by Marc Cameron
“You cannot do this,” Bald Spot whimpered, when Carr finally let up. “You will be arrested.”
Carr hit the man one more time. “Nope,” he said. “Pretty sure I’ve got diplomatic immunity.”
* * *
—
Sean Jolivette had once heard a quote from a Lockheed Skunk Works engineer to SR-71 pilots that a sloppy turn started in Atlanta could put the airplane over Chattanooga by the time it was complete. At speeds of Mach 1.7, the Hornet was roughly half as fast as the venerable Blackbird, but it still required a fair amount of finesse to turn. Jolivette bled off speed as soon as he passed over the warehouse coordinates, slowing to best cornering velocity of three hundred and thirty knots. He tensed the muscles against his thighs and gut in the so-called “hick” maneuver, keeping blood flowing to his brain as he took the Hornet into a 180-degree horizontal turn—pulling nearly 7.5 Gs and eating up a hell of a lot of real estate over the ground. Any more Gs and he risked making the guys in maintenance mad when he broke the airplane.
Pouring on throttle, the strike fighters overflew the warehouse once again. Unaware of how things were going on the ground, all four of them repeated the horizontal turn and pointed their noses toward the presidential residence, dropping even lower this time, to do it all again.
* * *
—
Njaya was apoplectic. “You are attacking us!”
As if by magic, Ryan switched to his calmer, more diplomatic self. “What are you talking about, François? My people are there to help you regain control. If the hostages go free unharmed, we can stand down. All this will be forgiven, though, I must caution, it will not be forgotten.”
“And the money?” Njaya asked.
“Oh, we’ll get that all sorted,” Ryan said. “I’m sure the accounts will be unfrozen as soon as every American is released and your troops pull back from the embassy. You can see to the men who have committed these crimes as you see fit.”
Njaya gulped. “I will make certain the men who now surround your embassy depart at once.”
“That is all I can ask,” Ryan said.
“But what of Mbida?”
“He’ll be given safe passage out of the country.”
There was a long pause on the line. Ryan and the others in the room couldn’t help but smile when it was filled with the booming roar of jets overhead.
“I see,” Njaya stammered. “But Mr. President. This entire incident has cost me politically. I am begging you. Do not send your troops into my country. It would make me appear to be weak.”
Ryan’s voice grew dark again. He spoke clearly and slowly. “You misunderstand the situation, François. I am not going to send in anyone. They are already there, overhead, in your shops, on your highways, behind every building and tree. They are embedded with your rapid response soldiers, whom they have worked alongside against Boko Haram for years.”
More silence.
Ryan got a thumbs-up from Burgess that Mrs. Porter was free and safe.
“Very well,” he said. “If I can be of any further assistance, please let me know.”
He disconnected before Njaya could respond.
* * *
—
Exhausted, Ryan waited in the Situation Room long enough to hear that the Cameroonian troops were pulling back from the embassy. He said good night, knowing the morning alarm was going to come before he knew it, and he made a quick stop by the Oval to grab some papers he wanted to read the next morning before coming in. Standing behind his desk, he stretched, then looked at his watch. He awoke so frequently in different places around the globe that his circadian clock was in constant reset mode. He only paid attention to the time anymore so he wouldn’t inconvenience too many others.
Darren Huang, the Secret Service night-shift supervisor, a kid about Jack Junior’s age, stood outside the door of the Oval Office waiting to walk him to the residence. Ryan motioned for him to step inside.
“What can I do for you, Mr. President?”
“Hey, Darren,” Ryan said. “Still pitching on Saturday?”
Ryan liked to know just a little bit about each of the agents who protected him. Huang was team captain and pitcher on an adult-league baseball team where he lived in Great Falls, Virginia. The agent didn’t have the need to know, but two of the other members of his team were case officers at CIA. One of them happened to be Mary Pat Foley’s nephew. It was the way of things in D.C. You either were a spy or knew someone who was—even if you didn’t know you knew it.
The agent smiled at his boss. “Indeed I am, sir. We’re starting off to a pretty good year.”
