by Ross Sidor
In reality, Washington was simply handing the country over to the Taliban, who were using Reintegration to infiltrate their agents into the Afghan government. Cramer became a vocal critic, sending scathing reports back to Langley. In retaliation, the Seventh Floor recalled him from Afghanistan.
Cramer had long believed that there were two enemies. The enemy in the field presented the more immediate, physical threat. But there was another enemy. This one consisted of the politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats, and reporters back home who were far removed from the realities of the battlefield and cared only about their image, prestige, and advancing their own agenda. The latter was just as likely to get people killed as the former, and they were far more duplicitous.
Tajikistan proved to be an ideal starting ground for Cramer’s new war, which had started in an unlikely way.
Shortly after taking over Dushanbe station, Oleg Ramzin made a brush pass on a crowded city bus, slipping Cramer a piece of paper with a time and location for a future meeting. Suspicious but seeing a recruitment prospect, Cramer attended the meet. He was surprised when Ramzin instead attempted to recruit him. But Ramzin hadn’t made the pass on behalf of Russian intelligence. Like most FSB officers, Ramzin was deeply connected with Russian organized crime. His offer came on behalf of the Krasnaya Mafiya. Cramer left the meeting, but stayed in sporadic contact with Ramzin. In order to cover his own ass and, rather than arousing suspicion by meeting with Ramzin in secret, Cramer put him in the files at Dushanbe station as CK/SCINIPH.
Several months later, Cramer made a new proposal for the Krasnaya Mafiya, and reestablished contact with Aleksander Litvin.
“There is a problem, two actually.” Litvin’s English and was educated, with the barest trace of an accent.
Cramer had expected complications to arise at some point. It was just a question of the severity. So far, everything had gone too smoothly. Any good planner took into account the basic, fundamental caveat that anything that could go wrong inevitably would.
Litvin looked to his mafiya colleague and nodded.
The Krasnaya Mafiya enforcer with the spider tattoo said, “The Taliban has reported to my man in Peshawar that their trucks are long overdue and never reached their Afghan checkpoint.”
“That’s their problem, not ours,” Cramer said, perhaps a little too defensively. Despite the current arrangement, he was still no supporter of the Taliban. They had killed a few of the rare people he truly considered friends. He detested having to form partnerships with reprehensible, vile creatures like Mullah Arzad, but that was the job of a spy. Most of CIA’s foreign agents were scumbags—killers, terrorists, thieves, smugglers, drug dealers, arms traffickers, gangsters, and traitors. “We weren’t responsible for delivering the weapons into Afghanistan. We fulfilled all of our obligations in Tajikistan.”
“This is true,” Litvin agreed, “but there are early news reports indicating Americans are combing over the wreckage of multiple large vehicles on the highway, thirty miles south of the Tajik border. So…”
“So if the convoy was interdicted,” Cramer said, finishing Litvin’s statement for him, “how did they know about the delivery and the route?”
“It is troubling.”
“Perhaps my colleagues at CIA finally caught up with Arzad. After all, last time I checked, he was still on the White House’s kill list.”
“Perhaps, but then as you say: never assume.”
Cramer rolled his eyes. “You said there were two problems. What’s the other?”
The mafiya enforcer answered. Unlike his Litvin, his English was heavily accented and slowly delivered. “I received a call from Oleg. An hour after we departed Ayni, the Russians discovered the bodies of one of their soldiers behind the hangar. His throat was slit. This morning, in the light, they found footprints in the mud.”
“Moscow is not pleased to hear this, nor with having to explain to that soldier’s family how he ended up with his throat hacked open in Tajikistan. That creates publicity and raises questions,” Litvin said. “The official story is that he wandered off base and was killed by local bandits, but somebody was at Ayni last night, when you made the transfer.”
Cramer could have said this also wasn’t his problem, but he didn’t. As good a job as he’d done at covering his tracks, was it possible he’d still missed or overlooked something? No, that couldn’t be it. It had to have been in Yazgulam, when the IMU safe house was taken down. They still didn’t know exactly what had transpired there.
