Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition)

by Ross Sidor

  She translated again. The pilot considered his options, looked back at the blood and bodies strewn about the passenger compartment, exchanged looks with his co-pilot, who shrugged, and gave his response.

  “He said that he’ll cooperate,” Aleksa said.

  Avery knew that he would. This guy simply flew where Litvin told him in exchange for cash. He probably had no idea what the cargo was and didn’t care. He wasn’t hardcore mafiya like the dead Russians in the back, and he wasn’t going to risk his life for Litvin. Plus, Avery was sure that he was looking pretty deranged right now to the pilots and, in their eyes, that made him unpredictable and a man not to be trifled with.

  “He’s altering course now,” Aleksa reported.

  After a couple minutes, Avery felt the aircraft bank slightly left. He asked Aleksa to search the bodies in the passenger compartment for keys or a phone, while he stayed with the pilots. She came back several minutes later. She couldn’t find handcuff keys or bolt cutters or anything that could be used to pick the lock, but she handed him a cell phone.

  Avery entered Poacher’s number and sent a text, identifying himself by his call sign and telling him to be at Dushanbe International in the next two hours or so. He also told Poacher to alert Gerald Rashid at the embassy.

  Poacher responded several minutes later, asking for the pre-arranged authentication code to confirm his identity. Avery provided it, and Poacher acknowledged. Avery knew that Poacher must have a dozen questions, but he’d understand that Avery had sent the message from an unsecure phone and would neither expect nor ask for specifics. Avery anticipated an earful from Poacher once they met up again, and this time he’d be happy to hear it.

  Aleksa sat down in one of the plush arm chairs in the passenger cabin. Avery remained in the cockpit, watching every move the pilot made. His whole body ached, but it felt good to have a break from people trying to kill him.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Dushanbe

  Seventy miles from Dushanbe, the pilot radioed the control tower, identified himself, and requested clearance for an emergency landing. In order to avoid answering any of the control tower’s questions about his plane’s destination and point of origin, the pilot tried to sound frantic, and he stressed the urgency of the situation, stating he had two engines out and an onboard fire. A few minutes later, after getting approval from a supervisor, the irritated-sounding Tajik air traffic controller granted the Antonov clearance to land, then aligned the pilot with the approach corridor, cleared a runway, and delayed all other inbound flights. A Turkish Airlines Airbus that had been due at this time was directed instead to circle Dushanbe until the emergency was resolved.

  In addition to contacting emergency services, the air traffic control supervisor alerted airport security officials, who in turn relayed the information to GKNB. Aware that it was a Russian commercial flight, GKNB immediately informed the Russian embassy of the situation. Within fifteen minutes of the control tower receiving the transmission from the GlobeEx pilot, the Russian embassy’s intelligence chief was made aware of the unfolding crisis and began issuing orders to his subordinates.

  Avery allowed himself to relax now, as the pilot aligned the Antonov with the runway and began a steady descent into the familiar sight of Dushanbe International. To the pilot’s relief, Avery finally lowered the pistol and took a seat in the cabin, but he stayed near the open cockpit. Glancing through a window, Avery saw numerous vehicles spread out across the taxiway. In addition to the emergency services vehicles, with lights flashing, there were black SUVs from the American embassy and additional Tajik military vehicles.

  The Antonov’s wheels touched and skittered along the runway. The pilot stabilized the plane, applied the air brakes, cutting speed, and steered the aircraft off the runway onto the open exit taxiway. All eyes on the tarmac and in the control tower watched intently with bated breath, as if expecting the lumbering jet to cartwheel out of control or explode at any moment.

  Avery turned around to face Aleksa. Her face showed both relief and disbelief that they’d actually made it, and, at least for a little while, she’d finally stopped thinking about Yuri. Avery shared the sentiment, though he felt like shit. He was battered, broken, and sore, the closest in his life he’d ever come to being completely beaten.

  Once the Antonov came to a complete stop, while the pilots were still in the process of shutting down the engines and systems, Avery got up, and, taking Aleksa with him, crossed the passenger cabin, went through the hatchway into the cargo hold, and lowered the aft ramp. He exited the aircraft with Aleksa, never thinking he’d be so happy to step foot again on Tajik soil.

