Davit opened the second door to reveal a barren interrogation room. A small table and two chairs on either side occupied the room. Overhead, a haze of fluorescent light chased the shadows from the painted brick walls and corners. There was nowhere to go within the almost perfect cube of a room. Only cold light occupied the windowless room lorded over by a black camera bolted into the far wall.
“Wait here please,” Davit said, gesturing. He continued down the hall.
Maria took a seat facing the door, which Ethan left ajar. He pulled one of the metal chairs away from the table, leaving a lone chair for Seda. The chair legs screeched along the tile floor as he dragged it to a corner. He circled the table and leaned against the far wall with his arms crossed.
She spoke to him as they waited, her head still facing the door. “You know yesterday morning? When you said it always means something? It did to me.”
“This isn’t the time,” he said.
The camera hung above his head, spectating.
She turned her head slightly, and he saw her profile, the crease of her eyes straining at him, her angled chin and cheekbones. She bit her lip.
“I just wanted you to know.”
She needs to keep it together. She expected the worst. He didn’t know what would happen in the next hour, but the last thing he needed was an anxious partner. He spent the last two days trying to make sense of her. She saved his life and then came on to him. He had convinced himself she needed him. She was the first woman since Sarah that interested him. He now knew her protean personality was her great asset, not her brassy reputation. He found it alluring. In her he had something to discover, and that excited him. But he needed her to be bold. For Davit’s sake and Seda’s. For his own.
They waited a long while until footfalls sounded down the hallway and the door opened. There stood Seda. Davit had cuffed her hands, and she held them at her waist. The skin at her wrists was still raw and red, and Ethan recalled his own handiwork tying her to the bed in Telavi. She had changed since then. Her once sleek hair fell in tangles around her head and face. The bold color drained from her lips, and dark circles swelled under her nervous eyes. She wore the same clothes he had found her in—black pants and a plain tan shirt. Her scarf was gone, as was any trace of her perfume. She was a woman defeated and exhausted, but otherwise apparently unharmed.
Maria motioned to the chair. “Please sit,” she said.
With her head bowed, Seda eyed Ethan at the back of the room. She crept toward the chair and sat.
“Let’s get those off her, huh?” Ethan said, pointing to the cuffs. “She’s not going anywhere.”
Davit stretched a key from a cord latched to his belt loop and unlocked the cuffs from Seda’s outstretched wrists. He tucked them in his coat pocket and stood at the door behind her.
“I’m sure you’re tired,” Maria said. “We have just a few more questions for you.”
Seda sat motionless. Her eyes shifted back and forth between her new interrogators. If she was even slightly relieved to see familiar faces, she showed no sign of it. Ethan unfolded his arms and took a seat.
“Hello, Seda.” He smiled, but she remained unfazed. “Actually, I have just one question for you. Do you think that you are safe here?”
Beside him, Maria grunted disapprovingly. But he was fixed on Seda’s reaction, pleased to see her throat move and her eyes narrow as her brow creased. She didn’t expect this, he could see. Behind her, Davit sneered and shifted his stance. Ethan ignored him.
“Because I think you know better than that. Wouldn’t you say? Not from a loyal man like Davit here. No, if he were with your friends you wouldn’t be talking with us now. Isn’t that right?”
Davit interrupted. “Mr. Pierce, may I speak with you outside?”
Ethan waved him away.
“I think we understand each other, don’t you? We know how to make a deal, right?” Again he smiled at her gently, but she recoiled.
She broke her silence. “What do you want?”
“How about I tell you a story, and you tell me how it ends? That’s what I want. It starts with a Chechen woman who proves to the men she’s better than them. Jamila. She makes a name for herself taking up her father’s smuggling network. And this makes her very different from the other women. She has money. And she doesn’t have to care what everyone else thinks. She likes this. One day, she agrees to do something. To help some friends of friends over the border. Some dangerous friends, but they promise more money. How am I doing so far?”
