Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition) (20 page)

As he waited, he
fired up his notebook computer, connected to the Internet, and started
searching. Several minutes later, he determined that his contact was Aleksa
Denisova.

She was a
national correspondent for an independent Russian newspaper. Her areas of
expertise included government corruption, business, organized crime, and
weapons proliferation. While covering a story about FSB torturing militants’
families in Chechnya, she’d been detained and interrogated by the Russian
military. Later, she’d been only a half block away from a car bomb in Grozny
and nearly killed. Conspiracy theorists pinned the blame on the FSB, but most
likely she’d simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s what
happened when you spent time in warzones.

But it wasn’t
just Putin and his friends she called out. She was equally critical of the
West, too, especially American intervention and the games NATO played in places
Ukraine and Georgia. 

Avery thought
she was trouble. Both the Russian and Belarusian agencies would know she was
here. He also was uncertain of her motives for being here and taking the risks
that she did. He’d seen plenty of reporters make mistakes and stupid decisions
that got them into trouble in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he knew she didn’t make
much money doing what she did. But despite his judgment telling him to ditch
the reporter, he was curious as to what she might know.

Thirty minutes
passed.

Avery slipped
into his windbreaker and headed out. He left his Glock in the room, concealed
in the suitcase. If the police stopped him on the streets, there’d be no
explaining the gun, and he’d immediately be looking at jail time.

When he emerged
from the service exit in the rear of the building, the blue Siena was already
there. He climbed in. Aleksa drove around the building and turned right onto
Leninsky Avenue, taking them deeper into the city. Avery once more closely
watched the scenery and kept track of what direction they were going, trying to
orientate himself to the layout of the city, in case he would need to get
around on his own. He didn’t like being a passenger in an unfamiliar city.

She took him to Gorky
Park, near Victory Square, on the Svislach River. Avery quietly followed her
out of the car and onto a wide path into the park, passing a miniature train that
rumbled slowly by, packed full of delighted children while their parents
watched. Avery thought that he was definitely out of his element here.

 The park was
colorfully lit-up, and the cold, rainy weather wasn’t keeping anyone away.
Sightseers, families, and couples filled the park grounds and gathered around attractions.
Over two hundred years old, with a Ferris wheel, planetarium, and indoor ice
rink, Gorky Park was a popular tourist attraction and a favorite spot of
Belarusians. Even Lukashenko came here to ice skate. At this hour and with such
a high volume of people, there was also a heavy uniformed police presence.    

As they walked,
neither Avery nor Aleksa attempted small talk, but the silence wasn’t awkward
or uncomfortable. She seemed a bit more at ease now. He thought she was a bit
like him, alone but content with her own company, a self-contained personality.
Watching all the parents with kids having fun and young couples holding hands,
Avery experienced the familiar feelings of detachment and wondered if Aleksa
felt the same. He knew he definitely wouldn’t be doing this shit if he had
other choices, but instead of going to medical school he’d joined the army.

A young boy,
maybe five years old, laughed and cut across the path in front of them, paying
no attention to where he was going. He stopped short of nearly running right
into Aleksa. She quickly stopped, too, so as not to knock him over. She smiled
down at him, putting him at ease, and waited until the boy’s mother caught up
with him before continuing walking.

There was
something pleasant and peaceful about being here, Avery thought. He was
accustomed to the more fucked up parts of the world. It’d been a long time
since he’d seen little kids simply having fun instead of starving. For a
minute, he wasn’t thinking about Cramer, weapons, and looking out for
surveillance, and he wondered if this was what it was like to be a normal
person. He glanced over at Aleksa, watched her, and then something clicked in
his mind, and he pushed the thought away, a fleeting glimpse of a life not
meant for him, a pointless distraction.

“So maybe we can
talk business,” Avery said.

Aleksa glanced
over at him, and he thought he saw disappointment, but it lasted only for a
second. “Maybe,” she said. “I still haven’t decided if I should trust you.”

