Covert Action (Command and Control Book 5), page 32
When he finished, Orazov scowled at the table for a long time.
“Do you know how I started my career? Fighting for the Russians in Afghanistan. Fighting the mujahadeen, who were supported by your CIA. I was young and stupid, but things were simple then. Communist versus capitalist. Good versus evil. Pick a side.
“Now the world is all about influence. Lies designed to make you forget yourself. Forget who you are, what you stand for. The SIF is a fiction of Chinese intelligence. There was never a resistance, just Chinese special operations personnel carrying out terrorist attacks on their own people. Now you tell me that Timur Ganiev is a Chinese agent and thanks to the CIA, he is now the most powerful man in Central Asia. Congratulations.”
“No,” Harrison said, “we can—”
“If the next words out of your mouth are we can fix this, then you are a fool and a dead man, Mr. Kohl.”
Harrison’s jaw snapped shut. Orazov’s hooded eyes stared him down, but Harrison did not look away. He didn’t dare.
Orazov pushed his phone across the table. “Show me this recording.”
Harrison put the battery back in the phone and powered on the device. He called up Tim Trujillo’s last moments on earth and passed the phone back. Orazov watched it, his face muscles impassive. He watched it a second time. Then he put the phone down.
“How do you know it’s not a fake?” he asked.
Harrison explained the IronClad app and the security protocols around it. “It’s genuine,” he concluded.
“Your friend was a brave man,” Orazov said.
Conflicting emotions roiled under Harrison’s skin. Shame at being duped, pride at Tim’s bravery, anger at the situation he’d created.
“My friend was a good man,” he replied. “And now he’s dead.”
The door opened. Another armed man crossed the room to Orazov’s side and whispered in his ear. Orazov closed his eyes and sighed.
“Turn on the television,” he ordered.
51
Samarkand International Airport, Uzbekistan
“Get me a secure line to Langley,” Don shouted as he mounted the steps into the CIA’s Gulfstream. All he could hear was his own breathing and the thunder of his own pulse. Chest heaving, he collapsed into a leather chair.
“Eagle One is off the ground,” Stellner reported. “We've got four F-35s from Incirlik inbound as escorts. They’ll pick them up at the Turkmenistan border in ten minutes.”
“Good work,” Don said. He stripped out the earpiece and dumped the phone he’d been carrying inside of the commerce center. They were both dead.
An EMP device, he thought. That was the only possible explanation. The Chinese wanted the assassination attempt to happen and they didn’t want a record of it anywhere. Not even on their own sensors.
Don looked toward the back of the plane where the CIA medical team was working on the unconscious General Gao. Maybe that guy had the answers.
The door of the jet closed. Relative silence settled on the cabin. In addition to the two-man flight crew, the only people on the plane besides Don and Stellner were a tech, the three-person medical team, and the patient.
Don heard the jet’s engines increase in pitch. The aircraft rolled forward a few meters, then stopped. He looked out the window. There was a traffic jam on the private air terminal apron as a line of jets queued up to depart.
Rats fleeing a sinking ship, he thought.
“Director Riley,” the tech interrupted his thoughts. “I have Officer Hart on the line.”
Don took the receiver. “Anne, what’s the status?”
“I scrubbed the mission. I’m clearing the lethal assets, but leaving God’s Eye in place for now.”
Don closed his eyes with relief and let out a sigh.
“Thank God,” he said. “Is Harrison at the exfil point yet?”
Anne’s voice tightened. “Harrison’s MIA, Don. His phone went offline and he was taken from the meeting point. When your entire team fell off the grid, I pulled the plug. What the hell is going on over there?”
Don shot a glance toward the rear of the plane. Someone was checking Gao’s pupils with a penlight. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Right now, I’m more worried about Harrison.”
“They left the meeting in two cars and then split up. One is almost into Turkmenistan and the other is in Bukhara. We think he’s in the second vehicle.” She paused as she received a report from someone in the room. “His phone just came back up on the network. I can try to patch him in.”
“Do it.” Don put his hand over the receiver. “I need a map,” he said to the tech who handed him a tablet. Using two fingers, he enlarged the map to show details of the area around Bukhara. There was an airport there. Not a big airport, but big enough to land a Gulfstream.
Don beckoned to Stellner. “Tell the pilot I want to land in Bukhara. Do whatever it takes. Fake an emergency, stop for fuel, whatever. We need to be on the ground long enough to pick up a passenger.”
Stellner looked past Don to the PLA general at the back of the plane. “Are you out of your mind, boss?”
Anne came back on the line. “I have Harrison.”
“Don?” Harrison’s voice.
“Are you okay?”
“I'm fine. Just sitting here with my new best friend, Akhmet.”
Don froze. “Orazov is there with you now?”
Harrison gave a shaky laugh. “We’re talking current events. Planning our next steps.”
“Your next step is to get to Bukhara airport. I’m going to land the jet there and—”
“No.”
“Okay, you're right. That’s a stupid idea.” Don’s mind blazed ahead. “Get to the embassy and then—”
“No.”
“Harrison, what are you—”
“Turn on the news, Don. Pick a channel, anything local. They’re all carrying it.”
