Politika (1997)

by Clancy, Tom - Power Plays 01

  The chirping of the bedside phone caused him to abort his sentence.

  Megan looked at him.

  “You don’t suppose that’s Scull, do you? I mean, would he have the nerve to call your place trying to get hold of me?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.” Blackburn shrugged, reached for the phone, then let his hand rest on the receiver a moment. “If it is Scull, you want me to curse him out?”

  “If it’s him, I’ll be the one to do the cursing,” she said.

  He smiled a little and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Max, sorry to disturb you, I know it’s early in Kaliningrad. But this is very important,” a voice said at the other end of the line.

  “No, no, it’s okay.” Blackburn turned to Megan, covered the receiver, mouthed the word “Gordian.”

  An odd expression came onto her face. Was it his imagination, or did the unflappable Megan Breen look flustered? He suddenly recalled water-cooler rumors that she’d been pining for Roger since she joined the firm. Could they have been true? And if so, what business was it of his? And why should he feel bruised?

  “Max, you know the crew Pete’s been tracking down?” Gordian said guardedly. “The ones who crashed the New Year’s Eve party?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We’ve got descriptions, points of exit, and points of entry for them,” Gordian said.

  Blackburn straightened.

  “I should really take this in my office, it’s got a more secure line,” he said. “I’ll hang up and get right back to you.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” Gordian said, and hung up.

  Blackburn tore off his sheets, threw his legs over the side of the bed, and hurried to his clothing closet.

  “Now what’s your fire?” Megan said, perplexed.

  “Better get dressed,” he said, slipping on his pants. “I’ll tell you on the way out.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW FEBRUARY 1, 2000

  HIS BACK TO THE DOOR, HANDS CLASPED BEHIND HIM, Starinov was standing by the window, watching the sun leap at severe angles off the golden helmet domes of the Assumption Cathedral, when Yeni Bashkir entered his office.

  On Starinov’s large mahogany pedestal desk was a bound report. Printed on its first page in Cyrillic were the words “CLASSIFIED MATERIAL.”

  Letting the door close softly behind him, Bashkir grunted to himself and took two steps forward over the medallion-patterned Caucasian rug. He was reminded, as always, of the rich history of his surroundings. Going back through the centuries, how many tsars and ministers must have stood just as he and Starinov were now?

  “Yeni,” Starinov said without turning to face him. “Right on time, as always. You’re the only man I know whose obsession with punctuality equals my own.”

  “Old military habits die hard,” Bashkir said.

  Starinov nodded. He was wringing his hands.

  “The report,” he said in a heavy tone. “Have you read the copy I had delivered to you?”

  “I have.”

  “There is more besides. A bill has been introduced in the American legislature. It would force the President to discontinue all agricultural aid to our country and result in a complete economic embargo. Business enterprises between our nations would be suspended.”

  “I know.”

  “These sanctions can be avoided, I am told, if I prosecute a man the Americans have implicated as the originator of a heinous conspiracy and act of destruction. A man who would surely deserve the harshest of punishments should the accusations against him be proven.”

  There was silence in the room for perhaps two full minutes. Bashkir didn’t move. Starinov’s eyes didn’t leave the great crownlike cathedral domes.

  “Just once,” he resumed finally, lowering his head, “I would like to feel as sure of myself as I remember being in my younger days. Does everything sooner or later cloud with uncertainty, so that we go to our graves knowing less than we did as children?”

  Bashkir waited a moment, staring at Starinov’s back. Then he said, “Let’s get this over with. If you need to ask me, then do it.”

  Starinov shook his bowed head. “Yeni—”

  “Ask me.”

  Starinov expelled his breath in a massive sigh. Then he turned and looked sadly at Bashkir.

  “I want to know if the report the Americans have given me is true. If you are responsible for the bombing in New York,” he said. “I need to hear it from your lips, on your honor.”

  “The truth,” Bashkir echoed.

  Starinov nodded again.