His biggest concern was that the intruder at Ayni could have seen his face. Sure, the media just reported he was dead and CIA publicly confirmed this, but it’s not like CIA would rescind its statement and alert the media that a high ranking officer was dealing in guns and drugs with the Taliban.
He swore aloud as he considered the possible repercussions. “This could be really bad.”
“Who do you believe it was?” asked Litvin.
“It has to be CIA. The only question is why they were there? Did they somehow track me to Ayni? Were they after Arzad? Was it to monitor the arms delivery? We’ll need to prepare for the worst.”
“And what is the worst?”
“His name’s Avery. He’s the one who took down the IMU safe house. If he was at Ayni, he’ll pursue this thing to the end. Count on it. He’s a stubborn, obsessive fuck who doesn’t know when to quit.
“Avery,” Litvin repeated the name, slowly drawing out the syllables. “This man is a danger to us?”
The nature of the inquiry gave Cramer reason to pause and consider his response. If the world made any sense, Avery would be on his side. Like Cramer, he’d dedicated nearly his entire life to defending and serving the United States in one capacity or another. In Afghanistan, Cramer couldn’t have a better man watching his back.
Still, he would kill Avery, if that’s what it came to.
Like Avery, Cramer had no qualms over doing what was necessary, but he wouldn’t live easily with it. This troubled him, because he knew that if Avery caught up with him, the man would have no hesitation at all about ending his life, and he’d never think back on it with an ounce of remorse.
They served three years together in Afghanistan. Avery’s first Special Activities Division assignment was at FOB Camp Gecko, near Kandahar and the Pakistani border, where Cramer ran black penetration ops into Pakistan.
In 2009, Avery’s SAD unit was responsible for pursuing Taliban targets across the border. On one such mission, faulty intelligence led his team into an ambush. Only two members of the six-man team survived the initial assault. Avery and his wounded teammate fled into the mountainous foothills, finding a high ground to defend.
Cramer knew that Kabul station would deny his request to send FOB Gecko’s special operations contingent into Pakistan to retrieve the CIA officers. Cross-border raids without Pakistani consent were not yet commonplace at this time. Besides, Avery’s SAD team was deniable.
Cramer dispatched an UNODIR message to Kabul station, stating that unless otherwise directed, he was going to sheep-dip the Delta operators and 160th SOAR flight crews at FOB Gecko, go into Pakistan, and bring his men out. He did so immediately, without awaiting a response from Kabul station. When the response did come, the Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s Black Hawks and Little Birds were already in the air and en route, and the order from Kabul station, as expected, adamantly and frantically instructed Cramer not to proceed.
When the helicopters returned to Camp Gecko, two hours later, they unloaded the surviving and wounded SAD operators and the bodies of the others. They also left behind over two dozen dead Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.
Cramer was reprimanded by Langley, but they didn’t do anything to him. The war in Afghanistan was picking up, with Taliban and al-Qaeda escalating their attacks and tactics, and they needed someone like Cramer on the battlefield if they were going to win.
“I’m not exaggerating when I say that he’s the most competent and capable operator I’ve ever w
orked with. So, yes, that makes him dangerous. But he’s an independent contractor, and he’s not on good terms with the CIA leadership. He won’t have the full resources of the Agency behind him. I doubt he’ll be able to reach us outside of Tajikistan.”
“What are you going to do about this?” Litvin asked.
“I have someone in Tajikistan who has penetrated Avery’s operations there. I’ll have this taken care of by the end of the day.”
“That is reassuring to hear,” Litvin said, “but I am afraid I will not be able to commit any further to this operation until I am satisfactorily assured that this matter has been resolved and the fallout mitigated. Until then, consider all other business placed on hold.”
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Cramer said. “Let’s not overreact. First off, the Agency’s after me, not you, Aleksander. Read the news. The goddamn president is going to make a statement about my death. This guy, Avery, yeah he’s dangerous, but as far as CIA is concerned, he’s unreliable and a loose cannon. Nobody who matters at Langley gives a shit what he has to say. He can tell them he saw me at Ayni, sure, and he may as well tell them he saw the pope smoking crack with Elvis for all the good it’ll do.”
