by Ross Sidor
Culler stood up and came around his desk to greet Avery.
He was tall, almost Avery’s height, and, despite his forty-four years, he still maintained a lean physique and stood erect. He lacked the hunched stoop, paunch, and double chin of so many of his colleagues. He hadn’t allowed physical stagnation to take over, despite spending the last seven years behind a desk. That’s when he’d gone from chief of station, Kabul, where he’d first met Avery, to director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, to the Global Response Staff.
Occasionally, Avery ran with Culler, and he never needed to lighten his pace to allow the older man to keep up. Avery believed someone’s outward appearance and maintenance was a physical manifestation of what was inside, and he respected Culler as a committed, disciplined individual.
Culler ran deniable ops for the director of the National Clandestine Service, under the guise of the Global Response Staff, which provided independent contractors, recruited from the military and police SWAT units, to work undercover as bodyguards for case officers, do security at CIA bases and stations, and even operate as agent handlers and intelligence gatherers in high risk environments. The two former navy SEALs killed during the attack on the American consulate and CIA base in Benghazi came from the Global Response Staff.
The most lethal and proficient of these operatives are informally known as scorpions.
Avery shook the proffered hand.
“I see you’re keeping well,” Culler said, returning to his seat. Avery sat down in one of the chairs across from him. Culler’s office was what one would expect of a professional intelligence officer: sterile, sparse, and rigidly organized.
“Always good to see you, Matt,” Avery replied. He didn’t do small talk, awkward and obstinate. He skipped the pleasantries and knew Culler understood and would take no offense if he didn’t inquire into the well being of Culler’s wife and children, pictures of whom adorned his desk, the only personal affects in the office. Avery noted that a thickly padded, orange tabbed file folder lay on Culler’s desk.
Avery declined the offer of coffee, opting instead for a bottle of unsweetened tea from the mini-fridge. “So what is it this time?” he asked.
“There’s a developing problem in Tajikistan. We’ve lost two officers within the last twenty-four hours, including the station chief. One is confirmed KIA. The COS’s status remains unknown at this time. Planning for the worst, we must assume he has been taken by hostile agents and is currently undergoing torture and interrogation.”
“Who’s the new star to the memorial wall?” Avery didn’t mean for the inquiry to sound as flippant as it did and at once regretted his choice of words. He personally knew several of the names to the anonymous stars on the Wall of Honor in the main lobby of CIA headquarters. More names had been added in the last twelve years than the last five decades combined, most of them paramilitary officers and contractors.
“Tom Wilkes, a counterproliferation officer on special assignment to Tajikistan. He was investigating links between the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and nuclear smuggling.”
“And the station chief?” asked Avery.
“Someone you may know. Veteran ops officer named Robert Cramer. He’s a pro, one of the best in NCS.”
Avery blinked. It was difficult to catch him off-guard, but he allowed his surprise to show for a split second. “Yeah, I’ve worked with him in Afghanistan and Pakistan when I first joined the Agency. He was my base chief. He’s a smart, skilled operator and knows his job, but he wasn’t without his faults. Too bitter, and he was always too confrontational with superiors, like he was being disagreeable just for the sake of it.”
Culler arched his eyebrows. “That’s a pretty harsh critique coming from you.”
Avery seemed not to hear the remark. “To be honest, I’m rather surprised he’s still on the payroll. Last time I saw him, three, four years ago, he was being recalled from Afghanistan over some mishap and on the verge of being retired. He was pursuing the enemy a little too aggressively for some people’s liking back here, I reckon.”
“He’s close to forced retirement, mostly because he’s pissed off too many of the wrong people at Langley,” Culler confirmed. “It’ll be a shame to see him leave. The service could use more officers like him. It’ll be a bigger shame to see him go out like this, like Bill Buckley.”
He referred to the Beirut chief of station who had been abducted and then tortured for several months by Hezbollah terrorists and Iranian agents. After every last secret had been forcefully pulled out of his mouth, blowing American intelligence networks in Lebanon, he was finally, mercifully, executed.
