Agnes and Witold meanwhile had emptied the contents of the backpacks and laid them in a row on the floor. They were duplicate wooden skids that would be switched to replace the original cleats. Each new skid had been mortised and was filled with two beacons—one a short-range HAMMER proximity beacon, designed for use in dense urban environments, the other a QUICKHATCH geolocation beacon that reported long-range position via GPS satellite. With QUICKHATCH, you could follow a camel across the Sahara from a laptop in Manhattan. With great care, the original skids were unscrewed and the “hot” replacements were fastened in place with silent push screwdrivers. Agnes was a marvel, collecting discarded wood, counting tools, and ensuring the crates were left exactly as they found them by comparing photos she had taken with her cell phone at every stage of the operation. Once verified, the pics would be deleted.
The afternoon sun was dimming, and Nate looked at his watch. He didn’t want to work by flashlight. Witold saw him, smiled, and mouthed “five minutes more.” Nate took a cautious walk around outside, still worried by the prospect of a trap not yet sprung, but the zone around the warehouse was clear, nothing moved. He went back inside and Agnes was waiting near the door, out of earshot of the other WOLVERINEs.
“We are almost finished,” she said, smiling. “Everything went smoothly.”
Nate nodded. “You guys do good work,” said Nate. “Forsyth thinks your team is the best, and so do I.”
Agnes smoothed her hair. “Do you think we leave tonight or tomorrow?” she asked.
“If we get back at a reasonable hour, there’s no reason not to leave tonight, as if we’re taking a moonlight cruise,” said Nate.
“I just wondered if we’d be in the hotel another night,” said Agnes, looking at him with her gray eyes.
“Oh, no,” said Nate, shaking his head. “Don’t start, Agnes.”
“That little boat will be cramped with all of us aboard, no privacy.”
Nate tried to imagine Agnes naked in a narrow upper berth with Piotr snoring in the lower rack. “I thought the start of an operation made you feel this way,” said Nate. “It’s over; we’re finished.”
“Sometimes before a mission, sometimes after,” she said, sighing. “Sometimes during.”
Nate reached out and took her hand. “What am I going to do with you?” he said.
She squeezed his hand. “Do I have to tell you, or can you guess?”
The WOLVERINEs finished their work, leaving the pile of crates as they found them and draping the tarp exactly as it had been, according to digital photos Agnes had taken of the warehouse interior before they started. They blew smudgy footprints away, and raised a cloud of dust that evenly coated crates, tarp, and floor as before. Nate checked Agnes’s photos to verify the scene—she stood close to him, holding the camera, the heat from her body palpable—and they backed out and watched Jerzy relock the door and wipe surfaces clean, not that the Russians would be dusting for prints considering the haphazard way they had cached the munitions.
The swaying bus ride back to Balaklava through the Crimean dusk seemed to take longer. Nate listened for sirens and the sound of motorcycles coming up from behind, and he strained to focus far ahead, at the curves, looking for the striped sawhorses of a roadblock, cars angled across the road. Nothing.
They stayed below to reduce the profile as the cruiser slowly moved away from the pier, down the harbor, past the sea buoy, and into open water. It was night now, the horizon to the west still a little light, the blackness to the east and south impenetrable. The crew signaled Nate when they had gone twelve miles, outside Putin’s territorial waters, and Piotr opened a bottle of Sliwowica, and they stood close together on the afterdeck and drank under the stars. Agnes contrived to bump shoulders with Nate as Ryszard sang “Hej Sokoly,” “Hey Falcons,” from the Polish-Soviet war. The cruiser rolled in the gentle sea swell.
Phase one finished, thought Nate, two and three coming up. Istanbul. Gable. Dominika.
GEORGIAN BEET SALAD
Put boiled beets, pitted prunes, garlic, walnuts, and sour cream in a food processor and pulse to a grainy paste. Garnish with rough-chopped walnuts and cilantro. Serve with crusty bread.
