The Leveling

“He’s trained as a SEAL, not as a spy. They’re different crafts.”


“Decker wanted the job, and he was the one who recruited the bartender.”

“Did State know what he was doing?”

“Oh yeah, and by now the Defense Department was in on the action too. Once I told them what the ChiComs were up to, everybody’s interest perked up real good. They were pushing me to find out anything I could, especially since the CIA was just holed up in the embassy, playing it safe.”

“Deck’s a six-foot-four SEAL with blond hair and no formal intelligence training. And he doesn’t speak a word of Turkmen or any other foreign language for that matter.”

“Like I said, his bartender friend was helping him. They were working as a team.”

“You were bullshitting State and DoD, weren’t you?” said Daria.

“What are you talking about?”

“You inflated John’s résumé before being hired by State. So you could charge more for him.”

“Who the hell is John?”

“John Decker. The guy we’re talking about.”

“You don’t know jack shit, Daria.”

“I saw the write-up you provided to State selling them on me. You said—”

“That was a classified document.”

“You said I had extensive paramilitary experience and had operated in war zones. That I had experience with explosives and had been trained as a sniper.”

“You got weapons training with the CIA, along with some paramilitary training. We all did.”

“You lied, Bruce. And you did it because it allowed you to charge State more per day for me. And you did the same thing with Decker. That’s why State and DoD were comfortable with him working in the field. What’d you tell them? That he was trained by one of the CIA’s best?” Daria turned to Mark. “That would be you.”

“I never trained him for an operation like this,” noted Mark, though, now that he thought about it, when Decker had stayed with him in Baku, they’d spent a lot of time discussing things like surveillance detection techniques, tracking techniques, dead drops, ways to read people’s body language…Decker had been eager to learn everything he could of spycraft. Maybe too eager, Mark thought now.

Daria turned back to Holtz. “How many languages did you say he spoke?”

Holtz turned to Mark. “You know why I had to fire her? Because she was fucking for information. Thought she’d do a little moonlighting, play superspy instead of just doing her damn work as a translator. So she starts balling—”

“You are so full of it,” said Daria.

“—this fat Turkmen deputy energy minister, and the guy’s wife finds out and raises a stink.”

“That’s a total lie.”

“Check with State,” said Holtz to Mark. “They know what happened.”

“You sold John out,” said Daria. “You presented him as something he wasn’t to State, State passed that bad information on to DoD, and because of it—”

“Enough,” said Mark. He turned to Holtz. “When’s the last time you heard from Deck?”

A group of five women, each stooped over and carrying a rolled-up carpet on her back, passed by in front of the Niva. Holtz and Daria and Mark stayed quiet until they were gone.

“After Decker left Ashgabat, we agreed that he wouldn’t try to communicate with me unless he knew he could do so securely. The idea, though, was that he’d only be gone for a day or two tops, just enough time to document where the money went to.”

“What kind of equipment was he carrying?”

“The RFID tracker, a digital recorder with a directional microphone and wire probes, and a digital camera with a high-powered telephoto. He had top-of-the-line surveillance equipment. I paid out the ass for it.”

“Give me your phone,” said Mark to Daria. When she’d handed it over, Mark pulled up the photos Alty8 had sent them and tossed the phone to Holtz. “These mean anything to you?”

Holtz didn’t recognize the mansion and didn’t appear to recognize Decker’s arm. But when he came to the photo of the two men exchanging a briefcase, he said, “Holy shit. That’s Li Zemin, the head of the Guoanbu here in Ashgabat. Did Decker take this picture?”

“Maybe.”

“How much do you want to bet that briefcase is full of hundred-dollar bills? And that one of those bills has an RFID tracker on it?”

“What about the guy with the black turban?”

“Him I’ve never seen before.”

They were quiet for a moment. Mark felt a warm desert breeze on his cheek. He stood up.

Daria stood up too and brushed the fine dirt off the rear of her Turkmen dress. “By the way, Bruce, you can take your noncompete contract and stuff it up your dirty ass.”

“When you get back to the States, and you will, someday you will, honey, I’ll have my lawyers draw up a suit that’ll leave you in the gutter.”

“I’m not going back to the States, and if I ever did, I wouldn’t have a penny to my name.” She opened the driver’s side door to the Niva. “There’d be nothing for you to take.”





PART III





41


Turkmenistan, Near the Afghan Border