Stalin's Final Sting

by Andrew Turpin

  Javed pursed his lips. “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve still got several left. It would mean we could operate out of the city. It would be much safer.”

  It was a fair point, and Baz was correct. He did have several Stingers left, together with gripstocks, sights, and battery coolant units, all stashed in a cave in the Sulaiman Mountains north of Khost, not far from the Pakistan border.

  “Are they still going to work, though?” Javed asked. “The BCUs are the issue. I thought they were only viable for a few years? They’ve been there since ’88.”

  The battery coolant units were small, single-use circular devices that were screwed into the base of the Stinger’s gripstock. They provided the power to fire up the missile’s infrared homing device a few seconds before launch. They also contained pressurized argon gas that cooled the infrared system. Each missile was supplied with a pack of three BCUs.

  Baz shook his head. “I’ve talked to a few people who think they’ll be fine. Remember Royan?”

  Javed nodded. He did remember Royan, who was a Tajik and thus in the minority in the mainly Pashtun region where they had all lived. He had been a rival mujahideen commander in a neighboring valley.

  “He also has some Stingers stored somewhere,” Baz said. “He tested two a year or so ago, and I know for a fact they worked perfectly. Anyway, there’s three per missile, so if one doesn’t work, we have plenty more. I think the rumors about their limited shelf life is just American propaganda. They obviously don’t want them in circulation.”

  Javed grinned. “That’s true, no doubt about it. How did Royan test them? I hope he didn’t shoot down a US chopper.”

  “Not quite. But he did shoot down an American drone. They’ve been using the drones in the valleys around here to keep tabs on the Taliban. He took one of those out.”

  Javed grimaced. “That’s not good. I’m sure the Americans were furious.”

  “Yes. It caused an uproar. They knew the drone had been hit by a missile but didn’t know it was one of their own Stingers, of course, and they presumed it was the Taliban who’d done it. Anyway, the point is, the missile worked fine.”

  Javed and Baz Babar had been friends since childhood, when they had grown up in the village of Wazrar. Their parents had made sure they were well educated. Both had gone to university in Kabul, and they had fought together as mujahideen rebels against the Russians during the 1980s. The Stingers, acquired from the Americans via the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, had been a key part of their armory. Between them, they had taken down more than fifteen Russian Mi-24 gunship helicopters.

  But since the Soviet occupation had ended in 1989, their paths through life had been very different. Baz had remained in Afghanistan, working as a civil engineer on various roads and infrastructure projects, including the Khost-Gardez Pass.

  After the death of his wife, Ariana, and their eight-year-old daughter, Hila, in a devastating Mi-24 attack on their village by the Russians in early 1988, Javed had secured asylum in the United States, mainly because of assistance he had given to the CIA. He had been accompanied by his two remaining daughters, Roshina and Sandara, now forty-one and thirty-nine, respectively, and mothers themselves.

  Their move to the US followed Javed’s ordeal at Kabul’s Pul-e-Charkhi jail after he had been trapped by the KGB. Baz had somehow managed to avoid capture.

  Once in the States, Javed ended up in Houston, where he worked for a series of exploration companies, producers, and investment consultancies in the oil and gas industry.

  But Javed had never forgotten the KGB officer who, together with his underlings had broken his fingers, kicked in his ribs, electrified his testicles, and wrecked his kidneys.

  He had found out the name of the Russian, Yuri Severinov, from his mujahideen network, which also informed him that it had been Severinov who had orchestrated the Hind attacks on the villages in the K-G Pass that had killed his wife and daughter.

  Although Javed had moved to the United States, the deeply ingrained Pashtun tradition of Nayaw aw Badal—revenge and justice—was tattooed on his core as firmly as if it had been put there with a branding iron.

  It was a blood feud of the highest order—avenging the death of his wife and daughter. His determination to achieve it had always been there, but as time went on and the distractions and challenges of dealing with life in another culture took over, his focus had become diluted.

