Authors: Ross Sidor
“So you’re saying the threat should be taken
seriously?” asked Avery.
“Coming from a source like Canastilla, yes.”
“Who’s supplying missiles to FARC?” Avery asked. “The SA-24
shoulder-fired variant is modern, top of the line gear. You don’t just go to
any arms dealer and place an order.”
Slayton fielded this question. “We can’t say for sure,
but we have our suspicions. We know that for the past month Emilio Reyes has
been meeting with a mid-level trade official from the Iranian embassy in
Venezuela named Farhad Mahmoudieh. The CIA station in Caracas has verified that
Mahmoudieh is in actuality one Colonel Vahid Kashani.”
“Kashani, that fuck!” Culler blurted out.
Avery shared the sentiment. He was just as surprised
to hear that name come up here. The faces of dead friends and teammates
appeared clear in his mind.
“Someone you know?” Slayton asked.
“Yeah,” Avery said. “You could say that.”
Avery exchanged looks with Culler, who knew exactly what
Avery was thinking.
Two years ago Avery ran security for a CIA unit
assigned to recover loose missiles in Libya. Gaddafi had accumulated vast
stockpiles of weapons, including 20,000 SAMs, over half of which were
unaccounted after the NATO-backed Libyan National Transitional Council took
power.
During the chaos that followed the fall of Gaddafi’s
regime, Libya became an ungoverned free-for-all. Arms depots were looted by the
various terrorist groups, intelligence services, and arms merchants flocking to
the country in droves. In addition to becoming a new insurgent battleground
rivaling Iraq during the American occupation, Libya also became a giant arms
bazaar with everything from AK-47s and RPGs to tanks, mines, artillery, chemical
weapons shells, and enriched uranium for sale.
On top of Libyan arms, plenty of American weapons
flooded the market too, including thousands of American-made Stinger missiles
and AT-4 anti-tank rockets that the US secretary of state had convinced the
president to send to Libyan rebel groups, at least one of which was a designated
terrorist organization and affiliated with al-Qaeda.
And al-Qaeda, Hamas, Boko Haram, ISIS, al-Shabaab, Chechen
rebels, Syrian rebels, Iraqi insurgents, Egyptian spies, Sudanese generals, and
Iranian Revolutionary Guard all lined up to buy everything they could get their
hands on.
While NATO forces immediately locked down Libyan
nuclear and chemical weapons sites, the White House tasked CIA with locating
and buying or destroying the MANPADS.
So Avery’s team of shooters escorted Arabic fluent
case officers through the war ravaged streets of Tripoli, the harbors of Sirte,
and abandoned desert army bases turned terrorist shopping centers, following
tip-offs from Arab agents recruited amongst the rebel forces and leads generated
from interrogating Libyan military officers. Avery’s job was to keep the case officers
alive and conduct direct action to secure any missiles they found.
After a month of snooping around, tipped off by
sources belonging to Ghadaffi defectors to the National Transitional Council,
Avery’s team soon caught wind of Iranians looking for Gaddafi’s brand new
SA-24s.
Why would the Iranians go through the trouble of
slipping undercover operatives into a war zone to procure weapons when they
could simply place an order with Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria, or Vietnam? Because
this way there’d be no records and no way for Western agencies to track the sales
and trace the missiles back from the end-user to the supplier. The missiles were
a completely deniable, untraceable weapon Iran could supply to Hezbollah or
Hamas.
Within the week, Avery’s team picked up the trail of
the Iranians, and learned they were planning to raid a secret storage facility
belonging to Gaddafi’s elite 32
nd
Khamis Brigade hidden beneath a
farm in Tripoli’s Salahadin neighborhood.
A Libyan agent from one of the militia groups on the
CIA payroll reported the Iranians had procured army transport trucks, paid off
Islamists who had seized an abandoned Libyan air base, and were preparing to move
the missiles out of the Salahadin facility that night. The shipment reportedly
numbered in the hundreds.
The head of the CIA task force shit a brick when he
heard this. He gave Avery the green light to move in and use whatever force
necessary to prevent the removal of the weapons.
