Stalin's Final Sting

by Andrew Turpin

  About fifty yards along the alley, just past the church, Watson clicked open the latch on a tall wooden gate, slipped into the backyard of a house, and shut the gate behind him.

  The property was one he had visited a couple of times before for meetings with EIGER and Rex Zilleman. The house actually belonged to a friend of Zilleman, who had flown in from Zürich.

  The three men had worked together intermittently for years on a number of clandestine investment projects. Originally, it was just Watson and EIGER; then they had joined forces with Zilleman in the late ’90s after realizing their agendas were similar while working on an arms deal in Iraq.

  Watson opened the rear door of the house and stepped inside, turning the key in the lock and fastening bolts at the top and bottom of the door once he had done so. He turned and was about to head for the living room when the figure of EIGER stepped out into the hallway ahead of him.

  “Robert, nice to see you again,” he said in a low voice.

  Watson strode over and shook hands. He had christened him with the code name EIGER a few years earlier.

  “Yes, good to see you,” Watson said. “I hope you’re keeping safe?”

  “Yes, just about. Come this way. Rex is waiting; then we can talk business. I don’t have very long.”

  Watson liked EIGER because although he had never been a professional intelligence operative, he certainly behaved like one. There was little chance of him causing their venture to be torpedoed because he’d been careless.

  They walked into a small living room, where Zilleman was waiting, papers spread out in front of him on a table next to a coffeepot and three cups. He stood and greeted Watson, then poured the coffee for all of them.

  Zilleman sipped his drink. “What I’d like to do is get some soundings from you, Robert, before we press the button on Peak. I’d like to be slightly clearer on how you think the Chinese will react when they realize that we, the Russians, and others like Haze are all bidding. Will they come in with a high offer at the outset? If they do, I want to be ready to hit straight back with a knockout number.”

  “I think they will,” Watson said. “I think they’ll see this just as strategically as the Russians do. Putin is probably going to want to do this under the radar and hope nobody notices. He’ll probably try to characterize it as just another part of Russia trying to have a friendly, helpful relationship with Karzai and his government. I mean, we know better. The Chinese won’t let that pass easily. They’ll probably try the same tactic but also use some fairly aggressive guerrilla PR activity to remind everyone of Russia’s track record in Afghanistan.”

  Zilleman opened his laptop and spent the next forty minutes showing EIGER and Watson a series of documents detailing the production potential of each of the gas and oil fields that the Afghanistan government was including in its sale prospectus. Then he opened a spreadsheet that illustrated the prospective financial returns should each of them be developed to full production.

  EIGER whistled softly at the numbers. “Looks damn good. So it may be better to go in high from the outset?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Watson replied. “You want the Chinese to know that we’re taking this very seriously and we’re in there to win it.”

  “So we’re looking at north of $11 billion,” Zilleman said.

  “Yes,” Watson said.

  EIGER also nodded. “Go high,” he said. “Gas and oil are the new guns and bombs as far as Afghanistan is concerned. That’s where we’ll make our money in the future.”

  “You’re right,” Zilleman said. “Any other issues?”

  The three of them had a general discussion about the security situation in Afghanistan and the implications should they be successful in winning the bid.

  “Any other obvious threats facing us?” Zilleman asked.

  EIGER folded his arms. “There’s the obvious one—which I guess has always been there—that my cover gets blown,” he said. “That would be terminal.”

  “True,” Watson said, nodding. “But that’s been the case with every deal we’ve ever done, and it’s not been blown yet. We’ve got my cover to worry about too, now, of course.”

  The three men had worked together for many years and had done many deals, mainly in the arms industry, none of which had leaked.

  “Let’s make sure it doesn’t get blown,” EIGER said. “I want to get hold of a list of all American and British officials, including intelligence and security services, who are currently in Afghanistan and to check through it for any potential or obvious threats. I don’t mean regular army; I’m talking diplomats and known spooks.”

  “That could be a long list,” Zilleman said.

  “I know. But we should do it. I can’t request it, obviously, so one of you will have to. Robert, do you still have ways to get that information?”

  “Yes,” Watson said. “I can’t get it directly, but I have someone who can get it for me, hopefully by tomorrow morning. You’re right, it’s worth checking if there’s anyone there who we think might disrupt things for us.”

  EIGER leaned forward. “If there’s someone in that bracket, we’ll have to find a way to sideline them. That’ll be your job, Robert.”

  Chapter Six

  Thursday, May 30, 2013

  Kabul

  Johnson sat bolt upright and turned his head away from the monitor screen that he and Jayne were viewing in a small meeting room at the US embassy. “Can you rewind that back to where the main part of Donnerstein’s presentation finishes, please,” he asked the technician who sat next to him, operating a laptop. “There’s something I need to see again.”

  Sally O’Hara had finally arranged for Johnson to view the video recordings of the briefings on the Afghanistan oil and gas investment project that he had missed two days earlier.

