Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition) (26 page)

Another Russian
popped up from one of the chairs on his left. Avery caught a glimpse of black
metal in the Russian’s hand and shot him twice in the chest, then again in the
throat as he went down to his knees. Blood speckled across the upholstery as he
plopped over, his head bouncing off the corner of the table before he hit the
carpet.

Avery advanced
another four feet down the aisle.

No targets
presented themselves.

He approached
the next sections of seating cautiously, expecting to find another Russian or
two using the furniture as concealment, waiting for him.

The first
groupings of seats were clear on either side.

But the next
four chairs in the line weren’t.

A Russian was
crouched down behind the table on the right side, aiming his gun over the
surface of the table. Avery blasted the Slavic face looking up at him and swung
his aim around to the chairs on his left.

Empty.

The cabin was
clear.

Avery sank into
one of the armchairs, keeping his eyes locked on the cockpit door, the only
source of possible further targets. Within the cabin’s close confines, the pervasive
stench of cordite and burnt gunpowder lingered in the air.

A whir of
movement recalled his attention, and Avery snapped the GSh-18 back up, finger
tightening over the trigger.

He lowered the
gun when he saw Aleksa coming through the connecting hatchway. She shut the
hatch and ran over to him.

“Oh my god, are
you all right?”

Her voice
sounded muffled, like he had cotton stuffed in his ears. Both their ears were
ringing. “Yeah, just a little beat up. Are you hurt?”

She looked him
over. “I don’t think I’m in any position to complain.”

Avery went to the
kitchen space and rinsed his mouth out with water, spitting blood and chunks of
vomit out into the sink, then took a long gulp of water to hydrate. “We need to
access the cockpit,” he said. “Otherwise this plane’s still set to land at Ayni,
and we’ll be right back where we started.”

He’d already
tried the latch and wasn’t surprised that the cockpit was locked. The pilots
had likely heard the gunshots and knew that something was wrong. That meant
they’d already radioed ahead and reported there was trouble. The entire Russian
military contingent at Ayni would be waiting for the plane to land.

With Aleksa’s
help, he memorized in Russian how to give the order to open the cockpit door or
he’d blow off the heads of the surviving crew back here, and he delivered the
line with his angriest, most dominating voice. When the pilots called his bluff
and failed to respond, he fired a shot into a nearby body and repeated the
command.

This time, after
several seconds as the flight crew debated their options, the cockpit door
opened. Avery stormed in and pointed the GSh-18 at the pilot’s head, screaming
at him in English to keep his hands on the controls. The pilot stared blankly
at him and responded in Russian.

“Translate for
me,” Avery told Aleksa. “Tell him to divert the plane and land at Dushanbe
International. He can declare an in-flight emergency, or whatever the fuck he
needs to do, to get landing clearance.  And tell him to stay off the radio. If
he contacts anyone other than Dushanbe air traffic control, he’s dead. Tell
him.”

Kabul or Bagram,
where the US military could secure the aircraft and its cargo, would have been
the ideal choice, but Avery didn’t know anyone offhand he could contact in Afghanistan
with that kind of clout. Looking at the console gauges, it didn’t look like
they had the fuel anyway. Six thousand miles pushed the Antonov’s maximum range.

Aleksa repeated
the instructions in Russian to the pilot and translated his response. “He said
that you won’t shoot him. Who would fly the plane?” Her tone indicated that she
saw the pilot’s point and thought this an exercise in absurdity.

“Tell him that
you will,” Avery said without hesitation.

Aleksa arched an
eyebrow and relayed the command.

The pilot
smirked and responded.

Aleksa shook her
head. “He said that he doesn’t believe you.”

“Whether or not
he believes me,” Avery said, keeping the pistol pointed at the pilot’s head,
“ask him if he really wants to call my bluff and find out. And let him know I’d
rather go down in this plane than land and end up in the hands of more Russian
assholes.”

She translated
again. The pilot considered his options, looked back at the blood and bodies
strewn about the passenger compartment, exchanged looks with his co-pilot, who
shrugged, and gave his response.

“He said that
he’ll cooperate,” Aleksa said.

Avery knew that
he would. This guy simply flew where Litvin told him in exchange for cash. He
probably had no idea what the cargo was and didn’t care. He wasn’t hardcore
mafiya like the dead Russians in the back, and he wasn’t going to risk his life
for Litvin. Plus, Avery was sure that he was looking pretty deranged right now
to the pilots and, in their eyes, that made him unpredictable and a man not to
be trifled with.