“I am pleased you’re so confident, Robert,” Litvin said. “It should then be a simple matter of determining what this man knows and then removing him from the field. Then we can go through with the sale and delivery, and conclude our business with Arzad. Do you have any objections to this?”
Cramer thought it over and decided not to argue. To do so would indicate he was unconfident in his ability to deal with Avery. “Sounds reasonable enough to me,” he said.
“Splendid.” Litvin flashed the winning smile he put on anytime he closed a business deal. “Moving forward, this setback will necessitate a face-to-face meeting with Mullah Arzad, to offer him reassurances and re-negotiate our next transaction. I’m willing to offer him some small compensation, but there is no way we can replace all of the hardware that was lost. I purchased all of that equipment from my suppliers in cash, and I’m not going to reimburse Arzad and take the loss myself. If he doesn’t care to continue doing business with us, well, that’s all right, too. There are plenty of other maniacs interested in what we are offering.”
This meant that another foray into Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province or Gorno-Badakhshan was likely in Cramer's future. He would need to calm Mullah Arzad and make sure that that the heroin would continue to flow to Ayni. Cramer’s only concern was that by this point, every CIA asset in the region would know his face, and the Department of Justice was offering $5 million for information leading to identification and arrest of his “killers.”
“Arzad won’t be a problem. I know him, I can deal with him,” Cramer said. “I’ll get in touch with my agent in Tajikistan and set it up as soon as this lingering problem over there has been resolved.”
Now that he was out of Tajikistan, he’d planned ahead as to how he would maintain contact with Mullah Arzad. Oleg Ramzin now acted as the network’s eyes and ears in Tajikistan, Dagar Nabiyev his personal courier. He could contact Oleg easily enough, by encrypted satellite communications, but Mullah Arzad didn’t trust technology. He forbade his inner circle from using computers and cell phones. Although time consuming and not one hundred percent secure (bin Laden’s location was compromised when his messenger was identified and followed), Mullah Arzad used human couriers to deliver messages.
“In the meantime, I have an appointment later this evening with a senior KGB officer,” Litvin said. “Either through the media or from Moscow or their own sources, the Belarusians will inevitably hear of what happened to the weapons in Afghanistan. This will make my position much more difficult in negotiations for the final sale. As you say, we will need to lay low in the coming days and see how events unfold from here. No worries, whatever happens, I know how to handle the Belarusians and placate them. And if your former colleague in Tajikistan is not dealt with, then I will find a different buyer.”
Following a protracted silence, the Krasnaya Mafiya enforcer called Karakurt finally asked Cramer the question that had been on his mind the past several minutes. “Robert, you are certain this man Avery was in Yazgulam?”
“Positive,” Cramer said. He noticed the pained glint in the Chechen’s eyes and understood why he asked the question. “I’m sorry, Ruslan.”
Ruslan Kheda, called Karakurt in reference to the spider tattooed on his neck, nodded and said nothing further, but the tormented expression behind his eyes spoke volumes. His near-identical twin brother was among the dead at the Yazgulam safe house.
The Kheda brothers had fought together during the wars in Chechnya and Dagestan, and later killed together for the Krasnaya Mafiya. They weren’t hardcore Islamists. Instead they’d been motivated by the cause of Chechen nationalism. When that cause became hijacked by the fanatic jihadist outsiders from Afghanistan and an insane Saudi warlord called Ibn al-Khattab, they left Chechnya and turned to organized crime.
The term Russian mafia is a misnomer. It is not a single organization with a hierarchy like La Cosa Nostra, the Camorra, or the Albanian mafia. Instead, there are numerous gangs of varying size and power. Many of these groups are made up of Armenians, Belarusians, Chechens, Estonians, Georgians, Ukrainians, and other “black,” or non-ethnic, Russians from the former Soviet Union. FSB aggressively targeted organized crime gangs, but only those of non-ethnic Russians or foreigners.