“Yeah, well, the
feeling’s mutual, if it makes you feel any better. It’s nothing personal. I just
have a sort professional adversity to reporters.”

She thought that
over, realizing they were both in a similar predicament as far as trust went.
“You know, that does make me feel better. It puts us on an even level. But I
still don’t know anything about you, other than you’ve travelled very far to
watch hockey.”

“Look, does it
really make any difference? You’re smart. You have a fair idea of what I am.
You don’t need me to spell it out.” And he wasn’t going to question her
intelligence and insult her by feeding her a line of bullshit. He knew her only
doubt was as to whether or not she really wanted to take her chances with someone
like him.

“Are you
military?”

“No.”

“You look like a
soldier.”

Avery recalled
Dagar’s words at Port Said and wondered if he was really that easy to read. “I
used to be in the army.”

“But you are no
longer? You said you are self-employed.”

“That’s right.
Look, if you don’t want to talk to me, okay, but tell me, so we don’t waste
each other’s time.”

“You’re very
impatient, aren’t you?”

They continued
walking in silence. A young man with his wife or girlfriend eyed Aleksa
lasciviously up and down as they passed.

Aleksa lit a
cigarette and took a long drag on it. “I am already in danger, so I suppose I
may as well take my chances with you.”

“Why’s that? Is
taking pictures of airplanes a serious crime in Belarus?”

“It is when the
airplanes belong to a close friend of the Kremlin and who is also fanatical
about the privacy of his business. Litvin’s security saw me and chased me
across the airport. I barely got away from them. I wouldn’t be the first Russian
journalist to disappear.”

“Yeah, it’s a
pretty dangerous career choice these days.”

 “Do you know
what was onboard that plane?”

“I have a pretty
good idea.”

“According to
the documentation I obtained, the cargo manifest consists of furniture that
originated from Russia and is destined for a chain of shops in Dushanbe. The
plane’s destination was a Russian-leased military airfield and not Dushanbe
International, which is odd for a commercial transaction. Belarusian customs
didn’t even inspect the cargo.”

Before continuing,
Aleksa paused to take another drag. She studied Avery’s face closely, and he
averted his glare.

“I’ve written
about Litvin and GlobeEx before. I’ve done a lot of research into his business.
This is the third flight that plane has made from Minsk to the Russian airfield
in Tajikistan in the last nine weeks. I’ve heard rumors about the Kremlin
arming the Taliban through proxy agents. I also confirmed that Russia
commissioned the sale of a hundred-fifty Igla-S missiles and other hardware to
Belarus. Last month, my contact here discovered that Litvin has been meeting
with Belarus’s chief military acquisitions officer. Litvin paid cash for the
missiles and other weapons, while the hardware remains listed in Belarusian
inventories.”

“Why would
Russia want to arm the Taliban? They’re fighting their own war against Islamic
terrorists in the Caucasus.”

“True,” Aleksa
said, “but it’s still in the Kremlin’s interests to see the West fail and militarily
defeated in Afghanistan. Over the last decade, Russia has become increasingly
threatened by American involvement in Central Asia. Imagine how the US would
react if Russia started deploying troops in South America. Plus if NATO is
bogged down in Afghanistan, they’ll be less inclined to take action in Ukraine
or Moldova or Georgia when Russia decides to re-take Soviet territory. It’s also
an opportunity to field test how their newest weapons will perform in combat
against American equipment, and a resurgent Taliban will frighten the other
former republics into cozying up to Russia.”

Avery wasn’t an
expert on global politics or Kremlin strategy, but her analysis seemed sound.

“But there’s
more. See, while I was originally trying to uncover Litvin’s arms deals, my
contact here was investigating the security of old Soviet nuclear stockpiles in
Belarus. We’re working closely together now. There came a point where our respective
stories intersected.”

Alarm bells went
off in the back of Avery’s mind. He had a feeling where this was going. He’d
become fixated on Cramer and overlooked the IMU’s nuclear materials smuggling. 
 

