Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition)

by Ross Sidor

  Under the bright floodlights, Avery recognized the new arrivals as Kamaz Ural-4320 6x6 trucks, four of them, powered by V-8 diesel engines and capable of carrying up to thirteen thousand pound cargos, or up to twenty-seven soldiers, for long distance hauls across nearly any terrain. Canvas tarps covered the cargo platforms of the trucks, which parked on the apron near the Antonov’s open ramp.

  The cab doors on the trucks swung open, and the drivers and passengers climbed down. There were nine of them and a few had rifles slung at their sides or holstered pistols. They were darker skinned and smaller than the Russians, and each was thickly bearded, clearly of Central Asian descent. They wore loose fitting white or brown kameez tunics and shalwar pants. Some had scarves covering much of their faces, leaving only their eyes and noses visible, and others were draped in shawls or wore bandoliers filled with ammunition. But it was their matching black turbans that gave them away.

  Avery knew what black turbans meant. These guys were Taliban.

  The presence of Mullah Adeib Arzad confirmed this. There was no mistaking the distinctive crooked scar running down the left side of his face, over the limp eye that was all whited out following an untreated trachoma infection.

  Mullah Arzad was one of the most wanted high value targets in Afghanistan. Any CIA or JSOC operator who’d done time in the Afghan-Pakistan would recognize him on sight. The mad mullah gained certain notoriety when a video appeared on the Internet in which he slit the throat of a twelve year old Afghan girl who committed the crime of being raped, shaming her family and village in the eyes of the Taliban.

  Avery’s blood simmered. He reserved a special hatred for the Taliban. They were a dirty, cowardly, duplicitous, and savage gang who dealt in drugs, blew up schoolhouses full of children, decapitated women, and used the mentally impaired as unwitting suicide bombers. Their power came from fear and intimidation. And it didn’t matter how many you wasted, there were always more crawling out of the mountains and caves.

  Mullah Arzad yelled out some angry, rapid fire Pashtan, and the Taliban started unloading heavy burlap sacks from the trucks’ beds. Ramzin and his friend with the shaved head watched them, and then the latter stopped one of the Afghans as he passed. The Russian produced a knife from his pocket and opened the blade. He slit one of the sacks in the Afghan’s arms, parted the tear with his fingers, and peered inside. He nodded his approval and the Afghans continued loading the Antonov.

  Heroin, Avery thought, had to be.

  Heroin, now produced in the Taliban’s own refineries and labs in Helmand Province and Kandahar, was the only thing the Taliban had of any value to bargain with. The Taliban generated up to half a billion dollars a year from drugs, making them one of the world’s top five richest terrorist groups. Many Taliban commanders became personally rich by skimming the profits and owned high-rise luxury condos in Dubai.

  On the black market, one pound of heroin alone was worth thirty AK-47 rifles. Each of the four Kamaz Ural-4320s could carry a load of about twelve tons. One ton of heroin went for at least $15 million. Avery was looking at possibly $180 million worth of the shit. The street value would be over ten times that.

  This was a massive transaction, and the important question in Avery’s mind was what were the Taliban getting in return?

  While tanker trunks refueled the Antonov, the Russians used a forklift to transfer huge wooden crates from the Antonov’s cargo bay and onto the beds of the Ural trucks. The Taliban, apparently equally mistrustful of the Russians, watched them closely and selected random crates to open and examine.

  From where he lay, it was impossible for Avery to tell what was inside the crates, but there was no mistaking what the long, rectangular, gray, metal cases now being loaded onto one of the Ural trucks contained. The US Army packaged and stored shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles in almost identical transit cases.

  As the transfer of cargo continued, the Russian with the shaved head spoke some more with Mullah Arzad through translator. The Taliban commander nodded his head, and the Russian’s entourage started across the tarmac with Mullah Arzad and his lieutenants. Two nearby talibs noticed this and followed, not wanting to leave their commander alone with the Russians. The group walked to the airfield’s operations building, on the opposite side of the hangar, while those left behind continued emptying the Antonov and loading the trucks.

