Twelve Days

by Alex Berenson

When the stars fall away

  When the mountains are moved

  When the ten-month pregnant camels are abandoned

  When the beasts of the wild are herded together

  When the seas are boiled over

  When the souls are coupled . . .

  But contradictions and digressions filled the Quran’s lesser chapters, verses that sounded sweet in Arabic but could barely be translated into any other language. Only a truly confident God would allow such malarkey in His revealed word. I command you to believe no matter what I say . . .

  Wells slept. He must have, for the jangle of metal against metal stirred him. He opened his eyes to see a man in a windbreaker at the bars. Behind him, a digital clock read 00:23. He waved Wells over, cuffed his hands behind his back through the bars, slid the cell door open.

  “Bye,” the Asian kid said.

  “Good luck.” Though Wells wasn’t even sure what luck would mean for the guy. He might be better off having the package break inside him, a brief euphoria before he tumbled into the void.

  “Bye-bye-bye.” Like a toddler who knew only one word.

  Wells’s captor tugged his shoulder. Wells looked at him. “You’re FSB, yes?”

  “Da.”

  “How ’bout you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Lubyanka.”

  The word even sounded cold. For a moment, Wells considered trying to make a break. But the idea was beyond foolish. He didn’t speak Russian, didn’t have money or a car waiting. He wouldn’t clear the airport before they shot him down. He would get out of this mess with his wits, or not at all. And Duto and Shafer think I’m just the muscle.

  They brought him to the center of the city in style, a big Mercedes. The ride took twenty minutes, the Merc’s blue light clearing a path better than any siren. Even as Wells was still getting his bearings, they reached a plaza dominated by a single massive building on its northeastern side.

  “Lubyanka,” the FSB agent said again.

  “I get the tour? Excellent. Didn’t think that was part of the package.”

  The guy patted Wells’s cheek, the touch more menacing than any punch.

  The Mercedes stopped at a manned gate on the building’s north side, away from the square. As they waited for the guard to examine the driver’s identification, Wells found himself wanting to be inside. He was tired of the uncertainty of this twilight struggle. If they planned to torture him because they believed he was a spy, or a troublemaker, or just because they could, so be it. Give him a battle to fight.

  His wish came true. The gate came up. The Merc rolled down a long curved ramp and stopped before a steel door where two men waited, pale guys with meaty hands and crumpled noses. A heavyweight welcoming committee. They yanked Wells out, shoved him inside, down a long staircase that ended in a narrow corridor lit with dim red bulbs, like a predigital photo lab. Wells figured he had to be fifty feet below street level. With no natural light or sound to anchor him, he would quickly lose any sense of time. They could destroy his sleep cycle in a day or two just by playing with the lights.

  A woman stood at the end of the corridor. For a moment, Wells thought he was looking at Salome. But when the guards brought him closer, he realized his mistake. This woman had the same narrow hips, the same confident stance. But she was older, with a pinched nose, a wattled neck. She pulled open the door behind her.

  “Ready for a shower?” she said in English.

  The guards dragged him through the doorway into a white-tiled room about fifteen feet square, lit with standard white bulbs. A dozen showerheads were mounted from the ceiling. A camera and speaker hung in each corner.

  The lead guard turned, gave him a right-left-right combination to the stomach. Wells doubled over, stared at the narrow tiles at his feet. He caught his breath, tried to straighten. But the second guard grabbed his cuffed hands, pulled them up and back, driving Wells’s head down toward the floor. Over the years, his shoulders had been dislocated more times than he could remember. They loosened in their sockets. The pain arced like a firework about to burst. But just before they popped out, the cuffs came off. His hands were free. Wells needed a moment to realize that the guard had unlocked him.

  Wells didn’t question why. Instinct took over. He straightened up, trying to spin around, get in a quick right hook. Before he even got his arm all the way up, the first guard kicked out his legs, sending him sprawling. The fall didn’t hurt much, but it was humiliating. As he pushed himself up to go after them, they walked out of the room, locked the door. Perfect choreography. Wells wondered how many times they had pulled this routine.

  “Remove your clothes,” a man said, a voice so empty it might have been computer-generated.

  “I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “Five seconds.”

  “Let me call my embassy. Please. Spasibo.” The pose of confused tourist was a weak play, but he didn’t see other options.

  The room went dark. And then water drummed his head, soaked his clothes. It was frigid at first. Wells moved to a corner, but the room had been designed so that the showerheads covered it. The water warmed to lukewarm. Then comfortable. Wells didn’t need an engineering degree to figure that in a couple of minutes it would be scalding.

  He pulled off his shirt, stepped out of his jeans. A psychological ploy to make him follow their orders without violence, show him that they were in complete control. And a good one. He doubted they would boil him to death in here if he refused to comply. But he couldn’t take the chance.

  As he finished undressing, the water again went frigid. He closed his eyes, saw Afghanistan. For months on end he had bathed only in the bone-chilling streams that flowed down the sides of the Kush. The memory relaxed him, and maybe his captors saw that the cold wasn’t bothering him, because the water stopped quickly and the lights came up.

