Authors: Dominick Fencer,Baibin Nighthawk
24
The rest of the day was very boring and the laboratory, like the kitchen, was deserted; the people had gone after the earlier revelry, leaving only four men on guard.
The three agents got ready for the night; they opened some cans of meat with vegetables and drank beer.
“Both the micro cams and the bugs have now self-destructed and they did not provide any useful information. Tomorrow we have to go in and install them again,” said BAT FK23 Bantam.
“I’m sending the contents of the hard disk to the agencies,” said Mark. “Let's hope that there’s something interesting. Meanwhile, I have to say goodbye to you for a while; I need to stretch my legs and stroll around a little bit behind the rocks.”
After walking a safe distance away from the other two agents, Li-2 took out the device to which he had copied the contents of the hard disk, he inserted it in the smartphone and opened the protected line with Pavel; he did not trust the two agencies and hoped that there was some information that would be useful in the search for his father’s murderer.
“Digitrevenant69, HD data incoming, payment when translation completed, he who seeks finds. MK.”
Mark destroyed the device and buried the pieces as Pavel returned the following message, “Digitrevenant69, QSL, the early bird gets the worm.” Pavel was implying he’d get to work on it the next morning in his time zone.
Mark returned to the observation point and began his two-hour stretch of guard duty.
25
“How about some scorpion tea?” BAT FK23 Bantam asked the other two agents at seven in the morning, picking up the bottle.
“No thanks, better to open a bag of cookies; Kamaal, I gladly leave you my ration of dried meat. Bat, please hand me that condensed milk crap, I’ll dilute it with some water,” said Li-2.
“Last night the four guards were all asleep!” Kamaal went on talking sarcastically. “We should tell that asshole Bouda that he is paying dormice instead of sentries.”
He did not complete the sentence before Mark said, “But what the fuck!” He was messing around with his smartphone and was very annoyed.
“What is it?” asked BAT F.K.23 Bantam.
“A message from the two agencies...they say that the image files sent yesterday were corrupt, so no pictures, fuck!”
“That's strange,” said Kamaal. “I checked everything carefully, besides it's a brand new device.”
“I will take some others of the Westerner. Kamaal, do you have the backup?” asked Li-2.
“Of course, just because we’re in Pakistan or Afghanistan does not mean that taking a picture is stealing the soul of the people and that it is sacrilegious. I'm going to look for it in the car and come back.”
“Very funny and clever this Pashtun,” Mark said, giving him a pat on the butt.
“Mmm, this scorpion tea is really good, I feel like Apollinaire when he wrote The Eleven Thousand Rods," said BAT FK23 Bantam laughing, as he sipped Kamaal’s tea after he had gone.
“Aha! Kamaal, we have one who delights in early 20th-century erotic literature!” exclaimed Li-2 as Kamaal took his seat again and handed him a new photographic device.
“Bat, go fuck yourself. You have finished the tea that you found so disgusting and now you pretend to be a professor on a topic that you would do better not to talk about.”
“Yeah! Now we have a philosopher as well!” Mark added.
At noon, the building was still empty, there was no movement and no one had arrived: the Westerner had not shown up.
“When the guards take their break we’ll go back in and place the devices again,” BAT FK23 Bantam said. “Hopefully, the spider will come out of its hole.”
“You had better hope that it’s not another scorpion Bat,” replied Li-2 with a laugh. He was completely bored with the situation by now.
BAT FK23 Bantam did not have time to answer because their three smartphones announced a new message simultaneously.
“Ah...” Mark was the first to open his message.
“Well?” Bat asked.
“The mission is over. Bouda is neither in Pakistan nor in Afghanistan but presumably in Europe. I have to leave the country immediately and go to Langley –documents and tickets at the airport – hand delivery. Kamaal, you have to take me to Peshawar.”
“I read it; we’ll leave in ten minutes. Bat, are you coming back to Herat with me? Can you confirm that?”
“Affirmative, Kamaal. What a pity that we can’t return to your brother, he was so nice!”
“Fuck you, Bat! And it's the second time that I’ve told you that in such a short time. Maybe you like it? Look here you, neither Li-2I nor I...”
“Let's go, I’ll take care of the equipment,” said Mark with a laugh. He was glad to be getting out of there even though he had collected no other information.
After a dusty and boring trip, they said goodbye and parted at the Peshawar airport. The British agent found his documents and his plane ticket in his jacket pocket after running into a careless Emirates Airlines’ hostess, who apologized for having bumped into him.
26
Savannah arrived in Washington a day and a half later, the first thing he did was send the VHS tapes to Sofia from the airport.
