The Hidden Vector: A Spy Thriller

by Mathew Snyder

  They followed into the western country. The reek of diesel fuel clung to his hands. He steered along a broad river valley checkered with irrigated fields. A mountain ridge covered with deep green firs rose to his left. Each city followed the next like a shrinking pack of nested dolls. Georgia still straddled the old days of lifeless Soviet planning and a modern vitality draped in bright colors and youthful verve. Near the city of Gori, he answered a call.

  “This is Dodger.”

  A delicate voice replied. He could picture Kay Linh talking into her headset from the command desk. “Hourglass requires status.”

  “I’m tracking the asset now. Outside Gori.”

  “Location confirmed. Asset still in transit, tracking … standby … tracking a hundred kilometers from you. Do you have company with you?”

  “Yes. Safe and sound. Any word from Nomad?”

  “Affirmative. Nomad is with friends and reports trouble with an angry local.”

  Ethan blew a sigh of relief. Wade knew how to handle himself, all right. He was safe.

  “You sound tired,” he said. He wondered how long she had been sitting at the desk. If there was someone getting less sleep than him it was Kay. She didn’t like it when he went off script.

  “Station’s hot, Dodger. Local authorities on alert for you two. What happened?”

  “Nomad’s right. Same local trouble gave us a rough morning. Handled with some big help from present company, and now in pursuit. Hostile’s identified as Rezo …”

  Maria chimed in. “Kaladze.”

  “Rezo Kaladze. Probably military background. Tough guy. Need you to chase after anything on Scorpio.”

  “Say again?”

  “He said something about Scorpio. Does that signify anything?”

  “Negative. We’ll review. Think it’s related?”

  “No question. We have two names from asset. Khasan Kagirov and Abdula Islayev. Need IDs on the rest, and I’m hoping the asset will lead the way.”

  “That will make someone we know much easier to be around this morning. Sit tight for updates and keep us close. And Dodger?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Go light.”

  “Will do, Hourglass.”

  With a tick the line to Langley closed. It was good to know Kay kept watch over him, which also meant Corso had his back for now. He’d been reckless, but he needed their support to get through this.

  ◆◆◆

  After six hours of winding down mountain roads and the broad basin to the sea where tea farms and vineyards dotted the land, they hit the coast near Poti. Seda had become a mere point on the map, a dot they chased in slow shifts across the country. The little dot avoided Poti altogether and turned south. Within the hour that dot settled on Batumi.

  They followed down the coastal road, ever southward where cottages and getaways overlooked the highway toward craggy beaches. The late day sun hovered over the Black Sea and cast warm light over the winding scenic roads. The small city of Batumi appeared at the water’s edge, spreading around a small bay where great tankers lazed. They passed into downtown. A few glistening towers and brilliantly decorated churches and hotels harmonized tradition and progress. Palms flanked the roadside and tourists strolled beneath the already glowing streetlamps.

  “It’s a beautiful city in its way,” Maria murmured as they passed through downtown.

  Ethan had barely noticed. Again he checked his phone for Seda’s signal. The dot signaling the tiny transmitter in her canvas bag had halted in place on the far side of town near the shoreline. They drove to a neighborhood of cream-colored cottages separated by stone walls and narrow streets. He spotted a rusting old truck parked in the street near one of the cottages.

  “There it is.”

  He drove past the truck around a winding street and parked well away to hide the Mercedes’ droning wail. It shuddered to a stop, and they exited quietly.

  “We’re a tourist couple out for a walk,” he said.

  He took her hand and felt the warmth and sweat as their fingers intertwined.

  “Let me do the talking,” Maria said.

  She leaned her head against his shoulder.

  At the truck, they slowed while Ethan peered in through the grimy side window. The seat was empty, but he caught sight of Seda’s bag on the truck’s floor.

  “She’s here,” he whispered.

  A small car passed, and Maria gave the driver a friendly wave. When the car rounded the curve, they moved quickly to the cottage gate. Ethan pushed the wrought iron gate wide. Its hinges creaked loudly. They paused. A halo of light snuck out from heavy curtains in the cottage window. From within, Ethan heard voices arguing.