“He’s altering
course now,” Aleksa reported.

After a couple
minutes, Avery felt the aircraft bank slightly left. He asked Aleksa to search
the bodies in the passenger compartment for keys or a phone, while he stayed
with the pilots. She came back several minutes later. She couldn’t find
handcuff keys or bolt cutters or anything that could be used to pick the lock,
but she handed him a cell phone.

Avery entered
Poacher’s number and sent a text, identifying himself by his call sign and
telling him to be at Dushanbe International in the next two hours or so. He
also told Poacher to alert Gerald Rashid at the embassy.

Poacher
responded several minutes later, asking for the pre-arranged authentication
code to confirm his identity. Avery provided it, and Poacher acknowledged. Avery
knew that Poacher must have a dozen questions, but he’d understand that Avery
had sent the message from an unsecure phone and would neither expect nor ask
for specifics. Avery anticipated an earful from Poacher once they met up again,
and this time he’d be happy to hear it.

Aleksa sat down
in one of the plush arm chairs in the passenger cabin. Avery remained in the
cockpit, watching every move the pilot made. His whole body ached, but it felt
good to have a break from people trying to kill him.

Seventy miles from Dushanbe, the pilot
radioed the control tower, identified himself, and requested clearance for an
emergency landing. In order to avoid answering any of the control tower’s
questions about his plane’s destination and point of origin, the pilot tried to
sound frantic, and he stressed the urgency of the situation, stating he had two
engines out and an onboard fire. A few minutes later, after getting approval
from a supervisor, the irritated-sounding Tajik air traffic controller granted
the Antonov clearance to land, then aligned the pilot with the approach corridor,
cleared a runway, and delayed all other inbound flights.  A Turkish Airlines
Airbus that had been due at this time was directed instead to circle Dushanbe
until the emergency was resolved.

In addition to
contacting emergency services, the air traffic control supervisor alerted
airport security officials, who in turn relayed the information to GKNB. Aware
that it was a Russian commercial flight, GKNB immediately informed the Russian
embassy of the situation. Within fifteen minutes of the control tower receiving
the transmission from the GlobeEx pilot, the Russian embassy’s intelligence
chief was made aware of the unfolding crisis and began issuing orders to his
subordinates.

Avery allowed
himself to relax now, as the pilot aligned the Antonov with the runway and
began a steady descent into the familiar sight of Dushanbe International. To
the pilot’s relief, Avery finally lowered the pistol and took a seat in the
cabin, but he stayed near the open cockpit. Glancing through a window, Avery
saw numerous vehicles spread out across the taxiway. In addition to the
emergency services vehicles, with lights flashing, there were black SUVs from
the American embassy and additional Tajik military vehicles.

The Antonov’s
wheels touched and skittered along the runway. The pilot stabilized the plane,
applied the air brakes, cutting speed, and steered the aircraft off the runway
onto the open exit taxiway. All eyes on the tarmac and in the control tower
watched intently with bated breath, as if expecting the lumbering jet to
cartwheel out of control or explode at any moment.

Avery turned
around to face Aleksa. Her face showed both relief and disbelief that they’d
actually made it, and, at least for a little while, she’d finally stopped
thinking about Yuri. Avery shared the sentiment, though he felt like shit. He
was battered, broken, and sore, the closest in his life he’d ever come to being
completely beaten.  

Once the Antonov
came to a complete stop, while the pilots were still in the process of shutting
down the engines and systems, Avery got up, and, taking Aleksa with him,
crossed the passenger cabin, went through the hatchway into the cargo hold, and
lowered the aft ramp. He exited the aircraft with Aleksa, never thinking he’d
be so happy to step foot again on Tajik soil.

About fifty
yards away, separated by a line of ambulances and fire trucks with flashing
lights and sirens blaring, Avery spotted the black Forerunner, with Poacher and
Gerald Rashid standing nearby. The former pointed in Avery’s direction as he
spoke to the latter.

Uniformed Tajik
police officers, soldiers, and medics with gurneys converged on the plane. Two
men in interior ministry uniforms stopped Avery and Aleksa as they started
across the tarmac and yelled at them, first in Tajik, then in Russian when they
didn’t respond.  Avery didn’t know what they were so riled up about until one
of them pointed at his handcuffs and gave him an earful of Russian and
Tajik-Farsi.

