The Ghost War

by Alex Berenson

  “Flood at home?” she asked him. He looked blankly at her. She decided not to explain.

  “Check this out.” Shafer pointed at his computer, its browser set to a page from eBay. “A Dartmouth yearbook, Wells’s year. It’s being advertised as having a picture of ‘The Real John Wells.’ A headshot.”

  Exley looked, then looked again to be sure. “Someone’s bidding eight hundred dollars? For a yearbook? Got to be a joke.”

  “You should take some candids.”

  “Funny,” Exley said.

  “Where is your better half, by the way?”

  “He was up late riding. As you know.”

  “Someone needs to steal that bike.” Shafer closed the laptop. “How is our problem child?”

  “Please don’t call him that.” Shafer was infuriating, but she trusted him more than anyone else at the agency, including Wells. She sat beside the window, which was coated with a layer of Teflon that damped the vibrations of the glass, making eavesdropping from outside impossible.

  “It’s easier for me,” she said. “I still have David and Jess to take care of. I have my friends. He doesn’t have friends, Ellis. The people he knows die at an unusually high rate.”

  “He ought to stop killing them.” Shafer vigorously rubbed his nose. She looked away in case he decided to poke a pinky inside, as she’d caught him doing over the years. “He could write a book. A memoir. At least it would give him something to do.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “A memoir? ‘How I got shot saving the world.’ By John Wells. Then he could go on Oprahand talk about it. Jump on her couch.”

  “Good. Let him quit, then. He wants to be someplace nobody cares who he is, let him run an orphanage in Africa. You too. The agency’ll make sure you never have to worry about money. Duto will write the check himself just to be rid of you.”

  She had considered something similar herself. And yet she couldn’t imagine it working, not now. “I don’t think he’s ready for that.” She paused, trying to find the words. “Ellis, nobody else in the world could have stopped Khadri.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I do. And you do too. Without him Manhattan would be a toxic waste dump. Nobody’s paying for your college yearbook. Or mine.”

  “I wish you were my girlfriend,” Shafer said. “You’re good for the ego. Saving a few kids in Africa would be a waste of his talents, you’re saying.”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t agree.”

  “I agree he’s earned the right to do what makes him happy. You too. If the two of you can figure out what on God’s green earth that might be.”

  “It’s not just that. I think he has posttraumatic stress disorder. He doesn’t sleep. Sometimes he’s not there at all. I wake up in the morning, he’s on my laptop, playing solitaire, like he’s been there all night.”

  “It would be the least surprising thing in the world if he had PTSD. Have you ever talked to him about what it was like over there?”

  Exley felt her eyes well up. She turned away so Shafer couldn’t see. She’d failed. By failing to challenge Wells, she’d failed him. “He needs an op, Ellis. We need to get him an op.”

  “Killing more guys isn’t gonna get him over PTSD.”

  “It’ll get him off that damned bike. If he’s going to take these chances, let it be for a good cause.”

  “You think what we do is for a good cause?”

  “Please stop proving how smart you are, Ellis.” She was tired of this conversation. “There’s something else I wanted to ask you about. Unrelated. I think.” She walked out.

  IN A FEW MINUTES she was back, carrying a sheaf of papers from her safe.

  “After-action reports from Afghanistan, ours and the Army‘s, raw field files. The Pentagon didn’t want to send them, but I gave them my clearance and told them they didn’t have a choice.”

  “Membership has its privileges,” Shafer said. Exley handed Shafer some papers. “This is a summary of reports from SF units”—Special Forces. “Basically, the Taliban tactics are steadily improving. Their body counts are down, ours are up.”

  “So we took out the dumb ones.”

  “It’s more than that. This report mentions ‘company-level coordination typically seen among professionally trained armies.’ And this one.” She opened another file. “‘Enemy command-and-control has improved.... A combination of suppressing fire and point-to-point movement not seen before.’ It’s all over the place.”

  “Fine. The Talibs are learning how to fight. Good for them, bad for us. So?”