  “You hear that?” he whispered.

  “Shh. I’m listening.”

  Maria crept into the yard and approached the house. Ethan followed her.

  “They’re arguing about someone,” she said. “Something about where a man is.”

  Closer now, Ethan could hear the woman’s voice. It could be Seda. He wasn’t sure. Her voice rose, shouting. She screamed something over and over in a panic. Ethan looked at Maria, puzzled.

  She translated. “Tell me, tell me.” Maria shrugged her shoulders.

  A crash came from inside. Glass shattered. The shouting rose louder and unintelligible.

  “What now?” Maria asked.

  His training told him they should back off and observe. Seda led them to a source, just as he’d hoped. They had a location, and with it maybe phone records and more surveillance. They shouldn’t do this alone. But his instinct sensed that answers lay beyond the porch steps and door. Whoever it was suffering Seda’s wrath knew something. Ethan had to know what.

  “I’m going in. You head back to the car,” he said.

  “Absolutely not. You need me.”

  “You go in there, and you blow your cover.”

  Maria stiffened. Her mouth tensed tight. “I’m going with you.”

  He shook his head. There wasn’t time to debate. He motioned for her to follow and stepped cautiously on the porch stairs. Old slats of wood creaked under foot, and he paused to listen. The screaming continued. Another crash came from within, and now a man’s hoarse voice shouted back. Ethan dashed up the stairs. He placed his hand on the doorknob and drew his pistol from the back of his belt.

  He burst into a cluttered sitting room, his Beretta held tight to his chest, scanning for Seda and the man. The screaming came from the kitchen in back stopped abruptly. They heard him. Ethan raced past a short hallway and came into a crowded kitchen. Seda cowered in a corner sobbing with a long butcher knife in her hand. Across the room near a small table strewn with broken plates and overturned teacups a man stood in shock, his flabby arms raised. His bulbous nose poked out above a thick mustache and overgrown whiskers. He wore a worn and yellowed undershirt.

  Maria barked something in Georgian at the man. In response, he gripped the wooden table and heaved it at Ethan. Plates and teacups flew through the air and crashed to the floor. In the same motion, the man ran out the back door and down a flight of concrete steps.

  Ethan raced after him. The glasses and broken shards popped under his feet as he shoved the table aside to run out the back door. The man ran through a cramped and dim courtyard of houses. He exited a lone iron gate that spilled out into another street at the far end where he turned to the right. The man was older and slow. Ethan knew he could catch him. He ran for the gate in pursuit.

  He passed the gate, and a flash of light overwhelmed his vision then vanished into blind darkness. He stumbled, stunned by a painful blow to his head. The old man hit him again with a long board, this time in his chest. The blow sucked his breath away, and he fell, conscious enough to clutch his pistol tightly.

  He strained to breathe and listened to the man’s footfalls running off into the street. He struggled to stand, too dizzy from the blur in his eyes. The pain set in to his already bruised body. As his vision slowly returned along with his breath, he regained his
feet, unsure how much time he’d wasted on the ground. The man vanished.

  He staggered back to the courtyard. Light filtered in from the curtained rear windows of the other cottages. From one, an older lady stared out at him suspiciously. He clutched the side of his head and stumbled into a garbage can, spilling its contents onto the cobblestones. Potato peels and onion skins spilled out. Egg shells and papers tumbled onto the ground with wadded up envelopes. He stared at the papers that floated around in the courtyard like so many dead leaves. They triggered something in his head.

  He ran back to the cottage’s rear steps and found the garbage heaped high in a metal bin. He tore open dark gray plastic bags and dug through reeking refuse in search of more papers.

  He saw a shadow from above. Maria leaned out the back doorway.

  “What the hell are you doing? What happened?” she asked.

  “He got away. Hit me pretty hard with a board.”

  “The old guy? Are you serious?” she said. She squinted in the dark to see his battered face, then chuckled. “You okay?”