But Avery’s team was delayed negotiating passage
through the territory of a local militia, and the team arrived too late. They searched
the warehouse, finding plenty of anti-tank rockets and older Chinese-made missiles,
but not a single SA-24 or SA-7. They did, however, recover SA-24 operating and
maintenance manuals, spare battery-coolant units, and transit crates.
While Avery’s team remained on site and waited for the
arrival of British forces to lock the place down and take inventory, they came
under attack by Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamist faction allied with Iran. The
firefight lasted until British paratroopers arrived to even the odds, but not
before Avery lost three of the men on his team.
The next day, CIA learned through one of its Libyan
agents that an Iranian cargo plane had taken off just two hours later from the abandoned
airfield the Iranians secured fifty miles away. The plane landed in Sudan, and
the missiles were diverted to covert Iranian bases in Shiite rebel territory in
Yemen.
Egyptian and Israeli intelligence sources in Sudan later
identified Colonel Vahid Kashani, a man already known to CIA and Mossad, as the
leader of the Iranian acquisition team.
Six months later, the Israelis raided a Hezbollah safe
house in southern Lebanon and discovered a cache of five SA-24s. Since then,
Libyan SAMs, both shoulder-launched and pedestal-mounted, have also turned up
in the Gaza Strip, Mali, the Sinai Peninsula, Somalia, and Syria. American
aircraft have already been shot down by the loose missiles, including a USAF
spy plane taking off from Camp Lemonier in Djibouti and a Chinook carrying a
SEAL Team Six contingent in Afghanistan.
Ever since Libya, Vahid Kashani had been on Avery’s
personal hit list. Avery pushed his contacts in JSOC and CIA’s Near East
Division, waiting to catch that one bit of intel that would set him on Kashani’s
path or steer him toward those missing SA-24s before they ended up in the hands
of insurgents targeting American troops in Iraq or Afghanistan or, worse, in
the hands of terrorists inside the United States.
Avery usually had no problem keeping detached from his
work, viewing it as just that, but this was different. He’d done plenty of time
as a soldier, lugging around a backpack and a rifle in foreign countries,
following orders. He’d also seen friends catch a bullet or an IED. Part of the
reason he went to work for CIA was because he thought maybe he could stop more
soldiers from getting killed in some God-awful place because one asshole or
another in the White House was pressured to intervene in some conflict or
another that often had little to do with the United States, more often than not
in a short sighted, half ass manner.
But other than one time in southern Yemen, where Avery
had Kashani under surveillance and in his crosshairs, only to be ordered by the
Seventh Floor to let him go, he’d had no luck. Ironically and frustrating, it
had been one of the rare times he actually listened to Langley’s orders.
Avery vowed that the next time he had Kashani in his
sights, he’d pull the trigger. And it wouldn’t matter a damn to him whether he
had official sanction or not.
“We knew these weapons were going to turn up somewhere.
It was just a matter of time,” Culler said.
And he was right, but Avery never expected the
missiles to turn up quite so close to home.
“I suppose this might be a stupid question to you
spooks, but why would Iran arm FARC?” Slayton asked. He knew, inside and out,
the world’s drug production centers and smuggling routes, and the governments and
gangs involved, but Middle Eastern politics fell outside his areas of
experience or interest.
“Why wouldn’t they?” Culler replied. As a veteran CIA
operations officer, he’d come up against Iranian agents on multiple occasions
in Iraq, Lebanon, Bosnia, Turkey, and even in Canada. He knew firsthand how
cunning and devious they were.
“With SA-24, they possess the perfect terrorist
weapon, and Iranian involvement is concealed and deniable. If FARC acquires
SA-24 and can turn an important country in the American sphere of influence into
a war zone and destabilize the region, well, that’ll keep the White House pre-occupied
with another crisis, won’t it? And FARC takes the blame. Just look at Lebanon,
Gaza, Iraq, the bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center
in Buenos Aires, the attack on the Israeli embassy in Azerbaijan. Iran’s
preferred method of attack is through deniable terrorist proxies.”