  Exley pulled out another report. “Two months ago, in Kandahar”—the city in southern Afghanistan where the Taliban had been headquartered—“a Colonel Hamar in the Afghan army tells us that the Taliban are getting ‘professional training’—his words—from ‘foreign fighters.’”

  “The only foreign fighters in Afghanistan are bin Laden’s boys. They’re hardly professionals. Unless you think blowing yourself to bits is a hallmark of professionalism.”

  “Let me finish, Ellis. By the way, the good lieutenant colonel died shortly after passing this rumor along.”

  “I’m going to guess it wasn’t natural causes.”

  “Throat cut in half.”

  “In Kandahar that’s practically natural.”

  Exley passed Shafer a photograph of a blood-drenched corpse rolled up in a rug. “His body was left in front of the local police HQ.”

  “I guess that’s what’s known as sending a message.”

  “Anyway. So the Special Forces say the Talibs are fighting better. Kandahar reports foreign fighters. Then this from the Tenth Mountain Division.” She handed him another file.

  “More foreign fighters?”

  “In eastern Afghanistan near the Pak border.”

  “Nowhere near Kandahar,” Shafer said.

  “I looked for more reports from the Tenth Mountain, but there weren’t any. They just rotated in. So I checked back to the old reports from the 101st.” The 101st Airborne Division.

  “More foreigners.”

  “Gold star, Ellis. Two reports. But no one linked them to the new ones. You know once a division leaves, its intel goes with it. These were also in eastern Afghanistan.”

  “Okay. I’ll play.” Shafer began to read again, not skimming this time. Exley waited. One of Shafer’s strengths was his willingness to reconsider his preconceptions when he got new evidence. She wished more people at the agency—and across the river in the White House—shared that trait.

  Finally Shafer looked up. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? The Taliban is getting outside help? Some foreign power is sending its own soldiers to give the Talibs tactical support?”

  “I seem to remember we did something similar.” During the 1980s, America had aided Afghan guerrillas against the Soviet Army. Some of those same guerrillas had now turned against the United States.

  “Supporting the Talibs would be an act of war against the United States. All of NATO too.”

  “Proxy war.”

  “Let’s say you’re right. Who’s doing it? The Russians would never help the Talibs. No matter how badly they wanted to hurt us. They haven’t forgotten they lost a hundred thousand soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.”

  “Someone else, then.”

  “Who? Nobody in NATO. They’re on our side. Iran and Pakistan would hardly count as foreign. North Korea? China? Anyone say anything about Asians?”

  “No. The fighters are specifically identified as white. Mercenaries maybe?”

  “Maybe. But it’s a seller’s market these days for mercenaries.”

  Shafer was right, Exley knew. Former Special Forces soldiers could make $5,000 a week providing security in Iraq. South African and Russian soldiers made less, but even so they could take home $10,000 a month. They would want even more money to help the Taliban against the United States. Not for moral reasons either. Simply because of the risk.

  “The Talibs couldn’t afford these
guys,” Shafer said. “Who would pay them?”

  “I think it’s time to find out.” She handed him the last report in her file. “Also from the Tenth Mountain Division. Two days ago. A fairly big camp in eastern Afghanistan, at least fifty Talibs. And several white fighters.”

  “And they’re going after it?”

  “Not at the moment. They have other priorities. And it’s in a very difficult location. Way up in the mountains. I think we should get a satellite up to take a look at it.”

  “Sounds reasonable. And then?”

  “I don’t know. Depends on what we see. Maybe we can convince the SF to go after it.”

  “Okay. Talk to Greg Levine at NSA.” Shafer scribbled a number for her and handed back the files. “If he gives you any lip, tell him to call me. And Jennifer—do you want me to say anything to John?”

  She walked out without answering. Let somebody else deal with Wells for once.

  THREE HOURS LATER, Exley walked into Shafer’s office at Langley. Wells was already there. A nice surprise. She’d called and asked him to show up, but she hadn’t been sure he would.

  “We got them already?” Shafer said. “This must be a record.”

