by RD Gupta
He sighed. “Guess I’m out of training. I forgot intel sources typically don’t hang out at the Four Seasons.”
She shrugged. “Actually, this is pretty upscale to what I’ve seen in Islamabad.”
The barkeep lumbered over, wearing a T-shirt with a beer stain among other less discernible stains and asked for an order.
Sarah replied in Georgian, and shortly thereafter two glasses of the house red appeared. Despite the seedy surroundings, Jarrod was pleasantly surprised by the taste of the native Georgian vino.
“Not bad.”
Sarah took a sip and said, ‘Georgia has been wine country for over a millennium. Soil, climate, and sunshine that rivals Napa Valley. So how do you know this Rick Edgerton?”
Jarrod shrugged. “We were both in Somalia. It was a mess—a patchwork of tribal warfare. We were funneling money and guns to various factions to keep them fighting each other so they wouldn’t have the ability to act as a safe haven for other terrorist groups that would be targeting us.”
“You mean, we weren’t trying to build a Jeffersonian democracy there?”
“No. Just trying to keep our own Jeffersonian democracy intact. Like me, Rick was a junior guy running errands for senior case officers who were dealing with the rival tribes. Rick and I bumped into each other from time to time in Mogadishu, which is a real swill pit, by the way.”
“And that’s where you got your Blue Heart?”
He nodded. “My case officer’s tribe got wind we were dealing with the other side. I was posted as an off-camera security watchdog during a meet. Standard procedure. We were out in the bush. Two trucks roll up and throw my case officer in. We were too far in the boonies to use the radio to call for backup, so I followed at a distance. It was obvious by the route they were taking that they were headed for a base camp I’d visited before. So I hung back, hid the vehicle, and went in by foot.”
“What happened then?”
Jarrod couldn’t help but laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Well, I come up on this base camp, and they’ve got my case officer tied to a stake as they stack kindling and bush all around him.”
“You mean they were going to burn him at the stake?”
“Exactly. Just like in the movies. Well, I figured I had about five minutes before my case officer did a bad imitation of a rotisserie chicken. All I had on me was an M-16 and a sidearm, so I wasn’t going to shoot it out with thirty or forty hostiles. But I had made a delivery of munitions there before, and I knew where their ammo dump was. So I snuck around to the other end of the camp, and there were boxes of ammo and RPG rounds stacked up, along with some jerry cans of gasoline.”
“Gasoline and munitions stored together?”
“Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? And the guard who was posted had left to watch the festivities. So I break open one of the jerry cans, liberally douse the munitions, and then…”
“And then?”
“Did I mention they also had the foresight to include a crate of magnesium flares?”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. I pop the flare, toss it on the pile, and dive into the bush. In thirty seconds, the place is lit up like the Washington Mall on the Fourth of July. Everybody’s shooting everywhere, diving for cover. RPG rounds were cooking off like Roman candles. So in the melee, I run to the stake and cut the case officer free, and we bust ass out of there. On the way out, he takes an errant round in the calf, and I have to heave him over my shoulder to carry him to the hidden jeep. And we made it back in one piece—or rather with only a small piece missing.”
Sarah nodded. “So that was your Blue Heart?”
Jarrod shrugged. “My case officer was headed back to Langley anyway to take a promotion. I have a feeling he may have embellished the story when he got back to headquarters to enhance his own reputation. In any case, I was summoned to the basement in Langley and got to wear the medal for an hour or so. Then it was off to Afghanistan and then to Beirut.”
Sarah looked up. “I think our guy is here.”
A slender man of medium height entered. His dark hair was thinning and his full beard was flecked with gray. Jarrod turned and raised a hand, and the new arrival made a beeline for the booth. Jarrod slid out, and they shook hands vigorously.
“Jarrod—what a surprise! It’s been years.”
“That it has. Too long.” He motioned to the seat and said, “Let’s have a drink.”