  Wells forced himself to remember that the FSB had no reason to keep him for long. Moscow was two hours ahead of Frankfurt, eight ahead of the East Coast. At this moment, Duto and Shafer thought they were doing Wells a favor by letting him get a good night’s sleep in Germany. But when they realized he hadn’t reached Frankfurt, they would call Moscow. Duto still had FSB connections. Wells would spend no more than a day here. Two at most.

  He hoped.

  —

  The two big guys stepped into the shower. With his hands free, Wells considered taking a pop. But clothes—and shoes—offered a huge advantage in close quarters combat. A boot strike would break his unprotected feet. Other body parts were even more vulnerable.

  He let them cuff him.

  They led him to an unmarked room at the other end of the hall. The woman waited inside, sitting behind a big and heavily scarred oak desk that looked strangely out of place in here. A relic dating back to the KGB, maybe even the Cheka. There were no other chairs. Wells had no choice but to stand naked in front of her. Water puddled at his feet. Goose pimples covered his arms and legs. He forced himself to stand straight, make no effort to hide himself. Let her look. Her smirk widened. She barked a command and the guards turned him around as slowly as a pig on a spit.

  “Let me go,” Wells said.

  “Shut up.” Her English was perfect, her tone as dismissive as a Valley Girl’s. He wondered if she’d spent time in California. “You must know we have a hundred ways to hurt you in this place, no marks. You leave, complain, no one cares. A crazy American telling lies about Russia. What do you think we were doing when we had you at the airport? We checked with Moscow station, they say you’re not one of them. Not listed. Not NOC.”

  The letters stood for non-official cover. Most CIA case officers operated under diplomatic cover. They worked out of embassies and had immunity from arrest and prosecution. Only a few worked without that protection. Even they usually could count on their stations for help when they got in serious trouble. The FSB had its
own operatives under non-official cover in the United States, so both sides tried to keep from playing too rough.

  “NOC?” Wells said. “What’s that?”

  She barked in Russian, and the guard to Wells’s right rabbit-punched him in the kidney. The pain spread up, slow-cooking his viscera and ribs. Wells forced himself to stay steady.

  “Next time, I tell him to kick you in those big balls of yours.”

  Wells nodded. He wasn’t sure he could speak. These guys did maximum damage with minimum effort.

  “You play games with me, this takes until morning. I don’t want that. I want to get home, turn on the television, go to sleep. And you, I see even from the way you took that last punch, you’re a professional. Please, treat me with respect.”

  She stared at him with her lumpy black eyes, almost daring him to argue. But she’d made her point. His best bet was to answer her questions as honestly as possible.

  “Da.”

  “Good.” She fetched the suitcase that Boris had given him from under her desk, pulled his passports. “Which is real?”

  “Both real, both USG issued.”

  “Is either your real name?”

  “Wells.”

  She flipped through it. “John Wells. Where were you born?”

  “What it says. Hamilton, Montana.”

  “But you use the other also. In the name Roger Bishop.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are these your only passports?”

  “The only ones I’ve used recently.”

  “Good.”

  Wells didn’t know if she was complimenting him for his honesty or herself for having found such a valuable prisoner. She reached into the desk for a pen and a tiny notebook, scratched out a note. “You come to Russia when?”

  “Two days ago.”

  “Where did you arrive?”

  “Here. On my way to Volgograd.”

  “Why?”

  “To meet Mikhail Buvchenko.”

  Another quick note.

  “From where?”

  “Saudi Arabia via Istanbul.” No reason to lie. She wouldn’t even need to check flight manifests. The passport stamps told the tale.

  “Saudi Arabia. You are Muslim?”

  “I am.”

  “This is very unusual. A white American becomes Muslim.”

  He didn’t answer. She made another note. Wells wondered if she’d press him, but instead she said only, “Fine. Volgograd. You met Buvchenko?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  “Overnight. His men brought me directly from my hotel. We had dinner, and then he asked me to stay at his house.” Wells left out the tale of Peter the horse. “He didn’t give me much choice, so I stayed. Then, yesterday morning, he brought me back to Volgograd.”

  “Where the police come to your room.” Showing him she knew everything that had happened, he shouldn’t bother to lie.

  “They said I was carrying drugs.”

  “Were you?”

  “No. I don’t know why they had that idea. They searched the hotel and didn’t find any.”

  He wondered if she’d ask about Salome, but she didn’t.

  “Then they put you on a plane to Moscow.”

  “The lead detective, Boris, he told me I needed to leave Russia. I didn’t argue.”

  “You have much misfortune on this trip. People accusing you of drugs for no reason. The FSB comes for you.”

  “I’ve had better weeks.”

  She stood up, leaned across the desk, eyed him tip to toe. Wells couldn’t help thinking of the witch in the gingerbread house. Good enough to eat, my dearies. “So why all this travel? You are businessman? You do oil?”

  “We both know I don’t do oil.” Wells shivered. His adrenaline was wearing off. His feet felt numb, like he was turning to a statue from the ground up. He couldn’t remember where he’d read that legend. Another fairy tale? A Greek myth? Tolkien?

  A snap of her fingers brought him back to the room.

