The Colonel's Mistake (13 page)

“First we’re changing rooms. If someone picks Decker up and he talks, this place’ll be compromised.”

“Good point. By the way, even though Decker won’t be tailing you tonight, I will be.”

“I told you, my agents expect—”

“It’s not open for discussion. You won’t see me, but I’ll be there.”

She gave him a look that said back off, but he either didn’t get it or didn’t care. She wondered whether he was intentionally making it hard for her to run or just being stubbornly protective.

“I don’t want your help, Mark.”

She looked at her watch, thinking she
had
to get to Astara.

“Yeah, I’m getting that.”

Washington, DC

“The Azeris just let her go?” asked Colonel Amato, upon hearing that Daria was no longer imprisoned at Gobustan.

“Her release was arranged by Mark Sava, the contract operative I told you about,” said Kaufman.

“I thought you said we were looking at a couple days, minimum?”

“Evidently he saw an opportunity.” Kaufman spoke with little enthusiasm.

“Excellent.” Amato nodded his head as he held his phone to his ear. “Excellent work. I assume that upon her release, Ms. Buckingham was taken to the embassy, for a debrief?”

“In fact she was not.”

After a silence, Amato said, “So when’s she coming in?”

“Whenever Sava decides he doesn’t need her anymore for his investigation.”

“He’s using her? After what she’s been through?”

“Our assets in Azerbaijan are limited. He’s doing what he has to. And since Ms. Buckingham was carrying an Iranian passport when she was picked up by the Azeris, it could get sticky if she’s
seen approaching our embassy. We haven’t officially acknowledged her as one of our own and the embassy is almost certain to be under surveillance.”

“Is she at least under protection? After what happened in Baku, under your watch I might add, I’d think protecting your remaining assets would be paramount.”

“Well, yes. If you count Sava as protection. He’s still with her, and he’s an experienced operative. One of our best.”

Amato recalled the section of Mark’s file that had detailed his history as an operations officer. “I didn’t see any military experience in his file, nothing to suggest he’s qualified for a real protection detail.”

“Are you kidding? In the nineties he served as an advisor to our Special Activities Division. Abkhazia, Tajikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh…that’s three civil wars right there that he was in the thick of. The file might not have spelled out all the details, but I can assure you, the guy knows what he’s doing.”

Amato sighed. “Where are he and Buckingham now?”

“Baku, I think.”

“You think?”

“He didn’t say and I knew better than to ask. He was on a cell phone. It was a thirty-second conversation.”

“Call him—immediately. If he’s half as good as you seem to think he is, he should be able to find a way to safely bring both Daria Buckingham and himself to the embassy for a debriefing. If he still needs her to help with the investigation she can do it from the embassy.”

Kaufman sighed. “I have the last cell number Sava used. But this guy changes his phone number practically every time he makes
a call.” He explained about SIM cards. “He’s obnoxiously obsessive about it. I doubt I’ll even be able to reach him until he calls me.”

Speaking slowly, as if addressing a hapless private, Amato said, “Both Buckingham and Sava need to be questioned about what happened in Baku. And quickly, so the president can properly instruct State on how we can get ahead of this mess. Campbell’s assassination has got the Azeris worried that an intelligence war is about to break out in their country between us and the Iranians. If we don’t play this right, it’s possible the Azeris will restrict all our in-country assets, including the military’s. So I don’t care how you do it, you bring Sava and Buckingham in ASAP.”

“If that’s the way the president truly feels, I’d advise you to have him communicate the same to the DCI. Because right now you’re the only person who’s pressing me on this. And I don’t take orders from you, Colonel. We’ll hear from Sava when we hear from him.”

Mark forced himself to stay awake, secretly keeping watch over Daria as he stared up at the swirls in the dark textured ceiling and turned everything over in his head. The Iranians, the Chinese, the pipeline, Campbell, Daria…nothing was in focus.

She’d returned at midnight from an unproductive meeting with a middle-aged Chinese diplomat and now lay in the twin bed next to his own, curled up into a fetal position. He suspected she was still awake because her breathing was irregular and every so often the sheets rustled in a way that suggested consciousness. They were both fully clothed, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice if need be.

At one in the morning he got up to go to the bathroom. As he was taking a piss, he dialed Decker’s number.

“I’m up!” said Decker.

Mark hung up without speaking and went back to bed. And this time, knowing that he’d transferred the rest of the night watch to Decker, he fell into a deep sleep—until four thirty in the morning, that is, when his cell phone started ringing.

He fumbled for it in his front pocket. When he finally flipped it open, Decker said, “Get your ass moving, boss!”

Mark jumped out of bed and turned on the light. Daria was gone. “Where is she?”

“On foot, already walking north on Pushkin.”

“Why didn’t you call earlier?” He grabbed his bag, opened it to see if Daria had stolen any of his cash—she hadn’t—and limped toward the door, still stiff from having jumped off the balcony. Taped to the door at eye level was a note:

Please drive straight to the embassy and stay there. I’m sorry I put you in danger. DO NOT try to find me.

