The Avatari (41 page)

Dudylev grimaced inwardly at the man’s mongoloid features.
Tajik
, he thought.
Are there no more full-blooded Russians in the Red Army these days?

There was a knock on the door and Colonel Boris Petrov, the deputy commander of the brigade, came in. A Ukrainian from the special forces – the elite Spetsnaz – he had spent two years here, following a stint of similar duration in the Panjsher Valley. He was a tall, thin man, with a noxious cigarette dangling perpetually from his lips.

‘Shouldn’t we be sending him down to divisional headquarters?’ he now suggested to Dudylev. ‘That, as the Comrade General would know, is the protocol.’

Alexei Dudylev was well aware that he had an adversary in his deputy; neither man had made any effort to conceal his hatred for the other.

‘You are right, Colonel,’ the general now replied, his voice barely concealing his irritation. ‘But there is a chance, is there not, that we might get some contact intelligence from him which could come in useful – more for us than for divisional headquarters, so far away?’

‘Not much you will get from him,’ the colonel said under his breath, puffing on his cigarette.

Alexei Dudylev ordered tea for the escaped prisoner and made him sit down before coming up from behind his desk to question him. His deputy, who had not been offered a chair, remained on his feet. The soldier accepted the tea with trembling hands and spilt most of it on his trousers.

‘Tell me, why did they not kill you?’ Dudylev asked the man.

‘Because I am a Moslem, Comrade General.’

‘And how did they know that?’

‘They asked me and I told them, Comrade General.’

‘They probably pulled down his trousers and checked his dick,’ the deputy muttered, the words coming through emphatically, despite the cigarette between his lips.

Alexei Dudylev ignored the comment and went on with his interview.

‘Apart from telling the Soviets to vacate the outpost, what else did they say to you?’ he asked the soldier.

‘I heard them say that the Americans had come to help them.’

Dudylev could not help his sharp intake of breath.
Americans!

‘Did you see the Americans?’ he asked, barely able to contain his excitement.

‘I did not see them, Comrade General. That is what I heard the interpreter say,’ the man replied.

‘Anything else?’

‘They also said something about their honour being redeemed, Comrade General.’

‘And why would this so-called interpreter tell you all that?’ interjected the colonel, his scepticism scarcely held in check.

‘He was not much of a soldier, Comrade Colonel, a boy really, who liked to brag. He told me it was his first time in battle.’ The man started shivering uncontrollably from a combination of exhaustion and relief. ‘I was grateful for his conversation, though. I had thought they would kill me.’

‘And why did they let you go?’ Petrov asked, repeating Dudylev’s question.

‘To pass on this message,’ the soldier said haltingly.

He also reported that his two comrades who had been captured during the ambush had their throats slit in front of him early that morning.

‘How could this boy, this interpreter, as you call him, speak Russian?’ asked the colonel, his words forcing their way past the cigarette dangling from his mouth.

‘He said he had picked up some words while working as a domestic help for an official at Bagram.’

Having said that, the man began to cry. Alexei Dudylev patted him on the shoulder and had him escorted out. There was not much more the soldier could give them.

‘We are going into the valley,’ Dudylev told his deputy commander. ‘Work out a plan.’

‘There is definitely something amiss,’ Petrov said flatly, his brow furrowed. ‘The mujahideen do not send messages like that.’

‘What are you trying to get at, eh?’ was Dudylev’s angry retort. ‘You’re looking for discrepancies where there are none. This man, one of our own, brings back contact intelligence about Americans being in the valley. Our outpost reported a week ago that through their night-vision devices, they saw a large group carrying loads infiltrating into the valley. Five days ago, the reconnaissance planes reported increased activity inside the valley. And yet you persist in saying it doesn’t add up?’

‘This seems just too easy,’ Petrov persisted. ‘It’s a trap; the Afghans want us to enter the valley, because they know it is narrow and that we will suffer heavy losses if we go ahead.’

‘Am I to understand that you do not trust my tactical judgement?’ The general’s voice had dropped a notch and acquired a note that did not bode well for the other man. A nasty smirk played on his lips, as he added, ‘Or perhaps the Spetsnaz have lost their taste for battle, preferring to idle away the hours at the base drinking vodka?’

