The Kremlin's Candidate

by Jason Matthews

  And, anyway, what was that fucking Gable doing in Khartoum, now of all times?

  TURKISH ZUCCHINI GRATIN

  Halve small zucchinis lengthwise, then scoop out pockets, and fill with cubed feta cheese, chopped dill, and parsley. Cover zucchinis with béchamel and bake in medium oven until zucchinis are soft and topping is golden brown.

  20

  The Great Confluence

  It was midnight. From the plane window coming in, Gable saw the bulbous, luminous blue-glass Corinthia Hotel on the river, a fat teardrop rising above the low brown wattle of Khartoum, otherwise punctuated only by a forest of lighted minarets. His plane banked farther and he could make out the al-Mogran, the Great Confluence, where the chocolate-brown Blue Nile joined the milky-blue White Nile. Outside the terminal, the brakes of the canary-yellow taxi squealed like a pissed-off baboon. Probably the red Sudanese dust on the pads, thought Gable. The shit gets everywhere. The drive from the airport to the US Embassy—it was south of town, on the banks of the Blue Nile—took an hour, down riotous four-lane Madani Street cloaked in blue exhaust, with traffic coming in and out from all directions, even at this hour. It was a familiar zoo. Khartoum. Gable was back on his old stomping grounds—the benighted Third World—where you debriefed recruited generals with sweat-shiny faces in gritty Land Rovers parked in stinking alleys, and the cotton-candy sandstorms three hundred feet high would rattle the house, red sand hissing under the door despite the wet towels jammed against the threshold, and where you got used to the sudden tire thump while driving at night, which was either something four-legged and furry, or a local sleeping off a tshwala beer bender in the middle of the road. You didn’t stop to find out, not at night.

  The Third World. Russian diplomats posted to Paris didn’t need CIA guys to buy them baguettes, but meet a lonely Russian in barren, alien Khartoum, his family back in Moscow, and give him some shchavelya sup, sorrel soup, like his mama used to fix, and put on a DVD, and open a bottle of bourbon, and you could talk to him endlessly about American salaries, or muscle cars, or Las Vegas pussy, or maybe just about the freedom to choose, and some dust-stormy night with the shutters rattling, he’d say yes, and you’d have an SVR recruitment in the bag. Some of Gable’s best scalps came from the Sandbox.

  COS Khartoum Gordon Gondorf was sitting at his desk in the Station on the top floor of the embassy, a two-wing, three-story blockhouse on a five-acre compound, with grenade-proof slit windows and a curved-steel porte cochere. COS Khartoum was short, pig eyed, and preternaturally obtuse. Gable often said Gondorf couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the sole. Known as “little feet” by the beleaguered officers in his stations, Gondorf seemed to reappear every two years, like a fever blister. He had been the Chief in Moscow where he tried to fuck Nash’s career, then went on to ruin Latin America Division, and subsequently became COS Paris where he refused to mobilize resources to look for an escaped CIA traitor loose in the city. This consistent performance had earned him everlasting scorn from Benford, who arranged for Gondorf to be given his current command—this uncomfortable third-tier Station where you had to check to see if a boomslang was coiled under the rim, resting in the cool of the toilet porcelain, before you sat down.

  Gondorf’s office was dominated by a huge wooden desk, reflecting his belief that the larger it was, the more gravitas it conferred on the person sitting behind it. This theory was vitiated somewhat by the fact that the glass top came up only chest high on the Chief, giving the enduring impression of a red-faced little boy sitting at his father’s desk on family day. A dusty A4 rifle was propped in a corner, as if the Chief personally engaged terrorist cells in Khartoum every day before lunch. Of course there was the usual vanity wall, covered with photographs of Gondorf being greeted by members of Congress, foreign dignitaries, and diplomats in tuxedos. A single framed photograph of Gondorf incongruously dressed as a Bedouin with a jambia—the curved ceremonial dagger of the Arab world—stuck in his belt, epitomized his catchpenny career. A camel in the background of the photo glared at him as if the half-pint desert nomad owed him money.

