Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition)

by Ross Sidor

  Avery wasn’t an expert on global politics or Kremlin strategy, but her analysis seemed sound.

  “But there’s more. See, while I was originally trying to uncover Litvin’s arms deals, my contact here was investigating the security of old Soviet nuclear stockpiles in Belarus. We’re working closely together now. There came a point where our respective stories intersected.”

  Alarm bells went off in the back of Avery’s mind. He had a feeling where this was going. He’d become fixated on Cramer and overlooked the IMU’s nuclear materials smuggling.

  “The Kremlin has contracted GlobeEx to deliver several tons of highly enriched uranium from the Belarusian stockpile to Russia.” She studied Avery’s face. He thought must have done a bad job of hiding his reaction, because she added, “You look surprised.”

  He was, but he shouldn’t have been. After all, an IMU courier had already been arrested in Tajikistan delivering a sample of uranium to the Taliban’s nuclear scientist. CIA and the Department of Energy’s chemical analysis had been unable to determine the source of the uranium, other than it appeared to be Soviet in origin.

  “How the hell did Belarus obtain weapons grade material?”

  “The Soviet Ministry of Atomic Energy stored it here during the Cold War. Later, Russia allowed Minsk to maintain ownership of it, ostensibly for scientific research purposes into medical isotopes and civilian power plants. It’s a little known fact that Lukashenko’s government possesses over two tons of nuclear materials, including several hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium. This is one of just a few known HEU stockpiles in the world readily available for the construction of a dirty bomb or for sale on the black market.”

  Naturally occurring uranium ore is composed of two primordial isotopes. One of these, u-235, is capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction. Cascades of spinning centrifuges separate the two isotopes, creating a gas with a twenty percent or higher concentration of u-235, which is then reverted into a solid silver metal called highly enriched uranium, or HEU. Fifty pounds of HEU was sufficient for construction of a weapon capable of radiating an entire city. A dirty bomb would simply consist of conventional explosives wrapped around a fragment of HEU. But with sufficient quantities, HEU could be processed into a nuclear bomb.

  But where would the Taliban assemble the bombs? The necessary scientific and technical expertise in the form of Pakistani nuclear scientists loyal to the cause was easy enough to find, but they’d still need a secure processing facility below the West’s radar.

  Avery was confident that NATO-occupied Afghanistan was out of the question, although that country had once hosted al-Qaeda’s Project al-Zabadi chemical/biological weapons labs. Pakistan was possible, but that country was too unstable, and the ISI would surely catch wind of it. The US would also have no qualms about hitting terrorist WMD targets in either country.

  Avery recalled what Gerald Rashid had told him about Wilkes sending CERTITUDE into Gorno-Badakhshan to look into a construction site, a project that Cramer had written off as insignificant. CIA had also reported that at least three Pakistani nuclear scientists or technicians had recently been traced to Tajikistan. Gorno-Badakhshan provided a suitable location for a processing plant. It was a vast territory, sparsely populated, and outside of the Tajik government’s control.

  “Western intelligence agencies know little about the makeup and extent of Belarusian stockpiles,” Aleksa explained. “Neither Minsk nor Moscow is forthcoming with information. In 2010, Belarus entered an agreement with the American government in which it would destroy its uranium, under the supervision of Russian observers, in exchange for financial assistance. But then in response to new European Union sanctions, Belarus later demanded more money. Washington refused to pay, and Lukashenko threatened to sell the uranium to the highest bidder. A year later, after more failed negotiations, Minsk reneged on the deal altogether and announced that it would retain the uranium.”

  Immediately after the Cold War, the US tried to buy surplus-Soviet nuclear stockpiles to prevent them from falling into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. In 1994, CIA and the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Search Team conducted SAPPHIRE, an operation that removed over a thousand pounds of HEU from an unguarded industrial complex in Kazakhstan, while Iranian, Iraqi, and Chechen agents scoured the country looking for nuclear weapons. The HEU was transferred to a secure storage facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. It was one success, but it’s estimated that there’s still enough Soviet nuclear materials unaccounted for to construct over two dozen bombs, and some intelligence sources reported that Iran had successfully acquired three obsolete nuclear artillery rounds from the Kazakhstan stockpiles.