“Good to hear,” Ryan said. “I’m going to gather up a few things and hit the head, then I’ll be ready. Would you do me a favor and let Special Agent in Charge Montgomery know that I need to talk to him first thing?”
“Understood, Mr. President,” Huang said. He stepped outside and shut the door behind him, assuming his pantherlike gaze outward, toward any oncoming threat.
Unbeknownst to Ryan, the agent pushed the button at the end of the wire that ran down his sleeve, and then spoke into his lapel mic to CROWN—Secret Service code for the White House command post—letting the Uniform Division desk officer know that SWORDSMAN wanted to speak with the SAIC.
Ryan had time to get rid of his last two cups of coffee and flush the toilet before his personal cell phone rang.
He let it ring while he washed his hands.
“Jack Ryan,” he said, shoving the phone between his ear and shoulder while he dried.
“Good evening, Mr. President.”
Shit, he’d woken up Gary Montgomery when he didn’t need to.
“My fault, Gary. I meant first thing tomorrow.”
“No worries,” the special agent in charge said, stifling a yawn. “I can be right there.”
“No, no, no,” Ryan said. “Please. We can talk about it tomorrow.”
There was silence for a moment. Then: “Your call, sir, but to be honest, if it’s something important, I’d rather get a jump on it.”
Ryan thought about that, nodding to himself. He was the same way. “I have a special assignment I’d like to run by you. It’s a delicate matter, the kind that could end a career. And I have to admit this one is very likely to blow up in both our faces.”
“Put it that way, Mr. President,” Montgomery said, “I’m in one hundred percent.”
“Good,” Ryan said. “I’ll give you a five-minute rundown of what I have in mind, then we can hash out the details when I see you first thing . . . tomorrow.”
33
Erik Dovzhenko did a little shopping at the Dubai airport before he headed over to the relatively run-down Terminal 2 so he could catch his Ariana connection to Kabul. He had just over an hour, enough time to grab a few necessities like ibuprofen, Imodium, and Vicks cough drops. Military logisticians, even the notoriously stoic Russian Army, ensured that their soldiers had access to what the Americans referred to as “bullets, beans, and Band-Aids.” But intelligence officers—especially those on the run—had to provide for themselves. In addition to his meager first-aid supplies, Dovzhenko purchased two stainless-steel one-liter water bottles, a blue baseball cap with no logo—which was surprisingly difficult to find—and a flimsy-looking duffel bag in an earthen brown color. It was supposed to be military grade but had far too many straps and loading points that Dovzhenko would eventually have to cut off as soon as he reached a spot outside airport security where he could get a knife. He still wasn’t hungry, but he bought a couple of Snickers bars, knowing he’d eventually need the energy.
He filled the two bottles from a water fountain and made it to the gate just in time to make his connection. The inexpensive Vostok Amphibia on his wrist couldn’t be hocked to bail him out of a tight spot like the fancy dive watches spies wore in the movies, but it was built like a tank, and was accepta
bly accurate. His diplomatic passport, a pair of sunglasses, two ballpoint pens, and Maryam’s notebook rounded out his entire loadout of gear.
It had always galled him that American currency was so ubiquitous where the ruble was not. But one did what was necessary, and he customarily carried two thousand U.S. dollars divided between his belt and the lining of his leather jacket. He’d change some of it into the local Afghani currency when he arrived at Kabul, but American twenty-dollar bills would speak with a much louder voice.
A young woman with black bangs peeking from beneath a blue hijab greeted him as he boarded. He stowed the duffel in the overhead, keeping the notebook with him, and wedged himself into his impossibly narrow seat. Fortunately, the plane was only about a third full, so everyone had an entire row to themselves. The greasy smell of lamb warming in the galley oven made him wish he’d taken some of the Imodium. He settled himself in as best he could, put on the sunglasses, and pulled the ball cap down low. Exhaustion overtook him, and he was asleep before the landing gear came up—dreaming of Maryam’s face, ghostly pale, one eye open even in death, as if to be certain he’d made it to safety.
