by Tom Clancy
Fisher decided Heng deserved to know what was at stake here. “You know about Slipstone?”
“I saw it on news, yes.”
“We think Zhao’s behind that. He got his hands on some nuclear waste from Chernobyl.”
Heng closed his eyes and sighed. “I had a chance to kill him once, you know. I should have.”
“Maybe you’ll get another shot,” Fisher said. “But for now, I need your eyes and ears here. When did you last make contact with your handler?”
“A month, month and a half ago. About that time Zhao cracked down on security and we started moving. Communication was impossible.”
Four to six weeks, Fisher thought. About the time Zhao would have put the Trego and Slipstone operations into motion. The fact that Heng was still incognito here suggested there was more of Zhao’s plan yet to unfold.
“What’s the last thing you did for him?”
“Two weeks ago, I went with two of his bodyguards to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, to meet a man — an Iranian.”
The two men the FBI had in custody from Slipstone had been ultimately bound for Ashgabat.
Connecting dots.
“And? Did you know him? Did you get a name?”
Heng shook his head. “I gave him a package and went over an operation with him — a raid of some kind. All I had was a map. No legend. It’s somewhere along a coastline, but nothing looked familiar to me. I could tell it was some kind of military installation, but that’s it. My guess is that someone else had already given the man the other parts of the operation. As I said—”
“Compartmentilization, I know. Draw it for me.”
Heng drew the map from memory, but with no peripheral features it meant nothing to Fisher.
He continued questioning Heng, going backward and forward through his time with Zhao, but there was little else to glean. Heng’s role had largely been that of a courier.
“I do have something that might be useful,” he said. “In Ashgabat, I met the Iranian at a private home. I know where it is, and I remember a name: Marjani. Ailar Marjani.”
“I’ll look into it. What’s in the room, the one with the vault door?”
“Zhao’s nerve center. Communications, computers, satellite uplinks — he’s got it all.”
“How many in there?”
“Three or four.”
“Is Zhao here?”
“No, but I think he’s coming. I don’t know when.”
Fisher considered his options. Hunker down, wait for Zhao, and either snatch him or kill him? Or take what he had and get out? He chose the latter. Whatever was left to play out in Zhao’s scheme, Fisher knew there was no guarantee the man’s death or disappearance would stop it. Besides, while getting his hands on Zhao might be easy enough, getting off the island alive — with or without him — would be another matter altogether. “You know I can’t take you out,” Fisher said to Heng.
“I know.”
“Lay low and keep you eyes open. Make contact if you can.”
Heng nodded.
“One last question: How do I get into Zhao’s nerve center?”
* * *
Heng’s answer was to take Fisher down the hall to the first door on the left. Fisher picked the lock and they slipped inside. It was a utility room with an air-conditioning unit, a few supply closets filled with sundry items, and an open circular pit in the floor surrounded by a fringe of steel plates secured to the floor by a padlocked chain.
Fisher sent Heng back to his room, then picked the padlock and pried up one of the plates, revealing a two-foot-deep crawl space. Cool air rushed up to meet him; it smelled of earth. Years ago, Heng had explained, when Shek had ordered his pagoda built, the foundation had struck a seasonal water table, so the fallout shelter’s pilings had been raised to compensate for moonsoon flooding. Two months earlier, had Fisher pried back the well’s plates, he would have found a small lake instead of dirt. The pit was a runoff sump for excess water.
Fisher shut off the overhead light, then dropped through the opening and pulled the plate closed behind him.
* * *
With a hum, his NV goggles powered up, revealing an expanse of dirt and concrete pilings. To his right, a pair of eyes flashed red; with a screech, the rat scurried away and disappeared.
He started crawling, angling to his left and counting feet until he was centered under the hallway. He adjusted course and kept crawling. He reached a horizontal steel plate that extended from the floor above to the dirt below. This would be the outer vault door. He crawled around the plate. After another ten feet, he came to a second one, the inner vault door. On the other side of this he saw a dozen squares of blue light cast on the dirt floor.