  Gable was only faintly aware of Gondorf’s current dilemma. Benford had not related the details. The story came out in halting sentences, punctuated with “through no fault of mine,” or “no one could have anticipated,” or “events beyond anyone’s control.” Months ago, Washington had resolved to covertly deliver shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles to rebels in Darfur—southern Sudan—to offset massive military aid from Russia and China flowing to the genocidal host government in Khartoum. It was vital that the US aid be kept secret to avoid bilateral friction. At the eleventh hour, a dithering National Security Adviser changed her mind, resulting in canceled plans to deliver the missiles. A pallet load—twelve five-foot dark-green aluminum cases with metal handles—of the missiles were stranded in a secure storeroom in the basement of the embassy.

  The cases were smuggled in as construction materials, but getting them out was a different matter. They could not be driven to the airport and flown out on the weekly support flight. If Sudanese Customs officials inspected the pallet, the diplomatic flap would be unsustainable. During a heated embassy principals meeting, the ambassador declared himself unwilling to keep a dozen FIM-92 stinger missiles with high explosive annular blast fragmentation warheads in his chancery indefinitely. The military attaché (called Milatt), marine Colonel Claude Bianchi, respectfully submitted that he had no way to extract the cases until the carrier USS Nimitz transited the Red Sea in a week, at which time a Seahawk helicopter could be flown in to extract the missiles; extended-range tanks could be fitted on the bird to make the 450-mile flight. COS Gondorf, eager to curry favor with his Chief of Mission and outshine the Milatt, coyly declared that he had “assets” capable of disposing of the munitions right now. In this he overplayed his hand.

  Displaying monumental bad judgment, Gondorf had directed three low-level Sudanese support assets to load the cases onto a stake truck, exit out the back gate of the embassy, drive a hundred yards east across a fallow sunflower field, and dump them into the river.

  Gable sat up. “In the fucking Nile?” he said.

  “The cases are fifty pounds each,” said Gondorf miserably. “They sank right away.”

  “I don’t care if there was a frigging glacier over there,” said Gable. “You dumped them a hundred yards from the embassy?”

  “We did it at night, so no one could see,” said Gondorf.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Gondorf, but I bet it’s hard to pronounce,” said Gable.

  “There’s another problem,” said Gondorf. He walked to the window, raised the blinds, handed Gable a pair of binoculars, and pointed toward the river. Gable focused on the riverbank, fringed by a thin line of vegetation.

  “Holy shit,” said Gable. The black mud bank was littered by the missile cases, some on their sides, some sticking straight up, like uprooted coffins in a flooded cemetery.

  “Rivers aren’t supposed to have tides,” said Gondorf.

  Centuries of Egyptian pharaohs, nomadic Baggara tribesmen, and Nile basin farmers were familiar with the amaranthine floods. Not Gondorf, however. Between July and October, the Nile would swell from snowmelt in the Ethiopian mountains. In June, the river would subside, leaving dark fertile mud, kemet in Arabic, behind. Gondorf had dumped the crates months ago, at high water. Now he had a fifty-foot mud bank with missile crates sticking out of the muck a hundred yards from his office window. Gable looked at the narrow pinched face, the close-set jerboa eyes, and the pinched mouth that was full of “it’s not my fault” right behind his teeth.

  “There are militia patrols everywhere, boats on the river, scavengers on the riverbanks,” said Gondorf.

  “How long have those cases been out there?” said Gable. “Why don’t you get your gomers to retrieve ’em?”

  “I can’t. They’re out of contact,” said Gondorf.

  “What’re you talking about? You can’
t contact your assets?”

  “I can’t find them; they don’t respond.”

  “Jesus wept,” said Gable, flipping the binoculars to Gondorf. He walked down the hall to the Milatt’s office and introduced himself to Colonel Bianchi, who was tall, dark, ramrod straight, with hair combed straight back and shiny with brilliantine. He was in civvies: a light suit with a blue shirt and plain black tie. He wore a marine corps pin on his lapel. Gable sat down and explained the problem. Bianchi shook his head.

  “I’ve known a lot of you spooks over the years,” he said, with Mississippi in his mouth. “But that boy of yours is as sharp as a sack of wet mice.”

