Covert Action

by Dick Couch

  “Is she always this anal?” he whispered.

  Before Garrett could answer, she was on him. “You have a problem, Kelly-Rogers?”

  “Oh, no problem at all, madame planner. I was just remarking to my colleague what a comprehensive set of materials you’ve assembled.”

  “Okay, then, let’s get to it.” She glanced at her watch. “We don’t have a minute to lose if we’re going to begin to move personnel and gear by day after tomorrow. Everyone turn to the first tab.”

  There was an immediate rustling of pages. Like grade-school boys kept after school, they dutifully complied.

  Judy Burks was waiting for Elvis Rosenblatt when he emerged from the jetway into the Delta concourse at Dulles International. Most Americans now meet new arrivals at the security screening exit, but if you happen to have an FBI credential, you can go right to the gate. He walked into the concourse wearing cargo pants, a tan bush shirt with button-down epaulets, and sand boots. He had a small underseat backpack swung over one shoulder. During all his time with the CDC and for all his expertise with exotic disease, he had been to Africa only twice, and on both occasions it was to address gatherings sponsored by the World Health Organization, usually at a four-star hotel. His talents lay in his research product, and research was best done in a well-equipped laboratory. There were none better than those at the CDC. Rosenblatt was strictly, in his words, a lab rat. The prospect of an actual field expedition was all very exciting.

  “Oh, my God,” Judy Burks said under her breath as she spotted him. “This is going to be a charming trip.”

  “Hey there, Agent Judy. Good to see you again.”

  “Hello, Elvis. Nice outfit.”

  He lowered his voice. “It’s my bwana cover. You like it?”

  “Sure, it’s just great. Look, we have the better part of an hour before they call away our flight. Let’s get a cup of coffee, and I’ll brief you into the problem, or as much as I know about it.”

  Breaking a key CDC epidemiologist away from Atlanta had not been easy. They were very parochial about their staff and not anxious to let him go, especially since they had been told nothing—only that the services of Dr. Rosenblatt would be needed for an indefinite time to consult on a classified project. Sensing that this must have something to do with infectious disease, they wanted details. It took a call from the President to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and a second call from HEW to the head of the CDC before Rosenblatt was allowed to leave. In order not to leave the Center totally in the dark, they were told that their man would be working with GSI on a critical project. Guardian Services International, while becoming a niche player in the corporate security world, did some contract work for the government. But the link between GSI and IFOR remained closely held. Only a handful in government knew of it, and those that did were at the very highest level. All but Judy Burks.

  Elvis Rosenblatt had been asked if he would volunteer to help with a problem in Africa. He was told only that he would serve as a consultant and advise on how to handle a contagion that had surfaced intermittently in Central Africa. He was also told that this investigation was privately funded and that help in this particular area was something of a pet project for someone high up in the administration. He was, however, asked to make a list of field equipment that he might need if he were to conduct an on-site investigation, the tools he would need should they uncover some form of pathogen. Rosenblatt was immediately caught up in the excitement. He worked most of the night to deliver a detailed listing of everything he would need to do field work on a variety of viral agents. His bags checked through to Hawaii held an array of personal test equipment, some of them scaled-down versions of larger instruments he had personally modified. He told his colleagues at the CDC he was going on a bug safari.

  “Okay,” Judy Burks said after they found a table in the crowded concourse just outside of Starbucks, “here’s the deal as I understand it. We are going to be met by some people in Hawaii. They will give you a more in-depth briefing as to exactly where you will be going and what to expect. The NGO that is funding this effort has chartered an aircraft to ferry you and your supplies to a forward operating base where you will—”

  “Forward operating base,” he said, cutting her short. “That sounds kind of military.”

  Judy Burks recalled the last time she had gone forward with an IFOR deployment. She had waited in a Quonset hut in Diego Garcia while an IFOR probe, led by Garrett Walker, was infiltrated into the Afghan-Iranian border region.

  “It’s just a figure of speech. You will probably be set up in some kind of field lab, probably in a regional clinic, maybe even in a hospital.”