  “Where does Litvin come in?” Avery asked.

  “Recently, Belarus agreed to repatriate quantities of its uranium to Russia for down-blending. GlobeEx will transport the uranium to Russia’s Mayak Chemical Combine facility in the Urals.”

  And like the SA-24 missiles, the paperwork and numbers would be fixed and a cut of the HEU will find its way to the Taliban, Avery thought.

  “How did you learn all of this?”

  “My friend Yuri,” Aleksa replied. “He is a Ukrainian journalist. He was forced out of Ukraine under Yanukovych. He’s investigated GlobeEx even longer than I have. It’s become personal for him. He uncovered Litvin’s illegal sales of RPGs and landmines to the Lord’s Resistance Army in the Congo. After ignoring the death threats and pursuing the story, he was assaulted by masked men inside his flat, his computer stolen, and he was left for dead. He barely survived that beating. He has excellent sources in Belarus and in the Russian exile community. He extensively documented everything. This is going to be the biggest story of his career.”

  “Can you put me into contact with him?”

  “I can try to arrange it, but it is up to him if he wants to speak with you.”

  “We might not have time, Aleksa. It’s extremely important that I speak with your friend.” But Avery knew that she wouldn’t be so easily convinced. Reporters were all the same. He had to offer her something in return. “Look, if you take me to him tonight, I’ll tell you everything I know about Litvin. I was there in Tajikistan when his people made the transfer with the Afghans. Mullah Adeib Arzad was there, too. If you help me, I’ll help you.”

  Of course, there were a number of conditions, which Aleksa would likely not be agreeable toward, but Avery didn’t get into that now.

  Aleksa dropped her cigarette and ground it out beneath her heel as she considered the proposition.

  “I will take you to him.”

  TWENTY

  Minsk

  Yuri Dzubenko rented a two bedroom apartment in the Shabany district, on the city’s outskirts, which Aleksa said was Minsk’s most crime ridden neighborhood. Instead of looking out for KGB and cops, they’d need to be alert for muggers and drug addicts looking to finance their next fix. Aleksa was staying with Yuri and said that she tried to avoid being outside at night here. Except for the dirty, dilapidated tower block walls, poor lighting, and the heavy industrialization of the area, it looked no different from the other parts of the city Avery glimpsed so far. But nearing midnight, the streets were empty, silent, and dark, and he thought he’d seen far worse in some American inner cities.

  Aleksa parked, and then they walked three blocks to the three-flat brick building. Turning the corner, she immediately noticed that Yuri’s lights were off and frowned. It was still early for him, and he hadn’t mentioned anything about going out tonight. He’d anticipated a late night writing and organizing his notes. She tried to rationalize it and thought he could have received an urgent call from a colleague or source and left in a hurry—perhaps he’d left a note for her inside—but the anxiety that something was wrong still lingered.

  “What’s wrong?” Avery asked. The change in her demeanor was apparent.

  Aleksa didn’t answer. She quickened her pace. Avery followed her up the porch steps, through the fro
nt door, and up a set of steep and narrow creaky stairs to the third floor.

  The door off the landing at the top of the stairs was unlocked and ajar, and this confirmed Aleksa’s worries. Avery detected at once that something was wrong, but before he could say anything, Aleksa called out Yuri’s name. No response came. Avery was about to tell her to wait here, so that he could go in ahead of her, but she had already pushed the door open and stepped into the darkness.

  Avery went in after her, his senses making the switch to combat mode. His hand instinctively reached for the Glock, until he realized he’d left it at the motel. He stood just beyond the doorjamb, but the darkness and unfamiliar environment made it difficult to find anything out of place, and he waited, to allow his eyes to acclimate.