The “white” Russian ethnic gangsters are given sanctuary inside the Russian Federation and are protected by the siloviki, the former intelligence and military officers turned politicians who now rule the Kremlin. In exchange for their protection, the gangsters often perform services for the Russian special services, such as the assassination by polonium poisoning of Kremlin-critic Aleksander Litvinenko in London, or murdering a troublesome journalist like Anna Politkovskaya.
It was uncommon for Chechens like the Kheda brothers to end up in the service of a Russian gang like the Krasnaya Mafiya rather than the Chechen Obshina, which is staunchly nationalistic and maintains close ties to jihadist networks. Both brothers served as conscripts in the Red Army. Ismet Kheda served under an ethnic Russian officer and black marketer who later inducted the brothers into the Krasnaya Mafiya.
No one had quite trusted Babayev’s Uzbeks to handle the American raiders in Yazgulam by themselves, so Kheda’s brother had volunteered to lead the IMU cell there. Ruslan had wanted to tend to it personally, but Ismet, eager to prove his worth in the eyes of his brother whom he looked up to, insisted on going. Now he was dead.
Cramer wished that he could somehow give Avery to Kheda, but it was best to allow Dagar to handle it. He supposed he’d also feel some amount of remorse if Kheda did get his hands on Avery. In Chechnya, Kheda had learned and mastered some of the most gruesome ways of killing a man—Chechens are especially adept with blades—and would leave his brother’s killer castrated and mutilated, and Avery didn’t really deserve that. Killing Kheda’s brother hadn’t been anything personal, after all. Cramer thought he at least owed Avery a quick and relatively painless end, if and when it came to that.
The spider on Ruslan Kheda’s neck wasn’t his only tattoo. In the Russian underworld, tattoos told the entire criminal history of their bearer and warranted respect. Kheda’s body was covered. Prison and gang tattoos adorned much of his heavily muscled back, chest, and abdomen, along with an assortment of scars. The tattoos were crudely rendered, as proper equipment is often unavailable in a prison cell.
A red rose on his chest indicated Kheda’s membership in the Red Mafia. The stars covering both knees signified that he kneeled before, submitted to, no one. The Celtic cross between his shoulder blades marked his status as a killer, and the small badge denoted that at least one of his victims was a police officer. The row of six tombstones over his stomach represented the number of years he’d spent in Russia’s Black Dolphin Prison.
Always protective of his brother, Ruslan had kept quiet an
d accepted blame when falsely identified and arrested by the Chelyabinsk Militia for a murder committed by Ismet, who was four minutes younger than Ruslan. Eventually, Oleg Ramzin exercised his FSB influence to have Ruslan released.
When this business was over, Ruslan Kheda would have his brother’s name inscribed permanently into his flesh. He also hoped to add another skull. He had many of those, one for each life he’d taken. He owed his brother a skull. He owed this man Avery a killing.
The number of men Robert Cramer personally would be afraid to cross could be counted on one hand, with fingers remaining. One of these men was Ruslan Kheda. Another was Avery.
SEVENTEEN
Dushanbe
2:42PM
Avery parked the Lada off Saadi Sherozi Avenue and proceeded on foot to the Barakat Bazaar. This is Dushanbe’s commercial center, located a mile east of the Varzob River, near rail yards, the National Museum of Tajikistan, a prison, and hotels. Barakat was the country’s largest outdoor marketplace and a popular stop for tourists and an essential part of daily life for locals. Shortages of food and goods were the norm in Tajikistan, making Barakat the place to go.
The large space it occupied and the heavy volume of people also made Barakat an ideal place in which to quickly disappear if necessary. Flounder had already scoped out the bazaar earlier. It had taken him nearly an hour to cover all the ground.
The market was packed with shoppers and traders. The masses of people streamed around the kiosks, tables, and stalls, forcing Avery to walk at a snail’s pace and to maneuver impatiently around them. Minibuses constantly pulled up and deposited more prospective buyers. The mixed aroma of grilled meat, tobacco, incense, and sweaty, unwashed bodies carried in the warm air.