  Rosenblatt considered this. He didn’t like hospitals; he was a bug detective, not a healer. Hospitals could be full of distractions in the way of viruses and bacteria that had nothing to do with the bugs he might be looking for. He called it background noise.

  “And you were able to get all of the equipment—everything on my list? Y’know, Agent Burks, that was a pretty expensive set of gear.”

  “I’ve been told that every item will be waiting in Hawaii and that it will all travel with you.”

  “No fooling,” he replied skeptically. Some of the items he requested were not only expensive but sometimes very hard to find. And a few pieces of the metered test equipment could be obtained only in Germany. He would be very surprised if they had managed to pull it all together in such a short time.

  “So what’s your role in all this, Agent Burks? I thought people like you were supposed to be out catching crooks.”

  That was one question she could answer truthfully. “How many times do I have to tell you, the name is Judy. And I’m strictly a liaison officer. I’m the link between the U.S. government and the NGO funding this research. If government assistance is needed to support this work, then I’m the person that sees to it. And believe me, there are times when I’d much rather be out chasing crooks.”

  “Why, Agent Burks, how—”

  “Elvis!”

  “Okay, Judy, but look at it this way. Dangerous felons are a dime a dozen. We may have the chance to catch a really dangerous bug. Don’t you find that unbelievably exciting?”

  “Positively stimulating,” she deadpanned.

  Once at the gate, they boarded early with the other first-class passengers bound for Honolulu International. “You work for the same government I do, Judy, and we never fly first class.”

  “I was told to take good care of you, Elvis, so I flushed my frequent-flyer piggy bank. Consider it my treat.”

  “Y’know, for a cop, you’re a pretty decent human being.”

  The flight was long but comfortable. En route, Judy got a detailed history of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and of Africa’s contribution to the world of deadly viruses, specifically AIDS and Ebola. When they arrived, they were greeted by an unassuming man in slacks and a quiet aloha shirt. He was not an FBI agent, but somehow he still managed to meet them at the gate.

  Pavel Zelinkow sat on his balcony in a teak Adirondack chair, watching the evening shadows play across the rooftops of the crowded, ancient dwellings below him. It was the balcony of the spacious flat that had sold him on the property; it seemed to float high above the western outskirts of Rome. The structure was a jutting, cantilevered platform, with an ornate iron railing that afforded him an unobstructed two-hundred-and-seventy-degree view. The flat was just outside the metropolitan boundaries of Rome, near the municipality of Eur. This was his favorite time of day, and he had positioned himself to take advantage of the magnificent panorama to the west. The offshore breeze that usually came in the afternoon had carried most of the pollution down and away from his hillside perch. Those noxious fumes that choked most major cities, including Rome, would soon filter the last rays of the sun and set the world that stretched before him ablaze. In the mornings, before the haze from the city materialized, he could glimpse a broad section of the Mediterranean. The eternal smog of the
Eternal City made that impossible after midmorning. Occasionally he would catch a flash of reflected sunlight from one of the planes queued up for landing at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport. Later that evening, a procession of evenly spaced landing lights would mark the staggered patience of those waiting their turn to land.

  He had never been a small man, but his girth had broadened since he came to Rome just a little over a year ago. Zelinkow was two people. One was a meticulous manager of clandestine activities—a chess master who reveled in the manipulative, dangerous world of covert action. Once he had done this for his country, but now, as a stateless person, he did it for the money—that and the thrill of what he called the Grand Game. He was Russian, and that was a condition of one’s soul, not a mere nationality. Zelinkow missed Russia, much as he missed his mother, who worked herself into an early grave to raise him after the father he never knew died of cancer. Both the woman and the nation, he reflected, were hard, no-nonsense, inflexible, and demanding. They were both gone, and nothing would bring them back.