  While the technician was sorting out the video, Johnson glanced out the window. It was only quarter past nine in the morning, but the sun was blazing from a typical cloudless Afghan sky. The office overlooked a sprawling expanse of shipping container accommodation units across the road. Hundreds of US embassy staff lived in the pods, which were surrounded by sandbags for blast protection, during their assignments in Kabul. The embassy was spread across two sites, on the east and west sides of Bibi Mahru street, connected by a thirty-meter tunnel.

  He had heard the staff referring to the container housing units as hooches, a reference to a thatched hut. Kabul was a tough posting for diplomats. Although they made the best of it with their own internal social life, movement was severely restricted given the ongoing risks. Everyone seemed to talk only about their next trip back home.

  “There you go, Joe, ready to go again,” the technician said. He pressed play, and Johnson looked up at the monitor screen on the wall.

  There was Donnerstein, a tall, perma-tanned, thickset man with muscular shoulders, finishing his talk about the massive opportunity for Afghanistan to create great wealth from developing its oil and gas assets. He stressed the parallel opportunity for those willing to take the risk of investing. Johnson focused hard as Donnerstein brushed a hand through his neatly groomed gray hair, stepped away from the lectern, and moved off to his right, where the video showed him in conversation with another man, who looked like an Afghan.

  The Afghan, in a sharp suit and tie, was gesticulating as he spoke. At one point, he twirled his index finger around rapidly in repeated circles in front of him, as if to emphasize something he was saying or indicate that something needed to be done quickly. At the same time, he was nodding his head. The sound feed did not pick up anything of what he was saying, but there was something in the twirling hand gesture, the nodding head, and the man’s appearance that took Johnson back twenty-five years.

  Then he remembered what Rice had said about the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum’s bid process.

  One of their officials, the head of financial transactions, is running the process for them.

  Johnson turned to Sally, who was standing behind him, also watch
ing the video footage. “Who is that man talking with Donnerstein there?” he asked, pointing at the screen.

  “That’s the government official who’s managing the oil and gas sale,” Sally said.

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Not sure. I can go and check, if you like. Why, do you know him?”

  “I’m not certain. Possibly. If you could check, that would be great,” Johnson said. Sally opened the door and disappeared.

  “I think it’s the same guy,” Johnson muttered.

  “The same as what?” Jayne asked.

  “The consultant who Donnerstein was talking to on the film there. I think he’s the mujahideen commander I met in Jalalabad and Hani in ’88—Javed Hasrat. He told me then he had worked in energy, for the Afghan state electricity utility company.”

  Jayne raised an eyebrow. “Really? You think it’s the same guy?” She looked skeptical. “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know how, but it’s that hand-twirling gesture he was doing,” Johnson said. “I remember him doing that like it was yesterday at both those meetings I had with him. You know, just when he wanted to emphasize something he was saying or indicate we needed to get moving with something.”

  The adviser in Sally’s video had a stubbly beard and was wearing a suit, whereas the Javed Hasrat who Johnson knew in 1988 had a full black beard and was wearing a shalwar kameez when they last met in Jalalabad. Nevertheless, Johnson had a sudden conviction that he was correct.

  Javed Hasrat had, moreover, facilitated the biggest triumph of Johnson’s CIA career in Islamabad. He and his colleague Baz, working under Johnson’s direction, shot down and captured a Russian Mi-24 gunship helicopter in the Kurram Agency, a V-shaped piece of Pakistani territory that jutted into Afghanistan, about thirty-five miles southwest of Jalalabad. The Hind had been at the top of the CIA’s wanted list in terms of technology, and the operation earned Johnson a congratulatory telegram from the CIA director at Langley. Unfortunately for Johnson, the triumph was completely soured by the catastrophic foray into Jalalabad that occurred at around the same time.

  Johnson looked up as Sally came back into the office. “His name is Kushan Mangal,” she said.

  Johnson pressed his lips together. “Okay, thanks for checking.”

  “Sorry,” Sally said. “Not your man.”

  “Maybe not,” Johnson said. “Do you know where he lives or where his office is?”

  “I’ve no idea where he lives. I assume he’s got an office at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum at Abdul Haq Square,” Sally said. “It’s less than a mile away.”

  Johnson turned to Jayne. “You know what. I’m going to make sure about this. I think he would be worth meeting, just to be certain,” he said. “I’ll see if it’s possible to fix something.”

  Jayne stood and made the same twirling circular gesture with her hand that Kushan Mangal had been making in the video. Johnson laughed. That was what he liked about her: she had a sense of humor and was still able to get on with the job. Both were critical in this kind of environment.

  “You don’t like leaving stones unturned, do you?” Jayne asked.

  “No. You know me.”

  “Anyone would think you were a virile young twenty-eight-year-old again, not fifty-four.”

  “I don’t like the implication that because I’m fifty-four I’m not virile,” Johnson said with a mock frown. “Are you putting me to the test, Jayne Robinson? Come on, let’s see if we can get a meeting. Then we’ll know.”

  Thursday, May 30, 2013

  Kabul

  The armored car that had picked up Johnson and Jayne from the US embassy took precisely four minutes to get to the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum offices, a drab gray concrete building about three hundred yards south of the busy traffic circle at Abdul Haq Square with its five lanes of vehicles flowing in a predictably chaotic fashion amid a cacophony of car horns, yelling, cursing, and general road rage.