Edgerton’s gaze fell on Sarah, and Jarrod was pleased to see her raw beauty had the desired effect as he slid in next to her.
A drink was delivered, and Edgerton was clearly curious, as his body language was a little arm’s length. “Well, Stryker, what brings you to the crazy Caucasus? Is this a social call?”
“Hardly. But before we get into that, may I introduce Sarah Kashvilli.”
“Hello, Rick,” she said cordially, as she placed her CIA credentials on the table.
It took a moment to cognate as he studied the credentials, but then Edgerton glanced back at Jarrod and then back to the brunette. “Sarah Kashvilli? Not the Sarah Kashvilli?”
She sipped her wine. “Depends on which one you mean.”
Jarrod interjected. “If you mean the double Blue Heart recipient, this is she.”
Sarah watched as the cogs turned in his brain.
“Those things are supposed to stay under cover, but word gets around. I hear they call you the Lone Rangerette. The only double Blue Heart who lived to tell the tale.”
She shrugged. “If the shoe fits.”
Edgerton’s gaze shifted. “Jarrod, forgive me, but I’m a little confused. I also heard that years ago you were, ah…”
“Cashiered out of the Agency? Absolutely. Terribly messy spectacle.”
“In Beirut, I heard.”
“Precisely,” said Sarah. “In fact, I was there and helped engineer the whole deception.”
Jarrod read the confusion on his face and smiled. “Rick, it was all part of a cover story. Terrorism is more about money than anything else these days. The Agency made the decision to insert their own people within the financial industry, and because I had an MBA…”
“From Harvard,” injected Sarah.
Jarrod demurred. “Yes, well, because of that credential I was inserted at Blackenford Capital, where I run the energy trading desk. My employer has no knowledge of my Agency connection, but in my capacity as a civilian trader, I traffic in the Saudi world quite a bit and have already fingered two al-Qaeda paymasters who have been…neutralized by the Saudis.”
“Well, anyone Sarah can vouch for, I can vouch for. So what do I owe the honor of this visit?” asked Edgerton.
Jarrod leaned forward. “Shamil Basayev.”
“Ah, quite the topic of discussion around here, I must say. On some levels, he’s a folk hero, but on another, he has pissed off the Georgians royally because that pipeline is a sweet revenue source. I daresay truncheons are working overtime at the interior ministry. But, how are you two involved in the hunt for Shamil Basayev?”
As rehearsed, Jarrod and Sarah looked at each other, as if they were about to impart a grave, dark secret.
Sarah said, “Rick, this is as black as black ops get, but there is more to this Basayev business than meets the eye.”
Jarrod chimed in, “As you know, the Georgian pipeline provides a huge portion of Israel’s petroleum. There are some things happening off camera that if this pipeline gets torched could implode the peace process with the Palestinians.”
Now Sarah leaned forward. “We are on a special detail for the deputy director of operations to canvas all stations in the theater to see if there’s anything else that can be done to track him down. Jarrod got pulled in because of his energy connections—and you and he had worked together before.”
Edgerton shrugged. “Well, I don’t know anything that can be done that isn’t being done. The people of the Trans-Caucasus have a long and deep hatred of the Russians. The whol
e region still behind Russian borders is in a defacto state of civil war with Moscow. Chechnya was just louder. I met with the Georgians, and they have some sharp agents in their interior ministry police. They expressed a desire for a couple of staff to join the forensic team that just arrived at the pumping station in Russia that Basayev took out. But relations being what they are between Moscow and Tbilisi, that request was turned down.”
“What if we could arrange it?” asked Jarrod.
Edgerton’s eyebrow went up. “Are you serious? They’d have to fly to Cyprus, then maybe Poland to go in via the back door.”
“We have a Gulfstream parked at the airport. I may be able to arrange clearance and a direct flight to the scene for you, us, and the Georgians.”
Edgerton gave a low whistle. “This must be some kind of hot potato if you’re pulling that kind of juice. Did you see the updated report I sent a few hours ago?”
