The Leveling

“I’ll stay here,” said Mark from the other side of the curtain.

You’ve wasted over thirty years of your life. Promise yourself that, if you live through this, you won’t waste any more.

I promise.

“Just hold on when you need to,” Mark added.

“I’ll be OK.” But she continued to grip his arm tightly, afraid she would fall again if she let go.

She wished she could see Mark’s face.





8


Baku, Azerbaijan



“THE AZERIS ARE trying to give me the boot.”

Mark spoke into his cell phone as two plainclothes agents from the Ministry of National Security—protection, to ensure Mark’s safety, Orkhan had explained diplomatically—escorted him across town in a black Mercedes. Mark was seated in the back.

“I know,” said the new CIA chief of station/Azerbaijan, a woman who’d been transferred from Turkey six months ago. “I’ve been in touch with the Az interior minister. Where are you?”

“Almost at my apartment.” The tree-lined promenade between Neftchilar Avenue and the Caspian Sea was crowded with pedestrians, and a knot of people had gathered at the base of a nearby carnival ride. In the distance, rusted shipping cranes and oil derricks poked out of the shallow waters of the sea. After the violence at the library, Mark found the normalcy of the city—even the stink of diesel exhaust and petroleum—to be comforting. There had to be a way for him to resolve this in a way that allowed him to remain in Baku, he thought. There was always a workaround, always an angle. “Listen, I want to stay on.”

The CIA hadn’t been thrilled about his staying in Baku after he’d quit the Agency. Such an unorthodox move had only confirmed his superiors’ fears that he’d been abroad too long and had gone a little too native. But in exchange for being given the green light to stay on in Baku, he’d agreed to provide the Agency with a monthly report on the state of Azeri politics. And then eight months ago, he’d bailed the Agency out when a bloody intelligence war over an oil pipeline had erupted.

So they owed him. Just how much he was about to find out.

“Not a chance.”

“Get me six months to wrap things up on my own terms. I’ll make it worth the Agency’s while.”

“It’s not my decision.”

One of Mark’s minders from the Ministry of National Security glanced back at him from the front seat.

“Besides,” added the new station chief, “Kaufman wants you back for a full debriefing.”

Ted Kaufman was the division chief for the CIA’s Central Eurasia Division. Mark had reported to him for years.

“Kaufman can screw himself. He owes me.”

“I wouldn’t get on the bad side of the seventh floor if I were you,” she said, referring to the upper management of the CIA. “They’re your reference for the twenty-five years of work you put in.”

“Twenty-three years.”

Mark had been twenty-one years old when the Agency recruited him.

“Whatever.”

“No, not whatever. I helped build this station. And I bailed Kaufman’s ass out eight months ago. I’m calling in my chits.”

“Listen, even if Washington was inclined to let you stay on, which they’re not, I don’t think we’d get far with the Azeris anyway. You’ve got too much history with them, not all of it good.”

“Not all of it bad, either. Orkhan and I are tight.”

“The interior minister was adamant, and he was speaking for Aliyev.”

Aliyev was the guy who ran the country.

“Great.”

“Go back to the States, get debriefed, let the dust settle. Meanwhile the station will start digging. After what happened at the library, we’re all on alert, I can guarantee you that. You’re still one of our own.”





9


Almaty, Kazakhstan



DARIA CONSIDERED THE three photos again. Even after she’d studied them for the better part of a half hour, the first two meant nothing to her. Nor did the e-mail address of the sender—[email protected]. She couldn’t remember having met anyone named Alty when she’d been in Turkmenistan.

The only thing she was reasonably sure of was that the third photo showed Decker’s arm.

Which meant what?

Had someone captured him, and the photo of the arm was there to prove it? Would demands for cash follow?

Or had Decker himself sent the e-mails to her?

Was he in trouble?

One person who might be able to answer those questions was Bruce Holtz, Decker’s boss. Holtz owned Central Asian Information Networks—CAIN for short—a spies-for-hire firm. Although Daria had worked for Holtz too, she and Holtz hadn’t left on good terms. On top of that, she was now competing against him in the intelligence business. No, Holtz wouldn’t tell her anything.

But he might talk to Mark.

Mark. Her stomach turned over.