Culler went on to explain that when it came to
terrorist groups with ideologies that were seemingly contrary to Iran’s
revolutionary Shiite brand of Islam, Iran was still willing to assist
tactically, but not strategically. For example, Iran once supplied intelligence,
travel documents, shelter, weapons, and explosives training to al-Qaeda, but
Iran would never go as far as to politically help the Islamic State to create
its Sunni caliphate.
“It’s really low risk, high reward on Iran’s part,”
said Culler. “They can transfer the missiles to Caracas aboard a routine Iran
Air flight or in diplomatic containers. From there the missiles will travel
over the border into FARC territory. It’ll be easy to slip a few along the
cocaine smuggling routes into the US.”
Despite the pain and exhaustion coursing through his
body, Avery felt drive and purpose now, thinking about the Viper and Kashani.
He felt like an apex hunter finally presented with the prospect of worthy prey.
Arianna Moreno flew out of Panama’s Tocumen
Airport over a day after Avery and Aguilar made their exfil. Leaving the Trump
Ocean Club and Tower after the ambush, she’d sensed at once that something was
wrong, even before Jon Castillo missed the rendezvous and then failed to
contact her. She thought that Castillo was likely among the dead, which wasn’t
a loss, as there was no way she could have allowed him to walk away from the
Panama operation anyway.
But Castillo’s
death meant that Carnivore was alive, and this was soon confirmed when she saw on
the news the stills of the American from surveillance cameras around the hotel
and learned the police were searching for him.
There’d been
increased security measures and police at Tocumen Airport, but no one stopped or
questioned Arianna. They hadn’t even opened her luggage, which was just as well
because she travelled with the VSS disassembled and concealed in a specially
designed x-ray proof case of KGB origin.
She was sure the
case would be searched upon her arrival in Caracas. Venezuelan Customs officers
were notorious for searching travelers’ belongings for anything of interest to
steal, but that didn’t matter, because SEBIN expected her.
Arianna Moreno was
aware that the lecherous heterosexual male eye deemed her attractive, was eager
to appraise her, and that alone made her stand out in a crowd. Trained by female
DGI officers in the subtle and some not so subtle intricacies of seduction, she
knew how to use her looks and feminine charms to her advantage, and had done so
on multiple occasions, but she also knew how to conceal the aesthetically
pleasant contours of her physique, and she knew how to dress, wear her hair,
present her body language and demeanor, and carry her stride in order to go
completely unnoticed, not even warranting a second glance from a man thinking
with his genitals.
Fortunately, security
at the airport focused their attention on Caucasian males, not Latin females
flying on a Bolivian passport, allowing the Viper to easily board her flight
and slip away.
It truly was too
bad about Carnivore getting away. Worse, it made her question herself. She
never
failed to kill a target. She wondered if she’d get another shot at him. But as
satisfying as it would be to find the American again, she focused her attention
on the task at hand. The missiles were the main objective.
Plus Pablo Muňoz
had been the primary target in Panama City, and with the FARC informer now eliminated,
Andrés Flores would put the Viper into contact with the Venezuelan-Iranian
network arming FARC.
As she proceeded
into Simón Bolívar’s arrivals terminal, Arianna Moreno was aware of the Customs
officer’s eyes following her, professionally, not lasciviously. She did not see
the Customs officer hit a button concealed beneath his desk that sent a signal
to the airport’s SEBIN office.
SEBIN had
briefed Customs earlier, providing them with a photo of Arianna Moreno and
known aliases under which she might be travelling, and her passport had been
flagged. The Customs agent did not know who Arianna was or why she was of
interest to SEBIN. He simply did what SEBIN instructed, knowing it was best to
cooperate with the intelligence service without asking questions.
Fifty-five
seconds later, two SEBIN security officers approached the Viper from behind.
They casually
fell into stride beside her, while swiftly relieving her of her purse and
suitcases. If she hadn’t sensed them sneaking up beside her, and she hadn’t exercised
restraint, she would have reacted instinctively to the unexpected physical contact,
and the two SEBIN officers would be dead or disabled.