“Secretly, the Seventh Floor’s hoping he’s already dead,” Culler said, being surprisingly frank, Avery thought. “If he’s talking to Iranian or al-Qaeda interrogators, our intelligence capabilities in the region will be impaired for the next decade, longer. If they torture him, he’ll hold out long as he can, but he’ll break eventually. A man can only take so much. The only upside is that Cramer is a mean, stubborn old bastard, and I can trust him try to drag it out and give us time to protect our people. His last medical report shows that he’s in excellent health, especially for his age.”
Avery nodded. He’d gone through National Clandestine Service training at the Farm and knew the basics of spook tradecraft, including mock interrogations and simulated torture, like sleep and sensory deprivation, solitary confinement, and water boarding. It was as close to the real thing as they could make it, similar to the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training he’d undergone in the army.
An intelligence agency generally acted on the assumption that a captured agent undergoing torture would breakdown and begin talking within thirty-six hours, as proven by past episodes of agents being taken. That’s the timeframe Langley allowed before sources and ops needed to be considered compromised. It was up to D/NCS and the Central Eurasia Division chief to work out whether or not any of Dushanbe station’s agents were blown and worth risking additional assets to extract.
“Why come to me? I’m sure there are already half a dozen agencies working this. This isn’t a normal job for scorpions.”
“Right,” Culler said. “Office of Security is investigating this matter, but we both know they’re mostly interested in placing blame and covering the Seventh Floor’s ass. Then bring in the Diplomatic Security Service, FBI, and the Tajik KGB. You know how that will go. It’s going to become a long, drawn-out investigation, with everyone pointing fingers and fighting for turf. We do not have that kind of time. Bob doesn’t have that kind of time. We need someone who doesn’t have an agenda and whose hands won’t be tied, someone who can gather the evidence and follow it to its conclusion and take immediate and direct action, if the situation calls for it.
Avery was by no means a stranger to this sort of job. After serving in the Agency’s paramilitary Special Activities Division (SAD), he’d worked as a “cleaner,” salvaging and sanitizing blown or compromised operations overseas. He’d quietly go in, remove the Agency’s fingerprints from an embarrassing situation or mitigate the potential for blowback, and slip back out.
He felt an added pressure now, though. Usually his was the only life on the line. He took comfort in knowing that if he fucked up, he was dead or in jail, which wouldn’t matter to anyone else. He didn’t like being responsible for someone else’s life. It had been different when he was in the army, working as part of a larger, cohesive unit. But later, with SAD in Iraq, when he’d been tasked with locating and rescuing an aid worker taken hostage, and failed to bring her out by a matter of minutes, instead recovering a decapitated body, he’d decided he wanted only to look out for himself. The fact that he personally knew Cramer only added to the burden.
“What’s the opposition?” Avery asked, trying to move his thoughts forward.
“No one has claimed responsibility, and there’s no physical evidence left behind, but we believe it’s terrorism, and that means either al-Qaeda or IMU.”
Avery had dealt with plenty of both during his time in Afghanistan.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was created after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was a close ally of the Taliban. Its membership comprised Central Asian Muslims, many of whom have served in the Russian military, and they had a reputation for being fierce and vicious fighters.
Avery had seen firsthand what they were capable of doing and sincerely hoped that those animals didn’t have Cramer. Avery would rather be killed outright than spend a few days held captive by IMU or al-Qaeda or Taliban. He prepared himself for the worst and realized the odds were against bringing Bob out alive.
“When do I leave?”
“Immediately,” Culler said. “There’s a Learjet being prepped at Andrews Air Force Base. It’s ready to take off when you are, and will take you directly to Dushanbe. You can read the briefing materials on the flight. Gerald Rashid, one of the people on Bob’s staff and acting chief of station, will meet you on the ground. You can stop at the Point to pick up whatever equipment you need.”
