Death of a Spy (27 page)

57

Baku, Azerbaijan

As they were passing through downtown Baku en route to Gobustan Prison, the general who had arrested Orkhan received a call on his cell phone. He answered it, listened a moment, said, “Yes, yes, of course I’ll hold.” And then, a minute later, said, “Of course, Mr. President. It’s just that I—”

Orkhan reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out the last of his cough drops and popped it into his mouth. He breathed deeply through his nose, enjoying the sensation of lemon scent rising through his nasal cavities.

“—yes, yes, Mr. President. No, no problem. I will bring him there at once.” The general clicked off his phone and turned to Orkhan. “We will not be going to Gobustan.”

“No?”

“No. The president wishes to see you.”

Orkhan took a moment to digest this new bit of information. “I see. Did the president say what he wanted?”

The general looked worried. “He did not.” A moment later, he said, “I truly am sorry about all this, Minister Gambar.”

Orkhan sucked on his cough drop as he wadded up the wrapper and let it fall to the floor. “I’m sure you are.”

Several upscale waterfront restaurants had recently sprung up on the shores of the Caspian south of Baku. At one, the president of Azerbaijan sat outside at a circular table, beneath a bright cerulean-blue umbrella. The air smelled of seaweed, and salt, and fish. Just offshore, oil rigs sparkled in the waning sun, as did the tower cranes that stood atop all the man-made islands under construction. Gentle waves surged up and down through the rock-pile breakwater.

Before Orkhan could get within a hundred feet of the president, he was stopped and frisked by the president’s bodyguards, a process that resulted in the confiscation of his phone. That minor indignity was compounded by the fact that, when Orkhan was brought to the president’s table, a large meal of what appeared to be beef tenderloin, served with a red wine reduction sauce of mushrooms and shallots, sat in front of the president. The rest of the table was bare.

It was dinnertime. Orkhan was hungry.

“Minister Gambar. Good of you to come.” The president skewered a piece of beef and stuck it in his mouth.

“Mr. President.”

“You were right. About the Russians.” The president spoke with his mouth full. His fork clattered to his plate, and he nervously wiped his mouth with a napkin that lay on the table. “Dubov just held a press conference.”

Dubov was the Russian foreign minister.

The president, his voice laced with equal parts anxiety and derision, continued, “He warns the Iranians not to attack, that Russia would see this as an unacceptable encroachment on the Russian sphere of influence. He spoke of troops at their base in Armenia. In South Ossetia. In Dagestan. You were right. The Russians, they have prepared for this.”

Orkhan considered the president’s words. “
Sphere of influence
. He dared to say that, did he? The dog.”

“They have no shame.”

Orkhan drummed his fingers on the table. “And the Russian ambassador. What does he say?”

“That Russia is willing to offer military assistance if Azerbaijan should need it. Generous of him.”

“Should we need it,” repeated Orkhan. Now it was clear. Now he knew the Russian plan. But it was happening even faster than he thought it would.

He looked out to the nearest of the man-made islands under construction in the Caspian. The islands were to be Azerbaijan’s answer to Dubai. There would be luxury hotels, a Formula One racetrack—there were even plans to build the tallest skyscraper in the world. Orkhan had never liked the thought of turning Baku into a mini-Dubai, but he liked even less the idea of the Russians putting a stop to it. No one would want to invest in an Azerbaijan dominated by Russia.

“The Russian ambassador tells us not to worry, that Russia will not tolerate an Iranian incursion into Azerbaijan. That Russia is bound—by the treaty of Kars—to protect the territorial integrity of Nakhchivan.”

“That old communist treaty has nothing to do with this.”

“He adds that he is deeply concerned that we would not be able to adequately defend ourselves against an Iranian invasion.” The president swallowed hard and took another bite of his steak, as if to communicate that, while the matter they were discussing was indeed troubling, things were not yet so dire that they merited interrupting dinner. His darting, nervous eyes suggested otherwise. The president was scared, and it showed.

“And, of course, he speaks the truth,” said Orkhan. “We would not be able to adequately defend ourselves.”

“I tried to send word through the Iranian embassy that we are prepared to shut down the drone base, shut down everything, and accept Iranian monitors. But the Iranians have closed all diplomatic channels. They don’t want to hear the truth, they don’t want to negotiate. Instead they say nothing and are moving troops to the border.”

“We could hold off the Iranians for a few days, perhaps. But if the fighting spilled past Nakhchivan into the heart of Azerbaijan…the border is too long, and of course, if we were drawn into a fight with Iran, the Armenians would take full advantage of our weakness.”

“You think I don’t know all this!”

“It was not meant as a criticism, Mr. President. Simply an observation.”

As the president took a sip of water, his hand trembled. “You have been free with your
observations
of late, Minister Gambar.”

“I speak as I do only because I hope to prevent the catastrophe I fear may be unfolding.” Orkhan leaned forward in his seat. “This is what happened, Mr. President. The Russians found out about our drone base in Nakhchivan, and that the Israelis were using it to spy on Iran. How they found out I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Russians decided to tell the Iranians about it. Why? Because the Russians knew the Iranians wouldn’t stand for it. But instead of encouraging the Iranians to attack the base, the Russians came to the Iranians with a proposal—agree to
pretend
that the Israelis have attacked their supreme leader from this base, and that they are prepared to invade Nakhchivan as a result, and then Russia will do their dirty work for them.”