  However, Javed’s experience, coupled with his Afghan background, eventually led headhunters to approach him in 2004 for the role of the head of financial transactions for the Afghanistan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.

  Javed decided to take the job, accepting a sharp cut in salary for the chance to work in his home country again. When the government decided to open its oil and gas fields to foreign investors, Javed ran the process. And then, unexpectedly and not long after the bidding had gotten underway, Severinov appeared in Kabul. Now he was some kind of tycoon, trying to buy into the very same oil and gas assets that Javed was responsible for selling.

  His desire for revenge had been instantly rekindled.

  After the RPG failure, maybe now, with some downtime while he was waiting for the oil bid process to move to the action stage, he should put himself in a position to ensure the next attempt succeeded.

  Javed emerged from his own thoughts and noticed that Baz was staring at him. He began to speak slowly.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Javed said. “Perhaps we should consider Stingers. But how are we going to get them back here?”

  “Fetch them with mules from the cave, then bring them here in the pickup—under the false bed, like the RPGs. Simple.”

  “What if they get found at checkpoints?”

  “They won’t. We won’t get that kind of detailed search unless you give them a reason. We’re not on any watch list. And we bribe our way through the police checkpoints anyway, if necessary.”

  “Okay,” Javed said, a doubtful note in his voice.

  “There’s one thing that worries me,” Baz said. “Are you sure Severinov doesn’t know who you are?”

  “I don’t know,” Javed said, a little hesitantly. “I’ve only been face-to-face with him twice when he came in for briefings. He’s not shown any sign of it, but then he wouldn’t, would he, being ex-KGB? I only met him briefly when he tortured me in ’88, and I looked very different then.”

  Javed now had only a stubbly, short beard and was bald and bespectacled. Twenty-five years earlier he had worn a long beard, had a thick head of hair, and was significantly slimmer.

  “Let’s hope not,” Baz said. “The other thing is, if we do decide to use the Stingers, it’s going to be very difficult to plan an attack. We’ll need to keep track of where Severinov is, what his movements are, and when he’s flying in and out.”

  “That’s all fixed,” Javed said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, all of the people who came in for briefings on the oil and gas sale had to hand their phones in. All of those phones now have tracking devices built into them, mostly in the new batteries the security team put in. And the same goes for the sale prospectus documents they took away with them. They’ve all got trackers built into the spines. As long as Severinov has his phone on him, or his prospectus in his briefcase, I’ll know where he is at any time.”

  Javed took his phone from his pocket, tapped on the screen until a map appeared with a blue dot in the center, and showed it to Baz. “Look. He’s just west of Moscow right now, in a house next to the Moscow River.”

  Wednesday, May 29, 2013

  Kabul

  After Haroon had gone, Johnson realized that although he felt very much of two minds about taking on Rice’s proposal, almost unconsciously he was being sucked in.

  He had to admit, he did find the Russians fascinating. He had studied Russian history during his time at Boston University and had learned to speak fluent Russian as well as German while getting his PhD on the economics of t
he Third Reich at the Freie Universität in Berlin.

  Now Haroon’s new revelation about Severinov coordinating the village helicopter attacks had added a new spin to the story. Could the man really have been a big league war criminal?

  “What are we going to do if we get evidence of Severinov’s crimes—can we have him prosecuted?” Jayne asked.

  “I’ll upturn every stone,” Johnson said. “But whether the ICC prosecutes or not, it will trash his reputation and put him out of the race for the oil reserves and probably every other international deal he might ever want to attempt in the future.”

  Johnson needed more information to help him make a final decision. At least he had made a start with his inquiries into Severinov. Next would be ZenForce Group, the Swiss investment fund, and its managing director, Zilleman. Maybe Vic, who was still working at the CIA in Langley, Virginia, along with their former colleague in Islamabad Neal Scales, also now at Langley, could help him with that one. They could quietly check out Rice and his client Haze’s credentials at the same time. Vic and Neal could get access to a large number of information sources that Johnson couldn’t.