18
Phase Two
Nate’s primary liaison contact in the TNP was a thirty-year-old captain named Hanefi. He was short and dark, with a single caterpillar eyebrow and a thick black mustache, which would twitch sideways whenever he was agitated. He was learning English and tried to use it at every opportunity. The backs of Hanefi’s hands were something out of Phantom of the Opera—burned during an explosion—and he self-consciously hid the shiny disfigurement by keeping them in his pockets. Nate and Hanefi worked well together, but not before the intense police officer began trusting Nate. Gable had warned him about working with Turks: “No recruitment attempts, no case-officer moves, not even if one of them volunteers. They take their time warming up, but once they’re satisfied you’re not working them, they’re your friends for life. But if they later catch you trying to pick their pockets, they’ll never forgive or forget.”
Nate spent hours with Hanefi, listening to teltaps of Shlykov on the phone with Moscow and various PKK cell leaders—Russian and fractured English were used—discussing the upcoming weapons delivery. For an officer of his rank, Shlykov’s comsec (sense of communications security over the phone) was nonexistent. Each careless call to a separatist would identify five more members, those five, ten more. Each identified location led to the next two, then the next three, all of them in Istanbul’s sooty suburbs: Cebeci, Alibeyköy, Güzeltepe; an apartment in a rust-stained high-rise; a daub-and-wattle shed on a muddy lane; or a sagging farmhouse in a garbage-choked gully. There were so many sites that additional police units were brought in from Ankara to assist in surveilling all the locations.
Then the munitions arrived and a TNP helicopter with a HYENA receiver vectored TNP surveillance teams—they were as good as Nate had ever seen anywhere—to warehouses where the explosives would be stored before dispersal. The patient Turks set up on each location, watching, marking suspects. A coordinated assault plan was finalized. The Turks were impressed with Nate’s beacons; they were a marvel, said Hanefi.
“How did you do it, Nate Bey?” asked Hanefi late one night in a smoke-choked listening post, referring to the crates. Nate smiled.
“If you asked me whether we did it in Russia, I couldn’t tell you,” said Nate. Hanefi put back his head and laughed.
“Aferin, sen Osmanli,” said Hanefi. He meant, Bravo, you’re an Ottoman, a righteous stud.
The night of the multiple raids, Nate checked the QUICKHATCH beacon readouts from a terminal in the consulate. That technology was not releasable to the Turks—they were unaware of the redundant system—but all locations were corroborated 100 percent. Benford called on the secure phone and uncharacteristically praised Nate’s performance both in Sevastopol, and in working with the Turks in Istanbul, which he called “satisfactory.” Benford confirmed that the tech team for Phase Three would arrive the next day. Part of Nate’s plan to frame Shlykov had already been running for a time, a denigration ploy so insidious that a chuckling Gable had said Shlykov was already screwed, only he didn’t know it yet. “Good luck, tonight,” Benford had said, then terminated the secure link.
* * *
* * *
Nate hung up, remembering that Agnes had also wished him good luck after the WOLVERINEs returned by boat to Varna. He didn’t know it, but Agnes had booked a flight a day later than the rest of the team. Nate likewise was waiting for his flight to Istanbul, and was staying one night at the Central Hotel, a tired Romanian Black Sea resort where the lobby, corridors, and rooms smelled of hot elevator oil. Agnes had sneakily taken an adjoining room, and surprised him by pounding on his door while announcing servitoare, housekeeping!
Nate was secretly pleased. He was contemplating a dreary evening alone in his threadbare room watching the Berlin Euro Pop Contest on television. Agnes had other ideas.
Whatever servomotor was ticking inside her, the chaste three-day return cruise apparently had spun it up to red-line levels. They made love everywhere but the bed: on the floor, in an armchair, in the bathtub with a sputtering hydro jet, and standing up on the tiny balcony ghost-lit by the neon hotel sign on the roof. Her heady perfume—she told him it was Chanel Cristalle Eau Verte—mingled with the whiff of Bunker C fuel oil from the harbor around the headland. She had whispered czuje miete dla ciebie, I feel mint for you, in colloquial Polish, meaning she had feelings for him. Mint wasn’t the only thing she felt.
