by Alex Dryden
Logan sat back slightly in his chair and casually watched the reaction of the group that sat around him at the table. He could see immediately that he had hit his mark dead on. As Burt had anticipated, it was a bull’s-eye.
It was undoubtedly known to the agency’s Kiev station that the Ukraine’s semiautonomous territory of the Crimean peninsula, which jutted out into the Black Sea, was a region of seething discontent. In fact, that was common knowledge in the media whenever newspaper editors applied their desiccated attention to the subject. As with most of the current problems in the former Soviet Union, the Crimea’s problems dated from Stalin’s time. Hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars had been deported in 1945. Then, since 1991, a quarter of a million of them had returned. The Tatars were Muslims, not extreme Muslims and not even all practising ones, that was true. But they were Muslims, nevertheless. The building of mosques and madrasahs on the peninsula had increased tenfold in the past few years. Burt had briefed him—though God knows on the basis of what information—that the region was ripe for trouble from various different quarters: Russians with their military and empire-building interests in the region; a restless, growing, and politically marginalised Muslim population; and a general desire for Crimean self-rule, apart from Ukraine, among its pro-Russian population.
At some point in the pause that followed Logan’s final remarks, MacLeod finally looked up and back into Logan’s eyes, which hadn’t left him.
However they treat you at first, Burt had told Logan, once you introduce the words “al Qaeda,” you’ll have their attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Just plant the seed. “But is it true?” Logan had asked him. “I said it doesn’t matter,” Burt had replied, rather testily for him, and Logan was none the wiser.
“What group do your intelligence reports point to?” Pasconi asked disbelievingly.
“Qubaq,” Logan replied.
“They’re a nonviolent Islamic organisation,” she shot back at him immediately. “They’ve never committed a single attack.”
“Exactly,” Logan replied. “The perfect peaceable Islamic organisation. Something in the West we should be courting, but alas we haven’t been. And something the embassy and the CIA have consequently taken their eyes from.”
MacLeod’s face growled back at Logan. And now he could no longer remain aloof. The idea that the station in Kiev wasn’t doing its job properly was too much for him. “Kind of reverse logic, isn’t it, Halloran?” he said acidly. “Because someone has done nothing fundamentally wrong, then they must be on a suspicion list.”
Logan didn’t hesitate this time. “I think the point is, Sam, that the Qubaq supports others who do perform terrorist acts,” he said, knowing that the use of the station head’s first name would rile him more. “That’s the question. If someone supports terrorist acts, even tacitly, then they’re complicit. That’s the dictum. Qubaq also supports the reestablishment of the Caliphate, sharia law, a unified Muslim world. The question is, surely, what are they doing promoting radical Islamic culture in a secular country? Ukraine isn’t the northern Caucasus. It’s an Orthodox Christian country.”
But Logan could see the Pavlovian reaction he was getting simply from the mention of an Islamic group that Cougar believed came under some suspicion. The CIA will take it from there, Burt had said. All you have to do is cast suspicion. The last thing the CIA dares risk is to be upstaged by a private intelligence company, let alone ignore a potential terrorist group. Once we reel them in, we can use their resources and direct the play.
Logan continued now, confident that finally he had broken down their refusal to listen. This was the final play of the evening. “We are receiving information that funding for Qubaq is coming from the Centre in Moscow, right from Department S, in fact. It’s coming from the very top of Russia’s foreign intelligence operations, in other words. We also have information that Russia’s military intelligence, in the form of the GRU, is actually now recruiting agents from within the Qubaq group. It’s common knowledge that the GRU and Department S recruited Muslims in Chechnya and other parts of the northern Caucasus, not to mention the Middle East. It’s a potent combination, Burt Miller thinks—Russian foreign intelligence and a radical Muslim group with a clean record.”
“Evidence?” Pasconi demanded.
“Page eleven,” Logan replied and at last the four CIA employees opened their files.
The initial part of the thesis was Anna’s. She had seen the training of foreigners, and particularly radical Muslims, firsthand when she’d been at the Forest. The thesis began with a history of the KGB’s and, specifically, Department S’s involvement in the training of foreigners—in this case Muslims—to commit terrorist acts back in their own countries. Then it narrowed down into an account of Muslims being trained at the Forest, outside Moscow, to commit terrorist acts specifically in Western countries deemed hostile by the Kremlin. Finally, it was brought up to the present day with several of Cougar’s inside agents’ accounts from Russia of how this training continued to be performed in the highly secret “Foreigners’ Area” of the Russian intelligence services outside Moscow at Balashiha-2. One such trainee had been abducted by Cougar’s heavy-boot brigade in Jordan and had given much interesting insight into the methods and purpose of such KGB training. This man was now under lock and key in one of Cougar’s private military bases in the United States. The report didn’t mention what kind of pressure the abducted man had been put under in order to get him to reveal the information.
Pasconi was reading avidly, looking for objections. “No mention of Qubaq here,” Pasconi said, looking up from the report.