  He held up a small gray object—a cell phone caked in greasy breakfast drippings. It had been stomped upon, the gray face and LCD display cracked into a hundred pieces. It was otherwise intact, and he stripped away the rear cover to remove the SIM card.

  “I am now.”

  Chapter 5: Novel Strain

  Podgoria Traian, Romania

  3:42 p.m., Monday, May 6

  Kamran had no memory of coming to the barren room. An unsettling chill radiated from the cool cellar walls. A single orb of electric light dangled from the ceiling by a stout wire, its glow too weak to reach the corners of the room and the lone cot where he had slept hours earlier. He slumped against the worn brick wall, staring into the shadows across the room.

  He recalled the terror of leaping from the airplane before tumbling into the freezing water. The man called Andrei had cut him loose in the water, and he treaded until his arms ached and his thighs burned. Andrei shoved and kicked him to keep him alert. More than once he thought he would drown. When his strength gave out, Andrei grasped his shirt collar and carried him to keep them both afloat. People in a sleek boat arrived and pulled him aboard. He lay in the bottom of the craft gasping for air like a catch of sturgeon. They skimmed across the sea for hours. He drifted in and out of sleep while staring out the back of the boat at a sliver of moon rising on the horizon.

  He awoke in the room, unaware of the passage of time. He was simply its occupant. They took his gold watch, and he grasped again and again at his wrist, longing for its familiarity. He longed for anything that would wake him from the foggy nightmare. His head pounded. His body ached. They had drugged him. That much was clear to him, but nothing else made sense.

  They left food for him while he slept. He nibbled a piece of boiled and nearly tasteless meat from a solitary metal plate. As he ate, he listened to the sounds of his prison. A steady drip of water hidden behind the brick walls counted the moments. The room stayed dry, but somewhere the water slapped concrete in a constant patter. Overhead, a rush of water filled pipes. A far-off electric motor hummed—a sound he sensed more than heard.

  Two men appeared. Kamran stared at them from the cot, then stood, uncertain and afraid. The first man was tall and lean. He pushed open the metal door and stared at Kamran, his expression colder than the room. His black hair was long and slicked back, and he wore a gray sport coat and pants. He dragged a metal chair behind him, and Kamran saw black tattoos on both hands. His companion was dressed much the same, but he was bald and heavier. His mouth hung open in a snarl that barely concealed his tobacco stained teeth. He carried a coil of rope.

  They were not Russians, though they spoke and sneered like some Russian toughs he had seen. Their accents differed somehow.

  “Sit,” the long-haired man said to him as he dragged the chair into the center of the room. Its legs screeched along the floor. “We have things we want to hear from you.” He spoke strangely, and Kamran strained to understand.

  He sat. The bald man busily tied his arms behind his back. He grunted and breathed behind his ear as he tugged at the knots.

  “We will start with something easy, yes? Who are you called?”

  Kamran turned to look at the man behind him, but the long-haired man struck him with his fist.

  “You are called?” he asked.

  “Kamran Khorasani.”

  “And your job is the one at the Koltsovo? VECTOR?” The word hung on his lips as he pronounced it.

  Kamran paused. The man’s fist struck again, harder. His ear shot out waves of agony at the blow. Another followed, and his lip split. A bead of blood formed, then spilled warmth down his chin.

  “Yes,” he said, panting. He could feel the other man looming behind him.

  “You see? It is easy.”

  The bald man chuckled as the interrogator massaged his knuckles. His fingers danced with the tattoos, and Kamran wondered what the inky words said. He recognized one of the symbols that looked like the letter M with a tail—the sign of Scorpio in the Western zodiac. The man balled his fists and again beat him. He pummeled his face. Twice he pounded his stomach, just below the ribs. Kamran’s lungs betrayed him, and he gasped for air as he had aboard the boat.

  “You have something we need. Where are the samples?”

  He answered with silence. More fists struck him. More pain followed.

  “Do not think that I enjoy this,” the interrogator said.

  Kamran had no doubt that he did enjoy it. That was why he was there, and the very reason his masters employed him.