‘You misunderstand my intentions, Comrade General,’ the colonel said stiffly, realizing he was now treading on thin ice. ‘It is my duty to advise you.’

‘And that you certainly have,’ the general agreed, his tone more conciliatory. ‘But in this particular case, I have reason to believe I am right. The moment has come to get these shits by the short and curly.’

‘Right, Comrade General,’ the deputy commander said, taking a step back. ‘I will work out a plan and have it presented to you for approval.’

‘Yes, do that. Perhaps we are meant to achieve a great victory, a victory, moreover, in an adverse situation. And that, my dear Petrov, is bound to strengthen your case.’

Their eyes locked and the colonel did not fail to get the message that was intended for him. Petrov had put in an application for premature reversion from his tour of duty, which was now awaiting the general’s approval. Without another word, he saluted and left the room.

‘We will inform divisional headquarters after we have begun operations,’ Dudylev instructed the staff officer who had been standing unobtrusively in a corner while his seniors locked horns.

The man saluted in response and left the office.

Dudylev went back to stand by the fireplace and picked up a poker to stoke the flames. He sloshed some brandy into a tumbler kept on the mantelpiece and swirled it around in his glass. All his life he had trained for this moment or, to be fair, for something like this; he was keen to launch troops into battle. He tried to imagine how Marshal Zhukov must have felt before giving the command for the thousand pieces of artillery to fire on Berlin. Dudylev would have been happier if he had been commanding a formation assaulting the Inner German Border.
Now that was a grand plan
, he mused; twenty corps massed against the Rhine and Elbe, a juggernaut smashing with speed and violence into the soft belly of Western Europe.
That was a prize worth having, not this meat grinder chasing filthy, elusive mujahideen.
He sighed, draining the brandy in a gulp.
Well, you have to make do with what you get.

CHAPTER 24

Camp David, United States of America

1986

The deputy director of operations stood close to the barbecue, warming his hands. The smoky aroma of cuts, which the liveried steward expertly turned over the grill, wafted through the chill air. He waited patiently, watching the President lob balls off a mat with a wedge all the way to the flag planted a hundred yards away on a mound of snow. It was an achingly bright day at Camp David, the mid-morning sun reflecting blindingly off the powdery snow all around them. He counted three Secret Service men in dark suits forming a ring around the frozen pond. The others, he knew, would be behind cover.

Formally designated the Naval Support Facility, Thurmont, Camp David was the President’s country residence. Located in Catoctin Mountain Park in Frederick County, Maryland, it offered US presidents both rest and recreation and an opportunity to host foreign leaders. Of course, the White House chief of staff, more commonly known as the ‘Gatekeeper’, was choosy about scheduling meetings with the President at Camp David, weighing the importance of the person and the urgency of the issue at hand, before deciding who should be allowed access. In fact, unless the agenda in question was red hot, he saw to it that no one disturbed the President here. The Gatekeeper was not, however, aware of the present meeting; it had been arranged because of an urgent request from the CIA – the one organization that had the power to bypass the White House chief of staff – made on their confidential line.

A few minutes later, the deputy director observed the President handing over his club and glove to his caddie and approaching him as he stood by the barbecue.

‘So what do we have, Jim?’ the President asked gruffly. ‘You sure we couldn’t have done it on the phone? I must say you boys have come a long way to meet me!’

A waiter came up at once, balancing glasses half-filled with bourbon and ice on a tray. The President accepted one and sipped his drink appreciatively. The deputy director of operations declined, reminding himself that he was, unlike the President, on duty.

‘Nothing of earth-shattering importance, Mr President, but it’s curious enough,’ Jim Madison told him. ‘Hal Stevens from the lab brought it up.’

The President’s brows furrowed as he made an effort to place the man. Then his expression cleared.

‘Yeah, right. I’ve met him. He’s briefed me once or twice, I think. Brilliant guy, but intense.’

‘He was very insistent,’ Madison murmured.

‘Well, then, I guess it must be important. But try to make it short, will you? Gail and her friends are going to be up here in about an hour and I can’t see her being too happy about this meeting. I had promised her this would be a real break.’