   Tajik troops
swarmed past them, thinking they were going to board the plane. But the Russian
pilots stopped midway down the ramp and waved their arms and shouted at them,
trying to keep them back. Safely on the ground and alive, the pilots were concerned
now about the consequences of losing Litvin’s cargo and having it seized by the
Tajiks or, worse, the publicity of the incident. Both parties started yelling
at each other, and the officer who had stopped Avery and Aleksa became
distracted and joined the confrontation.

 “The pilot is
telling them that the aircraft is Russian property, and carrying sensitive
materials. He told them he cannot permit them onboard,” Aleksa quietly told
Avery as they walked away. Aleksa had taken off her jacket and lowered it in
front of her, concealing, her handcuffs, and Avery stayed behind her to hide
his. “He is demanding to speak to someone from the Russian embassy.”

Avery didn’t
blame the pilot. The Tajiks wouldn’t like a plane full of HEU and dead bodies making
an emergency landing and disrupting flight ops at their airport. Worse for the
pilot, he’d have a lot of explaining to do to Litvin.

Avery looked
back and saw the pilot pointing at him as he explained something to the Tajiks.

“Come on,” Avery
said and gave gently prodded Aleksa forward as he picked up his pace.

 A couple Tajiks
then moved to cut them off as they made their way across the tarmac to the
American embassy vehicles, some forty yards away.

“Excuse me, sir
and ma’am, we need to speak with you,” one of the Tajiks said in accented
English as he and his partner intercepted Avery and Aleksa. “I am Captain Arash
Mehrzad of the Ministry for Internal Affairs. We will need to detain you for
questioning until the Russian authorities arrive.”

Avery weighed
his options. After everything they’d just endured, he was not about to get
arrested by the damn GKNB. Sure, Gerald and Culler would be able to get him
out, eventually. But what about Aleksa? The Tajiks could hold her indefinitely
or give her to the Russians. He couldn’t allow that, and he wasn’t going to
stand here arguing with them.

Avery looked
around.

Everyone else
was pretty preoccupied at the moment and paid no attention to the confrontation.
Avery came around in front of Aleksa and yelled at her to run as he pushed past
the Tajiks, knocking one off his feet, and bee-lined toward the Forerunners.
The Tajik officers shouted for help and started to run after them, but tires
screeched as a black Forerunner appeared out of nowhere and braked sharply in
front of the Tajiks, stopping just short of running them down.

 When he stole a
quick glance over his shoulder, Avery caught a glimpse of Flounder behind the
SUV’s wheel. Flounder lifted his foot off the brake, rolling the Forerunner
forward a couple feet and blocking the Tajiks’ path as they attempted to
maneuver around the front of the vehicle. One of them shouted and slammed his
fist against the hood.

 With Aleksa in
tow, Avery quickly maneuvered behind the nearby lines of ambulances and fire trucks.
Amidst the confusion and panic, with everyone’s attention fixated on the jet,
no one had noticed a thing.

“What the hell’s
going on?” Poacher demanded as he caught up with them. He did a double take
when he saw Avery. “You look like complete shit.”

“You should see
the other guy.”

Poacher eyed
Aleksa, seeming to notice her for the first time, and frowned. “And who the
hell is she?”

Avery looked
around, searching for those Tajiks who were after them. “Not out here. GKNB’s
looking for us.”

He continued
walking, Aleksa close by, and slipped into the back seat of one of the parked
Forerunners. Poacher jumped in after them, with Gerald Rashid, looking
flustered, suddenly showing up right behind them.

“Somebody better
explain to me what the hell is happening around here,” Rashid ordered, sounding
the most authoritative Avery had ever heard him. Avery imagined that Gerald had
been grilling Poacher for the past hour and became quickly frustrated when
Poacher was unable to answer any of his questions

“That plane’s
carrying highly enriched uranium bound for the Taliban,” Avery explained. “They
have their own processing facility, possibly here in Tajikistan. We can’t let
that plane leave.”

Gerald exchanged
looks with Poacher, cleared his throat, and said, “Whether or not that is the
case, there’s nothing we can do about it now. Colonel Ghazan is on scene. He
told us that his forces are watching over the aircraft until the Russians
arrive to secure it. He emphasized that his government and the Russian
Federation will regard any interference as hostile action and will react
accordingly.”

