by Jack Carr
* * *
The uranium mine radiated destitution. The workers that Aleksandr observed lining up to enter the shafts looked like zombies. Even children had been consigned as forced labor, the cost of a village overrun by HIV and AIDS. As the raw ore was raised by hand in wooden buckets or pushed on a crude railway in rickety carts, it was heaped outside the entrance in large piles. Aleksandr was cautioned to stay on the observation platform, as the radiation level was toxic closer to the piles of ore.
“What’s their life expectancy?” Aleksandr asked his host, observing the workers covered in boils and blisters.
“Less than a year,” Dobrynin confirmed. “Luckily, conscript labor is not a rare commodity in this part of Africa.”
It reminded Aleksandr of the corrective labor camps, what the West insisted on calling gulags after Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize in literature for his The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn was right about one thing: the prisoners were given the opportunity to work to death.
“I’ve seen enough. Take me to the diamond mines.”
* * *
The convoy continued another two hours, as they pushed deeper into the hills, the vehicles making slower progress. Aleksandr wondered if the reporters who had “disappeared” a few months earlier were killed because they ran into the wrong militia or were targeted by spetsnaz for asking too many questions about the mines. No matter. What did they expect, poking around in what amounted to a war zone in Central Africa?
A large white man who Aleksandr deduced to be from the Ural Mountains greeted them at the vehicles, shaking hands and introducing himself as Krysov Petrovich.
“Comrade Petrovich runs the mining operation. In the past seven months he has turned this into the most efficient and profitable diamond mining operation in the country,” Dobrynin declared.
Petrovich wiped his sweaty forehead with a dirty rag and stuffed it back in his pocket. Aleksandr noticed Dobrynin fish a bottle of hand sanitizer out of his suit pocked and squeeze a liberal amount into his palm.
“The workers are paid a generous sum for their labor, generous for this part of the world, anyway,” he continued.
“And theft? Is that a problem or are the wages enough to counter the temptation?” Aleksandr asked.
“Theft will always be a problem, Mister Zharkov,” Petrovich said. “We have the unfortunate task of using unorthodox methods to deal with thieves. Come.”
Petrovich led the way to what Aleksandr assumed to be roughly the center of the aboveground operation.
“These ungrateful savages still swallow raw diamonds to smuggle them out to sell on the black market. Every few months we need to remind the rest what happens to those who steal.”
Aleksandr watched as thirty workers exited the mine, filthy and thin, their eyes darting about like cornered animals. Desperate. Russian troops lined them up and shackled them to a rail obviously put there for this very reason. Each of the chained men was given a liter of a magnesium sulfate solution to drink, the equivalent of a medical bowel prep. Within twenty minutes, violent cramps preceded an eruption of watery human excrement. Three were found to have expelled the raw stones after the local guards sifted through the malodorous mess.
“What will happen to them?” Aleksandr asked as the three offenders were led away.
“It’s best if we show you,” Petrovich replied. “In the meantime, follow me.”
Aleksandr took the guided tour. Though he listened respectfully to the briefing on diamond mine production and expected output for the coming year, his mind was on the three men who had been removed for stealing; they looked fit enough, and living in this area meant they should have tracking and hunting skills.
Ideal candidates.
At the end of the shift, the entire workforce was assembled a few hundred yards away from the mine entrance, at the edge of a pit. They were addressed in their native dialect by the local militia leader under direct supervision of a Russian advisor. Aleksandr noted the quiet gloom that fell over the crowd. Death was in the air.
“What did he say?” Aleksandr asked.
“He said, ‘This is what happens to thieves.’ ”
“Who are they?” Aleksandr asked, pointing to three people lined up across the pit from the gathered crowd: a woman who appeared to be in her thirties, an old man, and a boy who could not have been much more than ten. Their hands and feet were bound, and one leg was secured via chain to rusting chunks of metal. They were naked.
“Those are relatives of the three pilferers. The militia pulled them from the villages. This is the only language these barbarians understand.”
The crowd started to protest and were silenced by a burst of automatic fire from a Russian advisor’s AK fired skyward.
Aleksandr watched as a beat-up pickup truck was backed through the crowd, the three diamond thieves shackled naked to its bed. When they saw their relatives at the edge of the pit their primal screams pierced the air, arms tugging in a futile attempt to break free.
“Quite the deterrent,” Dobrynin stated.
“Da, unpleasant but necessary,” responded Petrovich.
Aleksandr remained unfazed, even as three guards climbed into the truck, grabbing the heads of the shackled prisoners and forcing them to watch their relatives across the pit be beaten with clubs until they could no longer resist. The woman was the strongest; it took several clubs to the head before her will to fight subsided enough for the men to pick up the heavy metal objects to which they were shacked and throw them into the pit.
The Dorylus, better known as safari ants, are found primarily in Central and East Africa. Living in twenty-million-strong colonies they typically move from food source to food source throughout the year. These particular ants were fed well by design. They had no need to move. Their sting is incredibly painful, but the ants seldom use it; their jaws are strong enough to tear through the flesh of their prey. Indigenous people use them to close cuts that would require stitches in the developed world. Here, in the African bush, they would force the ant to bite on either side of a wound, breaking off the body and leaving the powerful mandibles in place to create a makeshift suture that could close the cut for days at a time.