  About fifty yards away, separated by a line of ambulances and fire trucks with flashing lights and sirens blaring, Avery spotted the black Forerunner, with Poacher and Gerald Rashid standing nearby. The former pointed in Avery’s direction as he spoke to the latter.

  Uniformed Tajik police officers, soldiers, and medics with gurneys converged on the plane. Two men in interior ministry uniforms stopped Avery and Aleksa as they started across the tarmac and yelled at them, first in Tajik, then in Russian when they didn’t respond. Avery didn’t know what they were so riled up about until one of them pointed at his handcuffs and gave him an earful of Russian and Tajik-Farsi.

  Tajik troops swarmed past them, thinking they were going to board the plane. But the Russian pilots stopped midway down the ramp and waved their arms and shouted at them, trying to keep them back. Safely on the ground and alive, the pilots were concerned now about the consequences of losing Litvin’s cargo and having it seized by the Tajiks or, worse, the publicity of the incident. Both parties started yelling at each other, and the officer who had stopped Avery and Aleksa became distracted and joined the confrontation.

  “The pilot is telling them that the aircraft is Russian property, and carrying sensitive materials. He told them he cannot permit them onboard,” Aleksa quietly told Avery as they walked away. Aleksa had taken off her jacket and lowered it in front of her, concealing, her handcuffs, and Avery stayed behind her to hide his. “He is demanding to speak to someone from the Russian embassy.”

  Avery didn’t blame the pilot. The Tajiks wouldn’t like a plane full of HEU and dead bodies making an emergency landing and disrupting flight ops at their airport. Worse for the pilot, he’d have a lot of explaining to do to Litvin.

  Avery looked back and saw the pilot pointing at him as he explained something to the Tajiks.

  “Come on,” Avery said and gave gently prodded Aleksa forward as he picked up his pace.

  A couple Tajiks then moved to cut them off as they made their way across the tarmac to the American embassy vehicles, some forty yards away.

  “Excuse me, sir and ma’am, we need to speak with you,” one of the Tajiks said in accented English as he and his partner intercepted Avery and Aleksa. “I am Captain Arash Mehrzad of the Ministry for Internal Affairs. We will need to detain you for questioning until the Russian authorities arrive.”

  Avery weighed his options. After everything they’d just endured, he was not about to get arrested by the damn GKNB. Sure, Gerald and Culler would be able to get him out, eventually. But what about Aleksa? The Tajiks could hold her indefinitely or give her to the Russians. He couldn’t allow that, and he wasn’t going to stand here arguing with them.

  Avery looked around.

  Everyone else was pretty preoccupied at the moment and paid no attention to the confrontation. Avery came around in front of Aleksa and yelled at her to run as he pushed past the Tajiks, knocking one off his feet, and bee-lined toward the Forerunners. The Tajik officers shouted for help and started to run after them, but tires screeched as a black Forerunner appeared out of nowhere and braked sharply in front of the Tajiks, stopping just short of running them down.

  When he stole a quick glance over his shoulder, Avery caught a glimpse of Flounder behind the SUV’s wheel. Flounder lifted his foot off the brake, rolling the Forerunner forward a couple feet and blocking the
Tajiks’ path as they attempted to maneuver around the front of the vehicle. One of them shouted and slammed his fist against the hood.

  With Aleksa in tow, Avery quickly maneuvered behind the nearby lines of ambulances and fire trucks. Amidst the confusion and panic, with everyone’s attention fixated on the jet, no one had noticed a thing.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Poacher demanded as he caught up with them. He did a double take when he saw Avery. “You look like complete shit.”

  “You should see the other guy.”

  Poacher eyed Aleksa, seeming to notice her for the first time, and frowned. “And who the hell is she?”

  Avery looked around, searching for those Tajiks who were after them. “Not out here. GKNB’s looking for us.”

  He continued walking, Aleksa close by, and slipped into the back seat of one of the parked Forerunners. Poacher jumped in after them, with Gerald Rashid, looking flustered, suddenly showing up right behind them.