  A second later, a light went on, and Aleksa stood near a lamp, seven feet away. Her mouth was agape, and the color was gone from her face.

  Yuri Dzubenko was sprawled across the hardwood floor of the living room, on his stomach and chest. His hands were tied behind his back. A plastic bag covered his head, with duct tape forming an airtight seal around his neck. The plastic was pressed against the contours of his face, some of it sucked into his mouth, while he had struggled for air. His eyes were wide open.

  Aleksa backed up against a wall, staring down at her friend. Tears welled in her eyes. She opened her mouth, but whatever she was going to say became caught in her throat.

  Avery stepped around the body, ignoring Aleksa for now, and swept the apartment, mostly to make sure no one else was here and also because he wanted to avoid the tidal wave of emotions from Aleksa, uncertain if he was expected to provide comfort or reassurance and having no desire to do so.

  The desk and dresser drawers and closets were all opened, with their contents now strewn about everywhere. Articles of clothing and pieces of paper littered the floor, scattered around overturned furniture. Avery checked the bathroom and kitchen, looked behind doors, and out the windows. Black footprints had dried on the floor, the path ultimately heading out the front door. Avery was satisfied that the apartment was empty.

  He returned to the living room.

  Aleksa was where he’d left her.

  He crouched to examine the body on the floor. He didn’t need to check for a pulse. Early stages of rigor mortis had set in. The body had already emptied its bowels and bladder, and its temperature had dropped. He estimated that Yuri Dzubenko was three, four hours dead. Aleksa may have just missed the killers, when she’d gone to the airport to meet Avery. Given her reaction, he thought that this realization wasn’t lost on her.

  Avery got up and stepped in front of Aleksa, intentionally obscuring her view of the body. The longer she stared at it, the worst off she’d be, not that it made much difference at this point.

  “Aleksa, listen to me. Take a deep breath. You need to look around and see if anything is missing. I need you to focus, okay? Then, we need to leave here immediately.”

  “What about Yuri? We can’t leave him here like this.” Her voice was nearly a whimper. She tilted her heard to look over Avery’s shoulder. He sidestepped a bit, to obstruct her view once more. Her vulnerability made him uncomfortable, and he had little patience for this sort of thing.

  “Yes, we can. There’s nothing we can do for him now, and the people that did this may still be outside watching this place.” He allowed that to sink in, letting her know that they were both in danger every second they stayed here. “Take a look around. See what they took, and grab whatever you can carry, anything important, especially anything that can be used by the police to identify you. We’re not coming back.”

  Aleksa finally looked up and met his glare for the first time but didn’t speak.

  “Do you understand me, Aleksa?”

  She finally nodded and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand. The focus and drive returned to her eyes, replacing the distant, faraway stare, and Avery was grateful for that and hoped it lasted. She stepped away from him and walked around, appraising the ransacked apartment, rummaging through the closets, and moving between the two bedrooms.

  While he waited, Avery walked along the walls and peered through the windows at the streets below. There wasn’t a view of the building’s front entrance from up here, but from what he could see, there was nothing unusual outside, and no activity. He kept his ears open for the sounds of anyone coming up those stairs outside the apartment. They’d be finished if two, three men with guns came through the front door. He regretted his decision to leave the Glock behind.

  When Aleksa returned to the living room, she had a stuffed backpack slung over her shoulder. “Our computers are missing. All of our work, everything was on them. They took Yuri’s cell phone, too. But I always keep everything backed up on this.” She held up a USB key she’d taken from her jeans pocket. “They would kill for this.”

  “Yeah,” Avery said. He took a knife from the kitchen. “That’s why we need to get away from here. Come on.”

  He started for the door, and when she wasn’t moving quickly enough, he reached back to grab her by the wrist and gave a pull. He took the lead this time and instructed her to stay three steps behind him and keep her eyes open and mouth shut. He closed the door.

