by Dan Mayland
As Orkhan slipped into his limousine, he assessed his position. The president had demanded the head of a traitor, so a head would have to be produced. The only question was, whose?
Certainly not that of the prosecutor general’s, or anyone on the president’s staff.
The internal affairs minister was both related to the president through marriage and the one who had—allegedly—discovered the leak. So it was unlikely he was setting himself up.
The defense minister was a possibility, but he’d attended military school with the president, and he and the president liked to drink, and vacation with their families, together.
Orkhan, by contrast, had originally been appointed deputy minister of national security by the president’s father, and had only assumed the post of minister when the former minister had died. Though the president had accepted Orkhan, their relationship had always been more professional than personal.
“Where to, Minister Gambar?” asked his driver.
Orkhan considered his options. He hadn’t leaked anything to the Russians, so in theory he should have nothing to worry about. In reality, he was pretty sure someone was setting him up.
He searched his pocket for the blood pressure pills his doctor had prescribed—Lisinopril, 40 milligrams once a day. But he sometimes took an extra or two when he thought he needed it. He’d used the last of his extras yesterday, though, so instead he retrieved a lemon cough drop, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth.
“Back to the ministry,” he said.
28
Ganja, Azerbaijan
Mark stood by the window in Raymond Cox’s office. He’d pulled the blind back just a bit and was peering out to the street.
Cox, who was sitting on his desk, said, “So this source I was running—”
“Start with what you were doing in Ganja in the first place. Why are you…” Mark turned from the window and gestured around the room. “…here? I assume it’s not because you really want to help educate the world.”
“Global Solutions is a good outfit, actually.”
“I didn’t say that it wasn’t.”
Cox took a moment to gather his thoughts, then said, “There’s a bunch of local groups, mainly run out of Ganja State University, that are agitating for clean elections. They have just about zero influence, but the government still worries about them.”
Mark thought about his experience with the Press Club in Georgia and how depressing it was that, twenty-four years later, the same old fights that were still being fought.
“A lot of the people affiliated with these groups come here for English lessons. They feel safe here, like we’re their allies, which we are. I learn what I can about what the government’s doing to them, and file reports. Granted, they’re reports no one reads, other than maybe a twenty-five-year-old analyst back at Langley, if she’s bored. But hey, I bear witness.”
“And what is the government doing to these people?”
“Oh, the usual harassment and intimidation bullshit. Not a lot of physical violence, but the people in these groups tend to get mugged and robbed a lot more than the general population, you know? At the level it’s at, Langley doesn’t really give a shit—I’m not here to stop it. Washington just wants to know what’s going on so that we don’t get caught flat-footed if things get out of hand. Anyway, the local ex-com is in charge of making sure these groups don’t ever pose a real threat to Baku, so I was also doing what I could to try to get a handle on his operation.”
Ex-com was short for executive committee chairman, which is what the regional governors in Azerbaijan were called.
Cox continued, “He’s one of the president’s cousins. Local big shot, stuffing himself with chapka, that whole deal. The same thing you see in the rest of the country, only here it’s worse.”
No shocker there, thought Mark. All government programs in Azerbaijan were larded up with chapka, which was what the Azeris called kickbacks. If a low-level government lackey wanted to keep his job, he’d kick back some of his salary to his local boss, who would kick back some of his salary to the regional boss, who would kick back some of his salary to the local ex-com, who would then kick back a portion of all his kickbacks to the president.
It was your basic criminal-enterprise pyramid scheme, with the president at the top of the pyramid.
“So I tried for months to recruit an asset that could get me into the ex-com’s inner circle, but I wasn’t having much luck. I finally got a break when this girl, Aida Tagiyev, shows up for English lessons. On the application she fills out, she says she works for Bazarduzu Construction, which is an outfit owned by the local ex-com. I figured I might learn a lot about him by learning about his business. So I started trying to work Aida.”
“What was your angle?”
“She was an accountant for Bazarduzu, so after a few English lessons, I asked whether she’d be able to do the books for the Global Solutions office here in Ganja. She’s got a daughter who’s less than a year old and a husband who teaches kids how to play different types of lutes or something, and I offered her more than the job was worth by a long shot.”
“She do the actual books?”
Global Solutions was a real international nonprofit organization. Cox had just managed to land a cover job working for them.
“Nah, it was bullshit. I took the real books, zeroed everything out, and then made up all the numbers that I fed to her. Tried to make it complicated enough so that she felt she was contributing, but not too complicated. After this goes on for a couple weeks, and we get to know each other a little better, she starts saying how she wished the accounting for Bazarduzu was as straightforward as the numbers I was giving her. That’s when I pitched her—you know, help me expose corruption and move Azerbaijan in the right direction and blah, blah, blah.”
Mark went back to looking out the window. “If you think all this is bullshit, Cox, why’d you even sign up in the first place?”
“Because I wasn’t like this when I signed up.”
“She know you were CIA?”
