Okay, so the fact that Ambassador Madison could separate her personal life and her professional life gave her a check in the “plus” column of the ledger I carry in my head. That—and a buck-and-a-half token—would get her on the subway in New York. Quickly, I examined the rest of the papers. There was a long, detailed document handwritten in a language I couldn’t decipher, and there was a final report of some kind, twelve pages in all, written in Cyrillic, with what had to be TOP SECRET stamps on the top and bottom of each page.
I speed-read the ten pages of the NSC draft. Shit—the fucking thing had enough raw intelligence data in it to point toward some of the United States’ holy of intel holies, its sources and its methods. And having that kind of document in one’s possession, my friends, is a no-no. In fact, it is fucking illegal, because disclosure of top secret material (and this is the official definition), “could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.”
And when exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States takes place, then I get the green light to shoot and loot and take no fucking prisoners whatsoever.
Now, let’s look at what’s happened in the past couple of days. A bunch of folks have been murdered. A bunch of no-goodniks working for Stephan Sarkesian have tried to kill moi. And now, I discover that this self-same Sarkesian not only has a couple of world-class killers (e.g., Oleg Lapinov and Ali Sherafi) as his honored guests here at the Sirzhik Foundation, but he is also in possession of a document that would get him locked up if he were back in the U.S. of A. and the FBI knew what he had.
00:05:59. Shit—how time flies when you’re having fun. Quickly, I folded the reports and thrust ’em into my jacket pocket. I went through the case to be sure he wasn’t hiding any more classified material. He wasn’t—but I removed the rest of the letters and memos and Post-it notes, which were in English and French and Cyrillic and Azeri and Armenian and what looked like Farsi—just to be on the safe side.
I closed the now-empty briefcase and slipped it back under the desk. If what I’d just done didn’t rattle the Sarkesian teacup, nothing would. Nobody likes to be burgled. Especially folks like Steve-o. Especially when what’s been purloined is valuable information that he probably had a hard time obtaining in the first place.
But, just to make sure he knew who’d done the deed, I took a sheet of that thick Cartier letterhead from the credenza, grabbed a pen, and scrawled, “Yo, Sirzhik, FYVM,” and left it dead center on his desktop. I hoped he’d find some significance in the “dead” part of the positioning.
00:06:34: I eased the door shut and replaced the hinge pins, snuck back down the hallway, went out onto the balcony, down the ivy, back into the head, and emerged from the head at 00:07:24. To be honest, it wasn’t as good a time as I could have managed ten years ago, but it was still pretty fuckin’ respectable for a guy with as many dings, nicks, dents, and dimples as I have on my fenders.
Avi’s, Mikki’s, and Ashley’s eyes all went wide as I crossed the crowded room toward them, the crowd parting for me as I proceeded. Maybe it was the blood, egg, and caviar on my shirtfront; maybe it was the knee-shredded, grass-stained trousers. Maybe it was—well, it didn’t matter. I draped one arm around Avi’s shoulder, and the other around Ashley’s, and whispered a nutshell sit-rep.
Major Evans was undiplomatically direct: “Holy shit,” she said, drawing a stare or two.
Avi Ben Gal betrayed nothing. He looked up at me, and mouthed, “Can you let me have the non-American documents?”
I thought about it. Here is the Rogue’s most basic rule of intelligence gathering: NEVER GIVE UP AN ORIGINAL DOCUMENT, EVEN TO YOUR BEST FRIEND. Especially if it is the only copy. “What about I make you some Xeroxes tomorrow?”
“No problem.” The Israeli shrugged. “But the sooner the better.” He paused, then put his hand in the small of his wife’s back and nudged her toward the door. “Yalla, Mikki, let’s go home. Hava na-mova.”
Avi and Mikki took point. Ashley and I followed. Across the room, Steve Sarkesian stood, his mannequinlike wife draped on his arm, deep in conversation with Ali Sherafi. Still, he took note of us—and of the way I was comporting myself, which is to say, normally. It was immediately apparent by the look on his face that he realized he’d been had once again—good—and it was a look that told me he didn’t like being had. Didn’t like it at all.