  “Levine said they had a satellite right there and it would be no problem as long as I had a cost center for him,” Exley said. “I told him to put it on your tab.” As part of the government’s internal accounting procedures, the National Security Agency dunned the CIA whenever Langley asked for photographs that required the NSA to alter the orbit of its satellites. The agencies had teams of auditors to squabble over the accounts, though in the end the American tax-payer footed the bill for everything. The system was either a necessary check on spending or a cosmic joke, depending on who was explaining it.

  “There it is. Your tax dollars at work.” Shafer clicked on a folder on the workstation in the corner, which was linked to a fiber-optic network that transferred encrypted images between Langley, the Pentagon, and NSA headquarters. The agency refused to extend the network to the offices at Tysons Corner, so they had to come to Langley to see photographs like these.

  The folder popped open, revealing dozens of graphical files. Shafer clicked one and turned to the fifty-inch flat-panel screen that hung on one wall of his office. But the screen stayed dark.

  “Wow, the Eiffel Tower,” Exley said.

  “No, it’s the rain forest,” Wells said. He was lounging on the couch, his long legs stretched on Shafer’s coffee table. He showed no ill effects from his ride the night before. Exley noticed that he’d even shaved.

  “Everybody’s a critic,” Shafer said. He fiddled with the back of his workstation and clicked again. This time a remarkably clear image of the Afghan mountains filled the flat panel. At the end of the Cold War, American spy satellites had been celebrated for their ability to read license plates from space. Now they could read not just license plates but newspaper headlines.

  Shafer focused on a patch of flat ground several hundred yards long, the most likely spot for a camp. Wells lifted himself off the couch and stared. The mountains had woken him up, Exley thought. She hadn’t seen him so alert in months.

  “It’s a camp for sure,” Wells said. “A big one.”

  “Then where is everybody?” Exley said. Only two men were visible in the photograph. They sat against the side of the mountain, rifles slung over their shoulders. “These were taken a couple of hours ago. Near dusk over there. Dinnertime. Shouldn’t they be lining up?”

  “They’ll be back soon. Look, there’s two campfires going. You don’t do that unless you’ve got a lot of guys to feed. And over here—” Wells stepped close to the screen and pointed to the southern part of the camp, where holes were dug behind a makeshift rock wall. “Those are privies. At least five of them. Another sign they’ve been there awhile, and they’re decently organized.”

  “The report says forty to fifty men.”

  “At least that. Ellis, pull it back. Give me the widest view you can.” Wells ran his finger over the screen, tracing a line from the ridge, south, into the valley. “See this?”

  Shafer got it first. “A trail, down the side of the mountain.”

  “Follow it south, south—” Shafer scrolled down the screen, leaving the plateau and moving into the valley.

  “No wonder the evil American infidels always knew where we were, back in the day,” Wells said. “If we’d had one of these, it would have been a fairer fight.” He grinned at Shafer. His confusion of “we” and “they” was no accident, as Shafer and Exley well knew.

  “Want to switch sides again?” Shafer said.

  “I’m not so sure they’d have me, Ellis.”

  “Anyway, where would you ride your bike?” Exley said.

  “Children,” Shafer said. “Focus, please.”

  “Fair enough,” Wells said. He stepped closer to the screen. “Can you scroll farther down?”

  “This set doesn’t run any farther south. We get another pass tomorrow.”

  “Magnify it. The southern edge.” Wells looked at Exley. “See what they did at the base of the valley? Just left of where the trail ends.”

  “Those branches?”

  “See how they’re arranged? They look like they’re part of the forest, but they’re not. They’re thicker.”

  Slowly, Exley recognized the hidden shapes under the branches. “Trucks?”

  “Pickups, at least four. Toyotas most likely. All with fifty-cals. When I was with them, they never would have bothered to hide them.”

  “Which means—”

  “It doesn’t prove anything,” Wells said. “But yeah, it’s evidence they’re getting lessons.” He looked at Exley. “Well done, Jenny. Though I have to admit I don’t get it. Who would be crazy enough to help the Taliban right now?”