  “Yeah,” said Gable, “he’s a real asshat. Colonel, those cases have been immersed for three to four months, and now they’re covered in mud. Any chance those stingers will be functional?”

  “Those cases are water-resistant, but not waterproof,” said Bianchi. “If some of the gaskets on those cases held up, you probably got a handful that would light up and fly. But nothing reliable.” He shook his head. “But that’s not a worry. The militia finds those Stingers there will be more political trouble than we can handle.”

  “Militia any good?” asked Gable.

  “They ride around town, four to a jeep, with AKs, looking for trouble. Not much training, but pretty mean.”

  “You got anyone who could help me get those cases out tonight?” said Gable. Bianchi shook his head.

  “My office is down to two, my deputy is on home leave, and the ambassador wouldn’t approve of using the marines. Something happens out there and we lose our embassy watchstanders.” He watched Gable’s reaction before he spoke again. “We might be in luck. Two SEALs from Team Eight working with AFRICOM are here doing embassy-evacuation surveys. They might be willing to help.” He picked up a phone, and in two minutes the SEALs knocked on the door.

  They were both in their twenties, lean and quiet. They wore jeans and flip-flops. Senior Chief Petty Officer Gilbert “Gil” Lachs was blond and freckled. He was a breacher, a demolitions expert, who could open a can of peaches with a few grains of RDX without spilling the syrup. Petty Officer First Class Richard “Ricky” Ruvo, was Italian swarthy with Staten Island wise-guy eyes. He was a sniper who could drive a nail into a tree at fifteen hundred yards. They sat slumped in chairs, arms crossed over their stomachs, looking at Gable like sleepy leopards on a tree limb.

  “I need some backup. I figure we get a truck with a winch and drag those cases out of the mud,” said Gable. He turned to Bianchi. “What we got for weapons?”

  “Not much,” said Bianchi. “Glocks in 9mm and Remington 870s. We have rifled slugs and buck.” Gable nodded.

  “Glad to help,” said Ruvo. “I’ll stand overwatch while you guys get the cases.”

  “Bullshit,” said Lachs. “I outrank you. You get in the mud.”

  “Gil, you can’t hit shit,” said Ruvo.

  “I always shoot first and call whatever I hit the target,” said Gable.

  The SEALs nodded. An unspoken code had been transmitted and received: Gable was okay. “You CIA guys still recruiting frogmen?” asked Lachs, whose time in the Teams was running short.

  “Yeah, we got a whole division that teaches squids how to use a knife and fork,” said Gable. “But it’s filling up fast.”

  Ruvo, Lachs, and Bianchi all laughed.

  It was pitch-black when Gable drove the F-350 truck in second gear across the dusty field with lights doused, and put the nose of the truck into the break of the riverbank scrub. There was a dilapidated fisherman’s shed made of irregular sheets of corrugated tin at the river’s edge. Lachs peeked through a gap in the metal and shook his head. Empty. Ruvo shoved five Sabot shells into the 890, jacked the slide, and clambered up onto the roof of the cab. He did a 360 turn and whispered okay. Gable and Lachs put their pistols into their belt holsters at the smalls of their backs. Silently cursing Gondorf, Gable went knee-deep into the mud, pulling the wire rope off the spool, while Lachs stood beside the winch, holding the remote controller. A tactical flashlight between his teeth, Gable waded to the nearest case, put the snap hook onto one of the metal handles, and waved to Lachs. The truck swayed a little, but the ninety-five-hundred-pound pull of the winch broke the suction and the case slithered up the bank. One down, eleven to go.

  An hour later, there were three more cases left, but Lachs had to get in up to his thighs to help Gable dig away mud so they could clip on to a handle. The two of them were on either side of a partially buried case, flashlights in their mouths. Lachs’s back was to the black river. Then it happened. A warning shout from Ruvo came seconds before a fourteen-foot Nile crocodile erupted out of the water behind Lachs in an explosion of spray, jaws open. Unable to move in the mud, Lachs could only throw himself across the top of the muddy case. Gable never moved faster in his life. He drew his pistol and pumped all seventeen 9mm rounds into the croc’s cotton-white mouth, but it only shook its head and slammed its jaws down on Lachs’s buttocks. Perhaps distracted by Gable’s light, the croc miraculously did not bite down on flesh, but rather hooked an eye tooth on Lachs’s hip holster, tore his cargo pants down to the ankles, shook its head, spit out the gun, and turned to bite again.