Don turned to the tech. “Get me a local news channel.”
Timur Ganiev’s image filled the screen on the tablet Don was holding. His face was gaunt, his eyes haunted. The collar of his shirt was torn and his salt-and-pepper hair was in disarray. He was the same man Don had seen only an hour ago, but his movements seemed brittle and his words lacked the conviction of the fiery speech of the Jade Spike ceremony.
“More than ever,” Ganiev was saying, “we need the Central Asian Union to fill the leadership vacuum in the republics. There will be a time to grieve and a time to rebuild, but in this moment, I need to ensure the safety of our citizens. The SIF is responsible for this heinous attack and we cannot defeat the SIF on our own.”
Ganiev paused, swallowed hard. “Therefore, I am requesting military assistance from the People’s Republic of China. I have authorized them to secure key installations within the Central Asian Union to protect the infrastructure that will be so vital to our shared future and to protect us from the terrorists . . .”
Don stared at the screen. He felt winded, as if someone had just punched him in the gut.
“Harrison,” he began. “What is—"
“We bet on the wrong guy, Don. We did this.”
Don sucked in a big breath. He wanted to throw up, but he swallowed the bile.
“We need to get you out of there, Harrison.”
“I’m not leaving, Don,” Harrison said. “I caused this, and I need to fix it.”
He hung up.
“Harrison!” Don said.
“His phone is offline again, Don,” said Anne. “I’ve got his location in Bukhara.”
The jet made a sweeping turn and Don heard the engines whine. He peered out the window. The runway ahead of them was clear.
The pilot released the brakes and the jet leaped forward.
52
Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Nicole Nipper wanted to throw the knockoff Chinese laptop out the window.
Every piece of electronics they’d possessed, from her personal phone to Barry’s cameras, was gone. They’d been taken by the Chinese security team that now occupied the hallway outside her hotel room. Not that it mattered. The electronics were dead. Fried in some kind of electrical surge.
In return, she and Barry were given these Huawei laptops, which she was sure were riddled with spyware.
She tried not to think about what she’d lost. Scattered across those digital devices were years of consolidated work. She had backups, of course, but it would take her weeks, maybe months, to get back to where she’d been just a few hours ago.
It didn’t matter. Right now, she had a story to file, and it was a doozie.
“This thing is a piece of shit,” Barry muttered from behind his own laptop. He was seated at the rickety circular table next to the window in Nicole’s hotel room. His bulky sides strained against the wooden arms of the narrow chair. He looked like a giant sitting in a dollhouse.
Nicole did not respond. She kept her attention on the transcript of Timur Ganiev’s televised speech she’d scrawled onto a yellow legal pad. She still had a hard time believing the words. The champion of Central Asian independence was asking the Chinese to invade his country. Nicole had followed him for the last year. She thought she knew him…
The details of what happened inside the Samarkand Commerce Center were sketchy. The SIF was behind the attack, that was what the Chinese press release said. According to unnamed sources on the internet, two of the four presidents from the Central Asian republics had been either killed or gravely injured.
The SIF? How was that possible? A car bomb or a drive-by shooting was one thing, but infiltrating PLA security at an event where both the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and the American Secretary of State were in attendance was an entirely new level of boldness and sophistication.
Her journalistic instincts told her everything about this day smelled rotten. She considered the transcript of Ganiev’s words. The Timur Ganiev she knew had principles. This man was a sellout. Nothing made sense.
“How are you coming on finding us some footage of the PLA forces?” she asked Barry.
He spun his laptop screen around. “This is from the PLA base near Dushanbe. They’re loading tanks onto special trains to move them across the region. One already left fully loaded. This is the second one.”
Nicole studied the screen. There had to be at least a hundred tanks organized in ranks. When the camera panned over, she saw columns of uniformed soldiers filing onto train cars. She was not a military expert, but this operation did not look like something that the PLA just threw together in the last few hours.
Yet another fact that didn’t fit with Timur’s story.
She focused on the legal pad where she was drafting her final report before she was thrown out of the country. “What’s another word for traitor?” she asked.
Barry grinned. “How about asshole? Prick? Needle-dick bug fucker?”
They shared a laugh, but it was bittersweet for Nicole. She had trusted Timur. She had believed him.
Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Tears of frustration, hurt, anger. And shame, too. She’d allowed herself to become emotionally invested in the subject at the center of her story. She’d lost her objectivity, not to mention her credibility.
You should’ve seen this coming, she told herself. Now you get what you deserve.
There was a knock at the door. Nicole and Barry exchanged glances, then Barry got up. He peered through the peephole and turned around with a cocked eyebrow.
“It's him,” he mouthed, his eyes wide.
Nicole looked around. Her room was a mess, and her reflection in the wall mirror was not her best self.
Who cares? she thought. According to their Chinese captors, she and Barry were going to be on a plane in three hours. She’d never see Timur again—and that was fine with her.
Nicole stood, brushing the crumbs off her blouse from the bag of pretzels she snagged out of the minibar. She started to finger-comb her hair and gave up. “Let him in,” she said.
