Termination Orders

by Leo J. Maloney

  “Did you come up with that one all by yourself?” said Morgan.

  Plante began, ignoring him and turning on the screen at the far end of the conference room. “The purpose of this operation was to take out this man.” On the wall-size screen he brought up a picture of a fat, middle-aged, bearded man in fancy-looking traditional Afghan garb, sporting a smug, vicious smile. “Afghan warlord Bacha Marwat. He controls a sizeable portion of the drug trade in the Kandahar region. He produces countless tons of poppy seeds. He has ties to the local government and commands a good deal of corruption. A significant amount of his revenue goes toward maintaining local militia, many of whom are in league with the Taliban and who are giving our soldiers hell over there.”

  “Cougar was embedded as an aid worker,” Plante continued. “His primary mission was to get close enough to terminate Marwat. But there were difficulties. Marwat is a well-guarded man. Cougar had an asset, someone in Marwat’s organization who might have been able to get him inside the operation.”

  “Who’s this asset?” asked Morgan.

  “All we know is his name,” said Plante. “Zalmay Siddiqi.”

  “Spell it for me.” Plante did. “And how were you communicating with him?”

  “Dead drop,” said Plante. “The mail slot in a house in Kandahar City. We had a communications officer check it twice every day.”

  Morgan nodded. It might be inefficient, but when working deep undercover, paper communication was harder for someone to detect or stumble upon. Paper could be destroyed. Electronics always left traces. “Were these messages in your own code?”

  Plante nodded. “Except, of course, for the one you have in front of you.”

  “Pen,” Morgan said. Plante handed him one from his shirt pocket. Morgan pored over the paper, making illegible annotations.

  “Well?” said Kline impatiently.

  “The asset’s dead,” said Morgan, leaning back in his chair.

  “Dead? Are you certain?” asked Plante nervously. Kline looked at Morgan with suspicious eyes.

  “That’s what it says here.”

  “That’s an awful lot of text for that to be the whole message,” said Kline dubiously.

  “It’s not all,” said Morgan. “The rest says he’s been found out and requests immediate extraction. Although that’s moot at this point, isn’t it?” he said witheringly.

  “What else?” insisted Kline. “There has to be more.”

  “That’s all there is.”

  Kline leaned forward and looked Morgan in the eye. He looked like he was trying his best to appear intimidating. “It had better be. Because if I find out you’re lying to us . . .”

  “Are you accusing me of something, Kline? Because I think you’d better come out and say it.”

  “I just think it’s strange,” said Kline, with mock perplexity, “that Cougar would encode this in a way that only you could read it. Don’t you think that’s strange, Eric?”

  Plante held his uncomfortable silence.

  “I can think of a few reasons why,” said Morgan. “But it all boils down to the fact that, for some reason, he didn’t trust you.”

  “Now you’re the one who apparently has something to say,” said Kline.

  “Cougar was compromised, and he must have wondered whether the issue might be here at home.”

  “Are you suggesting,” said Kline, in disbelief, “that Marwat has a mole in the CIA?”

  “I’m suggesting maybe Cougar thought this ship wasn’t run as tightly as he liked. Maybe he only wanted someone he could trust to be able to understand his message.”

  “I see,” said Kline, through his small teeth. “Well, as you said, the point is moot. Mr. Plante, kindly escort Cobra out of the building.”

  “We’ve arranged for a car to take you to the airport,” Plante told Morgan as they walked out of the building. He handed Morgan a piece of paper, folded in thirds. “Here’s a copy of your itinerary. Your flight to Boston leaves at five. I’m sorry we wasted your time.”

  “You know I’d do anything for Cougar. There was a time, Plante, that I would’ve done anything for you, too.”

  “There are things I wish I could tell you, Cobra. Things that would convince that you I was always on Cougar’s side. And that I’m your side now, too.”

  “But you can’t,” Morgan said, with deadpan sarcasm. “Because it’s classified.”

  “I really wish I could. There’s a lot that you don’t know.”

  “And that you can’t tell me. How convenient.”