“Brother. Not father,” she said with a hint of spite.
“Okay, her brother’s business. But these dangerous friends of hers—maybe friends of her brother—bring along a stranger. Not a good Muslim. Someone else. Someone interesting. Someone a little more like her. And he makes many promises. He makes her feel very good. And she does what this man needs. He has even more money. He takes her to the ocean.”
Seda’s eyes filled with tears. Her chin trembled. “How do you know this?”
Ethan stood and leaned over the table, his face near hers.
“Because I am very good at paying attention. Now, you tell me the end of the story. Tell me about Scorpio.”
Seda buried her face in her hands and sobbed. A long moan from her throat filled the room, and everyone began talking at once. Davit pleaded intently with Ethan to discuss things in the hall. Maria yelled at Seda to calm herself and answer her questions. Ethan argued with Davit while he stole a glance at his watch. Thirty-two minutes had passed since they arrived.
A fist pounded on the door. The frosted glass at the door filled with a shadow. Again the fist pounded, and a voice shouted in frantic Georgian. Davit turned and opened the door. A haze of gray smoke hung in the hallway. It seeped in the room, thickening as it snaked its way into the interrogation. Davit raised his sleeve to cough.
The man shouted ceaselessly. Ethan didn’t need the words to know they feared a fire and discussed the evacuation of the prisoners. Wade had done his part, right on time. Now he and Maria had to make their move. Maria stood in front of him and he sensed the tension in her body ready to act. The other officer moved on down the hall, shouting as he jogged.
A piercing screech filled the hallway and with it a light strobed within the smoke like lightning. Within the brick room, the wailing sound seemed to penetrate his skull. Davit covered his ears with his hands and turned to give them all directions. Now is our chance, Ethan thought.
As though on cue Seda leapt from her chair and thrust her shoulder into Davit. She let out a scream as she drove him into the wall. He grunted, stunned by her ferocity. Maria rounded the table shouting in Georgian and rushed to the struggling pair, feigning help for Davit. She gave Ethan a look, and he understood. He reached up and hung both hands on the camera above him, then pulled down with all of his weight. The casing snapped, and the camera pointed at the floor below.
Davit drove his elbows onto Seda’s back. Her screams continued, drowned out by the screeching alarm. Maria wrestled with them both, doing what she could to interfere with Davit’s defense. She reached into his belt fumbling for his weapon but found an empty holster on his right hip. Davit shoved her off and raised his arms again to strike Seda’s back.
Seda slipped away from them. She raised her arm, and at the end of her trembling hand was Davit’s Makarov pistol pointed clumsily at his face. He raised his arms and turned ashen. She turned the gun to Maria and backed away two steps.
“Seda, don’t!” Ethan shouted from the back of the room over the wail of the alarm. “I will get you out of here. You know you aren’t safe here.”
She shook her head, shifting the weapon between Maria and Davit. The pair stood still, panting for air with their hands up.
“Seda, that’s why we came. Her and me. To get you out. Scorpio wants you dead, right? Do you hear me? I want you alive. We want you alive. You shoot them, you don’t get out alive.”
She hesitated.
“Seda, we have to go
now. Now or you never get out.”
Her face tightened and she screamed. Tears rushed down her cheeks. She looked at Ethan, and he saw the desperation in her eyes. She heard him. He approached her one step at a time with his hands outstretched. She kept the gun trained on Davit. Ethan reached her and placed his hands on her arm, helping her to lower the weapon. She held it tightly in both hands pointed at the floor.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Davit said.
“What I should have done two days ago. Put your hands on the table,” he said.
Davit obeyed as he cursed in Georgian. Ethan took the fob of keys from his belt loop. He peeked into the hallway and motioned to both women. The smoke thickened, and he could barely make out silhouettes running to the end of the hall.
“I’m taking her,” Maria said. “You take care of him.”
“I think there’s a stairway at the corridor on the left,” he said. “Go to the lowest level and find an east exit. If you can’t find that, get out of one of the loading docks and run like hell.”