This was always going to be the most difficult moment for Logan to pull off. Burt had refused to put the name in writing. Logan found that disturbing. Did the group really have a connection, Logan wondered, or was Burt just unsure? And why, anyway, did Burt want the CIA’s resources? Cougar had more than enough of its own. Normally, in fact, Burt strained to keep the CIA at arm’s length from Cougar’s operations. This was evidently one of Burt’s long and opaque games, and he hadn’t given Logan any more information than was in the file and in his personal briefing to Logan.
“There’s hearsay, there’s rumour, there’s suggestion, and, finally, there’s the record of the KGB’s activities in this field,” Logan said and pointed casually at the file. “All of that is what, initially, an intelligence agency needs to pay attention to. That is how an alert comes into existence and how ultimately the evidence will be found. This group needs to be on a watch list—at the very least.”
“Bit circumstantial, isn’t it?” Pasconi said.
“Follow every lead, Sandra.” Logan smiled in acknowledgement. “That’s been our country’s mistake in the past. Leaving stones unturned.”
Pasconi looked absolutely furious.
MacLeod put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together. “Perhaps when you see Burt Miller, you’d tell him that we aren’t exactly idle here,” he said coldly. “And we aren’t exactly stupid. So. If Russia is going to get what it wants with a new president of Ukraine,” he said, “assuming Yanukovich wins in three weeks, then why would it be going to the trouble of stirring things up?”
“Cougar is working with evidence that it is stirring things up,” Logan replied. “Read the report, Sam.”
“Seeing as how you’re just the messenger boy here, perhaps you’d convey my question anyway,” MacLeod said dismissively.
After the meeting had broken up, Logan left the embassy and walked into the freezing night. He decided to continue walking rather than take a taxi. He admitted to himself that pinning the agency’s station chief to the wall like a captured butterfly had caused him a rush of adrenaline-filled satisfaction that came from his resentment at the treatment meted out to him by the CIA ten years before. But this rush was quickly followed by enervation and finally a feeling of emptiness. MacLeod’s parting jibe didn’t help his falling mood. For that was exactly how he felt himself to be
—Burt Miller’s messenger boy. While all the time, Burt’s favoured individual, Anna Resnikov, seemed to get all the glamorous, headline-grabbing jobs. One day he wanted to be Burt. But all the glory at Cougar nowadays went to her, his one-night stand in New York two years before, who had then cast him off. Unlike him, Burt treated her as an equal.
Once he had shaken off the hostility and unfrozen the atmosphere of the meeting, in the freezing cold outside he was left with a feeling of deep discontent. Burt didn’t recognise him for the smart agent he’d been and, in that sense, Burt was no different from the CIA.
He walked on, aimlessly at first, trying to digest his sudden dissatisfaction. He guessed that this meeting was only one of Burt’s plays in the country, and that he was just getting into his stride. Indeed, Burt had given him another task to perform in Kiev, one that was more long term than the meeting. Logan’s presence in Kiev on behalf of Cougar was twofold and now he looked at his watch and decided it was time for his second rendezvous of the evening. He turned off to the left and headed for a bar just off Independence Square where he’d planned to meet his recently made Ukrainian contact, Taras Tur. Burt wanted information from the Ukrainian side and Taras was an officer in the SBU, Ukraine’s secret service, who might be willing to accept some extra money for a little work on behalf of Cougar. Logan had met him twice already—they’d drunk and dined and visited a few clubs, two men in their thirties and on the loose. He was a rather formal man, for Logan’s liking, and didn’t enjoy the pursuit of Kiev’s teenage hookers as Logan did, but Logan liked him and felt he was beginning to insert a wedge into Taras’s reluctance to become close to a Western agency. Tonight, he hoped he’d gain a little more leverage.
Taras was Logan’s favourite among the contacts he had attempted to make in the previous few months. There was something oddly honest about him. He treated Logan with respect, was grateful for the material Logan fed him now and again—and at Burt’s instructions—and occasionally bought him lunch or a drink. He was generally a civilising influence in Logan’s resentful life. And so Logan was glad that it was Taras he was meeting now. The Ukrainian would, perhaps, revive his spirits.
He turned on to Dymitrova and walked the short distance to Independence Square. Then he crossed the road that took him into the centre and walked across until he saw the street he was looking for. He crossed this road on the far side from where he’d entered the square and walked up Chervonoarmils’ka and entered the bar that was their prearranged rendezvous. At that moment he noticed his mobile phone had a message. It must have come while he was in the meeting. He sat at the bar and ordered a large Macallan malt whisky and took two satisfying slugs before he turned back to his phone. He opened the message box and read a brief text. It was from Taras. “Not possible tonight,” it said. Damn him, Logan thought, and he finished the whisky and ordered another.
6
HIDDEN IN THE COPSE, Anna had seen the woman an hour earlier and she immediately thought she looked nervous for an operative. She looked more like a teenage girl than a woman. She picked her up as soon as she’d passed the houses from the roadside and entered the fields behind. Anna then watched her emerge wearing different farming clothes, walk up past the copse, and circle back in the direction of the barn. After that it had gotten too dark to see without the night vision binoculars.