  Something turned in Bashkir’s eyes. “If I were the sort of man who would slaughter thousands of human beings in a cowardly terrorist attack, the sort who believed that a political agenda would be worth spilling the blood of helpless women and children—be they Americans, Russians, or innocent citizens of any nation—then what trust could you place in my word of honor? And what value would our friendship have? Would a man behind such a deceitful coup against you, a man capable of betraying you so completely, have trouble answering you with a lie?”

  Starinov smiled ruefully. “I thought I was the one with questions here,” he said.

  Bashkir had remained rigid and motionless. His cheek quivered a little, but that was all. After a moment he spoke again.

  “Here is truth for you, Vladimir. I have been clear about my mistrust of the American government. I have dissented with your open-door policies to American investors. I still subscribe to the basic ideals of Communism and am convinced we must build closer ties to China, a nation with which we share a four-thousand-mile frontier. I am open about all these things. But I also openly abhor terrorism. And as a sworn member of your cabinet, I have always acted in what I believe to be your best interests. Dissect me if you will, discard the parts that conflict with those that have cast my loyalty and integrity in doubt. That is the easy way out for you, I think. But I would have expected you to look at the whole of who I am. Who I have been for as long as we have known each other.” He paused. His eyes bored into Starinov from under his shaggy eyebrows. “I did not have anything to do with the bombing. I would never become involved in creating such horror. You speak of my honor? I will never again be dishonored by responding to such a question as you have asked me. Lock me away in prison, execute me ... or better yet, have the Americans do it. I have spoken my piece.”

  Silence.

  Starinov regarded him steadily from across the room, his outline framed in the hard winter sunlight flooding in the window.

  “I will be leaving for my dacha on the coast next week,” he said. “I need to be alone and think. The pressure from the United States will be intense, and will be joined by those here at home who want us to cave in to them, but we will find a way to stand against it all. No matter what they do, we will stand.”

  Bashkir gave him a stiff, almost imperceptible little nod.

  “There is a great deal of work ahead of us, then,” he said.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  ANKARA, TURKEY FEBRUARY 7, 2000

  THE SUN FROM THE OFFICE WINDOW WARM AGAINST his face, Namik Ghazi sat relaxing with his hands linked behind his head, his feet crossed under his desk, and a shiny silver tray on the blotter in front of him. On the tray was his morning glass of spiced wine, a glazed ceramic bowl filled with mixed olives, and an elaborately folded cloth napkin. The olives were cured in oil and imported from Greece. Better than the Spanish varieties, and far superior to those grown here in his own country. They had been delivered just yesterday, and though the shipping had cost him an arm and a leg, he had no regrets. Had not the ancients believed the olive to be a gift of the gods, a preventor of disease, a preserver of youth and virility? Was it not the fruit that grew from the branches of peace? Give him a constant supply, and the occasional tender attentions of his wife and mistress, and he could live out the final third of his life a happy man. Members of his American and European complement at Uplink’s Near Easte
rn ground station often chided him for his breakfast preferences, but what did they know? It was his belief that their colonial heritage got in the way of their maturation as human beings. Nothing really against them, of course. He was a benevolent manager. He tolerated most of them, liked a few, and called a small handful close friends. Arthur and Elaine Steiner, for instance, had been invited over to his home quite often before Gordian snatched them away for the Russian enterprise. But even that dear couple ... well, gourmands they weren’t.

  Aya, but the Westerners loved to judge. As if their tastes in eating, drinking, and loving were based on some empirical standard. Did he ever comment on their ungodly consumption of sizzled pork flesh with their morning eggs? Their relish of bloody, ground-up cows for lunch and dinner? The vulgar fashions of their women ... What perverse mind had conceived of pants on the female form? Aya, aya, Westerners. How presumptuous for them to think they could write the encompassing definition of worldly pleasure. His day began and ended with olives and wine, and nearly everything else in between was toil and struggle!

  Releasing a wistful sigh, Ghazi unmeshed his fingers, leaned forward, and gingerly plucked an olive from the bowl. He slipped it into his mouth and chewed, closing his eyes with delight as its flavor poured over his tongue.