These lattice floor tiles were backups to the air conditioners, Heng had explained. Zhao’s nerve center ran a lot of electrical equipment, all of which had to be kept cool.
Fisher slowed down now, moving a few inches, then stopping and listening before moving again. After ten feet, he heard a low-level buzz of electricity and hushed voices speaking in Chinese. He powered down his goggles and kept crawling until he could see through a tile.
He found himself looking at the back of a chair and a pair of feet resting on the floor. A computer workstation. He inched to his right until he could see through the next opening. Here he could see the corner of a plasma TV screen. He craned his neck until a station logo came into view: CNN. He moved to the next tile. Mounted on the wall above was what looked like backlighted sheet of Plexiglas. Fisher couldn’t tell its width, but it seemed to extend from the floor to the ceiling.
It was a HUD, or Heads-Up Display, he realized, similar to the one in his own scuba faceplate or in fighter cockpit screens. On it was displayed a lighted map an-noted with grease-pencil markings. The area displayed looked familiar, but it took a moment for him to place it:
Persian Gulf, western coastline of Iran.
47
The upper rim of the sun was just edging over the horizon when Houston’s sail rose from the water fifty yards to his right. A seaman was waiting on deck, ready with a hand up. “Welcome back,” the kid said.
“Good to be back,” Fisher said. He meant it.
It had taken him the remainder of the night to extract himself first from the pagoda, then back through the security cordon surrounding the compound, across the island to the cliff road, and down to the beach, where he’d hidden his scuba gear among the rocks. He was bone tired, but buzzing with excess adrenaline. His mind was spinning, trying to fit together what he’d uncovered on the island.
After a quick towel-off and a change of clothes, he found Collins and Marty Smith in the Control Center. “Was it everything you’d hoped?” Smith said with a grin.
“And so much more,” Fisher replied. “Max, I need you to send the immediate extract signal, then clear the area at best speed.”
“Bad news?” Collins asked.
“I think so. I just don’t know what it is yet.”
* * *
Collins guided the Houston north, then east, skirting the patrol areas of the 093s they’d passed on the way in, then ordered the the OOD to take her deep and increase speed to twenty knots. Two hours later, Collins called Fisher to the Control Center, wished him luck, and sent him topside. A hundred yards off the port beam, the Osprey was hovering over the ocean’s surface. The rear ramp was down, and leaning from it, one hand hooked on a cargo strap, was Redding. He gave Fisher a wave.
Two minutes later, he was sitting at the Osprey’s console staring at Lambert’s face on the monitor. He quickly brought his boss up to speed.
“Kuan-Yin Zhao,” Lambert murmured. “That’s a twist I wasn’t expecting.”
“You and me both. But I know who can make sense of it.”
“Tom Richards. I’ll get him over here. Unless your new friend Heng is lying, the CIA’s been running an op against Zhao. Now: About Ashgabat — give me that name again.”
“Ailar Marjani.”
The monitor went
to split screen; Lambert on the right, Grimsdottir left. “Checking,” she said. “Okay, got him. Ailar Marjani is the former head of the KNB — Turkmenistan’s version of the CIA. He’s got a thick file. Bad guy, this one. Human rights abuses, bribery, weapons trafficking, ties to Hezbollah…”
“Another Iranian link,” Fisher said.
Lambert was silent for a few seconds, thinking. “Okay, I’m going to put Richards’s feet to the fire on Zhao.”
“And tell him he needs to get Heng out; the man’s burnt out. He’s going to slip up.”
“I will. So: You feel up to a little jaunt to Ashgabat?”
“I always feel like a little jaunt to Ashgabat. You get me there, I’ll get Marjani.”
* * *
In truth, Fisher had never been to Ashgabat, and so he had the same stereotypes in mind that most westerners did about the Central Asian republics — that they were backward, remote, dusty, and harsh. And while this was true for the rural areas, Ashgabat was, Fisher realized as his plane banked over the city, a stunning exception.