  “Somebody better explain to me what the hell is happening around here,” Rashid ordered, sounding the most authoritative Avery had ever heard him. Avery imagined that Gerald had been grilling Poacher for the past hour and became quickly frustrated when Poacher was unable to answer any of his questions

  “That plane’s carrying highly enriched uranium bound for the Taliban,” Avery explained. “They have their own processing facility, possibly here in Tajikistan. We can’t let that plane leave.”

  Gerald exchanged looks with Poacher, cleared his throat, and said, “Whether or not that is the case, there’s nothing we can do about it now. Colonel Ghazan is on scene. He told us that his forces are watching over the aircraft until the Russians arrive to secure it. He emphasized that his government and the Russian Federation will regard any interference as hostile action and will react accordingly.”

  “Hostile action?” Avery practically jumped out of his seat at the absurdity of the statement. “They killed two of our people and are smuggling weapons grade material!”

  But Gerald, who seemed not to hear Avery, continued talking calmly over him. “The Tajik interior ministry has likewise given the same message to our ambassador, who understandably wishes to avoid creating an international incident with Moscow.”

  Avery gave up. He was too exhausted to argue.

  “When are the Russians coming?” Poacher asked.

  In answer to his question, they heard rotor wash overhead, and a large shadow fluttered across the tarmac. Moments later, a Mi-8 helicopter painted with Russian air force insignia set down on its wheels and disgorged a squad of troops armed with AK-12s.

  Poacher lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes and watched the activity. After a few seconds, he handed the binos to Avery in time for him to see Oleg Ramzin climb down from the helicopter. Seconds later, Colonel Sergei Ghazan from GKNB caught up with the Russians. He pointed from the Antonov to the direction of the American embassy vehicles, while Ramzin listened and nodded. Meanwhile, the Russian soldiers spread out, formed a perimeter around the Antonov, and ordered the Tajiks away. Ramzin stepped away from Ghazan and produced his cell phone.

  Avery returned the binoculars to Poacher.

  The driver-side door opened and Darren, the ops officer from the embassy, slipped behind the wheel. He also did a double take when he noticed Aleksa, but he didn’t ask questions. “We can’t stay here. Ghazan’s people are ordering us out of the airport ASAP.”

  “Fuck that,” Avery countered. “We’re not leaving.”

  “Sorry, man,” Darren said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but that’s an order straight from DCM, who just got off the phone with the Tajik interior minister and the Russian ambassador before that. Shit’s way above my pay grade.”

  Gerald squirmed upon hearing this, knowing that he would now have to answer to the State Department’s deputy chief of mission when he returned to the embassy. He silently prayed that Avery and the SAD officers didn’t do anything in the next few minutes to exacerbate the situation and make his life more difficult.

  “Darren’s right,” said Gerald. “We should leave immediately.”

  Avery started to protest, but Darren put the Forerunner into gear and followed the other two embassy vehicles. Two Tajik police cars with flashing sirens escorted them, making sure that they put a satisfactory distance between themselves and the airport. Overhead, another Russian military helicopter whipped by.

  Avery shook his head. “And we’re just going to allow the HEU to go through?”

  Gerald didn’t want to hear about this either. He didn’t want to explain to the DCM or his superiors anything about nuclear material going to the Taliban. As it was, it already looked like he had no control over anything happening here. He was sure that Langley would recall him after this fiasco.

  “He’s right,” Aleksa said. “They diverted a shipment of uranium bound for Russia. It’ll be in the Taliban’s possession by the end of the day. I have all the proof, but I don’t know the location of the processing facility.”

  “Who is she?” Poacher asked Avery again.

  “She’s the contact M-Bird set me up with in Minsk,” Avery told Poacher. He was aware of Aleksa glaring at him, and he consciously avoided meeting her gaze. “If it weren’t for her, I’d still be cluelessly fucking about Minsk right now.”

  “I thought you didn’t work for the CIA,” Aleksa said to Avery.

  Darren turned his head at that. “Whoa, who the hell said anything about CIA?”

  Avery cringed.

  Gerald cleared his throat. “Gentleman, perhaps we should have this conversation at a later time. Whoever she is, this woman does not have the requisite security clearances, and, as it is, we’ll already need to fill out FN contact forms.”