  “Maybe one day we can put our differences behind us,” said Plante sincerely. “Maybe one day, when you have the full picture of what went on.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Morgan turned and walked toward the town car that was waiting for him, leaving Plante standing on the curb next to the Headquarters building.

  Morgan had an uneventful ride to the airport. Once there, out of the driver’s sight, he picked up a pay phone and dialed Information. His call connected, and after a few minutes, he hung up and called Jenny, telling her that he would have to stay in DC overnight. Then he hopped into a cab and took off, away from the airport, to see an old friend.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Let me see if I understand you correctly. You wish to go into the heart of an occupied country, and you want no one to know about it?”

  The man with the serenely quizzical look on his face was Kadir Fastia. His hallmark beard, neatly trimmed, was now a near-white that stood out against his olive skin. Fastia was a deliberate man, and every movement he made, down to each small gesture, seemed measured, considered. He was the image, Morgan thought, of a man at peace with himself. A cigar smoldered between his fingers. Smoke permeated the air in his study, trapped by closed doors and windows with the blinds down, keeping out the evening sun except for thin slivers that spilled onto Fastia’s desk. Through the window, Morgan could hear the laughter of Fastia’s grandchildren, who were playing outside.

  “For starters, yeah.”

  “Am I correct in assuming that you do not wish to use your real name?”

  “You are.”

  Fastia took a scrap of paper and scribbled a name and a number on it. “This man can help you. Passport, driver’s license—local, European, Chinese—anything you need, he can get it to you. Tell him that I sent you, and he will get for you what you ask.”

  “Much appreciated, Kadir,” he said, pocketing the paper. “This will be helpful. But what I really need”—Morgan sighed—“is wings.”

  Fastia looked at him pointedly. “You wish for help getting into the country? For my help?”

  “Getting in isn’t the problem. It’s getting out afterward. So I guess the question is, can you do it?”

  “The question, my friend, is what do you intend to do while you are there?” Fastia puffed on his cigar, and the smoke filtered out of his mouth in dense curlicues.

  Morgan looked out the window pensively, then said, “What’s your relationship with the CIA like these days?”

  “Mutual toleration,” said Fastia. “I don’t ask too many questions about the work that I do for them, and they don’t ask too many about the work I do on my own.”

  “What do you know about Cougar?”

  “I have worked with Cougar since you departed, but not for some time now,” said Fastia.

  “Did you know he’s dead?”

  Fastia’s eyes widened slightly, and grief lined his face. “No. This is the first I have heard of this. How did it happen?”

  “He was running a mission, solo, in Kandahar. I guess someone sniffed him out.”

  “In Kandahar, you say. So I assume this is the reason that you are going?”

  Morgan nodded. “He sent me a letter through the Agency. Coded in a way only I could decipher. He was working an asset in Kandahar, and he wanted that asset extracted. I’m guessing it was insurance, in case something happened to him. I’m supposed to meet this guy in Kabul in three days.” The.re is no such ha
ppiness to be f.ound here, the letter had said. The number of characters before each of the two strangely placed periods had told him the date: 3/24.

  “I take it that the Agency does not know about this.”

  “They’re in the dark, and I’m going to keep it that way.”

  “Are you sure that this is the wisest course of action?” Kadir said, with typical understatement.

  Morgan answered the question by ignoring it. “I’m also going to need some support on the ground, a local who knows his way around, who can drive me and can set me up with certain supplies. Now, Kadir, pay attention: if there’s any part of this that you can’t deliver, you need to tell me now.”

  Fastia leaned back in his chair and rested his chin on his hand. He took a puff from his cigar and closed his eyes.

