Termination Orders

by Leo J. Maloney

  CHAPTER 11

  “I hope you understand, Barry, that this is a career ender.” Nickerson watched with well-concealed pleasure as the young senator squirmed in his seat. It had been over a full minute since he had set the pictures down in front of the man, and Lamb still hadn’t taken his eyes away from them. “If the media got ahold of this . . . I mean, we can already see the story play out, can’t we? Senator Lamb caught with a pretty young thing named Erika Dillon. Speculations abound on whether she’s a call girl. Political base disgusted. Your own party dumps you like a barrel of toxic waste.”

  “What—” said Lamb, trying to keep his voice steady. “What do you want?”

  They were in Nickerson’s office. Nickerson had pulled the drapes shut for a claustrophobic effect and left his standing lamp as the only light source. It cast enormous dark shadows on the walls. It looked, he observed with pleasure, like an interrogation room.

  “Barry . . .” said Nickerson. “Barry, Barry, Barry. What kind of man do you suppose I am? I hope you see this for what it is. I hope you realize that this is me helping you.”

  “Helping me?” said Lamb. He was sweating. And Nickerson loved to watch them sweat. He loved that special blend of shame and fear they got when they sat in that chair. He wondered if Lamb would cry.

  “Why, Barry, this is your second chance. Your new lease on life.”

  “What are you talking about? Oh, Jesus . . .” Lamb rubbed his temples.

  “Think about it. If these pictures were in someone else’s possession . . . How many people do you know who would not immediately turn them over to the press? No, Barry, this is good news. This is your wake-up call. This is when you are confronted by your folly, Senator Lamb, and given the chance to turn things around.”

  “Do you mean—”

  “That I’m not going public with this? Of course not! Give me more credit than that, Lamb. I do not destroy a man’s life lightly.”

  Lamb let out a sigh of relief, but his anxiety did not leave his face, and he still glanced nervously at the photographs every few seconds.

  “Of course,” said Nickerson, “courtesy does go both ways, does it not?”

  “What d-do you m-mean?” Lamb stammered. He was beyond the deer-in-the-headlights stage now. He fidgeted nervously with his hands.

  “I mean, I need a stalwart ally on the Intelligence Committee. I believe we are going astray in the push for greater oversight.”

  “Ah,” said Lamb, as it dawned on him. “So this is the price of your friendship?”

  “It’s crass to talk about price. What we face here is a gentlemen’s agreement. A mutually beneficial relationship.”

  “It’s blackmail. That’s what this is.” Lamb’s fists were balled up white.

  Nickerson’s expression grew cold and flat, but he said nothing.

  “I see what you are now, Nickerson. Jesus Christ, and to think you’ve actually got a reputation as a—Listen. I won’t be bullied, Nickerson. Do what you will. I’m not folding.”

  Nickerson nodded. “I suppose I have to respect your integrity. Say, what do you think will make a bigger splash, Lamb—sending these to a reputable newspaper or going tabloid?”

  Lamb stood up to face him. “You wouldn’t!”

  “I suppose we could always split the difference and do both. What do you think?”

  “Nickerson . . .” he said, pleading.

  “Or maybe we trickle them out online,” Nickerson continued, ignoring him. “Make a game of how long we can keep this in the news cycle.”

  “Please don’t do this,” said Lamb.

  “Or,” said Nickerson, “you have a change of heart in the next three days and come out officially against Intelligence oversight.”

  “I can’t just—”

  “You can, Senator Lamb, and if you have any love for your career or your marriage, you will.”

  Lamb just stood there, speechless and forlorn. The phone rang.

  “You can go now,” said Nickerson. “I’ll be expecting news of your change of heart.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Dan Morgan walked out onto the tarmac, the sun shining on his face, as the plane Fastia had arranged awaited him, door open and engines running. They had made all the arrangements with a man in Afghanistan, and Morgan had called Jenny and told her the CIA wanted to keep him around for a few more days. He told her he wouldn’t have his cell phone for security reasons but that he would call her when he could. He didn’t like lying to her, and the thought of breaking his promise made him sick. But he had to do this, and he had to keep it a secret, even from her. He couldn’t let the CIA find out about it, and they had their ways. For all he knew, they were tapping his home phone.