“The Kremlin has
contracted GlobeEx to deliver several tons of highly enriched uranium from the
Belarusian stockpile to Russia.” She studied Avery’s face. He thought must have
done a bad job of hiding his reaction, because she added, “You look surprised.”

He was, but he
shouldn’t have been. After all, an IMU courier had already been arrested in
Tajikistan delivering a sample of uranium to the Taliban’s nuclear scientist.
CIA and the Department of Energy’s chemical analysis had been unable to
determine the source of the uranium, other than it appeared to be Soviet in
origin.

“How the hell did
Belarus obtain weapons grade material?”

“The Soviet
Ministry of Atomic Energy stored it here during the Cold War. Later, Russia
allowed Minsk to maintain ownership of it, ostensibly for scientific research
purposes into medical isotopes and civilian power plants. It’s a little known
fact that Lukashenko’s government possesses over two tons of nuclear materials,
including several hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium. This is one of
just a few known HEU stockpiles in the world readily available for the
construction of a dirty bomb or for sale on the black market.”

Naturally
occurring uranium ore is composed of two primordial isotopes. One of these,
u-235, is capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction. Cascades of spinning centrifuges
separate the two isotopes, creating a gas with a twenty percent or higher
concentration of u-235, which is then reverted into a solid silver metal called
highly enriched uranium, or HEU. Fifty pounds of HEU was sufficient for
construction of a weapon capable of radiating an entire city. A dirty bomb
would simply consist of conventional explosives wrapped around a fragment of
HEU. But with sufficient quantities, HEU could be processed into a nuclear bomb.

But where would
the Taliban assemble the bombs? The necessary scientific and technical
expertise in the form of Pakistani nuclear scientists loyal to the cause was
easy enough to find, but they’d still need a secure processing facility below
the West’s radar.

Avery was
confident that NATO-occupied Afghanistan was out of the question, although that
country had once hosted al-Qaeda’s Project al-Zabadi chemical/biological
weapons labs. Pakistan was possible, but that country was too unstable, and the
ISI would surely catch wind of it. The US would also have no qualms about
hitting terrorist WMD targets in either country.

Avery recalled
what Gerald Rashid had told him about Wilkes sending CERTITUDE into
Gorno-Badakhshan to look into a construction site, a project that Cramer had written
off as insignificant. CIA had also reported that at least three Pakistani
nuclear scientists or technicians had recently been traced to Tajikistan.
Gorno-Badakhshan provided a suitable location for a processing plant. It was a
vast territory, sparsely populated, and outside of the Tajik government’s
control.

 “Western
intelligence agencies know little about the makeup and extent of Belarusian
stockpiles,” Aleksa explained. “Neither Minsk nor Moscow is forthcoming with
information. In 2010, Belarus entered an agreement with the American government
in which it would destroy its uranium, under the supervision of Russian observers,
in exchange for financial assistance. But then in response to new European
Union sanctions, Belarus later demanded more money. Washington refused to pay, and
Lukashenko threatened to sell the uranium to the highest bidder. A year later, after
more failed negotiations, Minsk reneged on the deal altogether and announced
that it would retain the uranium.”

Immediately
after the Cold War, the US tried to buy surplus-Soviet nuclear stockpiles to
prevent them from falling into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. In
1994, CIA and the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Search Team
conducted SAPPHIRE, an operation that removed over a thousand pounds of HEU
from an unguarded industrial complex in Kazakhstan, while Iranian, Iraqi, and
Chechen agents scoured the country looking for nuclear weapons. The HEU was
transferred to a secure storage facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
in Tennessee. It was one success, but it’s estimated that there’s still enough
Soviet nuclear materials unaccounted for to construct over two dozen bombs, and
some intelligence sources reported that Iran had successfully acquired three
obsolete nuclear artillery rounds from the Kazakhstan stockpiles.