  Morgan had first met Fastia on the dunes of the Libyan Sahara when they crossed over on their way to Tripoli for their most important mission yet: to kill Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

  It was one of his and Cougar’s first Ops together. They were young men, fresh off The Farm and full of piss and vinegar, their corresponding tattoos still smarting from the needles that had made them. He and Conley had flown into Alexandria and were driven westward in a rickety jeep by a man named Azibo. Conley, who had a way with strangers and an endless curiosity about foreign cultures, sat up front, prattling away with the driver in Arabic. Morgan sat in the back, restless in the suffocating heat. He tried to focus on the mission ahead, but it was nearly impossible to concentrate on anything. Their initial enthusiasm was flagging from the dull strain of transportation. It would be different once they arrived at their destination, but for now, Morgan closed his eyes. He tried fruitlessly to sleep as he bobbed along with the vehicle until he noticed that the engine had cut off, and the jeep was coming to a halt.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Conley, who in turn said something in Arabic to Azibo.

  “He said the engine died on him,” Conley told Morgan.

  Azibo turned the key, but the engine didn’t respond. Conley had another brief exchange with him.

  “He doesn’t know what’s wrong. It looks like I’m going to have to go out and take a look.”

  Morgan got out, too, and stood a few feet from the jeep, keeping his eye on Azibo as Conley opened the hood.

  “We’d better hope we haven’t been leaking oil since Alexandria,” said Conley, “or this jeep might have just become a three-ton paperweight.”

  Morgan looked up and down the desert road. There wasn’t a car in sight. He took a drink from his canteen. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” he said sarcastically.

  Conley rooted around in the engine. “This thing is a nightmare,” he said. “It’s basically held together by string and duct tape. I’m shocked we even made it out of the city.”

  “That’s just great,” said Morgan, shielding his eyes from the scorching sun. “How the hell are we going to make our rendezvous?”

  “I said it was a nightmare. I didn’t say I couldn’t fix it.”

  Morgan went to sit on the jeep’s backseat with his legs out the rear door as Conley struggled with the engine, a shirt wrapped around his head like a turban to protect him from the punishing rays of the sun. Azibo reclined in the driver’s seat with the door open, looking on with heavy-lidded eyes.

  Squinting at the bright sands and with sweat dripping into his eyes, Morgan thought about what would happen if Conley wasn’t able to get the motor running again, about failing this mission. This was about more than just removing one piece of human scum from the face of the earth. Without Gaddafi, the Libyans had a chance for freedom. This could alter the course of history for millions of people. And who knew what sort of repercussions there could be after that? Who knew what other people, living under the yoke of oppression, would be emboldened if freedom happened in a place like Libya? It seemed ridiculous that everything should hinge on this rickety old hunk of junk. But if there was one thing he had learned so far, it was that everything depended on the smallest details. A penny on the tracks could derail an entire freight train.

  Those thoughts had been running in Morgan’s mind for nearly two hours when Conley announced, “That ought to do it.”

  “So it works?” asked Morgan. Conley exchanged a few words with Azibo, who turned the key again. The engine rumbled to life, and the three men cheered.

  “Now I just need to . . .” said Conley, trailing off, and he began forcing something in the engine with a screwdriver, putting his weight into it. The screwdriver slipped, and he jerked away suddenly, clutching his right hand. “Damn it!”

  “What is it?”

  “Goddamn it. Nothing, it’s nothing, just a cut.” Conley tried to wave it off, but Morgan saw that his hand was bleeding, small drops falling and congealing on the dusty ground. Morgan reached into the car for the first-aid kit. “Goddamn stupid thing to do,” said Conley.

  “I guess now we know who the shooter is going to be,” said Morgan. It had been a point of contention; both were crack shots, and each wanted to be the one to pull the trigger. Morgan was glad it had been decided for them.

  Conley held out his hand and winced when Morgan cleaned out the cut with rubbing alcohol. It was deep but not enough to do any permanent damage. Azibo watched curiously as Morgan sutured it over a sterilized plastic sheet and wrapped bandages around Conley’s hand.

  They crossed the border into Libya sometime after nightfall. Shortly beforehand, Azibo had left the road entirely, making the crossing in the open desert. It was bumpy, slow going. All Morgan could see was the dusty ground directly in front of the headlights, and the stars above, brighter than he had ever seen them. A fresh breeze began to blow, a blessing after the scorching heat of the day.

  When they came to a rise in the terrain, Conley told Azibo to stop. The driver cut the engine, plunging them into darkness. The absence of the motor also brought on an eerie quiet, with no sound except for the drifting sand hitting the side of the jeep.