  “Cobra!” someone shouted from behind him. Alarmed, he turned around and saw Eric Plante jogging to catch up with him. That didn’t take long, he thought.

  “What are you doing here, Plante?” Morgan asked. “You could have just called if you needed me for anything else.”

  “Come off it, Cobra. I know you’re going to Afghanistan.”

  “Afghanistan?” said Morgan, laughing incredulously. “I’m going home.”

  “In a private jet piloted by Kadir Fastia?” Plante asked, with a knowing smile.

  “I thought I’d catch up with an old friend on the way,” Morgan said.

  “Right. Of course you did.”

  Morgan sighed. “How’d you find me?”

  “Cell phone.”

  Morgan took his phone out of his pocket and stared at it. He’d turned it off but had left the battery in. He cursed himself. Rookie mistake.

  “These things make it almost too easy, don’t they?” said Plante. “Listen, Cobra. I can’t say much, but since you’re determined to go through with it, I’ll tell you this much. You might not have gotten the whole story back at headquarters.”

  “What are you saying? Did Kline make you hold back?” asked Morgan.

  “Kline doesn’t know everything, either.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “Just be careful out there,” said Plante. “Marwat isn’t the only enemy you should watch out for.”

  “Plante, if you know something, I need you to tell me now,” he said impatiently.

  “All I know is this: Marwat isn’t getting the opium out of Afghanistan by himself.”

  “Then who is involved?” pressed Morgan.

  “That’s something Conley was hoping to find out. Maybe he did, and maybe that’s what got him killed. Just watch your ass, Cobra. Things might not be what they seem.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” said Morgan. He threw his phone to the ground and stomped on it. “I’ll be sure to send you a postcard when I get there.” He turned around and headed for the plane.

  The beeping of the satellite phone woke her at 4:30 A.M. She stretched, catlike, out of her cot and switched on the display. The message, coming from halfway around the world, glowed on the screen: Cobra going to Kabul to extract target. Intercept them there. More information to come.

  Cobra. What the hell was his part in all this, she asked herself. Did he know? And if so, how much?

  But ultimately, it didn’t matter. The thought of her Ops team’s failure to capture the boy stung her, like failure always did. But this time, it would be different. This time, they were coming to her. And this time, she would personally pull the trigger on both the kid and Cobra.

  Cobra. What a lovely new development. She couldn’t suppress the smile that played on her lips. It would be a reunion that had been a long time coming.

  CHAPTER 13

  Morgan had not been to Kabul since shortly after the rise of the Taliban. It had been a dreary city then, worn down by constant war and terrified of recent repression. The city now seemed to be bursting with new life; people and cars moved chaotically through streets of market stalls, which seemed to have popped up like mushrooms after a rain. There were construction sites rising all around the city, and the mood among the citizens was one of guar
ded optimism. But many of the buildings were at least as old as the Taliban and still bore bullet holes to prove it.

  “How do you like our beautiful city?” asked the man driving the taxi.

  “Always thought there’d be more sand,” Morgan said, looking out the window through his sunglasses. The man smiled, showing a mouthful of white teeth. His name was Baz. He was clean-shaven and wore a white, Western-style, button-down shirt and mirrored Ray-Bans. He chain-smoked Marlboro knockoffs and drove one of those boxy Russian-made cars, colored powder blue.

  They had just left Baz’s safe house, which was really just a room in the back of a tea shop. Morgan had changed into traditional local clothes and applied a fake beard. He had never felt at home in foreign dress, and while the loose, pajama-like pants and tunic shirt Baz gave him might have been a comfortable cut, this set was made from a rough and scratchy material. At least the flowing khameez shirt was perfect for concealing his shoulder holster.