  The other Zelinkow was a connoisseur of food and wine and a patron of the arts. He glanced at his watch, noting that the Tuscan amarone he had opened to breathe a few hours ago would now be ready. He poured himself a splash and swirled it gently in the glass. It had an excellent nose and good legs. He held it up to the remnants of blue sky overhead and savored the deep, rich magenta color. The taste more than justified its other superb physical properties. With the tones of the wine still echoing in his mouth, he carefully set himself to preparing his afternoon cigar. It was an unhurried ritual, one in which he took a great deal of pleasure. Through a rolling cloud of blue smoke, he inspected the glowing tip of the Lonsdale to ensure the uniformity of the burn. You could tell a lot about a cigar by the way it took the flame. As he slowly blew a mouthful of smoke into the evening air, he once again revisited the African matter in his mind.

  He had set a number of forces into play, and any one of them, if it went awry, could prove disastrous to the project. This assignment, as he referred to it, once again put him in the uncomfortable position of having to deal with people of questionable reliability and integrity. For the most part, these individuals did his bidding for the money. In those few cases where money was not the driving force, or just one factor in their participation, he had to be careful to balance the payment with their particular form of idealism or motivation. Such was the case for the mercenary Renaud. He needed money, but he also wanted the chance to prove himself. He was a contemptible man—totally amoral and self-absorbed. But Zelinkow had needed just such a man for this particular assignment, though he was relatively incompetent in many aspects of his profession. That was why he kept a close watch on Renaud’s movements and had set up separate procurement channels to support his force. Zelinkow rightly marked Renaud as an ambitious bully. He was a man who would guard the project site and do the heinous chore of finding test subjects because he saw himself as a mercenary leader of stature. He had chosen Renaud because no responsible PMC would have taken the work, at any price. But Zelinkow did not kid himself. In Renaud, he knew he was dealing with a loose cannon.

  He was far more comfortable with the choice of Helmut Klan to manage the project site. For Klan, the issue was certainly money, but it was also the job. Any queasiness he may have had about the objectives of the project was quickly overcome by the fee he was being paid. Any lingering doubts about the morality of the undertaking were quickly erased by the organizational challenge of running the operation. Perhaps it was the Teutonic mind-set or some latent Germanic gene that allows someone like Klan to attend to the mechanics of an operation like this and somehow divorce himself from the outcome. How is it that a man can do that? Zelinkow thought. He took a sip of wine and further reflected on it. How is it that I can do it? he wondered. I suppose to one degree or another, all men continue down the path on which they took their first steps as a boy. Such is the inertia of life.

  The members of the medical team he had assembled for the project were no less puzzling than Helmut Klan. They were a mixture of refugees and renegades from various academic and medical establishments. Each was undeniably brilliant in his own right, but research today was driven by research teams, and few of these men were team players. They also lacked the political skills to succeed in modern research efforts, which were driven by a quasi-academic bureaucracy fraught with political maneuvering. And there was the certain childlike naïveté that often accompanied a really fine mind. At least to some degree, they were blinded by their own brilliance. Zelinkow had gone to great pains to learn about these men and assess their intellectual gifts as well as their personal and emotional shortcomings. It was to Klan’s credit that he could keep them all working together toward a common goal. And, if he could believe Klan’s progress reports, the work and the clinical trials were very much on schedule. But Zelinkow was not one to allow good news to disturb his focus or his skepticism. He knew he could not relax his vigilance until the project was complete and the product shipped—safely in the hands of those who were paying him. Then he would take on a whole new set of challenges.

  And then, of course, there was the issue of the people he worked for. Zelinkow had initially been contacted by Abdel Moski, a man who described himself as a broker for a consortium of unnamed individuals who wished to retain his services. They wanted him to oversee a project for them. That Moski even knew how to get an e-mail through Zelinkow’s elaborate electronic screening protocol had been disconcerting. Through a series of cutouts and trust-building measures, the two had finally met in Cairo. It was a short meeting, and both men knew it would be their last. No business was concluded; Moski told him what his principals desired, and Zelinkow said he would consider it. The two men then went on to resolve two issues: communications and money transfer. When it came down to it, Zelinkow’s interaction with a principal was quite simple. He had to be tasked, and he had to report his progress on this tasking, both of which required a secure, untraceable method of communication. Fortunately, corporate America had developed all that was needed in the way of secure communications technology. It was for sale to U.S. military forces, intelligence agencies, government entities, and corporations, which meant it was for sale to him. Usually the people that hired him were not so sophisticated, and Zelinkow had to see to the upgrading of their systems for the protection of all concerned. As it was, Abdel Moski had a state-of-the-art system, and he assured Zelinkow that his principals did as well.