  It occurred to Avery that he wore the same pants he’d had going into Gorno-Badakhshan. He reached down and shoved his hand into a deep pocket, felt around, and found the GPS receiver Poacher had provided.

  However, slipping the receiver onto one of the trucks presented much the same series of problems as getting a look at the cargo. Namely, slipping across the tarmac and getting that close to the trucks, and then getting away, unseen. The lighting around the airfield, so ideal in the previous hours for observation, now suddenly became an enormous source of compromise.

  And there was still no sighting of Cramer.

  The Taliban, closely allied with the IMU, had him and were going to turn him over to the Russians, Avery realized. It was the only logical connection, but it still didn’t make much sense.

  Three more minutes passed.

  The tanker trucks topped off the Antonov and departed. The Russians carried a couple final boxes out of the Antonov, finished loading the trucks, and retreated back into the hangar. The four Russian soldiers were left standing around, looking bored.

  And the tarmac suddenly looked invitingly empty.

  Avery immediately tapped his throat mike and said softly, “Carnivore for Mockingbird.”

  “Go for Mockingbird,” the voice responded.

  “Do you have eyes inside the hangar?”

  “Partially, that Russkie trash hauler’s blocking my view. It looks like everyone’s huddled around a fridge, smoking and drinking. Everyone else headed into that building, I reckon to grab some chow and empty their bladders before they get moving again.”

  “I’m going around the back to get to the north end of the hangar. I’m going in for a closer look at those trucks. I’ll need a diversion, something to distract those soldiers still standing around. Think you can manage that?”

  “Roger. That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Wait for my word.”

  Avery expected to hear Poacher butting in at any second, to ask if he’d lost his mind, but it never came. Poacher didn’t like winging shit like this. Neither did Avery, but under the circumstances, he felt it warranted the risk.

  Avery crawled back through the dirt and grass, scanned his surroundings to make sure it was clear, and then maneuvered onto his feet. He took careful, deliberate steps, so as to maintain silence and not alert the soldiers to his presence. It was a quiet night, and any sound from stepping on a stick or kicking a rock would travel far through the air.

  Once he reached the rear wall of the hangar, Avery replaced his night vision goggles over his eyes. There were no light sources here, and it was almost completely black. He proceeded cautiously forward, moving quickly and quietly.

  About three-fourths of the way down the hangar’s length, Avery stopped dead in his tracks.

  He heard voices up ahead, around the corner of the hangar, speaking Russian. He sidestepped to the left, behind the cover of a thick tree. He lowered his body into a squat, descending into the darkness, and rested on his haunches.

  Seconds later, a soldier turned the corner of the hangar. He looked ahead and walked forward into the dark behind the hangar. A lit cigarette hung between his lips. The Russian moved slowly, his eyes not yet acclimated to the darkness here, stepping on twigs and leaves and anything else in his path. He kept one hand against the wall of the hangar, to help guide himself. His other hand held the AK-12, which was slung around his shoulder, barrel angled toward the ground. He looked past Avery without seeing him.

  The soldier stopped ten feet from Avery. He turned to face the concrete wall of the hangar. His hands moved in front of his waist, and Avery saw the motion of
the right hand lowering his zipper and heard the steady stream of urine flow against the wall and into the grass.

  Not taking his eyes off the soldier, Avery’s left hand moved slowly from his rifle to the belt strap on the ModGear vest and found the handle of Cold Steel Tanto. He withdrew the blade from the sheath and transferred the knife to his right hand. He sprung up and closed the distance to the soldier.

  The Russian reacted to the sound, snapping his head fast around to the right. The cigarette dropped from his mouth and fluttered to the ground. He saw the black shape coming at him through the night, and the gleam of the blade in the air.

  Before the soldier could react or utter a word, Avery was behind him clamping his gloved hand hard over the soldier’s mouth, his forearm pressed against his shoulder, restraining him.