34
The Afghan customs official at the Kabul airport was a stumpy, heavyset man who looked as if he could not quite commit to growing a beard. He eyed Dovzhenko’s diplomatic passport suspiciously, then shunted him off to a supervisor. The second man did not appear to like Russians any more than the first, but waved him into the country nonetheless. The airport was small and the layover was quick, just long enough for Dovzhenko’s clothing to soak up the odor of dust and burning garbage that would accompany him for the rest of his time in Afghanistan. He exchanged two hundred U.S. dollars for just under fifteen thousand afghanis—about a third of a month’s pay for the average Afghan man. Half an hour later, he was in the air again, flying over mountains that were the same color as his new duffel.
There was one attendant on the Ariana flight to Herat. Unlike the young woman out of Dubai, this one kept her bangs tucked neatly inside her blue hijab.
* * *
—
Anguish and fatigue consumed a great many calories, and Dovzhenko was feeling unsteady on his feet by the time he landed in Herat. Pilots in Afghanistan had gotten used to rapid corkscrew descents to keep from getting shot. Even now, when the danger was minimal around Herat Province, landings were white-knuckle, ear-popping affairs.
The warm naan bread and spiced lamb wraps from the stall outside the terminal caused him to salivate, but he opted for one of his candy bars instead. It was a little too early to be breaking into the Imodium. The sugar seemed to go straight to his cells and, though he felt no happier, he could at least walk in a straight line without looking as though he might keel over. He used the renewed energy to scan the outer terminal for danger.
Dovzhenko had spent enough time in dangerous places to know the threats in this place would come from every direction. Former enemies might act like friends one moment and then revert to old habits if some unanswered insult popped into their minds. A clear head was essential to survival now. There could be no more losing himself to his grief.
His mother had often told him the Tolstoy story about a peasant who went to steal cucumbers from his neighbor’s farm. This cucumber thief became so engrossed in thoughts of becoming wealthy from planting the seeds of the stolen loot that he began to daydream others were stealing from him—and absentmindedly shouted to his imaginary guards, “Keep an eye out for thieves!” alerting the real guards. It was his mother’s favorite story, and she told it every time she thought Dovzhenko had his head in the clouds. A spy, she said, could not afford to daydream.
In Afghanistan, she was surely right.
Herat was one of the safer cities in the country, which was to say that one might expect to get blown to pieces by an unexploded cluster bomb or be murdered by common criminals instead of having your body torn apart by a blast from a suicide bomber—though that was always a possibility as well. The Taliban generally kept their business to other parts of the country. Around here that was the south, in the scrub-filled wadis below Shindand and to the east where they smuggled opium across the border with Iran. At least that’s where they’d been when it had been his job to provide them with Russian Kalashnikovs and F1 hand grenades.
Dovzhenko’s taxi driver was somewhere in his early thirties, with the look of a man who had once been muscular and fit but was now muscular and fat. He spoke of politics, the way everyone in Afghanistan talked about such things after half a century of occupation and war. The ride into Herat would have cost around eight U.S. dollars. Dovzhenko offered the man twenty to take him through the city itself and then another five kilometers east through fields of saffron crocus and pistachio trees to the dusty village of Jebrael. The driver kept to the back roads rather than the highway, admitting that the headquarters for his old unit of the Afghan National Army was along the highway. Dovzhenko didn’t ask about the bad blood, but it was enough to make the driver spit on the floor when he mentioned the 4th Armored Brigade.
The driver was familiar with the address for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and, though he appeared to have almost as much bad blood for Russians as he did for his former employer, he took Dovzhenko to the dusty yellow building on the edge of town. The wind was blowing steadily by the time they arrived, sandblasting Dovzhenko’s skin and nearly ripping the money out of his hand as he stepped out of the vehicle. The driver snatched away the twenty and headed back the way he’d come without another word.