She decided to remain in the copse and wait. The woman, this girl, was definitely the courier, but something was wrong. Despite the obvious nervousness of the woman’s movements, it was the change of clothes and the surreptitious way she moved through the field that gave her away. She must be very inexperienced. Was this the best the agent could do?
The other thing wrong was that she was very late. She should have been here earlier in the day, made the drop, and departed long before there was any chance of a crossover. That was not good, it was highly unprofessional, in fact. There should be no possible identification between the person making the drop and the one doing the pickup. But against that, Anna knew she wouldn’t have long to wait now before she made the pickup. The less time a drop was left in place, the better.
At six thirty she walked carefully over to the side of the copse nearest the barn. There were no lights in that direction, but she knew from the reading on the binoculars that she was just under a quarter of a mile away and only open land with two ditches in between separated her from it. She would give it an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Let the woman make the drop and get clear. Maybe the courier would return by the same route she had come or, more likely, she would return by a different route, perhaps straight down the track that connected the barn with the road. Neither of them should see the other. But Anna decided she would leave at least an hour before she moved.
She listened again. The copse was quiet, the birds had stopped singing, but there was the sound of traffic from the road below. She sat on some dry wood and waited. Once she thought she heard the low growl of a military truck, but it could have been a commercial vehicle.
Just before seven o’clock—she remembered later that she’d checked her watch—Anna heard the sound of a diesel engine starting. It was unmistakably a diesel engine and seemed to be coming from the direction of the barn. Then she saw a bright light coming from the barn and after that she heard the truck engine she’d heard before, the deep, growling truck engine. She was sure now it was a military vehicle. Suddenly the barn was ablaze with light, through what looked like half of an arched doorway. Then she saw a truck’s lights swinging fast off the road and heading up the hill along the track towards the lighted barn. Anna ran out of the copse and, crouching low in the darkness, headed towards the barn. When she was just over a hundred yards away, she sank down into a shallow ditch and caught her breath. As she looked over the lip of the ditch, three things happened simultaneously. She saw a big vehicle—the truck she’d heard—pulling up outside where the blazing light came from the barn. Its engine died, but the headlights stayed on; she heard shouting and curses coming from inside the barn; and finally she heard a shot.
She ran back to the copse. She turned and saw the shadows of men in the truck’s lights. She heard orders being snapped out. Taking the night vision binoculars from her pack, she picked out Russian soldiers. She was certain they were Russian. They were Airborne judging from their caps, but the spetsnaz disguised their identities with the blue Airborne caps and epaulettes. Either that, or they wore the uniforms of units stationed nearby. She couldn’t see any other insignia from this distance. Did they have dogs? She watched the uniformed men fan out. Some were highlighted against the light of the barn, others faded into darkness on either side. Through the binoculars she could see they were facing her and were starting to walk slowly in the direction of the copse, towards her. Then torches were switched on and now she could see the positions of all the men from the torches they carried. A line of soldiers, maybe twenty or thirty. They were beginning to make a sweep across the fields towards where she was hidden.
From the edge of the copse nearest the barn, she watched their slow progress from four hundred yards. As she was about to make her retreat, there was suddenly the sound of another military vehicle and she looked down towards the end of the track from the barn where it reached the road. Two military jeeps were racing up the track and a truck swung in after them and stopped. It turned square onto the track and blocked the exit to the road. The jeeps raced on, lashing their gears until they slid to a violent halt next to the first truck beside the barn. Eight soldiers jumped out of the jeeps, weapons drawn. There was shouting and she heard the sound of small machine guns being armed. The new arrivals were levelling their weapons at the Russians outside the barn—two officers, she guessed; they were spetsnaz, that was unmistakable now as she studied them through the binoculars.
The line of soldiers halted their advance, then turned raggedly, the torches swinging around in the darkness. Anna watched the men from the jeeps. They wore green-grey uniforms with Ukrainian insignia and shoulder patches. There was eviden
tly a disagreement. The Ukrainian officer in charge was shouting at his Russian counterpart. “Illegal, illegal”—she picked out the single word, repeated. Russians making covert operations on Ukrainian territory, that was what he meant. It wasn’t the first time. Tensions were high outside the barn, but they were high wherever Russian troops and naval personnel were situated on Ukrainian soil. This looked like an illegal Russian intelligence operation. And the Ukrainian officer was making threats of arrest, despite being outnumbered six to one.
Anna ran through the low scrub trees until she’d reached the far end of the copse. Returning to the road was out of the question. Now both sides would have it covered. She would have to head higher up, away from the town. She remembered roughly where the courier’s route had been on this side of the copse and thought she would follow it before the soldiers found it, if they returned. There was still a chance of completing the pickup. If the courier had followed the rules, she would have left the drop hidden somewhere while she reconnoitred the barn. Unless her arrest was, in fact, her second visit to the barn. But now, did she even have time to save herself, Anna wondered, let alone look for a small bag hidden in the darkness?