  The beating continued, but Kamran found each blow somehow less severe as the hurt overtook his body. The taste of blood in his mouth faded away, replaced by an intense ringing in his right ear. He had reached some threshold mingling numbness and pain. The interrogator seemed to tire. Kamran bled, and the man’s hands became bloodied themselves. Whatever secrets they sought from him they would discover soon. That lessened the pain for him some. He would have to say nothing at all, but they would know.

  They beat him like this for several days. He kept time by their daily visits. The men became less careful. They shed their sport coats and arrived in undershirts and casual pants. Kamran found it a small mercy that they only beat him. The idea of knives terrified him. No electric shocks. No burning. They simply beat him with their hands. When the bald man hit him, he grunted. His fists were fatter, but his blows stronger. Kamran felt the force of them like a rupture in his bones. He cried out as they did this, though he could no longer hear himself.

  Kamran withdrew into himself. The beatings seemed suspended in time. He grasped at any thought that raced into his mind and held it. He escaped into his head. He thought of the watch his father had given to him in Paris for his twentieth birthday. He imagined the woman with the dark red hair in Koltsovo. What was her name? He wasn’t sure he ever knew it. He gave her a Persian name. Suri. He imagined her running away with him. He and Suri would go live in the mountains somewhere far away where he could make love to her. He thought of silvery airplanes and a song everyone sang as children and how many steps he climbed every day to his first apartment at the university. He thought of the taste of metal in his mouth that reminded him of his dentist in Mashhad who talked to him about birds while he worked. Wherever his mind wandered, he followed to flee the pain.

  He thought of the journalist who wrote him quaint emails in French and spoke to him sweetly on the phone. But she was another dream in his head, and he now knew he had been lured by her voice here to this terrible place.

  By the fourth day, his interrogators tired quickly. Kamran struggled to glimpse at their bloodshot eyes, wondering if his secret had spread. They asked the same questions again. Their efforts became labored. Sweat stained their white shirts. They ended much sooner this time and left him to suffer, slumped in the chair until he became unconscious. He woke on the cot covered in blood, pained by every move.

  On the fifth day—
or perhaps it was the sixth—no one beat him. No one moved him to lay down. He slouched in the metal chair for hours, and his back muscles ached in pain that matched his face and ribs. He thought he had a fever. The virus within him had outpaced his efforts to contain it. If the beatings didn’t kill him first.

  The door opened, and he knew his secret was revealed. Through swollen eyes he saw people dressed in plastic suits, their faces sheathed in glass, their mouths covered. They said nothing and doused him with lukewarm liquid. It burned his open wounds and washed onto the floor where it pooled. They scrubbed him as they would livestock with long-handled brooms and brushes that poked his skin raw. Then they doused him with a hose and began again. They did this with nervous eyes, speaking only to command one another.

  Satisfied, they prodded him with the brooms to stand and escorted him to another room. White tiles covered the floor, and they parked a new chair over a circular drain in the floor. He sagged in the chair unbound and helpless. To his left was a sink with a deep basin. Against the opposite wall and farther away, cracks of sunlight crept in between the panels of an overhead door. Here the lights dangling from the ceiling were brighter. He sat dripping wet, awaiting the inevitable. Pains shot down his back and legs like barbed wires tugging on his muscles.

  As he dried in the still air of the room, his skin cooled, and he began to shiver. The pain around his swollen eyes tightened, but through the blur he watched a man enter the room alone. The sleeves of his pin striped shirt were rolled up to his elbows. His skin glistened, and atop his head was a shock of thick and curly white hair, neatly brushed. The man paused to look at Kamran. His lips curled, almost amused.

  Without a word, he approached as he pulled on a pair of Latex gloves. He grabbed Kamran’s arm gently, turning it as he tied an elastic band. Kamran watched passively as he did this, wondering at the warmth of the man’s hands on his skin. The man procured a needle and twin vials from his pocket. With a practiced motion, he inserted the needle and Kamran watched as his own blood filled each vial. The man placed the vials within a plastic bag and bandaged Kamran’s arm tightly. He removed the gloves and tossed them on to the tile floor.