In front of the building, a boy of twelve or thirteen wearing shalwar kameez, the loose, pajamalike pants and long shirt ubiquitous in Afghanistan, leaned against the wall with his little sister under the swinging wood UNODC sign. They squinted at the new foreigner in the stiff wind. A moment later, a woman in a black chador came out the door and said something to the children. She shooed them past Dovzhenko, her head down. The little girl looked up at him with green eyes and smiled.
Dovzhenko shouldered his duffel and walked inside. The wooden desk in the sparse front room was clean and neat, with a single manila folder in the center. A cup of tea sat on a clay coaster beside it, half full, as if someone had just walked away. A rotating rack full of pamphlets about farming and drug addiction was the only other furniture.
The wind blew the door shut behind him with a loud crack, causing him to drop the duffel and spin instinctively. He released a pent-up sigh, cursing this awful wind.
The sound of a man’s voice carried in from somewhere in the back, gruff and confrontational. Dovzhenko opened his mouth to call out, but thought better of it. More voices, angrier now, then the muffled cry of a woman, and the clatter of furniture.
Hackles up, Dovzhenko stepped past the desk and down a dark hallway. His hand went instinctively for the Makarov, reaching inside his jacket pocket before he remembered the pistol wasn’t there. Rounding the corner into a concrete storage room, he found two men leaning over the figure of a woman. The men blocked Dovzhenko’s view, but he could see a dark blue headscarf. One of the men shoved her against some metal shelving, earning himself a slap to his ear. The other cuffed her hard in the neck, earning himself a kick to the groin.
Dovzhenko gave a shrill whistle, advancing in two bounding steps, and head-butting the nearest man in the nose the moment he turned. A second man, with a thick beard dyed gaudily red, swung at him wildly, a massive fist whirring by the Russian’s temple, missing by a fraction of an inch. Dovzhenko gave the man he’d just head-butted a donkey kick to the side of the knee, buying himself a little time. He used the momentum of a spin to plant an elbow across Redbeard’s face. The big Afghan fell flat on his back. Dovzhenko kicked him hard, once in the neck and once in the side of the head. Redbeard was out, but his partner was still upright. He hobbled on one leg, spraying bloody mist out the gash of burst skin on the bridge of his nose with each exhaled breath. His chin was up, attempting to stanch the f
low. Dovzhenko punched him hard in the throat and then caught him by the face with an open palm, driving up and over, slamming him to the concrete floor. The Afghan’s eyes rolled, showing their whites. The spray of blood from his nose slowed to gurgling bubbles. Both men were surely concussed, they might even have cracked skulls, but Dovzhenko did not care. Enraged from the fight, he grabbed the man by the ears, bashing his head against the floor over and over and over. These men had attacked Maryam . . .
Dovzhenko shook his head. No, that wasn’t right. Ysabel. They’d attacked Ysabel.
He turned to check on her at the same moment a dark blur flew at him. Something heavy hit hard in his chest, driving him backward. Hands in front to ward off another attack, he looked down to see a dagger sticking straight out from his leather jacket.
Screeching like she was insane, Ysabel dropped to the ground, sweeping sideways with powerful legs. Dovzhenko fell, landing beside Redbeard, wondering why the dagger blade didn’t hurt more than it did. He yanked it out as he rolled, attempting to evade the woman’s lashing feet that seemed bent on caving in his skull.
Dovzhenko had been kicked before by people who knew very well how to kick. Instead of rolling away, he rolled toward her, trapping the lead foot as it plowed into him. He kept rolling, leverage from the weight of his body slamming her backward. She hit the ground with a sickening thud. She tried to scream but managed nothing but a croak.
It was only then, her diaphragm too paralyzed to draw a breath, that she remained still long enough for Dovzhenko to get a good look at her.
Long black hair spilled from a blue hijab. Ebony eyes stared up at him over prominent cheekbones. Her nose wasn’t too large, though she probably thought it so, and it had a slight hook to it. The most remarkable feature about her was the scars. With the scarf pulled away he could see many on the bronze skin of her neck. They were not ugly, far from it. A fine white line to the right of a perfect cupid’s bow gave her lips a perpetual pout. The rest simply added to the smoldering intensity of her demeanor.