Maria grabbed Seda’s shoulder and pulled her into the hall. Ethan watched the women run into the smoke and vanish around the corner. They’ll make it, he thought. They had to.
In the room, he pushed Davit into the chair Seda had just vacated.
“Sit down,” he said. He found the handcuffs in his coat pocket and cuffed him to the chair. “Don’t look so alarmed. It’s just smoke. A distraction so we can get her out.”
He patted Davit’s shoulder and received an angry scowl. He left Davit in the room and locked the door. Smoke choked the hallway, and he ducked to avoid it and ran down the left corridor. Maria and Seda had closed the doors behind them. He fumbled with Davit’s keychain to open the door.
He heard a shot. The noise rose up from the stairway behind the door. His fingers faltered and he tried to jam another key in the lock. Another crack sounded. A third. His pulse quickened and he pounded on the door in frustration. Another key opened the door, and he leaped down the stairs. No reports sounded from below. Nothing at all. At the ground level he heard commotion in the halls beyond, but he descended deeper.
He entered a shadowy cellar hallway. The lower level had no fire alarms, and the screech sounded far off through the concrete walls like a muted insect. Ahead the hallway split, and he walked pressed against the left wall with nowhere else to find cover. At the intersection he could hear it. From the east hallway came the pitiful sound of labored breathing and a whimpering breath in rapid rhythm.
He peeked around the corner and saw her. She lay on the floor, her chest heaving. He ran to Seda and fell on his knees. Her lips quivered as a bubble of blood formed. She still clutched the Makarov in her hand. Blood drowned her tan shirt, but he could see three exit wounds in her chest. She never fired a shot.
Maria did this. She was already gone.
Seda looked up at him, suddenly aware of his face. Her hand reached up and he took it.
“Seda, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I …” his voice trailed off. Her eyes turned to glass as tears fell down her temples. “I need to know,” he said. “I need to find him. Who is the man on the plane?”
She gasped.
“Who is he?” Ethan shouted.
Her voice croaked and she tried to speak into his ear. He pressed close.
“Andrei,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Scorpio.”
She died staring up at the plaster ceiling, unable to see the sky.
Part II
The Scorpio Compact
Chapter 9: Sleeper Element
McLean, Virginia
4:14 p.m., Monday, May 26
Paul entered Director Drummond’s seventh floor office. He had visited the room many times since his arrival years ago in the National Clandestine Service. The room itself bespoke the power of the position. Since 9/11 it had become a conduit to the White House and a medium for the ambitious. The drudgery of government bureaucracy dissolved here, giving way to wood paneled walls darkened with age that warmed in the light from brass sconces.
In his first visit to the room years ago, his chest tightened, and his stomach turned. Three directors and thirteen years had eased him of the condition, but it lurked like a secret knot in his chest. He knew his purpose here. It was like entering a new assignment where he had to master another dialect. He expected a dozen or more of his colleagues talking rapidly over one another, speaking the increasingly familiar language of power and position. Instead, a few somber faces greeted him. His superiors sat around the director’s conference table, their mouths flat.
“Am I late?” he said.
“Not at all, Paul,” Drummond answered. “Grab a seat.”
He scanned the familiar faces. Harley Gilchrist, Drummond’s deputy sat at his left. The man was inseparable from his more polished boss and for good reason. His Southern charm distracted some from recognizing the CIA’s shrewdest mind. Suzanne, his own boss sat opposite them both. She sat upright in her usual practiced posture, her hair still coiffed at the end of a long day. Something more strained than normal lurked in her face as she ignored his glance.
He paused for a moment at the next face that appeared like an old photograph at the edge of his memory. He hadn’t seen the man in person in over a decade. Beneath the grayer hair and behind the rounded jowls he recognized Alan Sanger, recently the Station Chief of Georgia. In a sure sign of displeasure, Drummond gave Alan a lateral move to oversee a team of Russia analysts. He approached the nearest chair and extended a hand.