  “You got everything else that I asked for?” Morgan had asked back at the safe house, as he applied the gray and scraggly beard in front of a wall-mounted, stained mirror shard.

  “With Baz, there are no problems. You remember to tell your friend that. Never problems.”

  “The gun?”

  “I could not find the Walther, but I got you one just as good.” Baz handed him the pistol.

  Morgan examined it: a Glock 17. He pulled back the slide, feeling its weight in his hand. It had the characteristic sleek, square muzzle, not quite as short as the PPK, and, of course, the most obvious feature: the plastic casing, which Morgan knew had been met with skepticism when the gun was first introduced. But the Glock had long since proved its worth. It was tough, reliable, and packed a nice punch with little recoil. He deftly took it apart on the table and checked each piece before putting it back together.

  “Yeah,” he said. “This’ll do.” He strapped on the holster under his khameez and tucked the gun away.

  Baz also produced a tactical knife, used but well-honed, which Morgan strapped to his ankle; a disposable cell phone, from which Morgan extracted Baz’s number before removing the battery; a first-aid kit; a roll of Afghan money in mostly small bills; and a blank EU passport to get this Zalmay person out of the country. This mission was of the quick-and-dirty variety, with little time for planning and, of course, with no real-time support.

  “So where are we going, baby?” Baz asked, after they drove away in the cab. Morgan gave him a sidelong glance.

  “Kabul Zoo. Can you get us there by noon?”

  “You got it, boss.”

  This was the location of the rendezvous, according to Conley’s letter. The clue had been in the phrase the daily ritual. The reference was from their early days as partners, when they often went to the Stone Zoo in Massachusetts—the mention of Stoney confirmed it, and also put the time of the rendezvous at noon: because at noon, without fail, a couple of orangutans put on an elaborate mating ceremony and went at it on the cage floor, to the consternation of parents and the delight of teenage boys. It had become a running gag between them over the years.

  Baz steered them along a busy thoroughfare, where pedestrians and jingle trucks vied for space with cabs—the city’s cab fleet, for some reason, seemed to be made up almost entirely of old-model Toyota Corollas. Baz negotiated this anarchy with the effortless ease that only a professional could pull off.

  “The Kabul Zoo,” Baz said, pensively, his eyes on the road. “You know, it is too bad you did not come some years ago, when Marjan the lion was still alive. Do you know of Marjan, the world-famous lion of the Kabul zoo?”

  Morgan grunted noncommittally. He had to focus on the mission now, to mull over every possible scenario. He struggled to keep his mind in the game and ignore his latent uneasiness about the whole affair—the sketchiness of the information on his end, the lack of preparation and support, and, of course, more than anything, the possibility of a traitor working in the CIA—the only reason he could think of why Conley would want to keep that information from the Agency

  He looked askance at Baz, who was still prattling away. Morgan had remained on his guard around him. Running missions halfway around the world forced him to rely on local assets as guides, but Morgan made a habit of distrusting them—a practice that had saved his life on more than one occasion.

  Instead of dwelling on his apprehension, he continued to ignore Baz’s story about the lion and tried to focus on practical issues, mentally rehearsing the call-and-response that was indicated in Conley’s letter. His own line, which he would say when he met Zalmay, was the opening of the letter: “A fruit vendor in Kabul once said to me, Afghanistan is always the same; it is only the invaders who change.” The next line of the letter read, Well, you know what they say: variety is the spice of life. This was a decoy, a plausible response that was meant to throw off anyone who might have intercepted the communication. The correct response was, according to their code, the final line in the letter: “Let it never be said that the Afghans are not a resilient people.” He repeated his and Zalmay’s lines under his breath until he was satisfied that he knew them through and through.

  “. . . and then his brother comes back the next day with a hand grenade! Do you believe it?” The cab was lazily weaving through traffic down an arterial road, which seemed to be leading out of the city. Morgan checked his watch: a sliver past 11:45.