He went to the toilet and activated his smartphone on Pavel’s secure line and sent the message, “Digitrevenant69, books for you incoming, weather in Washington today is gloomy.”
“QRV-Digitrevenant69, the hard drive was a breeze.”
“QRX in the afternoon.”
“QSL later.” both ended their transmissions.
Pavel and Mark had fun transmitting part of their messages in Q code, but more out of habit than a real need; the code was commonly used by amateur radio operators and consequently was well known and so they enjoyed themselves.
The line was completely secure and Pavel was convinced that it was even safer than those used by the CIA after having performed several hacker tests on its security levels himself: no one had ever been able to crack the data line that he had built using innovative criteria, and checked and updated daily.
Mark left the airport, rented a car and went straight to Langley; he wanted to sleep in the city and arrive on time for the 8:30 appointment at CIA headquarters, so he got a room at the Holiday Inn, had a shower and ordered room service, then suddenly it occurred to him that he had to call Elizabeth.
“Elizabeth, hello, how are you?”
“I'm fine, thank you. Where are you? Why haven’t you called me before now? You didn't even send an e-mail.”
“I told you that I would be very busy...I'm still in Washington and will be busy for a while. The conference is over but I agreed to visit some patients at the psychiatric hospital, they need a second opinion. I'll be here for another week.”
“I understand of course,” replied Elizabeth coldly, “but I had hoped to hear from you earlier. You don't miss me; that is clear to me. You're always distant and now you're actually far away from me, tell me what can I expect from you? It's stupid to talk like this to you on the phone so many miles away…without looking into your eyes, but I believed we had something. It obviously wasn’t the same for you.”
“Elizabeth...”
“Please, let me speak. You’re a specialist in human behavior, and that makes me laugh, considering the way you behave. What's wrong with me? You don’t love me, Mark; and you show it all the time, whether you say it or not.”
“So what do you want?” asked Savannah, remaining calm.
“I'm asking you, Mark, not play games with me because I no longer want to play.”
“I don’t know Elizabeth. You've done nothing wrong but I don’t love you; that's the truth. I like you a lot but…”
“But it’s not enough...”
“Well…” Mark kept on talking, “In fact, you don’t show overwhelming passion yourself, I think that the rational part of our brains is managing our relationship and is in full control. I think we both bargained that we could do away with the emotional problems. I’m not sure…but I know I need to feel shivers flowing down my spine to feel alive.”
“Stop it Mark, or else you’ll be giving me a lecture on sexual chemistry and I really don’t want to hear it. Call me when you get back to London. I don’t like to leave loose ends like this; I want to speak to you over a cup of coffee, not over the phone. Goodbye.”
Elizabeth hung up without letting Mark reply.
“Elizabeth, I don’t love you, but no matter what you call love, you just want someone to complete your life, a husband who will look after your welfare.” Savannah said to himself, and at that moment he felt something like a sense of liberation, then he fell asleep exhausted from the trip.
27
Colonel F. Braxter and his Deputy, J. Randles, were already in the meeting room on the second floor of the west wing when Mark entered the room eight minutes ahead of the scheduled meeting.
“Savannah, did you have a good trip?” asked Braxter.
“Yes, thank you, sir. I had no problem at the airports.”
“Shortly, I’ll introduce you to your new operational team. You’ll be working with Stein, Moore, Wilson, Jenkins and Hayes on the ‘Uday, the one who runs fast’ mission.”
At 8:30 in the morning, the five men entered the room and closed the door behind them.
“Gentlemen,” began Braxter. “This is Mark Savannah, the British agent who provided the information concerning the Uday Bouda matter from Pakistan.”
Mark introduced himself and shook everyone's hand.
“You’ve been briefed on the mission and what Savannah has been doing until two days ago. You also know that you have been summoned as a working team because you are all experts in special reconnaissance missions and anti-terrorism actions.
“Savannah sent us the contents of the hard disk of the laboratory thought to be Bouda’s. At first it seemed there was nothing of interest, then we identified a file containing a flyer advertising a Pakistani IT company. The file contained a link to their website, which you can see now on the screen.
“Browsing the website we found the usual information, a presentation of the company and its services, accompanied by a series of photographs.
“Actually it's digital steganography, breaking down the different images, our engineers have identified the pictures that you can see at the bottom of the photo; each picture has a tag with the same date.
“As you can see, it’s the image of a nuclear power plant and in the background you can see Uday Bouda in person, the date is November 20, 2007…four days ago.
“The power plant is located at Fessenheim in the French region of Alsace.
“Bouda has apparently chosen to sabotage the plant and to place all Europe under threat.