  Johnson reached for his phone and rang Vic’s number, using the encrypted connection the pair of them habitually employed for their conversations.

  “Guess where I am?” Johnson asked when Vic answered.

  “How the hell should I know?” asked Vic in his trademark low-pitched voice.

  “Kabul. Apologies in advance, Vic, but I could do with some help.”

  “You’re always asking for frigging help.”

  Vic Walter, his most trusted CIA colleague when they were stationed together in Islamabad, had remained a close friend, as had Neal. Both of them were now among the Agency’s Directorate of Operations’ longest-serving employees. Vic’s current role had a strong focus on Afghanistan and involved supplying intelligence to the special activities division, which concentrated on covert and deniable attacks on Taliban and other insurgent groups.

  When Johnson needed a little assistance on one of his investigations, which usually involved extracting information on individuals from CIA files, Vic did his best to help, though it very much went against Agency rules.

  Johnson, who was sitting at a table in the living room of the villa in Kabul, quickly outlined the proposal that Frank Rice had put to him.

  “I’m a little skeptical about doing this. The risk factor is quite high,” Johnson said. “But I was discussing it with Jayne, and I thought I’d check it out.”

  “What do you need?”

  “First, I want you to check out Rice himself, and his client Haze,” Johnson said. “I need to know they’re trustworthy before I work with them.”

  Next, Johnson told Vic about the opaque investment company ZenForce Group and its managing director, Rex Zilleman. “He’s originally American, I’m told, now in Zürich. Can you see if there’s a file on him and if any of your contacts at the NSA can get any phone intercepts? I’d like to know what Zilleman and his company do, who else is working with him, what businesses they have stakes in, and who their investment clients are, if possible.”

  The National Security Agency was focused on collating so-called signals intelligence, with communications at its core, particularly phone, email, and internet traffic.

  “You’re not asking too much, then,” Vic said. “I mean, I don’t have a day job to do, so I’ve got tons of time on my hands, of course.”

  “Sarcasm’s the lowest form of wit,” Johnson said.

  “It’s all you deserve,” Vic said with a chuckle. “Yes, I’ll see what I can find on all of them. How are things at the embassy there?”

  “They’re busy and stressed,” Johnson said. “A lot of movers and shakers coming through, bankers, politicians. There was Donnerstein yesterday, of course, as well as the Silverson Renwick chief executive, and then Paul Farrar’s here soon—Afghanistan seems to be right at the top of his agenda.”

  “Yes, I know,” Vic said. “He’s hot to keep our troops there as long as possible. I’ve been doing some work on the wider security implications of that, coincidentally.”

  “By the way, I saw Haroon Rashid earlier,” Johnson said. “He flew in from Islamabad to see me specially.”

  “MILLPOND? How is he? He must be retired now, no?”

  “He is. But he’s like me: he can’t let go and he still seems well connected. So he’s going to do a bit of work for me, chasing down the Russian I mentioned, Severinov, and his company, Besoi Energy.”

  “Severinov. I still can’t believe he’s resurfaced. They’re all coming out of the woodwork,” Vic said.

  “They are. Speaking of people coming out of the woodwork, have you heard anything more about Watto?”

  “No, nothing,” Vic said. “They’re still looking for him, although it’s gone a bit quiet on that front. They think he may be in South America somewhere, probably Brazil or Argentina, under a false identity, of course.”

  “Haroon suggested trying to track down Javed and see if he’s still got that photo of Watson with the Stingers,” Johnson said.

  “Good luck with that, buddy.”

  “I know, I know.”

  After ending his conversation with Vic, Johnson toggled over to his email app and wrote a brief note to each of his children. Carrie was sixteen and Peter would soon be fifteen. Both of them were home in Portland, where his sister, Amy, and her husband, Don Wilde, were taking care of them, as was normally the case when he was away overseas on a job. They didn’t have children of their own and enjoyed doting on his. All of them were worried about him in Afghanistan, so he tried to keep in touch as often as possible.