I guess I was in one of my stop-me-before-I-kill-again moods, because as I passed in front of him, I couldn’t resist demurely tapping atop the inside breast pocket of my messy blazer, where the slight bulge of papers gave me a Roguishly D-cup appearance. Then I discreetly pointed toward the ceiling with my gnarled index finger, indicating where I’d just been playing. Then I tossed him the bird, just so he’d know he was number one with me.
The color drained from his face. His expression turned absolutely homicidal. There’s no other way to describe it. Believe me, I know homicidal, and there was murder in Steve Sarkesian’s eyes. He took two steps in our direction. But there was nothing he could do, not with this crowd of whoses and vhatses milling around. Not without betraying the real Steve Sarkesian. The asshole who hangs out with tangos and stone killers. And he was too much of a pro for that. I could see him trying to stabilize: to steady and brace himself so he would remain outwardly cool. It took a lot of effort, but he finally brought himself under control. Still, the look he gave me as we went through the door told me that this episode wasn’t over. Not yet. And not by a long shot.
Part Two
THE ENEMY OF MY FRIEND
11
THAT LONG SHOT CAME AT 0840 THE FOLLOWING morning. I heard it—a dull explosion that reverbed the window of my hotel room as I was using the secure satellite phone and scrambler fax to transmit both a report of my activities and the top secret documents I’d taken from Steve Sarkesian’s briefcase back to General Crocker. As soon as I’d gotten in after Ashley’d dropped me off, I’d called him at Quarters Six back in Washington to tell him what I had discovered. Fortunately, he was more pissed at my news about finding the big DIQ60 than he was upset with me for causing what Ambassador Madison had already called his office to describe as a damaging diplomatic incident involving a drunken and out-of-control U.S. Naval officer, i.e., moi.
The Chairman groaned. Yes, friends, he actually groaned. Then he sighed. I’d never heard him do either before. “You really took the documents?” he asked, as if he wanted to hear a different answer.
I told him once again that I had—and that I had ’em in my possession.
My voice was followed by a long and uncomfortable period of silence. Then General Crocker instructed me to give him a full report on the situation. He wanted my read on the situation regarding the relationship between Ali Sherafi, Oleg Lapinov, and Stephen Sarkesian. He wanted the full details about what I’d done, and precisely how I’d done it. “I want the whole damn nine yards, and not a detail spared” is the way he put it to me. When I’d finished, I was to roll my big DIQ, the Russkie document, the handwritten memo, the Sirzhik Foundation draft, and my report into the fax machine and send ’em directly to the secure comms shack in his office, where he’d see them first thing in the morning.
It had taken me the rest of the night to accomplish what the Chairman had asked for. I looked away from the fax at the sound of the dull thud. Even with the air-conditioning going, I knew I was listening to the impact of a sizable chunk of high explosive. Five seconds later, the hotel building itself shuddered slightly from the aftershock. I went to the window and peered out. It was a great view—looking southwest, with the center of the city fanned out in front of me. The room was on the ninth floor—high enough to see much of the skyline. In the hazy distance, was the light blue water of the Caspian.
Off to my left, at about ten thirty, I saw a thick plume of dirty black rising into the morning sky, coming from the part of old Baku that houses many of the city’s diplomatic compounds and residences. The
nasty color of the smoke confirmed for me that what I’d just heard was high explosive. The pattern and distribution—after all, this was Baku and there was no wind, just heat—was similar to the initial aftermath of car bombs I’ve seen in Lebanon, Northern Ireland, and Turkey, to name a few of the sites where Mister Murphy has steered me to the wrong place, at the wrong time.