“Fessenheim was the first power plant to be built in France in the seventies and has two old PWR reactors; it’s located near both Germany and Switzerland; in addition, it was built near a fluvial hydropower plant...so you can imagine the magnitude of the disaster, which could in turn trigger a domino effect in neighboring countries.
“Your task is to thwart the attack without causing trouble. You will have the support of the French service; as planned, Savannah will terminate Bouda and will also be in command of the operation.
“To prevent leaks there will be no survivors: the world will never be aware of the attempted sabotage.
“You will leave the bodies on the ground: a team of cleaners will remove them and clear up all traces; the bodies will be taken back to Kabul in Afghanistan where, as planned, they will die “officially” in a firefight with UK and U.S. forces.”
A secretary entered the room without knocking and left another stylized black and white drawing in front of each of them.
“The hologram will be available in 10 minutes and will remain active for two hours; afterwards it will self-destruct as usual. Gentlemen, you will all leave for France tomorrow afternoon, I will be your only contact...that's all, thanks...meeting started 8:30 am, ended 10:15 am.”
Braxter sent the message to the central unit and left the room followed by Randles.
“Hey, Savannah, would you like some coffee?” asked Jenkins in a friendly tone.
“Why not? Thanks,” Mark said.
“Very well, let's go down to the cafeteria, it’s the best coffee in the whole district, and we can briefly talk before going to study the instructions,” Jenkins replied, smiling.
28
The cafeteria consisted of a single very large room with many tables, and was clean and tidy; they asked for coffee at the counter, took it to a table and sat down.
“Are you a psychiatrist, Savannah?”
“Yes, and you? What’s your background?”
“I’m a musician.”
“What?”
“A musician, I play the tenor sax.”
“Very interesting, so the CIA is looking for talent with multiple gifts as well...I guess you have the gift of absolute pitch...and as you play a transposing instrument...perfect feeling for the notes and frequencies.”
“Damn it! That's astute!” said a surprised Jenkins, who was beginning to see Mark as more than just a bothersome shrink.
Suddenly Savannah was startled. He sensed his expression revealed this and quickly recomposed himself. He steadied his gaze on a man who was asking the bartender for a cup of coffee.
“Jenkins, do you happen to know the guy with the green sweater at the counter now?” Mark asked nonchalantly.
Jenkins turned his head, looked at the man and replied, “No, we have so many people here, why do you ask?”
“He reminds me of someone. I may have already met him on a few occasions, but I don’t remember where and I would like to avoid looking foolish.”
Suddenly, the guy with the green sweater came to their table, which was the closest table to the bar, carrying his coffee. “Is this seat free? May I sit down?”
“Please do,” Mark said. “My name is Mark Savannah and this is my colleague Samuel Q. Jenkins, anti-terrorism.”
“Nice to meet you, my name is Richard Reed. I’m the CIA consultant to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. We’re cooperating with you guys in the fight against drug production in Afghanistan. Surprised I haven’t seen you guys here before; I come to headquarters every three months.”
“And how is the situation in the country?” asked Jenkins.
“Apparently quiet, the joint policy of the three countries, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight the production and transport of drugs is beginning to bear fruit. We’ve seen a 15% increase in crops converted to wheat over the last year. And how are you guys getting on?”
“I would say that's a very good result! We’re posted to Europe, although we return quarterly to headquarters and, luckily, at the moment we don't see any threats capable of a terrorist attack. We’re mainly engaged in ETA surveillance.” Mark lied. In fact, the man in front of him was the Westerner who had negotiated for the opium in Pakistan.
He was amazed at how freely Reed acted, and at the same time furious, remembering the unreadable photos that the agencies had received; in fact, he did not have a shred of evidence against him.
“How long do you usually stay at Langley?” asked Mark.
“A couple of weeks and then I leave again, and you?”
“It's the same for us. I think it's standard procedure for agents abroad.”
“Jenkins we have to go, it's been a pleasure meeting you Reed.” Mark stood up and held out his hand and Jenkins did the same thing.
When they left the cafeteria, Jenkins stopped him and asked,
“Savannah, why did you tell that story?”
“Because, having the operations in the same field of action, it is prudent for nobody to expose themselves and, accordingly, he only told us about part of his activities. You're new to this job, huh, musician? What should I expect from you?” he replied in an unpleasant tone so that Jenkins would stop talking about Reed.
“Sorry Savannah, you can expect speed and absolute precision from me. I usually don’t take the initiative...but you already knew that, headshrinker.”
“The teams are small because each one must trust their partners, while maintaining his own role. I trust you Jenkins, but not those who are outside of the team. Good night, see you in Paris!”
Savannah shook his hand warmly and walked away, so Samuel felt less humiliated by the idiotic impression he had made earlier.