Nestled in a bowl between the southern edge of the Garagum Desert, which covers ninety percent of the country, and the Köpetdag Mountain Range, a belt of ten-thousand-foot peaks along the Iranian border, Ashgabat is a modern city of five million souls, with clean cobblestone sidewalks and plazas, fountains and monuments, a mix of traditional Islamic architecture and modern building design, and a network of small irrigation canals that feed the city’s lush gardens and parks.
And memorials. Lots and lots of memorials, most of them dedicated to one man: Turkemenistan’s President for Life Atayevich Niyazov, or Serdar Saparmurat Turkmenbashi — the Great Leader of the Turkmens. A former Soviet bureaucrat, Niyazov ruled his country with absolute authority. His visage was everywhere — in murals, on the sides of buses, on coffee mugs and T-shirts, in classrooms and museums, and on statues: Niyazov riding a stallion; Niyazov holding a baby; Niyazov sternly staring at accused criminals; Niyazov attending museum galas and government balls. He had changed the Turkmen alphabet, renamed the months and days of the year, and written the Ruhnama, or Book of the Soul, a practical and spiritual guidebook every Turkmen citizen is required to own.
Along with all the trappings of what was clearly a dictatorship, Fisher knew Niyazov’s iron hand was backed up by a vast network of secret police and intelligence agencies. The sooner he could get to Ailar Marjani and get out of Ashgabat, the better.
This was the kind of place where a man could disappear and never be heard from again.
* * *
Getting here so quickly had taken a lot of time in the air and Lambert’s significant pull.
Ninety minutes after leaving the Zhoushan Archipelago, the Osprey touched down at Kadena Air Force Base, where Fisher was met by a tech sergeant, who drove him to a waiting F-15D Eagle. He was suited up, helped into the rear seat, and given a two-word briefing by the pilot: “Touch nothing.” Five minutes later, the Eagle was airborne and heading southwest.
Exhausted, Fisher was quickly asleep, only waking for the Eagle’s midair refueling with a KC-135 Stratotanker, then again for the landing in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was met by another sergeant, this one of the Army variety, who drove him to a waiting Gulfstream V that Fisher assumed was part of the small fleet of executive jets the CIA maintained.
The flight from Kabul lasted a bare two hours, and now, eight hours after he swam away from Cezi Maji, the Gulfstream’s tires touched down with a squeal on Ashgabat Airport’s runway.
* * *
Fisher didn’t leave the plane, but waited, sprawled in one of the cabin’s reclining seats, as the simulated engine warning light that had put them down here was checked. Night was just falling when the airport’s maintenance supervisor popped his head through the side door and told the pilot no problem had been found. They were cleared to leave.
Once airborne, the pilot radioed the Ashgabat tower and requested permission to circle a few times to ensure the warning light didn’t reappear, then proceeded in a low southeasterly arc away from the airport.
“Eight hundred feet,” the pilot called over the intercom. “Drop in three minutes.”
Fisher was already strapping on his parafoil pack.
* * *
A thousand feet above and four miles from Ashgabat, Fisher jumped out the Gulfstream’s side door. He waited for two beats, then pulled the toggle, heard the whoosh-whump of the parafoil deploying, and was jerked upward.
Ailar Marjani’s retirement was without financial worry, Grimsdottir had reported. The former Turkmen spymaster had built an arabesque mansion eight miles from Ashgabat in the foothills of the Köpetdag.
Fisher followed the flashing waypoint marker on his OPSAT, and touched down in the rolling, grassy hills that lay between the city and the mountains. Even in the darkness, Fisher was struck by the landscape; had he not known better, he might have mistaken it for the western Dakotas or eastern Montana. The night was warm, hovering around seventy degrees, the sky clear and cloudless. A slight breeze swished the grass around his knees.
He donned his gear, took a bearing on the OPSAT, and started jogging.
* * *
After a mile, he topped a hill and stopped. He lay down on his belly and pulled out his binoculars.