Cox shrugged. “I told her I worked for Global Solutions but was also helping out the United Nations, and that I was involved in a UN project to document incidences of corruption throughout the Caucasus. I don’t know whether she believed it or not, but she didn’t question it. Anyway, I said that if she was able to get me the financials for Bazarduzu for the past three years, well, that would be worth something—a lot, five thousand dollars.”
“And she bit.”
“I had to convince her that the data she gave me would never get publicly released in such a way that Bazarduzu could trace the leak back to her, but five grand is a small fortune here. And she really did hate that she had to be a part of the whole sordid kickback system. She wasn’t that hard to convince.”
“Were you and her…”
“Were we what?”
Mark raised his eyebrows as he turned to face Cox.
“Was I screwing her?” Cox scratched his stomach. “No. She was like most of the Muslim girls around here—plenty flirty, but nothing more. Anyway, the day she disappeared was the day she told me she’d loaded Bazarduzu’s financials onto a thumb drive. She was going to dead-drop the drive at a supermarket downtown, after eating dinner with her family that night. It wasn’t unusual for her to do a little shopping after dinner, so she was keeping to the routine and all, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Did she make the drop?”
“If she did, it was gone by the time I got there.”
“Did she even make it home that night?”
“Yeah, that’s where she was when she called me.”
“So she goes to work, copies the financials, goes home, calls you, goes out to make the dead drop, and then at some point while she’s out, gets abducted and killed.”
“That’s probably the way it went down. I’m guessing she got caught copying the financials and they decided to kill her.”
“Who’s they?”
“I don’t know
. Thugs from Bazarduzu? Maybe the ex-com’s men?”
“What about Nakhchivan?”
Cox stared at him a moment. “What about it?”
“In one of your reports you mentioned that Bazarduzu Construction did a big project in Nakhchivan last year.”
“Ah, yeah. I guess I did. It was one of the things that came up when Aida and I were talking about what I could expect to see in the financials. She said Bazarduzu supposedly did some big road project there, but she suspected it might just be some big kickback deal. Nakhchivan is a weird place, and Bazarduzu doesn’t usually operate there, so I…well, I didn’t think much of it, but I thought it deserved a mention.” A pause, then, “Does that have anything to do with why she was killed? Why they’re after me?”
Mark thought about Larry, and Katerina—he’d checked his e-mail this morning, but Keal still hadn’t come up with any contact information for her—and wondered himself whether what had happened here in Ganja could possibly have anything to do with either of them.
“I don’t know. Did you give Aida the five grand you promised her?”
“She disappeared before I could.”
“Where is it?”
Cox gestured to an end table that had been pushed into a corner of his office to make room for the yoga mats. “Bottom drawer.”
Mark yanked it out. Inside was a manila envelope.
“That’s government money,” said Cox, as Mark stuffed the envelope into his satchel. “I signed for that.”
“You said Aida had a husband. And a kid.”
“Daughter.”
“Where do they live?”
“On the east side of town. You don’t want to go there. That’s part of why she was doing this, so she could move them out of that dump.”
“I’ll need an address.”
Cox told him, adding, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Where do you live?” asked Mark.
“Alley off Nizami, west side of town. I got some stuff there still, but I took everything important. I’m not going back.”
“Safest way to exfiltrate you is through the airport.”
“What if they’re watching it?”
“You could drive, but if someone’s following you, the long trip to Baku would give them a lot more time to act. Ditto for the train. Flying is fast, and fast is usually less risky.” Mark decided not to share that he’d opted to take the train from Baku last night, after fishing his Azeri alias out of the garbage and cutting his hair short and dying it black so that it matched his alias photos. Cox might not appreciate that different situations called for different strategies. He added, “I already bought you a one-way ticket to Baku—there’s a flight that leaves in an hour and a half, you’ll get there right before it takes off—and people from the embassy will meet you on arrival. Once you’re in Baku, you’ll be fine. In the meantime…” Mark reached into his satchel, pushed Katerina’s painting to the side, confirmed that the two large tubes of maximum-strength Desitin that he’d bought at a pharmacy attached to the Baku Hyatt were still there, and fished out a sealed envelope. “Here.” He tossed it to Cox. “Your new passport. There’s a New York driver’s license in there too.”
One of Roger Davis’s men had delivered the alias packet to him at the Hyatt.
Cox unsealed the envelope and opened the passport to the photo page. He stared at it for a second.
“Make yourself look like that guy,” said Mark.
“Ah…OK.”
It was a photo of Cox, but it had been altered so that he appeared clean-shaven and bald.
“Get ready.” Mark took off his dark gray sport coat, tossed it to Cox, and then pulled a red tie and dark-blue collared shirt out of his satchel. “There’s sunglasses in the inner pocket of my jacket. You’ll put them on as we’re leaving. And find some clean newspaper. Wad some up and put it in each of your cheeks. Not so much that you look like a hamster, just enough to change the shape of your face a little bit. Think subtle.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“And I have good reason to be worried.”