  “What do you think we should tell Bagram?” Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, the headquarters of the American military command in Afghanistan.

  “They’ve got to hit it,” Wells said. “Find out if it’s real. Though it’s gonna be tough. Whoever’s up there can enfilade anyone coming up that trail something vicious. And I’ll bet they’ve got heavy stuff in those caves. Mortars, RPGs, some SAMs”—rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles.

  “You want to go? Summer vacation in Afghanistan? For old times’ sake?”

  Shafer had asked the question, but Wells looked at Exley instead. She hated to see the eagerness in Wells’s face. He looked like a hound that had just sniffed out a fox. Did killing thrill him so much? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. Anyway this mission was what she’d told Shafer she wanted for Wells. Something that would test him, get him out of his funk.

  “Go for it, John.” Anything beats the bike, she thought.

  “If the guys at Bagram will have me, I’ll think about it.”

  “It may take a few days to put together, but you’re right,” Shafer said. “We have to hit it. And they’ll have you.”

  Shafer’s phone trilled. Shafer held a finger to his lips, warning Exley and Wells to stay quiet, and picked up. “Hello, Mr. Tyson.” George Tyson was deputy director for counterintelligence, the man in charge of making sure that foreign intelligence services didn’t infiltrate the CIA.

  “When? Where? Tomorrow would be better . . . No ... if it’s urgent, okay. We’ll see you there. Yes. We. Me and the two musketeers.”

  He cradled the phone. “Strange. Tyson wants to talk to us tonight. Not here. Says something’s happening in Korea.”

  5

  BETRAYED. THE WORD RANG IN BECK’S MIND as he opened the Phantom’s hatch and hurled the transponder as far as he could into the foaming water. Betrayed. He threw Sung against the side of the cabin. Betrayed. He drove his right fist into Sung’s soft belly until the North Korean’s mouth flopped open and his legs went flaccid. Sung slid to the floor, gasping, wordlessly begging for oxygen.

  “Ask him,” Beck said to Kang. “Ask him why he’s killing us.” Beck was even more furious with himsel
f than with Sung. He should have checked the bag as soon as Sung got on board. But he simply hadn’t imagined that Sung would destroy his own chance for escape.

  “If he doesn’t start talking, I’ll put a bullet in him.” Beck drew his pistol. “I will, too. Tell him.”

  Kang finished translating. The cabin was silent. Then Sung spoke, the words coming in broken spurts.

  “He says the security services have his family. Wife, parents, children, cousins. They’ll all die if he doesn’t follow orders.”

  “How did he blow his cover?” When Sung heard Kang’s translation, he shook his head before muttering a response.

  “He didn’t. He’s sure. It must have been someone on our side. One day the police came. Nothing he said mattered. They knew.”

  “Why didn’t they just arrest us, sink the boat, when we landed?”

  This time Sung said nothing at all. Beck put aside his pistol and kneeled on Sung’s chest and hit him in the face, twice. He got his shoulder behind the second punch and felt Sung’s flat nose break under his fist. “There’s no time for this.”

  Sung spoke, the words so quiet that Kang had to lean in to hear. “He doesn’t know. He thinks they wanted to see where we were going, who would meet us.”

  “Why didn’t you warn us?” Beck asked Sung directly in Korean. The North Koreans had forced Sung to ask CIA for the pickup, of course. But he could have flashed a different code, one that told them that he’d been compromised.

  “No choice.”

  “Of course you had a choice,” Beck said.

  Sung murmured to Kang. “He wants to show us something. Says you have to get up,” Kang said.

  Beck stood. The North Korean shrugged off his nylon sweatpants. He wasn’t wearing underwear, just some surgical gauze over his crotch, stained black-red with blood.

  Sung lifted the patch.

  “Jesus,” Beck said.

  Sung’s penis and testicles had been removed, leaving a raw hole in his crotch that had been pulled together with crude black stitches. A plastic catheter poked from the wound, spilling drops of reddish-tinted urine.