Sarah shook her head. “We just landed and are staying under radar. We don’t have access to secure communications in transit. We’ll come to your office tomorrow morning and read it there.”
“In the meantime,” said Jarrod, “tell your Georgian contacts to saddle up. We’ll plan on going wheels-up tomorrow afternoon.”
Edgerton whistled. “This is turning into some kinda rodeo.”
“By the way,” said Sarah. “I’ll need access to your communications room tomorrow to send an eyes-only message to the assistant DDO.”
“Sure.”
“Rick, do you have any touch points into Chechnya that are not in the file? Formal or informal?”
He shook his head. “Just the Merchant source, and that’s in the file. He’s a low-level guy, little more than a gopher, really. He’s in a Chechen splinter group. His motivation is strictly monetary, but he doesn’t seem to be blowing smoke. He floats back and forth erratically from Chechnya to Georgia via Azerbaijan. I missed the last meeting when I was back in the States.”
“OK,” said Jarrod with a yawn. “Well, we’ve got jet lag, and we’ve got a long day tomorrow. We’ll hit your door in the morning and hopefully have flight clearances by noon.”
“OK, see you at the embassy in the morning.”
Jarrod paid the tab, and they all walked out together. Edgerton hailed a cab. After they bade farewell, he turned to Sarah and said, “You should have been an actress.”
She gave him a disdainful look. “Actress, smacktress. Just how the hell do you intend to get clearance for us to fly from Georgia into Russian airspace? There are probably six thousand antiaircraft missiles pointed our way.”
Jarrod didn’t answer but pulled out his global cell phone and hit a speed dial button. A few seconds elapsed before someone answered, and he said, “Sergei, I don’t know what kind of strings you can pull from your former life in the old country, but I need you to pull one very hard.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Armenian-Turkish Border
Three Days Until Options Expiration
Shamil Basayev held onto the door grip as the truck rocked back and forth on the pitted dirt road. The headlights bounced in the darkness, illuminating what Basayev was convinced was little more than a trail.
“How much farther?” he snapped. Lack of sleep always put him in a foul mood.
“Ten kilometers at least,” replied Kasimir Lupkin, his longtime aide and driver. “It is an old smuggling route. Goes back centuries, I’m told.”
Basayev grumbled. “I do not see why we could not simply bribe our way through.”
“It is safer this way. The Turks, I hear, are in a frenzy and have tightened up security everywhere.”
Basayev made a guttural sound. “Is the equipment in the safehouse?”
“For the eighty-seventh time, Shamil, it is there. I am not going to answer that question again.” The older man was an early mentor to the terrorist, and one of the few who could talk back to the Commander in that tone of voice.
They had left Tbilisi and used forged Georgian passports to cross into Armenia without incident. Basayev, with his clean-shaven face, was not recognizable. They did not even have to bribe the guards.
After a respite in a safehouse, they headed toward the Turkish border. Once that was done, they had a long drive in front of them to the safehouse where some electronic equipment was stored.
“Stop the truck,” ordered Basayev.
The whipsawing motion came to halt, and Lupkin asked, “What is it?”
“I am seasick,” replied the Commander, and he opened the door to throw up.
*
Pumping Station No. 2
Russian Province of Stavropol Krai
North of the Chechen Border
The acrid smell of burned oil hung in the air, and small wisps of smoke still rose from the smoldering ruins. Jarrod knelt down and probed the sandy soil with his pen. He hit glass, for the heat had been so intense that it transformed the sand into glass.
Sarah surveyed the carnage. “I wasn’t around for the Dresden firebombings, but it must have been something like this.”
Jarrod shook his head. “This thing is a total loss. Plus, twenty miles of pipeline? I just can’t figure how they managed to do all this. I don’t see any remnants of a blast footprint on the ground, it is like it blew up from within.”
The blackened landscape was punctuated by men in Russian uniform. There were a few wearing windbreakers and others wearing civilian work clothes from Edgerton’s team.