“I know you do.”
“The people who are after me might have seen you come in. They might have made you.”
“How many people come into this place over the course of a day?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a hundred.”
“Then they would’ve had to make me prior to when I showed up, and they didn’t—I wasn’t followed here. We’ll leave when a group of students is leaving, I’ll be your tail and make sure you’re not being followed. We’ll catch a cab by the bazaar. I wouldn’t worry too much about getting out of here. If the people who killed your source had also wanted to kill you, then you’d already be dead. The bottle threat was designed to drive you out. Since the threat is working, there’s no reason for them to interfere anymore.”
“I didn’t bring a razor.”
Mark reached into his satchel again, pulled out a razor, and tossed it to Cox. “I did.”
29
Baku, Azerbaijan
Orkhan had never been at odds with the defense minister; indeed, they’d worked well together on many projects over the years. So when he phoned, Orkhan didn’t hesitate to have the call patched through to him.
“This matter, Orkhan, what do you know of it?”
The defense minister was a small man—but his deep voice was authoritative and gravelly.
Because he had nothing to hide, Orkhan answered with candor—he wasn’t responsible for leaking the information about the Nakhchivan operation to the Russians and, although he’d launched an internal investigation, he doubted very much that anyone who worked for him was.
“And you?” asked Orkhan. “What have you learned?”
The defense minister spoke at length about the internal investigation he’d launched; nothing he said contradicted what Orkhan had already learned from his spies in the defense ministry.
“There is one thing I did want to ask you about,” said the defense minister. “And—well, I’m afraid it is a matter of some sensitivity, which is why the president asked that I be the one to call you.”
“Oh?”
“I’m afraid it involves your daughter.” After an uncomfortable pause, the defense minister added, “A minor issue to be sure, but… you know as well as I that your daughter has consorted with political opponents of the president, taken part in demonstrations—”
“She now lives in France. That is no longer an issue.”
“Recently it has come to the president’s attention that she may be thinking of renouncing her citizenship. Is this true?”
“The president ordered you to spy on my daughter.”
“The president holds you and your family in high esteem. It is a mark of honor that he would order such protection for your daughter.”
“No doubt.” Orkhan was not shocked by the revelation. Indeed, after the defense minister’s son had threatened a bartender at the Baku Hilton with a loaded pistol, the president had ordered Orkhan to watch the young miscreant to make sure he was actually attending the drug treatment program in Dubai that he’d been admitted to. So Orkhan had little cause for grievance now.
“In any case—”
“She is an impulsive girl who changes her mind and her ideology frequently. No permanent decision has been made and, in fact, none can be made for several years—as you may know, French law prohibits it. And I would also add that if I am to be judged on the actions of my progeny, it is only fair that others be so judged as well.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” said the defense minister. “I only mention the issue of citizenship because it coincides with another issue regarding your daughter.”
“And what issue might that be?”
“As I’m sure you’re aware, her current employer is a Russian.”
“She is a student at the Sorbonne. Because of late she has refused to take money from her parents, twice a week she earns pocket cha
nge by helping to care for a two-year-old child. And yes, I am aware that the parents of this child are Russian.”
“And I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that this Russian is a man of some means.”
“Usmanov is a man of means,” said Orkhan, referring to the richest man in Russia. “This man is an ant.”
“Still, he has ties to the Kremlin.”
The hypocrisy of the insinuation was breathtaking, thought Orkhan. Of all the major government ministers, he counted himself as the least likely to be influenced by the Russians. Indeed, he was one of the few ministers who hadn’t grown up speaking Russian as his first language. Even now, in private, many of the ministers still spoke Russian to each other—it was like a secret code, a holdover from when the Soviets ruled, a way of affirming to themselves that they were still part of the educated elite, the intelligentsia. Russian, it was rumored, had even been the president’s first language.
“Ties,” said Orkhan, “which were severed in the 1990s! He’s lived in exile ever since. He’s a small player who now makes his money facilitating the export of nickel from Russia to Germany.”
The defense minister sighed. “You have fully vetted this man?”
“Of course.”
“And you are certain that your daughter is not being used by the Russians, and will never be used, as leverage against you? To influence your actions?”
I will remember this, thought Orkhan. “Absolutely certain.”
“I will convey your certainty regarding this matter to the president.”
30
Ganja, Azerbaijan
Rust-laden water, spilling out of dilapidated gutters and ruined downspouts, had stained the gray stucco tenements that lined the muddy street on which Aida Tagiyev had lived.
Mark could tell that, fifty years ago, all the ramshackle balconies that extended out from the tenements had been identical, but now each was unique in the way each scrap-wood-walled shack in the favelas of Rio, or shantytown hut in Mumbai, was unique. Some were enclosed with old plywood and topped with rusted metal roofs, transforming them into an extra bedroom; others had been covered with paneling, or bricked in. From most, laundry lines hung like bright bunting, suspended between rusting pulleys.