  The traffic circle, named after a mujahideen commander who battled the Soviets in the 1980s, was populated by a variety of street vendors selling everything from shoes to kebabs, with a number of money changers hustling passersby for their business from their vantage point beneath a few pine trees. Three traffic cops were fighting to keep control of the chaos.

  Nearby was an array of other Afghan government buildings, such as the Ministry of the Interior and the KHAD intelligence agency. Next to the circle was a tall tower block, which O’Hara had pointed out to Johnson as the place from where a group of hard-line Taliban militants had launched a concerted and prolonged assault on the US embassy and other buildings two years earlier, using RPGs and other weapons.

  Johnson and Jayne, who was wearing a blue hijab to cover her head and neck as she normally did when in any public areas of Kabul, made their way into the security check area of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum’s offices. They were required to produce passports plus one other form of identification, and then there werepersonal and bag searches, which seemed focused on checking for explosives.

  Once cleared, they were allowed through into a waiting room. The decor was typical of government buildings in Kabul: cheap plywood brown doors, a gray cement floor with a crazy paving pattern, and ineffective lighting.

  A glass display case on the wall contained photographs of all the senior civil servants in the department. Faded curtains hung at the windows, and the only other wall decorations were badly framed photographs of Hamid Karzai and the current minister of mines and petroleum.

  Johnson had telephoned from the US embassy to try to speak to Kushan Mangal. He had gotten through to his secretary, had given his name, and after she had said he was too busy to speak on the phone, had requested a short introductory meeting instead. He told her that he was working as an adviser to the International Criminal Court and wanted to build a picture of the economic damage that Afghanistan had suffered from Taliban attacks on energy installations. None of it was true, but Johnson felt he had no viable genuine excuse for requesting a meeting and was therefore justified in fabricating one.

  The secretary had confirmed a thirty-minute slot for five o’clock. Now, though, the man on the front desk told Johnson that Kushan was unavailable and that instead the meeting would be with the deputy minister, Safia Joya, together with one of her advisers. Johnson grimaced; it was typical of his experience with Afghan bureaucracy.

  He and Jayne waited nearly half an hour before the deputy minister, a slim, pretty, middle-aged woman wearing a navy blue shalwar kameez with a pale blue hijab, appeared through a set of half-glazed swing doors. She appeared unbriefed, slightly confused, and had no adviser with her, so Johnson had to explain that they had originally been scheduled to meet Kushan Mangal, as well as the reason for the meeting.

  “You would not have had a meeting with Kushan,” Safia said firmly. “He has decided to take some vacation for a few days. I do not know why that meeting with you was scheduled.”

  “Vacation? While this oil sale is going on?”

  She shrugged. “This is a quiet period. Nothing is happening while we wait for the bidders’ presentations.”

  “Do you know where he’s gone?” Johnson asked.

  “No. He called to say that he was going to be away for a few days, out of Kabul, and did not give a reason.”

  “We’ll have to try another time, then,” Johnson said. “He was recommended to me, but I don’t know him. What’s his career background?”

  Safia hesitated, as if unsure whether to give the information, but then said, “He worked in electricity, then he left after the Soviet occupation and went to a few of the big oil companies in the United States in jobs that involved investing in oil and gas exploration. We knew all that experience would be very useful for us when he joined eight years ago. He is good and knows the industry. He is also good on the finance side.”

  He worked in electricity. Javed had worked in electricity too.

  In 1988, when Javed agreed to try to capture a Hin
d for the CIA, he had stipulated that in return he should get US passports and permanent residential visas for himself and his children, together with air tickets to New York. That was when he told Johnson that he had a background with an electrical utility. But although Javed had delivered the Russian chopper, he had then been captured in Jalalabad before arrangements could be made for the passports and visas to complete the deal. Johnson had then left Islamabad without hearing from Javed again.

  If this was him, he must have gotten the US visas and the refugee status somehow.

  “Which day is he due back?” Jayne asked.

  “I am not sure which day, exactly. This bid process is nearing its conclusion. He will be back before that—in two weeks we reach the final stage, when the bidders will have to make their presentations to the minister, myself, and the rest of the team in person. That will be critical.”

  “Do you know where Kushan lives?” Jayne asked.

  Safia looked at her blankly. “Of course we have his address,” she said. “I am not giving you those details, though. They are private.”

  “Well, could I ask his assistant or leave a message?” Johnson asked.

  “That is the best option.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that. Where does his assistant sit? Upstairs somewhere, I assume?”

  “Yes, she is on the third floor,” Safia said, “but she will not be there now, and I cannot let you go up there, anyway.”

  “Thanks, I’ll call her tomorrow,” Johnson said. “Also, do you know who Kushan worked for in the US?”

  “I am sorry, I cannot remember,” Safia said. She glanced at her watch and stood. “I need to go. I have a meeting. The security guard will see you out.” She shook hands and left.