  Amy, at fifty-two, was a couple of years younger than Johnson. She had been an invaluable help ever since Johnson’s wife, Kathy, had died from cancer in October 2005 at the age of just forty-six. They had only been married for eleven years. The following year Johnson had given up his job with the Office of Special Investigations and moved the family from DC back to Maine to run his own investigation business.

  Johnson dispatched the emails and walked to the kitchen, where Jayne had set up a makeshift office on a small round breakfast table. She had also been busy, using a secure cell phone to speak to one of her former colleagues Alice Hocking, who was based at the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters base in Cheltenham. Alice occasionally helped Jayne with off-the-books background checks on people and organizations when needed.

  “Any luck?” Johnson asked.

  “Yes, Alice is getting some background on Zilleman, hopefully,” Jayne said. She clasped her hands behind her head. “She’s going to double up on what you’ve asked Vic to do and see if there have been any useful email or cell phone intercepts. It might be the case if he’s involved in major investment opportunities with energy companies, given the national security implications in that sector. We’ll see.”

  GCHQ was responsible for collecting online, digital, telephonic, and other communications-based intelligence to complement the work of MI6 and its domestic equivalent, MI5. It made sense to ask them to run checks to back up whatever Vic’s people at the NSA might uncover.

  “The one thing Alice did pick up, though,” Jayne said, “is that Zilleman still spends a lot of time in the US. Usually in DC or New York, according to a first glance at the phone records she accessed. Her first comment was that his client base of investors is probably there—rather than Zürich.”

  Wednesday, May 29, 2013

  Washington, DC

  Robert Watson pulled his faded gray baseball cap down over his face, adjusted his glasses, and walked past the French restaurant and the elegant red-brick facade of the John Wesley African Methodist Church on Fourteenth Street NW. He turned right into the sunshine that streamed down Corcoran Street NW and then, after passing the church’s main entrance, stopped and leaned against the wall.

  He pulled a phone from his pocket and made an imaginary call that lasted around thirty seconds. During the animated “conversati
on” that followed, he made a careful final check for any sign of coverage. There had been none during his surveillance detection route around DC, and he was confident he had not been followed. But Watson could not afford to make a single mistake.

  Following his escape from Virginia to an apartment in Vila Madalena, a neighborhood in western São Paulo, in the wake of the fiasco surrounding the Yugoslav arms-to-Syria revelations, Watson had not previously ventured back to the States. He was now, for all intents and purposes, Dirk Leman, a sixty-seven-year-old retired teacher from San Francisco who was enjoying a slower pace of life in Brazil.

  Ironically, his cover story had been assisted by the natural inclination of the CIA to clamp down on media coverage about his disappearance the previous year, worried about the sensitivity and the embarrassment factor.

  But now he had been obliged to break cover to make this trip. One reason was to extract a large amount of money from two US savings accounts that were listed under false names. A second was to reclaim his original birth certificate from his lawyer, who he knew would turn a blind eye to his status. The other was to hold detailed discussions about Project Peak, a forthcoming, potentially highly lucrative multibillion-dollar oil and gas investment project in Afghanistan, and finally decide whether to press ahead with it.

  The Leman legend, or cover identity, was an old one he had created privately some years earlier rather than an official CIA one. He had all the documentation he needed to run it effectively, including a birth certificate, a passport, a driver’s license, and credit cards. All he needed to do to fit the profile was don a pair of tortoiseshell-framed glasses and let his hair grow so it had a shaggy, unkempt look.

  For Watson, it was almost like being an operative again after years in senior management roles at Langley.

  Eventually, Watson ended his pretend call, pocketed the phone and, with a slight limp, slipped down an alley that ran alongside the church.

  The limp had been acquired following a gun battle in late 2001 in the caves at Tora Bora, twenty-five miles southwest of Jalalabad, near the Pakistan border, when he had damaged a knee ligament while on an ultimately unsuccessful CIA National Clandestine Service hunt for Osama bin Laden, along with members of the US Army 5th Special Forces Group.