As an aside, let me state for the record that I detest fucking car bombs. They’re too goddam random. Oh, there are occasions when I’ve used ’em, like the time I was able to vaporize Islamic Jihad’s master bomb-maker in the late 1980s as he made his way north on a little street called Farid Trad, just past the old UNESCO compound in Beirut. Sometimes, they’re the only way to hit a target and make it look like it was a local job, not a U.S. Navy SEAL hit. But the problem with car bombs is that they cause a lot of what the Pentagon likes to call collateral damage, i.e., innocent (or at least not guilty) civilians. In Beirut, for example, I killed my intended target. But in the process, sixteen other folks were vaporized, too—a real nasty case of wp/wt.61
But then, war itself is a messy business. It’s not precise. You can’t wage war by taking polls, or worrying about “collateral damage,” because if you do, you will end up getting a lot more of your own people killed—and making fewer of the enemy into corpses. You have to make the moral choice in war that killing some enemy civilians, or bystanders, or poor folks who are in the wrong place at the wrong time is a lesser evil, because you have decimated your target and saved a lot of other lives in doing so. Perfect? Far from it. But it is a moral choice I, for one, can—and do—live with.
I called the U.S. embassy for a sit-rep. Yes, I know I am persona non grata there. But I didn’t call the RSO, or the ambassador’s office, or even Ashley. I called the gunny at the Marine Security Detail’s Post Number One, identified myself, and asked if there was anything he knew about the explosion we’d both just heard.
There was a slight pause as the name recognition hit. Then, because he was a Marine gunny, and he was more concerned about solving problems than he was about playing politics, he told me the answer was no, sir. Then he said, “Wait just a second, please, sir,” and put me on hold. Two minutes later he came back on the line and said that according to his scanner, there had just been an incident involving an Israeli diplomat, and he had to go right now, because his boss, the detail’s master gunnery sergeant, was about to ratchet the embassy’s security profile up one notch, to Threatcon Charlie.
I’d just dropped the receiver on the cradle when it rang again. “Marcinko.”
“Dick, it’s Ashley.”
“What’s up.”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. Why?”
“Your friend—”
I had only one friend in Baku, and it wasn’t Steve Sarkesian. “Avi.”
“Avi. I’ve just received a report that says his car was ambushed as it left his flat on the way to the Israeli embassy.”
Oh, that was not good news. “Did they get him?”
“We don’t know. It’s pretty crazy out there. The Israeli embassy’s buttoning up, and so are we.”
“What’s the location of the bombing?”
She told me. I hung up before she could say anything else, grabbed a pistol and a flak vest, and launched toward the door.
I had it open when I realized I still had eleven pages to fax.
There are times when doing your duty is painful—and this was one of them. But life is made up of priorities, and getting my material to the Chairman took precedence over everything else.
I finished transmitting, and was securing the documents in the lockbox when the phone rang again. I reached out and grabbed the receiver.
“Dick—this is Avi.”
I can tell you, my friends, that I have seldom, in a life of War, destruction, and death, been happier to hear a voice. “Avi, what happened? They said—”
“I’m okay, I’m okay” his voice came back shaken but steady. “But my driver is dead and Mikki needs medical attention. Needs it badly.”
Oh, fuck, oh, shit, oh Goddammit. “What happened?”
“Some b’nai zonim62 put explosives in a car half a block down from our flat. We live on Abbas Sikhat Street, which runs one way, so we can’t make a turn until we come to the Azadiyg Prospekt. That’s the only part of the route to the embassy I can’t vary. They detonated as we drove up to the intersection. There’s a big wall right there on the left side of the street—some big corporate estate—and the wall amplified the blast.”
He took a deep breath. “They knew what they were doing, Dick. It was as good an op as we ever ran in Lebanon against Hezb’allah.” The Israeli gulped for more air. “But Mikki was with me this morning—she wanted to buy groceries at the embassy commissary, and she was sitting on the left side of the car.” He paused. “That was the side that took the brunt of the blast.” His voice started to waver. “She’s not in good shape, Dick. Not in good shape at all.”
“What can I do? Where do you need me to be?”
He heaved a huge sigh, then started talking in rapid-fire bursts. “Okay, I need you to keep going on what we’ve discussed between us. The . . . vatchamacallit . . . thing down south. I am convinced what happened today and last night are interrelated. You remember last night? You know what I’m speaking about?”