The Point, code named ISOLATION TROPIC, was the Defense Department’s Harvey Point Defense Testing Activity Facility, in North Carolina. This was where CIA based its Special Activities Division and trained foreign paramilitary forces, from Kosovar separatists to Palestinian Authority security forces. The Point also retained an armory of sanitized American-made and foreign-manufactured weapons and equipment.
“I’ll have twenty thousand dollars deposited into your personal account,” Culler said. “And you’ll have another ten thousand upfront for expenses.”
“What’s my cover for action?” Avery asked. This was important. He was accustomed to working without official cover, but under the circumstances, having to interact with others involved in the investigation, he doubted that would be the case this time.
“You’ll have diplomatic cover as a special investigator from State, so if the worst happens you’ll be declared persona non grata and kicked out of the country and not welcome back. You can contact me through the embassy.”
“I want a team from SAD or independent contractors standing by. Guys who can keep their mouths shut and follow orders. If I pinpoint Bob’s location and need to make a hot extraction, I’ll need them.”
“It’s already arranged,” Culler said. “A friend of yours—Poacher’s team is being redeployed to Tajikistan from the Afghan-Paki area of operations and will be on stand-by for any direct action contingences. I’m glad you’re onboard, Avery.”
FOUR
Tajikistan
10:00AM.
Avery’s first glimpse of Tajikistan came from 36,000 feet. Peering through the Learjet’s window, he watched as the terrain below shifted from flat, barren rock to fields of green to massive mountain ranges, some of which at the peaks of the Tian Shan were topped with glaciers, which fed lakes and rivers. He saw small villages scattered across the landscape, connected by unpaved roads, and he saw the Fergana Valley’s fertile plains and rolling hills.
A new day was already well underway in this country, and it was now almost two days since Cramer left the American embassy. Two days of Cramer possibly undergoing torture and revealing his encyclopedic knowledge of CIA secrets. Two days since Tom Wilkes became a corpse, leaving a wife and three children back home to suffer unspeakable anguish.
CIA officers are trained to withstand interrogation, but nobody was expected to hold out indefinitely against extreme torture. Everyone, even seasoned officers like Avery and Cramer, had their breaking point. Langley’s desk heads and division chiefs understood this harsh reality and could only hope that a captured officer would at least hold out long enough for them work on ways to mitigate the damage of blown ops and extract at-risk personnel.
But this was different. It wasn’t just a few agents or active ops in Tajikistan that were potentially compromised. Robert Cramer knew clandestine officers, agents, safe houses, and ongoing operations across Afghanistan, western China, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia. The potential damage was severe. If compromised it could easily take several years for the National Clandestine Service to rebuild its networks and capabilities in these countries.
The Learjet’s only passenger, Avery shared the cabin with one member of the flight crew who knew better than to talk to him or ask questions. Avery had slept through most of the flight, never knowing when the next chance might come while deployed.
The jet was flown by two ex-USAF pilots who were accustomed to making unusual flights with unusual passengers. Avery presumed that the aircraft was previously used for rendition flights. A section of four seats near the front of the cabin had been removed to create additional space, and old blood stains speckled the carpet.
Avery’s luggage filled the seats near him. He travelled with a black backpack, and two heavy diplomatic lockboxes whose content would be immune from search or seizure by Tajik authorities. The duffel bag and backpack were filled with a few extra changes of clothes, laptop computer with encrypted hard drive, high calorie protein and granola bars, and bottled water. Lots of bottled water.
The much larger and heavier cases contained his standard assortment of gear and equipment, including an M4A1 5.56mm carbine assault rifle with collapsible stock, suppressor, scope, tripod, and several spare magazines; Desert Eagle .50 semi-automatic pistol, Cold Steel combat knife, night vision device, urban ballistic vest, and a small assortment of surveillance equipment. A shoulder holster worn under his black windbreaker held his Glock 17, and he wore a new pair of Colombia hiking boots.