  Avery jerked the soldier’s head back and slammed the seven inch steel blade through the side of his neck. He heaved the knife back with a hard jerk, cutting through and severing the jugular vein and carotid artery. Avery left the knife in place, buried deep to the hilt. The soldier struggled for his life. He thrashed and squirmed in Avery’s arms, but was unable to utter a sound as blood quickly filled his windpipe, and he choked and gagged on it. Avery gently guided the soldier facedown to the ground, and held him still until he expired.

  Then he withdrew his knife. Blood immediately poured out from the gaping wound in the soldier’s neck, saturating the soil.

  Avery wiped his blade clean on the soldier’s jacket and stood up. He glanced down at the unmoving body. In Yazgulam, he’d executed Babayev without hesitation. Given the opportunity, he’d sure as hell do it again, too, because Otabek Babayev had murdered countless people and was an enemy. This soldier wasn’t an enemy, just a young kid who cared more about seeing his parents again and fucking his girlfriend, and given a shit job by the army. Killing him was a vile, dirty thing, but there’d been no way around it.

  Avery continued forward and cautiously around the corner of the hangar.

  Still within the cover of the dark and the shadows of by the nearby trees, he stopped, deactivated his night vision and scanned the tarmac with his scope. He saw the open cargo hold of the Antonov and the Ural trucks parked near it. He couldn’t see the remaining three soldiers, but he heard them chatting.

  Avery checked in once more with Mockingbird, who informed him that everyone else was still in the back of the hangar, standing around and shooting the shit. Avery signaled Mockingbird to give him that distraction.

  From where he stood, Avery did not see the flash of light emanating sporadically from Mockingbird’s position in the field on the other side of the runway, but it caught the soldiers’ attention. Avery heard the Russian small talk suddenly stop, one of the voices talking over the others and pointing out the anomaly. Then the soldiers started across the tarmac toward the field to investigate.

  Avery heard Poacher’s voice in his ear, telling him the coast was clear. Keeping his head down, Avery sprinted ahead in a low crouch, scanning for threats along the way and keeping his finger poised over his rifle’s trigger guard. His eyes locked onto the nearest truck, its back facing him. The tailgate was still lowered, but it looked high. Five feet, he thought, too high to jump. He pushed his legs harder and picked up the pace. He reached out, laid the rifle down on the bed, placed both hands atop the lowered tailgate, and sprung off his legs, lifting himself off the ground. He muscled up onto the bed and snatched the rifle back up.

  It was dark inside the trailer, under the heavy tarpaulin draped over the bed. The reach of the outside lamp’s glow extended only to the first couple feet of the platform’s fourteen foot length. Wooden boards were erected to form a wall around the bed, supporting the heavy duty tarp. Crates, boxes, and steel cases were stacked everywhere, almost completely covering the thirty-two square foot platform, leaving barely enough room to move.

  Avery pulled the mini Maglite flashlight from his vest, switched it on, and held it between his teeth. He shined the red light over one of the long, metal cases. He couldn’t read the entire Russian inscription printed on the side, but he was able to identify the important bit. The 9K38 designation ominously stood out. NATO agencies referred to the 9K38 Igla-S, the newest model of Russia’s man portable surface-to-air missile, as SA-24 Grinch.

  One of the huge advantages from which the US and its allies greatly benefited was air superiority, much like the Red Army during the early years of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The beginning of the end for the Russians in Afghanistan was the day CIA started supplying the Afghan mujahedeen with Stinger missiles. SA-24 could easily knock Apaches and Blackhawks, or C-130s full of troops, out of the sky.

  Avery took some pictures, and moved over to one of the wooden crates. He used his Cold Steel Tanto to pry the lid open. He shined his light into the crate on the brand new AK-12 rifles in cellophane wrappers. Then he replaced the lid and hammered the nails back into their holes with the butt of his knife.

  He moved onto the next crate and found RPG launchers.

  The next crate, a smaller one, contained Czech-manufactured night vision equipment and encrypted tactical communications gear. Another crate contained Dragunov long range sniper rifles. There were a dozen more crates, plus the cargo on the other trucks, all of it factory fresh military gear.

  Avery took the GPS receiver out of his pocket and dropped it into one of the crates and replaced the lid.