  “You are tired? You need my men to wake you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then answer my question. So much travel? Such nasty places. CIA says you don’t work for them? Maybe you are bounty hunter? Like the American one? Dog the Bounty Hunter?” She said something to the guards, and they laughed.

  She wasn’t a great interrogator, Wells decided. Too eager to impress with her knowledge of American culture. The realization strengthened him. He could beat her. He twitched his legs, jogged his feet against the floor. Probably he looked like he was having a seizure, but he needed to keep active, not give in to this slow hypothermia clouding his mind. Get out of here without mentioning Duberman’s name. He couldn’t risk that. He couldn’t be sure how it would play.

  “Not a bounty hunter. I was CIA, yes. I quit.”

  “You admit this?”

  “It’s not illegal.”

  “Did you ever travel to Russia before?”

  “No.” A lie, a dangerous one. Wells had no choice. Years before, he’d come to Moscow chasing a Russian hit squad. He’d killed a carful of men, while the one he wanted escaped. But he didn’t think the FSB could connect him to the case. He’d used a different fake passport, and back then the Russians hadn’t gone for retinal scans or fingerprints.

  “Never?”

  “Never. I don’t speak Russian.”

  “Where were you posted?”

  “Mostly Afghanistan and Pakistan. But I tell you, I quit years ago.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  “Sometimes people ask me to do things.”

  She waited.

  “In this case, Senator Duto. From Pennsylvania. The former DCI, as I’m sure you know.”

  “He sent you to Buvchenko.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  The question. The FSB obviously wasn’t sure who he was, or what to do with him. They didn’t have any reason to provoke another diplomatic incident over a guy who had agency connections and might have a legitimate reason to be here. At the same time, Buvchenko had told them enough to get Wells brought to Lubyanka. This interview was a test. They hadn’t drugged him, or beaten him badly enough to do permanent damage. They didn’t have a team interrogating him. They were giving themselves the option to let him walk. If Wells could give this woman the right answer, the words she wanted to hear, she might. And as he tried to figure out what those words might be, he had one edge.

  Salome had played their meeting in Volgograd brilliantly. But she’d made one mistake, telling Wells the story she and Buvchenko planned to peddle to the FSB. Of course, she’d done so to distract him from the fact that she didn’t expect to involve the secret police at all. She’d planned to seal his fate with a block of heroin. But Wells had beaten that trap. And thanks to Salome, he knew exactly why the FSB had brought him here. Buvchenko had told them he had come to Russia to buy weapons for the Syrian jihadis. This interrogator had signaled as much by making Wells admit he was Muslim.

  All at once Wells saw the play. Lean in.

  “I told Buvchenko I was looking for guns. For Syria.”

  “You confess this?”

  “I’m telling you that’s what I told him. But really it was a sting. Someone in Washington, I don’t know who, tipped Duto about rumors that Buvchenko was shipping weapons to the jihadis. So Duto asked me to get involved. I’m a Muslim, I have credibility, I could go to Saudi Arabia first and tell Buvchenko I raised money from the sheiks there.”

  “I don’t believe you. Duto would just have told the CIA.”

  “No, he’s angry because they dumped him. Wants to embarrass them. He thought if he could get the truth about Buvchenko, he could use it against them.”

  She nodded, and Wells knew the story rang true to her. Why not? The
Russians specialized in this kind of palace intrigue.

  “Use it how?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me that.”

  “He sends you to Russia to stand in a cell with your khuy shriveled up and doesn’t even tell you his plans, and you say yes.”

  “When I get home, I’ll ask for a raise.”

  “This was a stupid game. Very stupid.”

  “I had an arms dealer who knows Buvchenko set up the meeting. I thought I was safe. I didn’t know Buvchenko would go running to the FSB. Bad for business.”

  “He’s loyal to his country. Russia doesn’t help these terrorists.”

  No, Russia helped Bashar al-Assad, who killed kids with nerve gas. But they could have that talk another time.

  “It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “Duto should have asked us himself.”

  “I guess so.”

  She made more notes. “If this story is a lie—”

  “Call Duto. Tell him you have me. He’ll confirm it.”

  Assuming he figures out what I said while he’s talking to you. If not, Wells and his shriveled khuy would be staying in these cells. He wondered if Buvchenko could play back. But the man couldn’t change his accusation at this point, and he might not want to press his FSB masters any harder. Salome was just one client, and no matter how much money she could offer Buvchenko, he’d lose it all and more if he angered Moscow.

  As for Salome, she’d no doubt already left Russia. Whatever other contacts she and Duberman had here, she couldn’t risk involving them. Like Wells, she couldn’t be sure how the Kremlin would react if it discovered what Duberman had done. It might see the chance to tell the White House, put the President hugely in its debt. Plus she had no need to take risks. She won by running out the clock.

  And the clock was still running.

  “Don’t look so sad, Mr. Wells,” the woman said. “I think I believe you.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Poor baby.” She said something in Russian, and the guards laughed. Wells didn’t mind. The less of a threat he presented, the more likely she would be to let him go. “If I unlock you, you’ll be a good boy?”

  “You unlock me, I’ll do whatever you want.”