Hours later, hands shaking, Nate poured Agnes some bottled water, but she was asleep on the bed, on her back, mouth open in a six-orgasm syncope, hair fanned out on the pillow, her witch’s streak partly visible. Nate floated a blanket over her and sat on the armchair across the room, looking at her breathing. Sleeping with Agnes the first time had been a midnight impulse fueled by pre-op nerves. Tonight it was a celebration, relief at getting out of Russia in one piece, maybe a bittersweet farewell. Nate rubbed his face and groaned. Maybe he wanted to put impediments between him and Dominika, so he wouldn’t—could not—stumble with her again. He resolved to properly act as backup to Gable during meetings in the safe house. He would arrive late, and leave early, making sure Gable was always in the room. He would let Gable explain to DIVA why Nate was acting like a skittish puppy, let him deal with the inevitable outburst. Only one problem: Nate loved Dominika. As if Agnes could hear his thoughts, she mumbled fitfully in her sleep, and turned over. She feels mint for me, thought Nate, miserably.
The next day they were waiting for their separate flights at the airport. In a white blouse, pink skirt, and sandals, Agnes looked cool and collected.
“Do you think I am too old for you?” she asked Nate, who looked up in alarm.
“After last night, I’ll let you know once my chiropractor hammers my spine back into alignment,” said Nate.
“I am being serious,” said Agnes.
“No, I don’t think you’re too old for me,” he said. “But Agnes, there must be somebody in your life.”
“I think there is somebody in your life,” she said, ignoring his question.
“What makes you say that?” said Nate. Scary good radar, he thought.
“Zerkalo dushi,” said Agnes in Russian, searching his eyes. Mirror of the soul, thought Nate. Christ.
“Things are complicated,” said Nate, who had no intention of discussing his seriously contorted personal situation.
“You live in London, isn’t it?” Agnes said.
“And you live in California.”
“Not so far, I think,” she said, not looking at him. Nate didn’t answer.
“Would a visit to London sometime be a bad idea?” Agnes said, then kissed him good-bye.
* * *
* * *
The Station’s outside line rang with an exultant Hanefi on the other end. “Nate Bey, come quickly; there is a police car waiting for you downstairs.” He was shouting over the sound of gunfire, a lot of it, including automatic weapons.
“Hanefi, where are you?” yelled Nate. “Are you all right?”
“Godamn hell, shit-bitch,” said Hanefi, who was still learning to swear properly in English. “Çabuk olmak, come at once.”
The drive in the dented police car, blue lights flashing and hee-haw siren wailing, driven by a jug-eared twenty-year-old police corporal who pounded the steering wheel when traffic did not part, was transcendental. Gable’s phrase “scared as a sinner in a cyclone” came to mind. Metal ammunition boxes strewn on the rear seat slid back and forth on the curves. They weaved through traffic across the Galata Bridge, and rocketed down the south side of the Golden Horn, past the darkened Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, under the O-1, and into the dingy Eyüp district. The corporal took a steep road up the hill, tires squealing and fenders scraping along the stone guardrail. At one of the switchback curves, the entire sprawl of Istanbul was visible, its city lights bisected by the black slash of the Bosphorus; the end of Europe and the start of Asia. Dominika would be down there, and they’d be together in two days.
The police car locked its brakes and slid to a stop. More police cars were up ahead, stacked behind a big-wheeled Kobra armored car in blue and white TNP colors. The driver shoved two ammo cases into Nate’s hands, took two himself, jerked his head, and started running uphill. It was a steep, narrow street with houses on either side, the windowpanes reflecting the two-score flashing blue lights. The echoing cracks of incessant firing became louder. Clustered at the corner of a wall ahead were a group of TNP officers, some in uniform, others in jeans and leather jackets, peeking around the corner of the wall. Hanefi saw Nate and ran to greet him.
“You bring ammunition,” he said, clapping Nate on the back. The wall across the street was suddenly riddled by bullets that chipped cement and filled the air with dust. Hanefi pulled Nate closer into the lee of the wall.
“Hanefi, what’s going on?”
“Four people, PKK, in top apartment,” said Hanefi, loading a magazine for his MP5. Other officers were digging into the ammunition like kids around a bowl of candy. Nate looked past them. The street was covered in spent casings, thousands of them, brass winking in the flashing lights.
“How long have you been shooting?”
“Many hours; we ran out of ammunition.” He held his weapon out to Nate. “Here, you try.” Nate shook his head. Hanefi barked something in Turkish to another officer, who held out his weapon, a heavier assault rifle. “Try this one.” Nate held up his hands in polite refusal.
A bullhorn blared and the shooting slowed, then stopped. Hanefi pulled Nate by the sleeve to peer around the corner. The small apartment building was bathed in spotlights. The top-floor apartment was marked by thousands of bullet holes, the windows were ragged gaps in the walls, and the concrete balcony railing was chipped and broken. It was a miracle that anyone could survive up there. And this is going on all over Istanbul, thought Nate.