An additional
four officers were dispersed in the surrounding crowd, shadowing the trio,
keeping them within the surveillance box. The Viper quickly identified each of
them, mentally tagging them and logging their positions. They wore suits with
their jackets open so that their weapons were easily accessible.
The Venezuelans
didn’t expect trouble, but SEBIN’s already tumultuous relationship with the
Viper had just changed overnight, and they wanted her within sight and on a
short leash for the duration of her stay in their country. Their job was also
to see to it that it was a short and uneventful stay.
Arianna looked
from one of her minders to the other. She recognized one of the Venezuelans
from previous meetings. He’d introduced himself as Durante, which she’d
correctly presumed to be a pseudonym.
While detecting
no threat from Durante’s men, the Viper still maintained her guard and was
ready to react to any provocation. She could easily disarm and disable Durante
and his partner and take down or evade the backup team if necessary. Her mind
already choreographed the required movements.
“As always, it
is a pleasure to see you, Senorita Moreno.”
Durante radiated
glib insincerity. In reality, the Viper’s very presence put him on edge,
because of what she was and of the implications for his country if anyone learned
she was here. A head taller than Arianna, he stared down at her with his most
patronizing smile.
“If you will
please come with us, dear, we can go somewhere more discrete to talk.”
The Viper didn’t
resist or argue. She followed Durante to the SEBIN section, located in a closed
off section of the airport, near the hub of Conviasa, the Venezuelan national
airline, which is often used to carry Venezuelan intelligence officers across
South America and to Western Europe. The airport’s intelligence station rests
behind a heavy cipher-lock door and thick, bullet resistant glass windows
covered by blinds. Durante entered the five-digit code in the key pad, opened
the door, and escorted Arianna inside.
Durante guided
Arianna through the rows of cubicles and computer stations to a small interrogation
room in the back. Here he set her luggage down on the table and gestured for
her to sit down. He opened the larger suitcase and sifted slowly through the
contents. He held up a pair of panties, letting them dangle close in front of
his face and inhaled deeply through his nose while holding eye contact with her
across the table.
The invasion of
her privacy was a vulgar tactic designed to demonstrate his power, and place
her in the subservient, degraded position.
She turned her
head and yawned into her hand.
Next Durante
opened the smaller case and removed the false, x-ray proof bottom, revealing
the components of the VSS Vintorez. He whistled and shook his head in mock
astonishment. “You know, it takes serious balls to travel with this through
airport customs, but then you always were an arrogant one.”
“We both know
that your customs would never open my luggage, and even if they did, your
service would quickly intervene on my behalf. And Panamanian security is
practically non-existent as long as you’re on your way out of the country.”
Durante’s
partner took a picture of the disassembled rifle with a small digital camera. Then
he stepped back for a wider shot of the Viper seated at the metal table with
the case on the table in front of her.
“I suspect that
if we bothered to examine this weapon, we will find that it was recently
fired,” Durante said. “Our sources have obtained a copy of the ballistics
report from the Panamanian Ministry of Public Security. They removed a distinctive
nine-millimeter tungsten tipped armor piercing round of Russian manufacture
from Pablo Muňoz’s body. I’ll even go as far as to predict that we’d find
that this weapon was involved in the shootings in Panama City. My agency is
hearing through its sources in Bogotá that Muňoz was a Colombian asset. No
doubt the Colombians will pay handsomely for any information about his death.”
Arianna rolled
her eyes.
The implication
was clear. Durante possessed leverage to use against her, or at least he
thought he did. She didn’t understand to what end, though. He’d never before
made or implied outright threats toward her.
She realized it
could only mean one thing. Somehow, politics had become involved, and Caracas
was trying to cover its ass.
“Am I being
detained, Durante?”
“In a manner of
speaking,” the Venezuelan replied. “Don’t worry. I won’t delay you for long. My
orders are to take you to the Iranian, that’s the arrangement I have with
General Flores, but first I need to discuss something with you and make certain
conditions known. What I am about to say is on behalf of the chief of my
agency.”
“I’m listening.”