The three thieves were forced to watch their loved ones thrash helplessly about on the floor of the pit, the ravenous safari ants quickly covering their bodies. With no way to swat them off and anchored to the pit with what amounted to a ball and shackle, they endured the torture of being eaten alive. The old man’s heart gave out well before the ants found their way into his brain through his eye sockets. The woman was lucky; she was all but brain dead from her clubbing before she hit the bottom of the pit. The boy, though, the boy’s screams would haunt the crowd for the remainder of their lives, his high-pitched cries lasting over twenty minutes as he was slowly eaten by the insatiable insects. When his screams turned to a whimper and finally ended, the three thieves were shacked to iron balls that were then thrown into the pit, where they endured the same slow deaths as their relatives. Within minutes the three workers were covered with ants. Vain attempts to pull the shackles off amid primal screams and groans filled the evening air. Death took twenty minutes. Within an hour, bones were all that remained.
“That should keep them in line for another month,” Petrovich stated.
“Do you have any other questions?” Dobrynin asked his guest.
Aleksandr shook his head.
Yes, the diamond mines would be perfect. Of those scheduled for execution for smuggling the precious stones, Petrovich could keep one every now and then to feed to the ants as a warning. Those of sound mind and body would be airlifted to Aleksandr in Kamchatka, and then on to Medny Island.
There they would at least have a sporting chance.
CHAPTER 6
Old Town Alexandria, Virginia
KATIE BURANEK LEANED AGAINST the wall of her Old Town condo lost in thought, watching the raindrops hit the window and slide down to pool on the ledge. She cradled a glass of white wine i
n one hand while rubbing the cross around her neck with the other. She should have been contemplating her next move at the network. Did she want her own show or was she content to investigate the stories that interested her; ones she believed were of importance to the American people? Instead she was thinking of Reece, recovering in Montana and coming to terms with a future he thought didn’t exist. Was she a part of that equation? Would he forever be haunted by visions of his wife and daughter, taken from him by a consortium of politicians, military officers, and private sector financiers? Or was Reece learning to live with their memory, his life a positive testament to their legacy?
Katie’s eyes focused on a drop of rain as it hit the glass and trickled down the pane, weaving its way among its relatives, all born of the same gray clouds.
Thinking back to Reece’s surgery, she felt a tinge of guilt for what she’d done afterwards, but before she could surrender to her feelings, she had needed to know the truth.
* * *
“Can I see him now?” Katie asked the doctor.
It had not been lost on the reporter that establishing a relationship with Reece’s female surgeon might allow her access not normally granted to non–family members. She had made sure the doctor had seen her with Reece on each of his visits for updated MRIs, CT Scans, X-rays, and pre-op procedures. Looking the part of the devoted girlfriend was intentional. She needed answers.
“He’s just coming back out from under anesthesia. He’ll be a bit groggy, but I know he can have visitors now.”
It didn’t hurt that Dr. Rosen was a big fan of Katie’s book. The surgeon had seen enough soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines come through Bethesda over the years to feel a kinship with them and know how they felt about Benghazi. Katie Buranek’s debut nonfiction account, aptly titled The Benghazi Betrayal, pulled back the curtain on what had happened in the lead-up to the thirteen hours when a small group of CIA contractors fought for their lives while politicians half a world away, in no danger of being overrun, could hardly be bothered to respond to requests for reinforcements. The surgeon would not forget one of the SEALs who was killed that day. He was a corpsman she’d had the pleasure of getting to know in this very hospital when he was recovering from wounds sustained in Afghanistan before joining the Agency. Katie would get special treatment.
“How did it go,” the young reporter asked.
“All things considered, I am extremely optimistic. Brain surgery of this type has evolved exponentially in recent years. We had an option to actually do this with a local anesthesia, though we usually do those for tumors situated close to the section of the brain that controls speech. In this case, due to the size and location we opted for general anesthesia, so he’s been out for close to four hours now.”
“Any side effects we need to worry about?” Katie asked, deliberately using “we.”
“Well, he might not like his new haircut. We had to shave his head to remove a flap of bone to give us access to the brain to remove the meningioma. Everything is back in place. We’ll keep him here tonight, maybe tomorrow depending on how he does, but he can start light exercise in about three weeks and ramp it up to his normal regimen in about six.”
“Thank you for taking such good care of him.”
“It’s our pleasure, Katie.”
“I’d love to be there for him when he wakes up.”
“He’s just down the hall. I’ll be in to check on him shortly.”
Katie slipped her laptop back into a bag and made her way down to the recovery room.
She shot a smile at the anesthesiologist as she entered.
“Hey, Dr. Port. How’s our SEAL doing?”
“Just bringing him back now, Katie.”
Dr. Port was a Katie fan as well. In his off time, he volunteered with the Maryland State Police SWAT team as a medic, so he was well acquainted with the community of law enforcement tactical response units often made up of military veterans. He was there to ensure nothing went wrong with his newest patient, who had become something of a legend in the small fraternity of special operations.