Sarah looked around. When she didn’t see anyone within earshot, she said, “How the hell did you get us clearance to fly here? And that Russian militia commander over there? I thought he was going to prostrate himself on the ground for you.”
“Let’s just put it this way: I know someone who knows someone. I’m just glad Rick didn’t pick up on the fact we’re here under Russian, not American, auspices.”
“Two rogue CIA people using the Russians to dupe a station chief. You won’t find this in the manual.”
“Be that as it may, let’s not push our luck. Let’s get this done and go wheels-up before someone starts connecting the dots and figures out we’re a couple of frauds.”
“I agree, but what are we looking for, exactly?”
“Beats the hell out of me. I just have a hunch we’ll know it when we see it.” He peered off in the distance. “Let’s take a walk.”
They walked out of the pumping station grounds and followed the charred path of where the pipeline had been. A hundred yards on, they spied a rotund figure crouching down. He was wearing a windbreaker that had the letters TEDAC on the back. As they drew closer, they saw he was crouched over a tackle box filled with the implements of his profession.
The figure heard their approach and stood to turn around. He was late middle-aged, with horn-rimmed glasses, thinning curly hair, and a walrus moustache.
Jarrod stuck out his hand. “Jarrod Stryker, from Langley. This is Sarah Kashvilli.”
He shook the offered hands. “Barney Fry from the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, an FBI unit out of Quantico. We go by TEDAC for short. Finding myself on foreign soil quite a bit these days.”
“Find anything of interest?” asked Sarah casually.
“Well, the pumping station was too messy to collect any sample material. All the oil burn and such—sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack. Out here, the burned oil still pollutes the picture pretty bad, but I pulled enough sample to run a field test. Won’t know for certain till we run it through the main lab, but I’m pretty sure.”
“And what’s your view?” asked Jarrod.
“It’s pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN as it’s commonly known.”
“Which is?” asked Sarah.
“Semtex,” replied Barney.
Jarrod looked at the black path going off in the distance. “How on earth could they attach Semtex to twenty miles of pipeline and not be detected?”
“Because they didn’t,” replied Barney.
“What do you mean?�
� asked Sarah.
He pointed at the twisted fragments of the pipeline. “The blast pattern was pretty clear. This was blown from the inside out.”
Jarrod scratched his head. “You mean, the Semtex was inside the pipeline when it blew?”
“Yep.”
“But how would that be possible?” asked Sarah. “For twenty miles?”
The man shrugged. “I have no idea. All I can tell you is what it was and the blast characteristics.”
Jarrod murmured, “Hmm. Now that I think about it, that is consistent with the video that was broadcast. But how would someone string Semtex internally to the pipeline?”
“Dunno. But I think you’re right about the string.”
“How do you mean?”
He pointed. “I took samples at several points along the pipeline. Formal lab work will have to be done, but it appears the concentration of PETN is remarkably uniform along the blast area. That tells me we’re dealing with det cord.”
“Det cord?” asked Sarah. “Detonation cord?”
“Yep. Looks like a rope to the untrained eye. Or a clothesline, depending on the diameter.”
Jarrod stared at the long black path leading off to the horizon, his mind ricocheting a dozen different ways with permutations and combinations. “So somehow they were able to string twenty miles of det cord inside the pipeline.” It was a statement, not a question. And that led his gaze back to the pumping station. “That must explain the attack on the facility.”
Sarah continued, “Because they had to control the pumping station. Somehow, someway, their point of entry to insert the det cord was there.”
Jarrod nodded as he did some math in his head. “But twenty miles of rope or clothesline—Barney, what would something like that weigh?”
Barney shrugged. “Well, they make this stuff as thick as hawsers or thin as a fishing line. So it would depend on the diameter.”
“Based on the concentrations you found here, would we be talking hawser or fishing line?”
“Fishing line. Clearly. And that’s all you would need, really, since the oil is flammable. Just enough to set it off.”