He was referring to what I’d done at the Sirzhik Foundation. “I do, Avi, I do—take it easy.”
“I never got the materials, Dick. You keep them until I get back.” He stopped as suddenly as if he’d been switched off, and I heard him consciously trying to wrestle himself under control. When he’d calmed himself, he breathed deeply, then continued: “Look, there’s an El Al flight to Tel Aviv in two hours, and if the damn fürshtunken doctor who’s working on her manages to get her stabilized by then, we’ll be on it. I’ll commandeer first class and use it as a sick bay. Damn it, Dick, twenty-eight years without a scratch, and now this. This . . . This . . .” The energy drained from him, and suddenly he became exhausted. Drained. Empty.
Not surprising. He was in shock and running on adrenaline, and his adrenaline had just stopped pumping. Now it was as if he could barely summon the power to whisper. “Dick, she needs the kind of attention she can only get at home. I have to take her home. Have to take her home.”
There are times when words won’t do. This was one of ’em. I thought about what I’d just been thinking about collateral damage, and suddenly realized there are two sides to that coin: the sending side, on which I usually find myself, and the receiving side, which is where I was now. It is not fun to be on the receiving side. And that is a colossal understatement. “Avi—”
“I know, Dick,” he said, cutting me off. “I know. B’bye, Dick, b’bye. Keep me vatchamacallit, up-to-date. You have the number in Herzliyya.” And then the phone went dead.
Now, callous as it may appear, I didn’t sit around and daydream about all the good times I’d had with Avi and Mikki Ben Gal. Instead, I went to work with the kind of vengeance-driven energy that I can summon up in times of stress. I put together lists containing the essential elements of information our covert strikes would need; I did target assessments. I pored over the satellite pictures that Pepperman had faxed me on the secure fax. I calculated distances using a Magellan GPS unit and the file of Defense Mapping Agency aeronautic maps I carry with me. And I used a magnifying glass to examine the minute details of the blueprints of the place we’d be going, blueprints Jim Wink had dug out of the CIA’s archives and faxed to me.
And fourteen hours later, give or take a few minutes, I’d come up with what I thought was an effective and reasonably Murphy-resistant mission profile. I handed my pages over to Boomerang, Duck Foot, Nod, and Rotten Randy for their input, because in that quartet of senior noncoms lies decades of real-world combat experience. I watched as they attacked my op-plan, trying to poke holes in it, find the weaknesses, and make it better and more deadly. I opened the minibar, drank a single beer, then walked
into the bedroom, lay down atop the bedcovers, and closed my eyes for a short combat nap.
I was roused by the phone bring-bringing next to my left ear. I rubbed at my eyes, and looked at the luminescent dial on my watch. 0412. I’d been asleep for six and a half hours. The loud music coming from the suite’s living room told me that my senior noncoms were still working on the op-plan.
I rolled over and grabbed the receiver. “Marcinko.” I heard my voice reverbing on the line, as if I were in an echo chamber.
“Dick, this is Avi, can you hear me?”
I could—in fact I told him there were about half a dozen of him. “How’s Mikki.”
He got straight to the point. “She died two hours ago, Dick. There was nothing anybody could do.”
I started to say something, but Avi cut me off. “Look,” he said, “I know how you feel, and that is great comfort to me right now. But we have to put her in the ground before sundown tonight, and then I am here for thirty days of mourning.”
“I’ll be on a plane to be with you even if I have to fly the fucking thing myself, Avi.”
“No,” he said. “You stay where you are. You do the work you began. That is most critical. I’ll take care of the sons of bitches who killed her. I can handle that. I know who they are, and I will deal with them.”
“Dammit, Avi—”
“Do your job, Dick,” he said. “You finish your work—I’ll finish mine,” he said. And then he hung up.
I sat on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the window for I don’t know how long. I have known Miriam Ben Gal for almost two decades now. I watched her children grow up, marry, and have their own kids. I have fallen asleep on the couch in her home and awakened, covered in a hand-knit comforter that she laid over me. We have laughed together. And now some anonymous tango had detonated a car filled with high explosive and ended her life.
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