“He’ll be dazed for a few minutes as the anesthesia wears off but will be back to his old self in no time. You’re welcome to hang out here as long as you’d like. A nurse will be checking periodically, and Dr. Rosen will be in soon to evaluate. I’m sure they told you we will be keeping him overnight for observation but from what I understand, the surgery was extremely successful.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Katie said, touching her hand to her heart.
“This is what we do, Katie. Dr. Rosen is one of the best in the world. Reece here was in good hands. I’ll be back in a few.”
Alone in the room, Katie looked down at the man who had saved her life more than a year ago. Bound and gagged, she remembered being forced to kneel on the floor of the Fishers Island mansion with strands of explosive det cord wrapped tightly around her neck. A CIA assassin in the employ of the federal government had pressed the button on a remote detonator connected to the explosive flexible cord. If his finger came off the button, she was dead. She was an insurance policy to ensure Reece did the right thing that night. She was in the room with him now to find out if he had.
Young for what she had accomplished thus far as a journalist, her series of stories on the Benghazi fiasco and the resulting bestseller opened doors and established her as an investigative journalist who would follow the truth, regardless of where it led. That is what she was after today: truth.
Who was James Reece? she wondered. Was he a domestic terrorist, as the government had proclaimed when they were desperately trying to find and kill him? A vigilante hell-bent on avenging his murdered wife, daughter, and unborn son? Was he a disgruntled veteran who brought the wars to the home front after the ambush of his SEAL Team in the mountains of Afghanistan? Was he her savior? Or would he have blown her head off to avenge his family? Was nothing sacred in that quest, including her?
Looking up and down the hall outside his room, she softly closed the door. Taking a seat next to his bed she took his hand in hers. Thumbs gently stroking either side of the IV imbedded in his vein, she thought back to that rainy night off the coast of Connecticut. She had been in a state of shock, her face bruised and bloodied, as Reece loaded her aboard a Pilatus aircraft that was to be their extract. She moved up the steps in a daze, her body exhausted as the adrenaline that had sustained her through the violence of the previous hours subsided. Her mind barely discerned the voices; they sounded muffled as if she were submerged in water with someone shouting at her from above. It had somehow registered that Reece was not coming with them.
As Reece stepped back to close the door, Katie had turned sharply in her seat and snapped out of her trance.
“Reece, how did you know Ben didn’t have that detonator connected? How did you know he wouldn’t blow my head off?”
Reece had paused, looked Katie in the eye, and over the sound of the wind, the propeller, and the rain, replied, “I didn’t,” before shutting the door and moving off at a run toward the marina.
I didn’t. Those words had haunted Katie ever since.
She had masked her uncertainty since their reunion, waiting for the right time to conduct this interview. Her father had taught her that trust is the foundation of any relationship. He’d been a spy whose family was extracted from what was then Czechoslovakia by Reece’s father. She knew Tom Reece had defied orders to bring them out and that if he hadn’t, her father would have been executed and she would never have been born. Escaping to the United States in the 1980s, Katie’s father had been, and still was, a big Ronald Reagan fan. Trust but verify, he had told his children.
Katie intended to verify.
Reece stirred, his eyes flittered, once, twice, and then opened to take in the vision that was Katie Buranek.
“Hey, sailor,” she joked, knowing that even though Reece had spent his entire adult life in the navy, he would never consider himself a sailor. These days, the navy plowed through the world’s ocean
s on computer chips powered by nuclear reactors; wind and sails were of a bygone era.
“Katie, you didn’t have to wait.” His voice was raspy from the breathing tubes that had kept him alive during the almost four-hour surgery. “But I’m glad you did,” he added with a smile.
“Well, the anesthesiologist is kind of cute, so…”
Now was the moment of truth.
Having a father who had passed medical information to the Americans on top Czech party officials in the name of freedom meant she was well versed in the worlds of medicine and espionage. Katie had listened and learned.
Witnessing the Warsaw Pact’s response to the Prague Spring in 1968, a young Dr. Buranek decided he did not want his family to live as he had under the iron fist of Soviet Bloc repression. The winds of change had started to blow. His position as a physician and surgeon for the party elite gave him access to medical records and sometimes put him in a position to ask certain questions after a surgery as his patients emerged from the fog of general anesthesia. The post-anesthesia phase, when they were uninhibited, was the time to elicit key pieces of information of interest to the CIA. Party officials were always guarded during medical procedures, but per human nature, the thugs in dark suits would occasionally slip up and turn away to flirt with a nurse, sneak a cigarette, or go to the bathroom. That was when Katie’s father would work in a question passed to him by the Central Intelligence Agency. Reece was in that same phase of the post op drug sequence, though since the introduction of Versed fentanyl in 1990, the effects were even more dramatic. Sometimes called truth serum, Versed fentanyl was used for pain control and sedation in postop, a time when Reece would be most vulnerable and susceptible to questioning. Fentanyl was an opioid painkiller while the Versed was an amnesic sedative that left a target ripe for an exploitation they would never remember; a controlled amnesia.