“Alan. Been a long time,” he said.
Alan gave his hand a curt shake. “Paul.”
He took a padded leather chair and rolled himself to the table. “What have I missed?” he said. He had several guesses about that already.
“We’re discussing the fallout from Georgia,” Drummond said. “And I need you to clarify a few things I have concerns about. Pierce’s report for a start. This supplements his previous update on the capture of the asset. But it comes several days after the incident.”
“The Georgians detained Pierce for five days. Thanks to Alan, they released him on condition he leave the country,” Paul said. He gave Alan a nod, who reciprocated with an icy stare.
Harley shifted in his chair. “We all know what happened. I think what the Director is getting at is that there isn’t one lick about you or anyone else giving Pierce the go ahead to run her out from under GIS’ nose. You didn’t give the go ahead for this?”
He let the silence fill the room for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “There was no operation to approve, sir.”
“Had a feeling you’d say something like that,” Harley said. “I expect it’s true as far as it goes, but it’s too clever by half. So, you didn’t know anything about it? What about you, Suzanne?”
She propped back her shoulders and scowled. “I knew absolutely nothing about it, Harley.”
“Look,” Paul said. “Do we give our officers latitude to operate, or don’t we? Ethan Pierce is one of our best targeting officers, and he acted as he should have given the circumstances.”
“Oh, come on,” Alan said. His frustration seethed as he raised his voice.
“With respect, Alan, he did. Pierce had every reason to believe the asset was in danger. He believed—he still believes—there was someone inside GIS trying to eliminate her. I think that’s the larger point here.”
“Well, they sure as hell didn’t do anything to her once they had her in custody,” Alan said.
“Yes, and now we know who the real threat was,” he said coolly.
Alan’s jaw clenched. Paul felt a twinge of pity for him. He had clearly suffered a recent momentous lecture, though the move spared him professional embarrassment. Alan wasn’t blameless, it was true. He missed much playing the long game, too focused on the Russians. Maria Hessler’s betrayal blindsided him. Paul wondered how he would perform in Alan’s situation. Better, he hoped, but he didn’t envy the man.
“Wait,” said Drum
mond. “You said just now he still believes there’s, what? An extant sleeper element in GIS? That is not in this report.” He planted his index finger on the report with intense pressure.
“No sir, it isn’t.”
“Well I don’t give a good god damn what Pierce believes he knows. I don’t recall him or you explaining to the Georgian ambassador why an American officer shot one of his prisoners dead in a government facility. Or who the hell shoved a bunch of smoke grenades down their facility’s ventilation system. A facility we went through great lengths to help them establish. Do you have any idea how much we need their cooperation?”
“I have a very good idea, sir,” he answered.
“And your cowboys pull a bullshit stunt like this. What do you have to show for it? A diplomatic mess I don’t have time for, for one. And a targeting officer who believes he’s on to something.”
“He is.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said he is. On to something. Sir.”
“This better be good, Paul. This better be gold plated fucking sermon on the mount hot shit on a platter good.”
The knot at his sternum loosened a bit, and he bit the inside of his cheek. He expected a lecture to match Alan’s, and he was a little puzzled it had taken several days to receive it. After dozens of visits, he didn’t predict that Drummond—easily the smoothest, most personable director he’d worked under—had such a colorful temper. If he made it through the next five minutes, he’d have a greater appreciation for the man.
“We are looking at a larger network here. A new non-state actor. In this case, we believe there are at least two separate cells, possibly three. First, there’s the group who hijacked flight AC 163. Next, this GIS officer Rezo Kaladze goes rogue. Then Maria Hessler kills Seda Alaskhanova.”
Suzanne interrupted him. “But if Hessler killed Kaladze, then clearly they knew nothing about each other. We don’t even know with certainty if they are connected.”
The Hidden Vector: A Spy Thriller Page 11