The Viper expected
that Durante wanted money and waited to hear his price. SEBIN officers were
well known for their corruption, and Durante was no exception. In the past,
he’d provided her with passports, weapons, and logistical support, like moving
equipment in diplomatic pouches, but it always came at a cost. Despite the
leftist Bolivarian rhetoric of their political leaders, SEBIN was actually
quite capitalistic and opportunistic.
Like so many
men, Durante had once sought the use of Arianna’s body in return for his
assistance, but she had made clear in no uncertain terms that he should remove
the idea from his mind, lest she remove something else from him. Her body had
been for Aarón alone, and now that he was gone, Arianna did not believe she
would ever share herself with another man. Most men, in fact, disgusted her
just for being male.
So like most
men, if sex was not available, Durante happily accepted cash as the next best
thing, although at inflated rates.
“I must make
absolutely clear to you, Senorita Viper, that when your business here is
finished, you will no longer be welcome in Venezuela. That is, if you intend on
going through with this insanity and diverting Estragos to the United States.”
Arianna had not
expected that. The resentment and animosity swelled within her. “So you’ve
spoken with Andrés Flores.” She thought that for an intelligence chief, Flores
did a bad job keeping secrets. “And what else has the self-styled general told
you?”
“I know enough,
and my service is kept well-informed. You’ve been an occasionally useful asset,
Senorita Moreno, but after today, the relationship between my agency and
yourself is over, and it will be as if it never existed. If you ever return to
Venezuela, or enter a Venezuelan embassy abroad, or threaten to compromise my
agency’s operations or my government’s political standing, you will be regarded
as hostile agent, a terrorist and an international fugitive, which, let’s be
honest, is exactly what you are. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela neither
supports nor condones terrorism.”
“Is this a
threat, Durante? You should know that I do not respond well to threats,
especially not from sniveling apparatchiki who are incapable of actually
following through or posing a threat to me.”
“A friendly
warning, but take it how you please.”
And the Viper
understood full well how to take it.
After she
commenced her assault against America, she would become the most wanted person
in the world. If she re-entered Venezuela after that, SEBIN would be obligated
to take action and couldn’t feign ignorance of her presence. The last thing the
Venezuelan president needed was to be accused of being complicit in terrorist
attacks against the United States or harboring those responsible.
But the
Venezuelan government also couldn’t risk taking her alive.
There would be
complications with the Americans or the Colombians demanding extradition, and
her past connections to SEBIN could prove politically embarrassing if they ever
came to light during interrogation sessions by the intelligence services of
either nation.
Another concern
was that she would attempt to blackmail Caracas into providing her sanctuary.
So the threat
was quite implicit. If she returned to Venezuela, Durante would make her
disappear.
The Viper
expected no less from the Venezuelans. They’d never been true allies. They
simply resented Colombia for being a close American partner, and Caracas only
used FARC when it served Venezuelan interests to do so.
The good news
was that the Viper, to a certain extent, could at least count on Venezuela not
to betray her to the Americans, unless she violated the terms that Durante had
just laid out for her. There existed absolutely no intelligence sharing between
Washington and Caracas. Far as the Americans were concerned, SEBIN was a
hostile intelligence service.
“We know that
you were responsible for the stupid and pointless violence in Panama City,”
Durante continued. “You’re becoming reckless and what you intend for the United
State is absolute insanity. My government will have no part in it. We are in
fact taking a considerable risk as it is merely by facilitating your
transaction with the Iranian, but that is really none of our business.”
It was a
calculated risk, Durante didn’t need to mention. The missiles couldn’t be
traced back to either Iran or Venezuela. And only certain factions within SEBIN
had knowledge of Plan Estragos.
“You may not
believe it,” Durante added, “but this is a more than fair arrangement,
especially considering that I can have you arrested right now and rid my
government of the burden you pose. We go our separate ways. You leave us alone,
and we in turn leave you alone. As a courtesy and a show of good faith, we will
allow you to retain ownership of the passports and legends my agency has
provided and backstopped for you, and we will not compromise those identities
in the manhunt that will surely unfold.”