Timur had changed his shirt since the press conference. He was now wearing a button-down blue Oxford and a tweed jacket with blue jeans and loafers.
Barry made a show of crowding him at the door so that Timur had to angle his body to get past. Nicole almost laughed at the show of male bravado.
Timur came straight to her and took her hand. “Nicole, I'm so glad you're safe.”
She pulled her hand away, and she could feel her face bending into an angry scowl.
Timur looked surprised, but he recovered quickly. He turned to Barry. “Could you give us a moment in private, please?”
With his unshaven jowls and curled lip, Barry channeled his inner Rottweiler.
Nicole summoned up a reassuring smile. “Give us a minute, Barry. It’s okay.”
When the door clicked closed, Timur gave her a tentative smile. “He seems more protective than usual.”
Nicole wasn’t going to play this game. “What do you want, Mr. Ganiev? I have a story to file before I’m ejected from the country.”
Timur reached for her, but she slipped her hands into her pockets. “I think that phase of our friendship is over, sir. I don’t consort with traitors.”
The remark struck home. Timur kept his hands to himself, but he held his ground. His eyes found hers. “You don't understand the big picture, Nicole.”
She crossed her arms. “Then explain it to me.”
“You’re acting like this is easy for me. Power requires allies. Politics is a game of—”
“Politics?” Nicole sneered at him. “Politics? I thought you were above politics. I thought you were all about the cultural affirmation of the indigenous peoples and all that other bullshit you were slinging.”
“Grow up,” Timur's voice hardened. “You know the saying: Campaign in poetry, govern in prose. You of all people should understand the power of words.”
“Oh, I understand words.” Nicole snatched up the legal pad from the bed and read out loud, “Timur Ganiev, the once principled and respected leader of the nascent Central Asian Union, showed his true traitorous colors today when—”
He took the pad from her grip and tossed it onto the bed, the canary yellow pages fluttering. “Is that what you think of me?”
“I ran out of synonyms for traitor.” Her eyes burned, but she was not about to shed a single tear in front of him. He was never going to see how much he’d hurt her.
“Do you think this is easy for me?” he asked gently.
“Stop it.” Nicole cinched her arms tight across her chest.
“We are a good team, Nicole,” Timur said in a soft voice. “Don’t leave. Stay with me, and I'll show you everything. I'll make sure you get access behind the scenes—nothing off-limits. You thought you had a story before? That was nothing compared to what is about to happen.”
Color rose in his cheeks and he reached for her. Nicole twisted away. Timur paced the room.
“Today, we have the Chinese keeping the peace,” he continued, “but tomorrow? Tomorrow, we'll have new elections. I’ll be the legitimate leader of the Central Asian Union and I promise you that I will be the leader by which all others are judged. I will be the man that you saw when we first met.”
He came back to her and gently peeled her hands away from her elbows.
Nicole resisted, but not too much. His hands were warm, his face flushed, his eyes flashing with intensity. She knew that look.
“And you will be there to document it all,” Timur said. “The only Western reporter with the inside story. An exclusive.”
Nicole's head swam. He was right about one thing: it was the story of a lifetime. The perfect capstone of a career that she’d spent fighting for recognition. She could see her byline on a series of long-form articles, a book, a documentary, maybe a memoir or even a movie.
Timur moved closer, whispered, “You are a reporter, Nicole. I am a story. You are the only person I trust. Please, do this for me.”
Nicole swallowed. Her gaze lighted on the yellow legal pad splayed on the bed. She’d written those words in anger. Traitor, treason, liar . . . Maybe there was more to the story.
Her voice seemed to stick in her throat. “What about Barry?”
“Don't worry,” Timur whispered. “I'll handle Barry.”
53
Sochi, Russia
Shafts of morning sun filtered through the tops of the pines as the limousine carrying Nikolay and Federov approached the gates of Vitaly Luchnik’s compound on the Black Sea.
Nikolay had rolled his window down, letting the cool November morning air bathe his face. It had been a long night. A night he would not soon forget. A night his country would not forget.
But necessary, he told himself. You did what you had to do.
The security guard at the gate stiffened to attention when he saw the car emerge. He snapped a smart salute as Federov rolled down his window.
“Good morning, Arkady,” the FSB chief said, his voice cheerful but thick with exhaustion. “How did you get stuck with the morning shift?”
“Good morning, Chief.” Arkady triggered the remote and the heavy wrought iron gates parted. Nikolay noticed he did not answer Federov’s question.
The gravel in the circular driveway crackled and popped under the tires of their car, loud in the morning stillness. When the vehicle drew to a halt, Federov started to get out, but Nikolay placed a hand on his arm.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Federov’s pale skin stretched across his features like parchment paper, giving him a haunted, skeletal look. Nikolay noticed there was a gap between the FSB chief’s collar and the flaccid skin of his neck, as if he’d lost weight recently. He was an old man, Nikolay realized.
When Federov’s crystalline brown eyes locked with his, Nikolay saw a flash of emotion cross the other man’s face. There and gone in an instant.
Relief? Regret? Nikolay couldn’t say.
The old man sat back in his seat.