  However, the transfer of money was not so easy. It would always be a spy-vs.-spy game. The people who wanted to move funds with no attribution and the bankers who wanted to accommodate these transfers worked together against those who wanted to be privy to their dealings. Basically it was the whole world, from the terrorist to the taxpayer, against the United States of America, with a little help from the Brits and the Japanese. This did not mean that it was a one-sided affair. Zelinkow had long ago learned never to underestimate the American intelligence and counterintelligence services. For Zelinkow, this only put more of an edge to the Grand Game. And it kept a lot of amateurs out of the game. They were quickly and easily caught and put out of business.

  After his meeting with Moski, Zelinkow began combing his many sources to learn the identity of Moski’s clients. Not that Zelinkow really needed to know, but he was more than just curious. The effort it took to learn their identities would go a long way toward documenting Moski’s professional credentials. It proved to be much more work than Zelinkow expected, which elevated Abdel Moski in his estimation. As Zelinkow suspected, it was an Al Qaeda–sponsored operation with Saudi financial backing. Most dedicated acts of terror were. There was no need to peel the onion back further and try to learn which Saudi organization, or which member of the royal family put up the money. He had no doubt that the pockets were deep.

  After much consideration, he had accepted the commission, taken the retainer, and agreed to see the project through. It was certainly no casual undertaking; th
is would not be an easy task, nor would its successful completion be pretty. Had he not been thoroughly embarrassed by the Americans on his last major endeavor, he might not have taken this job. Two years ago, he had been asked to penetrate the Pakistani nuclear weapons stockpile and remove two of the weapons stored there. He had done this and made careful plans to bring the two bombs into Afghanistan. There they were to be detonated, causing little loss of life and crippling the construction of the Trans Afghan Pipeline, a massive project designed to bring Caspian oil to a deepwater port in Pakistan. The pipeline was underwritten by an American-backed consortium of Western oil companies with security provided by the U.S. military. Its destruction would have caused a great deal of embarrassment to the United States and further drawn America into the tarbaby of Southwest Asia. But it was not to be. Zelinkow considered himself a careful planner, someone who accounted for all eventualities. But something happened; a force he had not counted on, nor even knew the existence of, had intervened. This force had prevented the nuclear detonations and recovered both bombs. It was the first time he had ever been denied an objective—ever. This mysterious organization had also found a way to track his incoming payments and dispersals, eventually causing the French Sûreté to raid his home. He had lost everything—everything but his life and the sums of cash he had stashed in discreet banks around the world, banking sanctuaries he had once thought safe.

  Nine/11 was a mistake. He had said so when he was hired to help Mohammad Atta and the others to attack New York and Washington. Americans respond when attacked. Now they controlled Afghanistan and might yet Iraq, and their influence in the region was many times what it was. By attacking America, Al Qaeda had called forth an American resource that was usually content to deal in commerce and commercial enterprise—American ingenuity. The fundamentalists thought America was fat and complacent, and 99 percent of Americans were exactly that. But it was the other 1 percent that made all the difference. Zelinkow was convinced that it was the efforts of that 1 percent that had defeated him in Afghanistan. That bitter defeat still troubled him. But what bothered him more was that he still did not know who these people were. Given their unorthodox methods and uncharacteristic brutality, he was sure they were some form of nongovernmental entity. No American congressional oversight committee would sanction what they had done; no American president would countenance that kind of activity unless he had complete deniability. No, Zelinkow concluded as he puffed thoughtfully on the Lonsdale, this was something new and out of the ordinary. Somehow they had bested him in that adventure in Afghanistan, and he had never been able to find out who they were or how they accomplished it. Africa was a whole different business, he told himself. Or was it? One thing was very clear to him, and probably to those who had hired him. He could not afford another failure.