Even from a mile away, Marjani’s home was impossible to miss, a sprawling structure of whitewashed rectangles and arches stacked atop one another and nestled at the base of an escarpment. Every window in Marjani’s home blazed with light. Fisher scanned each one but saw no one. Clusters of palms rose from various points on the grounds, each one lit from beneath by an spotlight. Fisher counted two fountains that he could see, each a glistening plume of water.
He kept moving, using the troughs of the hills to make his way to within a quarter mile. He crawled up a hillock and through the grass. At this range, he could see a lone guard standing to the left of the arched driveway entrance. Through the entrance he could see a courtyard of hedges, and at the center, a glowing kidney-shaped pool. The guard wasn’t so much standing as he was vertically reclined against the arch, his AK-47 propped against the wall a few feet away. Fisher wasn’t even sure the man was awake.
He maneuvered to the left, crawling through the grass until he was at an angle, fifty yards from the arch. He pulled the SC-20 from its back holster, zoomed in on the guard, then panned through the arch, looking for more guards. There were none. Same on the infrared side. He refocused on the guard and laid the recticle over the man’s chest.
He squeezed the trigger. The guard spasmed once, then slumped back against the wall and slid down into a pile. Fisher shifted his aim, shot out the ground spotlight, then shifted again and waited for another guard to come investigate the outage. Five minutes passed. No one came.
He holstered the SC-20, then crawled ahead until the entrance arch blocked the mansion’s upper windows, then got up and sprinted the remaining distance. He snatched up the AK-47, tossed it into the high grass, then grabbed the man’s collar and dragged him through the arch. He turned left and stopped behind a shrub.
He heard the crunch of gravel to his right. He turned. A man walked down the driveway and stopped at the arch. An AK was slung over his shoulder. The man looked left, then right, then called, “Ashiq?”
Damnit.
48
Fisher took off his headpiece, laid it aside, then lowered himself onto his haunches, leaned against the wall, and dropped his chin to his chest. He drew his pistol and held it out of sight against his thigh.
“Ashiq?” the man called again.
Fisher let out a pained groan. In the corner of his eye, he saw the man turn. Fisher feebly raised his arm and let it fall.
“Ashiq!”
The man rushed across the driveway. As he drew even with shrubs, Fisher raised the pistol and shot him in the forehead. The man made an umph, then sprawled face-first in the dirt beside Fisher. Fisher grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him deeper into the shadows and laid him next to
the first guard.
Two down.
* * *
He took his time with the rest of the grounds, using the shadows and the landscaping to pick his way around the inner wall, eyes and ears alert for more guards as he periodically scanned the windows for signs of movment.
He found only one other guard, strolling along a topiary-lined gravel path on the east side of the house. Fisher waited for him to pass, then stepped out, clamped a hand over his mouth, and plunged the Sykes into the hollow beside his collarbone. The man stiffened, jerked once, went limp. Fisher dragged him out of sight.
He made his way to the rear of the house and to the glassed-in patio overlooking a second swimming pool. Unlike the floors above, the patio was dark. Save for the gurgling of the pool’s aerators and the distant hum of the air conditioners, all was quiet.
The patio door was made of flimsy aluminum, with a push-button latch that took him fifteen seconds to pick. He slipped inside. A wave of cool air washed over him. He took a moment to breath it in, let it cool his face.
Marjani clearly had a fondness for the color white and shades of white. The walls, leather couches, and carpet were cream, with a few Turkmen art and sculpture pieces scattered around the room. On the far side, a stairway led upward.
Crouched over, he took the steps one at time, until he could see through the black wrought-iron balustrade. Predictably, the room was done mostly in white, with a rough-hewn tile floor inlaid with robin’s-egg-blue mosaics. There was a seating area beneath the windows, through which he could see the driveway arch.
Fisher climbed the rest of steps, then searched the level, finding a gourmet kitchen in stainless steel, a formal dining room, and a bookcase-lined den. He moved to the second floor: a home gym, three guest bedrooms, and a bathroom with a steam shower, sauna, and whirlpool tub.