  He gave everything a quick once-over, to make sure all of the cargo was secure and appeared untouched. Then he started for the tailgate, and froze.

  Through the flaps at the end of the bed, Avery saw the Russians and Taliban returning from the operations building, some six hundred yards away. He retreated as far back on the platform as he could and squatted.

  He watched the approaching entourage, the faces becoming clearer as they drew closer.

  It took a few seconds for his mind to completely register what he saw. He blinked, wondering if Poacher was seeing this, then he detached the Trijicon scope from the rifle’s mounting and raised it to his eye.

  Walking between Ramzin and Mullah Arzad, Robert Cramer wore a pair of faded blue jeans and an open leather jacket over a flannel shirt. He wore sunglasses. Stubble growth, which hadn’t been there in the IMU’s video less than three days earlier, shadowed his face. In fact, Cramer’s condition appeared to have miraculously improved since Avery last saw him. His lip was cut, and there was a scrape across his forehead, but he walked with his familiar air of authority, relaxed and at ease, and he did not at all resemble the beaten, broken down hostage the IMU had flaunted.

  The wind picked up and caught the flap of Cramer’s jacket, blowing it back a little and exposing the chest holster and the pistol it held. Probably a Beretta, Avery thought. Cramer always favored Berettas. His head turned, and he exchanged words with the Russians.

  The sight somehow didn’t surprise Avery. The only thing that surprised him was the lack of reaction he felt. Part of him wanted to give Cramer the benefit of the doubt that perhaps he was involved in some serious deep cover, black ops spook shit, or maybe running his own penetration op unilaterally, out of fear of the security breach at Dushanbe station.

  But the facts and events of the last five days didn’t lie.

  In Avery’s mind, the mission parameters changed completely. There wasn’t anything he could do about the Taliban or the weapons now, and he didn’t care what Culler or Langley wanted. He was going to track down Cramer, somehow, wherever he went, whatever he did, however long it took, and put a bullet in his goddamned head.

  Avery shifted his scope and directed the reticule over the Russian, the one with the shaved head who bossed everyone else around. Only now, getting a close-up look at the man’s face, Avery was able to clearly make out his features.

  Avery frowned.

  He could have sworn that he’d just killed this fucker the previous night.

  Indeed, the Russian bore an uncanny resemblance, almost identical, to the Slavic tango
taken down at the IMU’s Yazgulam safe house. He had the same bone structure and face, the same cruel, brown eyes, and even the same spider tattoo emblazoned over the left side of his neck. But it wasn’t the same man. Avery could see the slightly shaded hairline around the man’s head and the bare, shiny scalp. Although sporting a shaved a head, the man in Yazgulam hadn’t been in the process of naturally balding. Plus Number Two here had a tiny scar on the right side of his forehead. He also looked a little taller. Brothers, Avery thought. They could have been twins.

  Avery snapped some pictures with the camera, capturing Cramer, the Russian, and Arzad in individual shots and also wide shots showing them all together.

  One of the soldiers re-appeared, jogging over to the tattooed Russian. Avery thought the soldier explained that they’d seen something odd in the field, but nobody seemed concerned about it.

  Cramer shook hands with Ramzin and Arzad and then followed the tattooed Russian and his goons up the ramp into the back of the Antonov with the flight crew. A few minutes later the ramp lifted, sealing them inside, while the Taliban headed for their trucks.

  Avery tensed and watched as one Afghan walked directly his way, his eyes looking into the darkness of the cargo hold. The Afghan stepped right up to the back of the truck and slammed the tailgate shut. He tugged on it once to make sure it was secure, then he turned and walked around the truck, and Avery heard the driver side door creak open and close.

  Seconds later, the V-8 engine started up, and the truck jerked into motion and fell into line behind the others. The trucks drove off the tarmac and headed for the winding road cutting through the forest onto the highway.

  Avery moved to the tailgate and looked out past the canvas flaps at the tall trees and the patch of road highlighted by the truck’s taillights. He estimated they were doing maybe twenty miles per hour. About two miles away now, he heard the sound of jet engines powering up and carrying the big Antonov transporter down the runway.