‘We’ll go through the matter as quickly as we can, Mr President.’

The two men walked to the log cabin which served as a restcum-changing room for guests who came to skate on the pond. A Secret Service agent opened the door and ushered them in. Once inside, they were greeted by the welcome warmth and low hum of central heating. The interiors offered a pleasant contrast to the rustic backwoods exterior, the mahogany and cherry leather upholstery setting off to perfection the warm yellow lighting that reflected off the thick camel-coloured wall-to-wall carpet.

‘I see you gentlemen have set up office here,’ the President remarked.

And the CIA had, indeed, done so. Two large-sized maps of Asia had been put up on stands at one end of the living room. Beside them was a screen on which a movie projector was focused. In the centre of the room stood a table with chairs grouped around it. The man standing near the table nodded at the President as he entered. Behind the stands holding the maps stood two aides, their bearing stiffly erect, their eyes focused on some indeterminate point straight ahead of them.

‘Sir, I believe you’ve met Dr Stevens, the head of our Scientific Weapons and Intelligence Facility at Langley,’ Jim Madison said to the President, formally introducing the man standing near the table.

‘Good to meet you, Hal,’ the President responded, leaning forward to shake the man’s hand, before taking a chair facing the screen. He leaned back and turned to Madison. ‘Okay, Jim, shoot.’

The deputy director of operations nodded at the two aides and waited for them to leave the room before he began.

‘Well, it’s like this, Mr President,’ he said finally. ‘For the last year and a half, we have been keeping a man from Managua called Javier Martinez in a safe house in Colorado. He’s a local journalist and the founder of a party called the Derecho de Libre or Free Right. He is one of the people we have identified as having enough popular support to take over as president of Nicaragua, if the present regime…falls.’

At this point, Madison paused to clear his throat, somehow managing to give the impression that the eventuality he had mentioned might not be an altogether undesirable one.

‘And this Javier Martinez is on our side?’ the President asked, his expression and tone giving nothing away. He took a sip of bourbon from the glass he had carried inside with him.

‘That he is, but not, well, overtly,’ Madison replied. ‘We have been funding him for over ten years now. He has been on the run, ever since the present regime issued a warrant for his arrest two years ago. We managed to extricate him covertly at the time. The rest of the world believes him to be hiding in the jungles or, possibly, dead.’

‘Why wasn’t all this brought up during my briefings on Nicaragua?’ the President asked testily, glancing at his watch.

‘Because this is not about Nicaragua, Mr President.’ The deputy director’s voice was quiet. ‘It was while we were hosting Martinez that his health suddenly began to deteriorate. The doctors treating him diagnosed him as suffering from AIDS.’

‘Well, then, the dumb bastard is a goner,’ the President said flatly. ‘You’ll have to find someone else to replace him.’

‘That’s a very real angle we are looking at,’ Madison agreed with a nod, ‘but with the Nicaraguan situation becoming, well, sensitive…’ he cleared his throat, ‘we were unlikely to get a suitable replacement in time. So we decided to get Martinez treated for AIDS in an effort to prolong his life to whatever extent possible. But we couldn’t risk admitting him to a medical facility of repute for fear of blowing his cover. The only available option was to send him to a little-known medical facility in Texas that was set up by a certain Josh Wando for his own treatment and was not open to the general public.’

The President gave the deputy director a keen look.

‘Any relation to Ralph Wando?’ he asked.

Jim Madison noted with some relief that the President appeared more animated now. He needed him to be in an amenable mood.

‘His grandson, Mr President,’ he replied.

‘Well, wouldn’t you believe that!’ the President exclaimed. ‘So this really is Ralph’s grandson we’re talking about?’

‘That’s right, Mr President.’

Madison knew the President had started his political career in Texas, where the late Ralph Wando was still something of a legend. He waited for the President’s attention to return to the topic under discussion before continuing. ‘We had to proceed with caution, because we didn’t want to blow our operation. So we created a cover, claiming to be from the FBI. We convinced Wando that we were holding Martinez under the Witness Protection Programme in a drug-related investigation.’ He was silent for a moment, before adding, ‘It was a request Mr Wando couldn’t turn down, since his clinic was using drugs which were still to be cleared by the FDA.’