“Hostile action?”
Avery practically jumped out of his seat at the absurdity of the statement. “They
killed two of our people and are smuggling weapons grade material!”

But Gerald, who
seemed not to hear Avery, continued talking calmly over him. “The Tajik
interior ministry has likewise given the same message to our ambassador, who understandably
wishes to avoid creating an international incident with Moscow.”

Avery gave up.
He was too exhausted to argue.

“When are the
Russians coming?” Poacher asked.

In answer to his
question, they heard rotor wash overhead, and a large shadow fluttered across
the tarmac. Moments later, a Mi-8 helicopter painted with Russian air force
insignia set down on its wheels and disgorged a squad of troops armed with
AK-12s.

Poacher lifted a
pair of binoculars to his eyes and watched the activity. After a few seconds,
he handed the binos to Avery in time for him to see Oleg Ramzin climb down from
the helicopter. Seconds later, Colonel Sergei Ghazan from GKNB caught up with
the Russians. He pointed from the Antonov to the direction of the American
embassy vehicles, while Ramzin listened and nodded. Meanwhile, the Russian soldiers
spread out, formed a perimeter around the Antonov, and ordered the Tajiks away.
Ramzin stepped away from Ghazan and produced his cell phone.

Avery returned
the binoculars to Poacher.

The driver-side
door opened and Darren, the ops officer from the embassy, slipped behind the
wheel. He also did a double take when he noticed Aleksa, but he didn’t ask questions.
“We can’t stay here. Ghazan’s people are ordering us out of the airport ASAP.”

“Fuck that,”
Avery countered. “We’re not leaving.”

“Sorry, man,”
Darren said. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but that’s an order straight
from DCM, who just got off the phone with the Tajik interior minister
and
the Russian ambassador before that. Shit’s way above my pay grade.”

Gerald squirmed
upon hearing this, knowing that he would now have to answer to the State
Department’s deputy chief of mission when he returned to the embassy. He
silently prayed that Avery and the SAD officers didn’t do anything in the next
few minutes to exacerbate the situation and make his life more difficult.

“Darren’s
right,” said Gerald. “We should leave immediately.”

Avery started to
protest, but Darren put the Forerunner into gear and followed the other two
embassy vehicles. Two Tajik police cars with flashing sirens escorted them,
making sure that they put a satisfactory distance between themselves and the
airport. Overhead, another Russian military helicopter whipped by.

Avery shook his
head. “And we’re just going to allow the HEU to go through?”

Gerald didn’t
want to hear about this either. He didn’t want to explain to the DCM or his
superiors anything about nuclear material going to the Taliban. As it was, it
already looked like he had no control over anything happening here. He was sure
that Langley would recall him after this fiasco.

“He’s right,”
Aleksa said. “They diverted a shipment of uranium bound for Russia. It’ll be in
the Taliban’s possession by the end of the day. I have all the proof, but I
don’t know the location of the processing facility.”

 “Who
is
she?” Poacher asked Avery again.

 “She’s the
contact M-Bird set me up with in Minsk,” Avery told Poacher. He was aware of
Aleksa glaring at him, and he consciously avoided meeting her gaze. “If it
weren’t for her, I’d still be cluelessly fucking about Minsk right now.”

“I thought you
didn’t work for the CIA,” Aleksa said to Avery.

Darren turned
his head at that. “Whoa, who the hell said anything about CIA?”

Avery cringed.

Gerald cleared
his throat. “Gentleman, perhaps we should have this conversation at a later
time. Whoever she is, this woman does not have the requisite security
clearances, and, as it is, we’ll already need to fill out FN contact forms.”

He referred to
the exhausting amounts of paperwork all CIA officers had to file after coming
into contact with a foreign national. Avery knew Gerald didn’t expect any of
them to comply with that protocol. He was just throwing it out there to cover
his own ass, in case his superiors caught wind of a Russian citizen riding around
in an Agency vehicle.

Christ, this was
turning into a freaking circus. Avery knew Gerald’s next statement was going to
be something along the lines of debriefing Aleksa Denisova at the embassy, but he
wasn’t about to turn her over to Dushanbe station.

So Avery shot
Gerald his angriest look, warning him off. The novice officer caught the
message and let it go.  Avery said to Poacher, “How do you think I found out
about the HEU and got aboard that plane? I trust her, to some extent. She won’t
talk.”