  If an attacker was indeed waiting, then stairs were a deathtrap, so Avery descended them quickly and kept his eyes trained on the bottom. He paused in the foyer to look through the window. The street and sidewalk were empty.

  Avery opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. He swept his eyes immediately left and then right, looking down over the railing. The dark spaces on either side of the porch were clear, as was the street. There was no activity in the windows or on the rooftops of nearby buildings. The silence stood out most to Avery. There was barely a sound, not even an occasional passing car somewhere nearby. The neighborhood was completely lifeless. He walked down the stairs and at the bottom, without turning, raised a hand and motioned for Aleksa to come out.

  She stayed close to his side as they walked back to the Siena. The three short blocks suddenly felt like miles, and the rain abruptly picked up again, drenching them. As they walked, Aleksa looked frantically around. When they turned the corner, she jumped at the presence of a shadowy figure, and Avery tensed, too, but it was only an old woman with an umbrella walking her dog, and they moved past her.

  “You said the Siena was Yuri’s car, right?” Avery asked.

  “Yes,” Aleksa said, having the same realization as Avery.

  “Then they probably know what car to look for. We can use it to get away from here, but we need to switch vehicles soon as we can.”

  Half a block away, Avery could see the Siena now.

  They walked down the center of the street, not on the sidewalk. Problem was there were other vehicles parallel parked in front of and behind the Siena, including a large carpenter’s van that hadn’t been there before, making plenty of good hiding spots.

  Avery tried to look for any unnatural shapes or shadows in the darkness through his peripheral vision, because in the dark human eyes can more easily make out objects off to the side than directly in front of them, but he saw nothing to raise alarm.

  It was darker now than when they’d parked here twenty-five minutes ago. Searching his surroundings, Avery realized that the corner streetlight was now out.

  “Give me the keys,” he commanded Aleksa, looking around once more.

  “What-”

  “Quick. Just do it, and get in the car.”

  Aleksa produced the keys and held them out for Avery, but it was too late. A looming figure sidestepped onto the street in front of them from behind the large van. He wore a ski mask, black pants, gloves, and a black sweatshirt.

  Startled, Aleksa jumped and stepped back, right into another black-clad assailant. She screamed as an arm wrapped around her and pulled her close, but Avery didn’t turn around to look. He’d already launched himself at the first attacker, throwing his shoulder, with his full weight behind it, into the
man’s chest, knocking him off his feet and against the van.

  As they grappled, Avery caught a glimpse of the pistol, a silenced Makarov, in the man’s hand. He rammed an elbow into his opponent’s solar plexus and grabbed his left hand onto the attacker’s gun hand and directed the barrel away and off to the side just as it spat a muffled shot into the sidewalk. Avery’s right hand lashed out with the kitchen knife, burying every inch of the serrated blade through the man’s throat. Eyes bulged behind the ski mask, and the grip on the Makarov loosened. Avery ripped the pistol out of the man’s hand and spun around.

  While this took place, the second attacker had already produced his own gun, and Aleksa gripped his wrist with both her hands, struggling and thrashing. But her opponent had nearly a foot on her, was twice her weight, and easily overpowered her. He backhanded her across the face, knocking her onto the street. Her head bounced off the wet pavement. Her vision blurred, and she felt on the verge of blacking out. A booted foot pressed down against her ribs, holding her against the street. She looked up and saw the hazy image of the masked man angling his pistol less than three feet from her face.

  Avery fired the Makarov twice, tapping the assassin above his ear. As the man collapsed, Avery turned around at the sound of movement.

  The other attacker lay on the street, gasping for breath, holding onto the knife handle jutting out of his throat. He stared up at Avery with pleading, watery eyes. He tried to speak but was unable to produce a sound, coughing and gagging on his own blood and the blade that was lodged through his windpipe. Avery shot him once in the head. Then he held the Makarov two handed in front of him and threaded a path around and between the parked vehicles, tracking for more targets—finding none—and came back around in the street to Aleksa.