“The Russians will invade us to save us,” said the president.

“Yes.”

“From the Iranians.”

“Yes. Of course, they will not call it an invasion. They will call it offering assistance. Coming to the rescue. Just as they rescued Crimea. But the Russians don’t expect to shoot their way into Azerbaijan. They expect to be let in. By you, Mr. President.”

“By me? Why would I do such a thing?”

“Because your interior minister—your brother-in-law—will advise you to let the Russians into Azerbaijan. He will offer forked-tongue counsel, will say the wise choice is to work with the Russians rather than oppose them, will try to convince you that the Iranian threat is real when it is not, and will claim to have assurances from the Russians that they will leave within days, as soon as the drone base is dismantled, that this really is about protecting Nakhchivan from the Iranians. And all that will be a lie, Mr. President. The interior minister is betraying you, and our nation. The Russians are waging
maskirovka
, disguised warfare, just like they always do.”

“I see,” said the president.

“You doubt me.”

“I doubt everyone.”

“Have you spoken with the interior minister since the Russians offered aid?”

Ignoring the question, the president asked, “And what do you think the Russians will do if I refuse them entry?”

“They will enter regardless.” Orkhan remembered when the Soviet tanks had rolled into Baku in 1990. He’d been there, he’d helped tend to the wounded and bury the dead. He knew it could happen again. “And they will claim to have been invited. It won’t matter that we and others will know they are lying—the propaganda, the cyberwarfare they will wage, the
spetsnaz
forces who will throw off their uniforms and pretend to be Azeris in support of the Russian presence, it will be enough to confuse the situation, to silence voices of opposition. Will our border troops even resist them? I don’t know, but if they do, the Russians will likely threaten—through secret back channels, so they won’t look like bullies—to invade the mainland with troops from their bases in South Ossetia and Dagestan. Of course, since Russian tanks in South Ossetia would have to pass through Georgia to get to us, the Russians would be sending a message to the Georgians as well.”

“If the Russians were to learn that we intend to fight them, that might be enough to get them to reconsider.”

“I suspect instead they would simply add more troops to the incursion, believing that we will back down in the end. Whereas if they think they can take us by surprise, and that they won’t be resisted, then they will likely use as small a force as possible so as not to alarm the international community. What we must do is fight their deception with deceptions of our own, Mr. President. What we do is we lure the Russians into thinking they can enter Azerbaijan unmolested, and the second they cross the border, we do everything we can to see that they are slaughtered. That is the only message the Russians will understand. Then in public, we claim it was nothing more than a minor skirmish with the Armenians, so the Russians can back down without losing face.”

“And if the Russians don’t back down? If they send more troops?”

“If they are truly committed to taking Nakhchivan, they will.”

The president stared at his hands. “There are few ethnic Russians in Nakhchivan. And any sizeable Russian troop reinforcements would have to go through Georgia
and
Armenia. It will not be easy for them to mount a real invasion.”

“If we give the Russians Nakhchivan, they will take it. But if it becomes clear that they will have to pay a steep price, they may decide it is not worth the cost. That is our only hope.” He paused. “It would help if we were not alone in mounting a defense.”

“If the Turks were to intervene—”

“Forget the Turks. A year ago, maybe. Not now.”

Turkey and Azerbaijan, both Turkic-speaking countries, had historically been close. But Azerbaijan’s deepening military relationship with Israel had come at a time when Turkish-Israeli relations were at a nadir. The Turks had wanted the Azeris to back away from Israel, as a show of solidarity. The Azeris had refused.

The president pursed his lips into a worried frown, then said, “Yes, I fear you are right.”

“And even if we should ask, help from the Turks might not be enough.”

“I can’t pull all our troops from the south. Some must remain. As must some troops in the north, by the border with Georgia and Dagestan, in case you are wrong and the Russians do intend to invade the mainland.”

“The Russian goal is to spread us thin. That is why I have made some preliminary inquiries with the Americans, Mr. President.”

“Inquiries with whom?”

Orkhan explained about his conversation with Ted Kaufman.

“And?”

“The Americans have much to lose, should the Russians invade. Even though our oil does not flow through Nakhchivan, they will know the Russians could use an occupation of Nakhchivan to bend us to their will. They do not want to risk letting Russia control the flow of oil and gas out of the Caspian. And the Americans are a bloodthirsty lot. They enjoy fighting. But they have grown cautious of late. So I cannot say for sure. Of course, for assistance to be rendered, the request must come directly from you.”

“This is a dangerous game we’re playing, Orkhan. What if the Americans do render assistance, but the Russians respond with more force, and then the Americans even more still? The Turks may yet get involved, and then the Armenians. And the Turks and Americans are part of NATO and the Armenians and Russians and Kazakhs and—”

“Yes, yes, but—”

“—have their own mutual defense agreement. These agreements, they lock countries into war. And then maybe instead of a little skirmish at the border, you have NATO against Russia and their most devoted lackeys, and before we know it we are fighting World War III.”

“There is risk involved with any course of action we take, Mr. President. But right now the most immediate risk is that part of our nation is about to be overrun by Russia. Call the Americans. If you won’t, I will, but it would be better if the call came from you.”