When he left for a job, Avery didn’t always know what may come up, so he always went prepared with basic kit. He’d also retain the option of contacting Culler and procuring any other equipment he may need, most likely by way of diplomatic pouch, but that was best left as an absolute last resort. Obtaining gear from Langley meant money and resources and that invariably involved bean counters creating paper trails and records.
It felt good to have something to do again, to have purpose and be needed. Over two months since his last job, and Avery started to feel the sink into the familiar, purposeless void that inevitably clouded his mind in between jobs. Thinking that way, while Cramer was quite possibly being beaten and tortured, waiting to have his head chopped off by fanatics, and another man was already dead, made Avery feel callous, but it was the truth.
He’d spent the majority of the past fifteen weeks, since returning from his last job, routine bodyguard work in Tripoli, at his ranch house in the backwoods of West Virginia. When there wasn’t a job, he trained hard and stayed focused. He ran five miles four days a week. Each day, he targeted a different muscle group with weightlifting. Once a week, he practiced with firearms, either on the makeshift range in his backyard, or he’d make the drive to Quantico or the Point, where he’d also tackle the obstacle courses, the Kill House, or defensive driving courses to keep those skills sharp. Once a month, he’d make a day-trip rock climbing and hiking.
The confines of the jet’s cabin became stifling.
He wanted to get on the ground and get to work. The feelings of wasting time and waiting were always the worst for him, even more so now, with a life on the line.
A text from an old friend named Jack helped reign in some of the anxiety. Before leaving the US, Avery had contacted the former Special Forces NCO who currently did work for the Agency in the Hindu Kush, asking him if he had any local contacts. And he did. A Tajik named Dagar Nabiyev, who had worked as a fixer for the Northern Alliance during the Afghan war, was expected in Dushanbe later that day. Jack provided a time and place where Avery could find him.
Avery responded to the text with thanks and told Jack to call him on his regular number next time he was in the States.
___
The Learjet was received at a section of Dushanbe International Airport reserved for military and diplomatic flights, but this was rather misleading, as Dushanbe International resembled something more akin to a medium-sized airfield rather than a modern internati
onal airport. The military section was in reality two run-down hangars, one currently under Russian lease, the other used by Tajik troops.
The buildings and major infrastructure of the airport were built in 1964, and even some of the original structures from the 1920s and ‘30s remained intact. The main complex, terminals, and hangars had seen little renovation over the last fifty years. The Airbuses and the Boeings at the gates were the only things modern about the place.
A spotless black, armor-plated Toyota Forerunner with tinted windows sat on the apron in front of the hangar, reflecting sunlight. Avery cringed. The embassy vehicles screamed US Government and would easily stand out on Dushanbe’s streets. Nearby, there was a Russian-made GAZ jeep painted drab olive green with rooftop-mounted sirens and lights. It looked dirty, rundown, and all the more pitiful parked ten feet away from American opulence and luxury.
The Learjet had barely come to a complete halt, and Avery was already on his feet and gathering his things and sliding his arms through the straps of his backpack and putting on his mirror sunglasses and cap. Alerted to his urgency, one of the flight crew stopped what he was doing and opened the cabin door and collapsed the foldable staircase.
Avery picked up both of his cases and was quickly out the door and down the narrow stairs. The temperature was seventy-five degree, dry but with a light and pleasant breeze. After the time spent aboard the plane, breathing recycled air, it was a pleasant change.
He covered the twenty-five feet to the groups of waiting Americans and Tajiks.
He didn’t know what Gerald Rashid looked like, but one of the men in front of him appeared to be of Central Asian descent. Avery knew from the files supplied by Culler that Rashid’s father was the grandson of Pakistani immigrants and his mother a native New Yorker. He wore khakis and a sky blue Oxford shirt. He was a bit taller than Avery’s five foot eleven, but lanky, easily fifteen pounds lighter than Avery’s one-ninety-five. He looked young, more like a college grad than a GS-11.