  That was when his intercom beeped.

  He ignored it.

  It beeped again, refusing to leave him be.

  He frowned, pressed the flashing button.

  “Yes, what is it?” he said grumpily, spitting the olive pit into his napkin.

  “Ibrahim Bayar is on the line, sir,” his secretary said. As always her voice was pleasant and even. How could he have been so brusque with her?

  “I’ll take it, Riza, thank you.” He lifted the receiver, suddenly curious. The head of Sword’s regional security force had been assigned to the Politika affair by Blackburn himself. What could be up? “Gün aydin, Ibrahim. Have you made any progress finding the black sheep?”

  “Better than mere progress,” Ibrahim said. “We have found the hiding place of at least one of the terrorists. Perhaps even the woman.”

  Ghazi’s heart galloped. “Where?”

  “A Kurdish sanctuary outside Derinkuyu. I’m in a village inn right now. The Hanedan. I’ll give you the rest of the details later.”

  “Will you need additional men?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. Send me three teams, and be sure Tokat’s is among them. This may be difficult.”

  “I’ll get on it right away,” Ghazi said. “And Ibrahim?”

  “Yes?”

  Ghazi moistened his lips.

  “Have great care, my friend and brother.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  CAPPADOCIA, SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY FEBRUARY 9, 2000

  EVEN BEFORE THE HITTITES SETTLED THE REGION four thousand years ago, Bronze-age troglodytes were tunneling into the strange volcanic domes, knobs, cones, spires, and furrowed massif ridges of Cappadocia, digging a network of subterranean communities whose rooms and passages extended for miles beneath the chalky tufa, providing separate housing for hundreds of people at a time. Living quarters were equipped with bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens, as well as shrines, water cisterns, stables, storage areas, workshops, and wine cellars. There were public hospitals, churches, and internment grounds. Entries, ledges, balconies, staircases and pillars; frescoes and sculptures; even furnishings such as tables, chairs, benches, and sleeping platforms were carved whole out of the firm yet malleable stone. Tiny slots in the walls between individual dwellings allowed communication throughout daily routines, and provided an efficient civil alarm system in periods of emergency.

  Over the centuries of Roman occupation, diverse groups of ethnic tribesmen, and then early Christians—including, it is believed, Paul the Apostle—found refuge from persecution in this hive-like underground megalopolis. Later it sheltered reclusive monastic orders from the brutalities of Mongol, Arab, and Ottoman invaders. In recent decades, isolated portions of it—the equivalent of contemporary neighborhoods, towns, and belt cities—have been excavated by archaeologists and in a few cases opened to tourists. Some parts of the complex remain either undiscovered or known only to local peasant populations. A few were occupied by Kurds streaming northward from Iraq in the wake of the Gulf War, and to this day function as hidden strongholds for Kurdish militia bands at violent odds with the governments of Turkey and its international allies ... including, for a variety of reasons, the United States.

  For that, Ibrahim thought as he spurred his horse forward over the rugged slopes, if for no other reason, the man-made caves south of Derinkuyu would have been an ideal hideaway for Gilea Nastik and her cousin Korut Zelva after the Times Square bombing. There were many Kurdish sympathizers in these isolated regions, hillmen who tended to be suspicious of anyone they didn’t know, and who would resent intrusions into local affairs by outsiders. Even those who were politically neutral would have nothing to do with the group that had come hunting for the terrorists.

  And since he was Roger Gordian’s man on the spot in this isolated territory, Ibrahim worried that if any local tribesmen spotted his riding party, the butchers were almost certain to be alerted.

  He rode at a steady gallop, the muscular, sweat-slick sides of his steed rippling like oil beneath his stirrups. The sun was plunging solidly down on his shoulders, giving a bleached-out shimmer to the terrain ... a wasteland so stark and craggy that nothing on wheels—not ATVs, not even Sword’s small fleet of fast-attack vehicles—could have traversed it.