Hanefi nudged Nate and pointed with his chin. Two shadows—police commandos—were sliding slowly headfirst down the roof tiles. At the edge, they would reach over the gutter and throw fragmentation grenades down into the PKK apartment. Before they were in place, a young woman in a red parka ran onto the balcony with an RPG over her shoulder. Hanefi shouted and tried pulling Nate back. The woman aimed at them and fired the missile, but the back blast from the launching charge rebounded in the small space and blew the woman off the balcony. She cartwheeled four stories into a pile of rubble, followed by the missile that arced harmlessly to the ground. Hanefi looked at Nate in amazement. “Bad luck,” said Nate.
The grenades cracked and a thin plume of gray smoke came out of one of the windows. Another boom was followed by a flurry of shots, then silence, then the shrill blast of a whistle. “All over. Let us go up,” said Hanefi.
The interior of the little apartment was an eye-stinging charnel house, with a bullet hole in every square inch of the room. Wallpaper hung curled off the walls, the few pieces of furniture had been reduced to kindling, and a prayer rug smoldered in the corner. Bits of upholstery stuffing floated in the air. Two men lay on the floor on their backs, bloody shirts pulled up to their chins. In the back bedroom a young woman lay between the pulverized wall and a shredded box mattress, her fists clenched and mouth puckered, eyes half-open. Black hair showed beneath a head scarf.
Hanefi looked with interest at Nate’s face, which had gone somewhat pale. He would not make fun of his new American friend. He patted Nate’s shoulder. “It is our job,” he said, holding up four fingers. “Dört, four terrorists, captured dead,” he said using the TNP vernacular.
Shlykov’s covert action had been ruined: twenty-four PKK cells had been wrapped up; the morgues were already full. The Russian munitions had been recovered, and the publicity would be devastating when the weapons would be put on display for the TV cameras. Now let’s take Shlykov for a ride, thought Nate, and then it’s up to Dominika.
/> * * *
* * *
About the time Major Shlykov arrived in town to supervise his covert-action arms shipments, the CIA Base in Istanbul had begun transmitting covert-agent electronic-burst messages into the Russian Consulate. Every day for a week, base officers, stiff wires running beneath their jackets and warm battery packs in spandex holsters under their skirts, walked among the shopping crowds on Istiklal Caddesi and past the consulate gate topped with the double-headed eagle of the Russian Federation. They fired three-second, five-watt burst transmissions into the building. The energy bounced invisibly up the ornate marble staircases, ricocheted through the hallways, and rose like clear smoke up to the attic receivers; the consulate was awash in low-powered signals. They were encrypted gibberish, but the signals themselves were detectable and dutifully recorded by Russian SIGINT (signals intelligence) officers who endlessly monitored frequencies across the spectrum. A report was sent to FAO/RF, the Moscow SIGINT headquarters, immediately. The mysterious daily transmissions continued on a regular basis.
A week later, when phone intercepts flagged that Shlykov was traveling from Istanbul to Ankara to confer with the senior rezident, the burst transmissions in Istanbul ceased, and commenced in Ankara. CIA Station officers twice a day drove past the Russian Embassy on Cinnah Caddesi, pushed the recessed buttons, and volleyed the encrypted energy over the embassy fence, through the granite walls, into the elegant Baroque sitting rooms, and out the back of the building to the withered formal gardens behind the embassy. This had not happened before. The astonished Russian SIGINT officers in Ankara also reported their readings to FAO/RF. These reports in turn were sent to the FSB. As a potential counterintelligence matter, neither Shlykov in GRU nor SVR headquarters was privy to the SIGINT reports, nor were they aware that a secret FSB file had been opened on “unidentified encrypted electronic messaging activity in Istanbul.” Signals of this sort were sophisticated and clandestine, and clearly suggested that someone in the Russian diplomatic contingent in Turkey was the recipient. The genetic, reflexive Kremlin assumption that there was a traitor in their midst—a cultural paranoia first introduced by the tsars, nurtured by the Bolsheviks, refined by the Soviets, and perfected by Putin—smoldered in Moscow.
The Kremlin's Candidate Page 24