  Morgan took the night-vision binoculars from his pack and leaned out the window. He swept the horizon, a barren, godforsaken wasteland, no more alien for being entirely green in the night-vision goggles. He didn’t spot what he was looking for, so he pulled out his flashlight and clicked it on and off in a sequence of longs and shorts, alternately pointing in several different directions.

  “There!” said Conley, pointing north. It took Morgan a moment to make out a faint flashing dot.

  “That’s got to be him.” Morgan clicked the flashlight on and off in its direction several times to acknowledge the signal, then sat back down. “Let’s go.”

  Five minutes later their headlights shone on a battered, oversize jeep not too different from their own, and a lone man standing next to it, wearing a traditional robe and a desert scarf, the kaffiyeh, on his head. Azibo stopped thirty feet away in a cloud of dust. Morgan opened the door and got out of the jeep, his MAC-10 machine pistol firmly in his hand, safety off. He approached the man with tense caution. Conley, flanking him, did the same.

  The man held out both of his hands, palms upward, in a gesture of friendship that also served to demonstrate that he was unarmed. He stared at the two men intently and said, after a moment: “One of you is Cobra. The other is Cougar.” The statement had a slight, hopeful inflection to it. His accent was minor, but the precision of his pronunciation revealed that English was not his first language.

  Morgan brought the aim of his MAC-10 to the stranger’s chest. “And you are?”

  “Code Name Wings. I am Lieutenant Colonel Kadir Fastia.”

  Morgan lowered his weapon but remained tense, like a snake coiled and ready to strike. The man in the turban smiled, bowed, and said, “Salaam.”

  “Salaam,” they each responded in turn.

  Salaam. The word echoed in Morgan’s head. Peace. Not in this world.

  Morgan rode shotgun as Fastia drove them down an old dirt road, not a sign of humanity in the encroaching darkness. “The main highway is not safe
for the three of us traveling together,” Fastia told them. “This way will take us longer, but we will not be stopped. I am afraid we have a long way to go. I have arranged safe lodging near Tripoli. But you may sleep now if you wish.” Morgan looked back at Conley, who was sitting behind Fastia, alert and with his gun resting loosely in his hand, ready to shoot Fastia through the seat if necessary. Trust only went so far.

  “Cobra . . .” said Fastia idly. “Tell me, did you choose that name yourself?”

  “Yeah, I did,” said Morgan curtly.

  “May I ask why?”

  “The cobra is a killer,” Morgan responded. “Agile, cold, ruthless, and efficient. You don’t want to mess with a cobra. And I wanted everyone I encountered to know,” he said, looking pointedly at Fastia, “that you don’t want to mess with me.”

  “Not all men are able to choose their own names,” said Fastia. After a few minutes’ silence, Fastia began to speak again, still staring dead ahead at the road before them. “A man under my command was bitten by a cobra once. We were running exercise drills in the desert, and he stepped in the wrong mound of sand. The snake bit his ankle, right through his boot. It was an unfortunate circumstance. The man responsible for bringing the first-aid kit, which had the antivenin necessary to save this man’s life, had forgotten it. We were too far into the desert to get him back to safety in time. He convulsed violently for interminable minutes as we tried in vain to suck the poison out of the bite. His ankle grew swollen and black. He screamed and screamed, in pain. For us to save him. Yelled out for his mother. A grown man, yelling for his mother. It was not long before he died. Do you know how people who are bitten by the cobra die?”

  Morgan did not respond.

  “Of asphyxiation. The cobra venom attacks the brain and causes paralysis. The victim soon loses the ability to breathe. Within half an hour, this man’s heart was not beating anymore.”

  There was a long silence between them, during which all they could hear was the rumble of the engine. Morgan later remembered wondering about what Fatia’s purpose was in telling this story, whether it was some kind of test. He glanced back at Conley, who looked at him but made no sign in response. Finally, Morgan spoke. “You’re an intelligence officer in the Libyan Armed Forces, is that right?” he asked.