  There were stretches here that seemed to exist in a still pocket of eternity, Ibrahim mused. Stretches where change was resisted at an elemental level, where roads and telephone lines came to the end of their reach, and large distances were traveled on horseback or not at all. The land did not compromise; you adapted or you were defeated.

  Ibrahim rode on, his hands loosely gripping the reins. The neck of his horse rose and fell, rose and fell, with an easy, swaying sort of rhythm. To his left and right, the hooves of his teammates’ mounts slapped the ground, beating up little clods of pebbles and ashy soil. The men wore lightweight dun-colored fatigues and carried VVRS M16 rifles fitted with M234 RAG kinetic-energy projectile launchers. They had gas masks and protective goggles strapped around their necks.

  Perhaps a kilometer distant, Ibrahim could see a huge arch-backed formation pushing up from the surrounding terrain. The honeycomb tiers of openings on its high rock walls had once led to the lodgings of a caravansary. There traveling merchants would come to a temporary halt in their routes, bringing supplies to the cities beneath the ground, descending from the upper chambers through long stepped passages.

  Now, Ibrahim knew, the passages would be filled with scorpions—human scorpions as well as the traditional ones. And the mission of his team was to flush out their hiding place, and capture the deadliest of the creatures, without killing any of them. The quarry, however, would show no such compunction. Given a chance, they would slaughter him and every one of his men, leave them to rot on the barren earth.

  Well, no struggle was ever fair to all sides. Ibrahim and his brothers-in-arms knew the job they had to do, and would try as well as they could to get it done. The rest was up to Allah.

  The lair of the scorpion ahead of them, they clipped along through the desert silence.

  The porter at the Hanedan hotel had left the village at dawn, barely ahead of the strangers who had arrived over the past two days. He took little-known shortcuts between the slopes of the forbidding moonscape, driving his animal relentlessly toward the humped shelf of land that served as the main access to the underground hideout. Other rabbit holes existed through which men could enter and leave the chambers, but most led to passages that had become blocked, or collapsed, over hundreds of years.

  Korut would have positioned the bulk of his sentries at the shelf, and they needed to be warned. Aya, they did, and fast.

  The young hotel worker shot a glance back over his shoulder,
saw the armed riders and their horses as small advancing dots at his rear, corkscrews of desert dust winding into the air above them. He did not know who had sent them on their manhunt; in truth, it was of no matter to him or his fellow villagers. Some weeks ago Gilea and Korut had returned to Derinkuyu, needing shelter and protection, and they had gotten it. Gilea and Korut were linked to his people through blood and clan lines, and had their allegiance to a soul.

  He would not fail. He would get to them before the interlopers, tell them of the advancing threat, even if it meant running his horse to the ground.

  Nothing his relatives could have done—nothing—would prevent him from aiding in their escape.

  Korut snapped a full 30-round magazine into his Kalashnikov AKMS, slung the assault rifle over his shoulder, and ran down the corridor, his footsteps thudding flatly off its pocked and pitted stone floor. Minutes ago, an anxious voice had shouted to him through the slot in his wall, alerting him to a raid. Strangers were coming across the waste. Less than a klick to the south, and getting closer by the second. They had ridden out of the village that morning, a mixed group consisting of Turks, Americans, and Europeans.

  It was a stroke of good fortune that Gilea had already departed, leaving him behind to train and recruit new operatives. By now, she would have made her rendezvous with the minisubmarine in Amasra, on the northern coast, and be halfway across the Black Sea to her destination.

  He did not think his pursuers were CIA or Interpol. They would have come with helicopters, even planes, but not on horseback. Whatever its multinational composition, this force was commanded by men who knew the land, using inbred native tactics. Could it be the mysterious organization he’d had been informed about, the same one that had sent a team into Roma’s office in New York?

  There was no way to be sure, and ultimately what was the difference? They had sought him out, they had located him, they were coming for him.

  Korut only prayed he could make them live to regret it.