  He referred to the exhausting amounts of paperwork all CIA officers had to file after coming into contact with a foreign national. Avery knew Gerald didn’t expect any of them to comply with that protocol. He was just throwing it out there to cover his own ass, in case his superiors caught wind of a Russian citizen riding around in an Agency vehicle.

  Christ, this was turning into a freaking circus. Avery knew Gerald’s next statement was going to be something along the lines of debriefing Aleksa Denisova at the embassy, but he wasn’t about to turn her over to Dushanbe station.

  So Avery shot Gerald his angriest look, warning him off. The novice officer caught the message and let it go. Avery said to Poacher, “How do you think I found out about the HEU and got aboard that plane? I trust her, to some extent. She won’t talk.”

  “Oh, the hell I won’t,” Aleksa said, irritated with people talking about her as if she wasn’t present. “These people killed my friend. I still have a story to write, and it’s your fault I’m here. I’m not going to be quiet about this.”

  Avery’s head hurt. “Look, we’ll talk about it later.”

  He needed to discuss with her about what exactly she intended to do with everything she’d saw and learned. As far as he was concerned, she could print what she wanted, but anything that happened after she met him in Minsk was off-limits.

  He turned to Poacher. “What’s the story here?”

  “After I got your message, I contacted the boss.” Poacher didn’t want to use Matt Culler’s name in front of Gerald or Aleksa. “He said he’d to try to get a Predator over here to stick on the Antonov. I haven’t heard back from him on that. I have no idea if he has anything en route, and even if he was successful, it’s coming from Bagram, so it’ll probably be too late to do us any good. If you’re right about the cargo, then the Russians are going to fly it out of here ASAP.”

  “Why would they do that?” Aleksa asked. “They just flew it all the way here from Europe. They’re going to deliver it to the processing facility.”

  “Bullshit,” Poacher said, pointing a thumb in the direction of the spectacle unfolding back at the airport. “The game’s up. They’re finished.”

  “They have all of Aleksa’s notes and research,” Avery replied. �
��They’ll know that the location of the processing plant isn’t compromised.”

  “He has a point,” Gerald offered.

  “So this is the end of the line?” Poacher asked. “We have no idea where the HEU’s going and no way of tracing it, unless we can get an UAV up there in the next five minutes?”

  “Not necessarily.” Avery thought it over. There was something that had been stuck in his mind since he’d first talked to Aleksa in Minsk. “Gerald, remember you were telling me about CERTITUDE looking into a construction project underway in Gorno-Badakhshan?”

  Gerald hesitated before responding. “I remember. Why?”

  “I want everything you have on it, all of CERTITUDE’s reports.”

  Gerald opened his mouth to waffle, protest, and obfuscate further.

  But Avery cut him off before he could utter a single word. “Immediately. I haven’t finished my investigation, which means you’re still expected to cooperate fully.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Gerald said, looking ahead over Darren’s shoulder.

  They approached the embassy. Three GKNB cars waited on Rudaki Avenue outside the gates as the Forerunners pulled up. The doors swung open, and uniformed Tajiks, including Colonel Sergei Ghazan, climbed out.

  “He got here fast,” Darren observed.

  Avery told Aleksa to stay in the car. He got out with Poacher and Gerald, careful to obscure the Tajiks’ view inside the Forerunner, and quickly shut the door, so that they didn’t catch a glimpse of Aleksa. He had an ugly feeling where this was going, and he wasn’t sure there was much he could do about it.

  Gerald approached Ghazan, and the two chatted for a bit, out of Avery’s earshot. After a few minutes, Gerald turned and waved for Avery to join them. Ghazan provided him the document from the Interior Ministry declaring Avery persona non grata and ordering his immediate ejection from the Republic of Tajikistan.

  Avery didn’t resist or argue. There was no point. Cramer was long gone and not returning here, and there were other ways to slip into Gorno-Badakhshan, if that was in fact where the uranium was headed next. He wouldn’t waste time collecting all of his gear and belongings, which was infeasible anyway, since the GKNB would escort him wherever he went next. He was prepared to leave immediately and told as much to Ghazan, who seemed surprised at Avery’s cooperation