handed him an umbrella.
“Good luck, Mr. Riley.”
Don muttered his thanks and stepped into the cold downpour. His shoes were soaked before he covered the thirty meters to the private air terminal.
A young man dressed in a dark suit and overcoat waited inside the door. He watched Don shake the rain from his umbrella and said, “Mr. Riley, I’m your driver.” He looked behind Don. “Do you have luggage, sir?”
“I’m not staying.” Besides his overcoat and umbrella, Don carried only a burner phone and a wad of Euros. The less he took into a meeting with the head of the FSB, the better. It’s not that he didn’t trust Vladimir Federov, but the intelligence officer was a professional who would take advantage of every opportunity to collect information. It was a sign of respect. Don would have done the same thing.
He followed the young man to a covered portico where an Aurus Senat luxury limousine idled. Don settled warily into the heated back seat. He was acutely aware that he was deep in enemy territory and his defenses were on high alert.
For the last three weeks, Don had been essentially living at the office. The team searching for Akhmet Orazov were some of the Agency’s best, but Don couldn’t help managing—some would say micromanaging—them. It finally got to the point that the Director ordered Don to take a night off.
His refrigerator was empty, so Don ordered Chinese food, then opened a beer and hit the shower. The doorbell rang just as he shut off the water, so he threw on a bathrobe and ran to the door.
A man in a FedEx uniform smiled when he opened the door. He handed Don a padded envelope and thrust an electronic pad at him for a signature. Inside, Don ripped open the package to find a prepaid mobile phone. And the device was on.
He put it on the kitchen counter and looked at the package again. The return address said it had been sent from the United Nations Building in New York City.
The phone rang, startling Don.
He let it ring three times before he pushed the button to answer the phone on speaker.
The voice was male, but a high-pitched tenor. Don recognized it immediately.
“Do you know who this is?” said Vladimir Federov.
Don swallowed. He took the phone off speaker and pressed it to his ear. “Yes.”
“We need to meet. In person.”
“About what?” Don tried to wrap his head around the fact that he was having a conversation with the head of the Russian FSB wearing nothing but a bathrobe.
“We have mutual interests, Donald.”
“That seems a little vague.”
“Come to Moscow,” Federov said. “It will be worth your time.”
The line went dead.
Don got dressed before he called Director Blank from a secure line. He put the mobile phone from Federov in his refrigerator before he made the call. One could not be too careful.
“You have to go, Don,” the Director said immediately.
Don had not expected that response. “You want me to go to Moscow, sir?”
“Absolutely. You’ve seen the intel about the upcoming election. Sokolov is going to get pummeled. This is a cry for help. If we ignore it, Serrano will skin us alive.”
“But . . . ” Don fumbled for words. “We don’t know what he wants.”
“We know he went to great lengths to make a personal appeal for you to come to Moscow. We can’t ignore that. Whatever he wants, he’s decided he can trust you--and only you.”
“Do you want to run it by the President first, sir?”
The Director considered that a long time. “No,” he said finally, “I think this is one of those times where it’s better to beg forgiveness, Don. I hear Moscow is beautiful in late October.”
“But what about the Orazov operation?” Don said.
The Director let out a sigh that spoke volumes. “That operation is in good hands. Anne Hart is experienced, and you looking over her shoulder isn’t going to help her find the target.”
Don heard the rebuke implicit in the Director's remark. They’d had a version of this conversation twice already.
“Still, sir, I’d feel better if—"
“Dammit, Riley, do I need to draw you a picture? You've just been contacted by the highest-ranking security officer in the Russian Federation asking for a personal meeting with you. Get your ass on a plane. Pronto.”
Now, as he sat in the back of a Russian luxury limo with wet shoes and jet lag, he knew only one thing for certain: Moscow in late October was not beautiful.
This meeting was not Don’s first unusual interaction with Federov. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the head of the FSB had fed Don invaluable intelligence that brought a swift end to the conflict. The war could have ended much, much worse. Before he was removed from power, Luchnik had been prepared to use nuclear weapons against an American amphibious force headed into the Baltic Sea. Federov had prevented the attack.
On the other hand, there was no denying that Federov had used Don. Yes, he’d supplied valuable intel to Don, but he did it for the sole purpose of supporting his own plot to overthrow Luchnik and place Nikolay Sokolov into power.
As Don peered out the rain-streaked window at the sodden Russian streets, he wondered what Federov had in mind this time.
He called up the map function on his phone and checked their location. After forty-five minutes, he realized where they were going.
The Lubyanka Building.
The Moscow landmark, originally built for an insurance company in the late nineteenth century, had a dark past. Starting with the Bolsheviks in 1919, the neo-baroque yellow brick structure had been transformed into a prison and the headquarters of the secret police. Today, it was still a prison, as well as headquarters for the Russian Border Guard and a small contingent of FSB senior officials.
As soon as he spotted the famous building from the main road, Don imagined the limo pulling up to the front steps. He, a high-ranking CIA officer, would stride confidently through the front door of an enemy intelligence service. He’d read somewhere that the main entrance hall had a hammer and sickle inlaid into the floor not unlike the CIA seal in the floor of the headquarters building at Langley, made famous by countless movies.
His fantasy evaporated when the car pulled up to a nondescript side entrance. The driver looked in the rearview mirror. “We’re here, Mr. Riley,” he said, making it clear that he had no intention of getting out in the rain to open the door for his passenger.