  Ruvo’s shotgun barked from the bank. A two-inch spot between the croc’s eyes spouted blood and the croc collapsed in the mud, its tail whipping twice, its walnut-sized brain vaporized. The sounds of the shots echoed over the river and across the fields. A dog began barking. Gable looked at Lachs, who gave a thumbs-up. They both looked at the black water, specifically at two more gray shapes moving toward them. “Fuck this,” said Gable, who quickly threaded the snap hook through the handles on the first, then the second, then the third case, and gave Ruvo the sign. The winch groaned, the handles bent, the cases groaned and popped, but all three broke free and slid up the bank. Gable and Lachs pulled each other onto dry land, the grunts of crocs in the river behind them. Lachs was pantless and muddy to his chest.

  “First time I ever saw a croc give someone a wedgie,” said Ruvo.

  “Thanks for getting that fucker off me,” said Lachs. “Slug went right by my left ear.” Ruvo had snapped the twenty-yard head tap with a shotgun’s iron sights, in low light, from the upper bank, a remarkable shot.

  “I was gonna wait to see how big a croc’s dick was, you bent over like that,” said Ruvo. Lachs flipped him the bird.

  They finished loading the filthy cases onto the truck when the sound of an approaching jeep came out of the night, its headlight beam bouncing as the jeep jounced over the dried furrows in the field. Militia.

  “Heads up, ladies,” said Gable out of the side of his mouth. He seated a new magazine into his Glock.

  “None of these fuckers goes home,” said Ruvo, holding his shotgun slightly behind his leg.

  The jeep pulled close, its engine windmilling until it fell silent. The four men in the jeep wore a collection of watch caps, kepis, and berets. The Americans stood in the light of the single working headlamp. The driver stood up in his seat and said “Kayfa halak?” His tattered, sweat-stained shirt was unbuttoned. The passenger also stood up in his seat to look at the men over the filthy cracked windshield. No weapons were visible. The driver again yelled “Kayfa halak?” to raucous laughter. The passenger pointed at Lachs’s bare legs, said something, and spit on the ground, to additional laughter.

  “That guy likes your package, Gil,” said Ruvo.

  “These fuckers are all loopy, chewing khat all day,” whispered Gable.

  The driver reached down beneath the dashboard and tugged on the barrel of an AK-47. “Weapon,” barked Ruvo, who brought up the shotgun, shot through the windshield, and blew the driver off the jeep in a cloud of pulverized glass. Gable shot the passenger in 1.5 seconds with a double tap in the chest, and a third round in the head, a triple called The Mozambique. The guy collapsed and slid beneath the dashboard. Even before he hit the floor, Ruvo and Lachs advanced on the vehicle in the bent shuffle of close-quarter comb
at, each firing three rounds, simultaneously knocking the two in the backseat over the rear of the jeep. The sounds of the shots rocketed into the night air, and more dogs on both sides of the river started barking. Aspirated grunts came from the black river. The dead passenger in the jeep settled sideways. The whole evolution had lasted twelve seconds.

  “You CIA guys all this good?” said Lachs. He had last seen The Mozambique used in Panama.

  “Yeah, it’s the sensitivity training we get,” said Gable. “And the pistol instructors from Texas.” The SEALs looked sideways at Gable.

  “You could do with more time on the range,” said Ruvo to Lachs. “You hit that last guy a little high.”

  “Didn’t hear him complain,” said Lachs.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” said Gable. “Check these guys for IDs, usually little paper booklets.”

  “I’ll ditch the jeep behind the shed,” said Lachs. “You want me to rig a bang on the ignition?”

  Gable shook his head. “Odds are some kids will find it first. Let ’em have it.”

  “What about these guys?” asked Ruvo, looking at the tangle of legs on the ground.

  “Wait a minute,” said Lachs. “Listen.” The sound of multiple vehicles coming across the field and the babbling of excited voices were faint, but getting louder.