  “Yeah, that’s nice. How are we doing, Baz?”

  “Not far. Here, you see? Mountains on both sides. We are passing into Deh Mazang. We are close. The zoo will be on this road, on the left.”

  They drove for another few minutes, and Baz said, “Here,” pointing to a gated area on the far side of the road. “That is it right there.” He circled back around a rotary a few blocks down and pulled over to an unofficial drop-off area. There, a collection of taxis and cars sat parked, their owners in the driver’s seat or leaning against the driver’s door.

  “I will wait here,” said Baz.

  Morgan nodded. “Keep the motor running.” He got out of the car, feeling the reassuring weight of the gun against his chest, and walked purposefully to the entrance of the zoo. There, a concrete lion stood perpetual watch, and a sign announced that the admission price was ten Afghanis for locals—about twenty cents—and ten times that for foreigners.

  Here was the first test of his disguise. It would hold up to a cursory glance, but anyone who examined him too closely might notice that his skin tone, his facial features, and his mannerisms were a bit off. Although he was hardly inconspicuous, with his wide shoulders and relative height, he knew the secret to passing unnoticed was in his bearing: avoiding eye contact, not speaking, and adopting a timid gait. All of which were entirely unnatural for him, but after years of practice, he was able to switch into the mode effortlessly. He joined the short line at the entrance and, when he reached the booth, laid two coins on the counter. The attendant waved him in without a second look.

  The zoo—a dingy collection of bored, lanky animals—turned out to be a bad location for a rendezvous. It was busy but not enough so that he could disappear into a crowd if he had to. Also, the people were there in groups and families—boisterous young fathers, barefoot children, even women in pale blue burqas, hard to tell apart in a flurry of the indistinguishable. As a lone man, he not only stuck out but was likely to draw stares.

  Despite himself and all his apprehension at the poorly planned mission, Morgan couldn’t suppress his excitement. The danger awoke in him an animal alertness that he had not felt since his days in the Clandestine Service. It was a feeling that, in his suburban life, he could only approximate, shooting at the firing range or speeding down the highway in his classic GTO. But even these were pale parodies of what he felt at that moment.

  Morgan looked around for a visitors’ map and didn’t find one that he could understand, so he walked around, looking at the cages and forming a mental layout of the place. He spotted the orangutan enclosure close to the far end o
f the zoo. It was a tall cage that bordered two others on either side, with the service access in the back wall. It held two unhappy-looking apes that several teenage boys were trying to taunt into activity.

  He walked over to the cage and leaned against the railing, scanning the crowd discreetly every few seconds. He soon spotted a young man, twentysomething, walking in his direction with a little too much nervous resolution. He was not tall, but Morgan could tell that he was very strong even through his baggy khameez shirt. They made eye contact and broke it almost immediately. With affected nonchalance, he pretended to be interested in the apes and planted his feet next to Morgan.

  Anxiously, expectantly, Morgan said, “A fruit vendor in Kabul once said to me, ‘Afghanistan is always the same; it is only the invaders who change.’”

  The youth gave Morgan a knowing look and responded in stilted, accented English,

  “Well, you know what they say. Variety is the spice of life.”

  The wrong response. It was the wrong goddamn response. Morgan stiffened slightly and hoped the other man hadn’t noticed. His mind raced. Had he made a mistake in deciphering the code? It had been so long, maybe he had misread it. Maybe Conley had gotten it wrong. Maybe—no, he stopped himself. He hadn’t remained alive so long by doubting himself. This man had just failed the only possible test of his identity. He was an impostor. The question that remained now was what to do about him.

  “Cougar sent you?” the man asked, still pretending to look at the two orangutans, who sat picking at each other’s nits. “You are Cobra?”

  Morgan nodded. “I assume that he sent you, too?”

  “That is right. I am Zalmay.”

  “Nice to meet you, Zalmay. Is there any chance you can tell me what was so important that Cougar sent me here to get you?”