Daria

“I did,” said Decker. “You didn’t answer.”

“Don’t lose a visual.”

Through the lobby windows, Mark saw the gray Lada sedan that Decker had rented parked in the circular driveway in front of the Absheron. The keys would be in the ignition. When he was about twenty feet from the lobby doors, he stopped. “How we looking?”

“Still good.”

But Mark stayed where he was.

A moment later Decker said, “Hold up! She’s turning, heading right back to you.” And then, “Shit, she’s staring right at the entrance to the Absheron. I think she’s onto you, boss.”

“No, she’s just being careful, doubling back to trip up any tail that might be on her.”

He sat down on a couch that faced away from the windows and waited.

A couple of minutes later Decker said, “OK, she’s moving again.”

Mark walked through the lobby doors and got into the Lada. Inside was a faded navy-blue beret, a dirty brown blazer a size too big for him, a baseball cap, and a black windbreaker.

He started the engine. “Fall back. I got her.”

Mark drove past Daria, turned right a couple of blocks later, and then parked the car. That early in the morning, the streets of Baku were empty and dark. He followed her on foot. Taking parallel streets, he was able to monitor her from a distance at the intersections, using walls and bus shelters as blinds. He changed his appearance frequently, rotating the brown blazer, blue beret, baseball cap, and windbreaker in different combinations.

She took surveillance-detection action on a couple occasions, slowing down and then speeding up, stopping and pretending to search for something in her shoulder bag as soon as she’d turned a corner. At one point she took a circuitous route through the massive railway station, circling back on her tracks a couple times.

But while Daria was a natural when it came to recruiting and manipulating foreign agents, Mark noted she was still a bit of a rookie in the countersurveillance department. To him, her movements were often obvious and easy to anticipate—good enough to flush out a tail of even above average skill, perhaps, but not someone with his kind of experience.

She walked the streets for over two hours. As she did, the city slowly came to life. Men pulled back metal grates covering their storefront windows and soon the smell of baking bread began to mix with the stink of diesel fumes.

Finally she ducked into an alley, pulled a headscarf and a black chador robe from her bag, and came out dressed as a conservative Muslim woman. She walked straight down Azadlyq Avenue until she came to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, an angular modern building clad in brilliant copper-colored reflective glass. In front of the bank lay an open square with a long central wading pool awash in the delicate sunlight of dawn.

Using his binoculars, Mark observed Daria from a distance as she sat down on a bench by the pool. Then he called Decker and asked him to retrieve the Lada.

When Decker showed up, Mark got into the driver’s seat and parked the car a couple of hundred yards behind Daria. The morning commuters were beginning to come out, providing some cover.

“She’ll wait until seven when that bank, the Credit Azerbaycan, will let her in for off-hours access.” Mark pointed to a small brick building on the perimeter of the square, barely visible because it was tucked behind the much larger Central Bank.

“How would you know?”

When Mark didn’t answer, Decker said, “She a CIA agent?”

Mark hesitated, then said, “Operations officer.” Noting the blank look on Decker’s face, he said, “Operations officers get hired by the CIA in Washington and are then sent abroad to spy. Agents are the foreigners they recruit to spy for them. The other thing you should know is that she’s been operating in Baku under nonofficial cover. Which means she has no diplomatic immunity, no special protection, nothing. The embassy can’t even officially acknowledge her. Needless to say, you are not to repeat—”

“I can keep my mouth shut.”

“I know she kept a safe deposit box with her original US passport here at the Azerbaycan. The CIA has a relationship with the bank that allows her and other ops officers access outside of normal hours.”

“You know a lot about her.”

“I used to be her boss.”

“Why’d she run?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

Daria swiped her thumb across the fingerprint scanner and waited for a beep but none sounded.

The bank teller, a woman in her twenties who wore thick makeup caked over her acne-scarred face, frowned then pushed the reset button.

“Again.”

Daria did. Still no beep. “Is there a problem with the machine?”

“Sometimes it’s slow.”

“I’m actually in kind of a rush.”

And she was god-awful hot in her heavy chador. She wiped a bead of sweat from the top of her forehead, reminded herself to breathe normally, and glanced at her watch—five minutes after seven. Mark would almost certainly be awake by now.

She hoped he’d have the good sense to take refuge at the embassy.

“Should I try it again?”

The machine beeped. “There it goes. Now enter your password.”

Daria did so and was led to a room in the back of the bank. A minute later the teller placed her safe deposit box on a table in the center of the room.

“Ring me when you’re done.”

Daria locked the door from the inside and quickly opened the box. After confirming that a long strand of her hair still lay undisturbed across the top, she pushed her real US passport aside, revealing $2,000, an Iranian passport, an Iranian driver’s license, a second US passport, and a US driver’s license.