Black Flagged Redux

Chapter 21





5:59 AM

CIA Headquarters

Langley Virginia





Karl Berg saw Audra Bauer enter the National Clandestine Service Operations Center and check in with the watch officer in the processing area near the entrance. He waited for her at a semi-private computer work station on the opposite side of the room. A dozen additional workstations lined the wall, each situated so that the computer screens faced away from the center of the sizable room. She nodded at him and made her way around the outside of the NSOC. He watched as she passed several floor to ceiling, private cubicles on her left. The room was divided in half by a floor to ceiling, soundproof glass wall, with a translucent glass door in the center.

On the other side of the glass sat a large conference table with black leather chairs, and several workstations organized on the side walls. Three immense flat-screen monitors sat flush against the far wall, surrounding a large wall-mounted projection screen. Nicknamed the "Fish Bowl," larger scale, compartmentalized CIA operations were monitored from this room. When in use, the "Fish Bowl" went "dark," and thick shades would descend the entire length of the glass wall to keep prying eyes off the CIA's most secretive operations.

Berg occupied the only cubicle toward the rear of the room, which wasn't surprising at six in the morning. He could tell that a few of the private cubicles were in use, and judging from his own personal experience using these cubicles, the occupants had probably been sequestered inside for more than twenty-four hours. These cubicles were usually worked in shifts. Luckily, there was an eleven hour time difference between Langley and eastern Kazakhstan, which meant most of the action in Kazakhstan would take place during working hours for Berg. The team would likely arrive at the site within the next four to five hours and be back on the road a few hours after that. If all went well, he could be home in time for dinner.

He ensured that the operations screen on one of the monitors in his cubicle contained all of the active links he had programmed and that the other displayed all of the intelligence feeds he would monitor. The feeds were set to alert him according to the parameters he specified and were further linked to a pager designed to work only in the operations center. He could freely roam the room to grab coffee or use the bathroom.

"Everything good?" she said, standing behind him.

"Yes. They got a late start out of Astana, but they're on the road. They should be out of the area by sunrise. Everything is patched in and ready to go. Our guy is with the team, and SATCOM is clear. I have a direct line to the UAV control room in Kyrgyzstan. Two lines, actually, and a priority line to the Air Force Command Center responsible for the UAV. Thank you. I just hope we don't need it. It's a one-way mission, and I can only imagine that Air Force Special Operations Command wasn't very happy with the setup," he said.

"They weren't, but it helps to be the deputy director of the National Clandestine Service."

"Apparently it does. They assured me that the UAV could be airborne within thirty minutes of my phone call," he said.

"Impressive."

"Unfortunately, it's a minimum three-hour flight to get the UAV in position to help our team. This won't be a quick response close air support mission," he said.

"Like you said, hopefully we won't need it," Bauer said.

"I'll be in here until they're back on the main highway headed to Astana. I've enabled priority search strings on all of our live intercept feeds and I'll be looking for anything that might indicate a problem for them. We're focused on Russian side communications and any satellite transmissions leaving the area in the vicinity of Kurchatov."

"Sounds like you have all the bases covered. Keep me in the loop. I'll have a lot of explaining to do if we are forced to sacrifice one of the Air Force's Predator drones."

"That's why you get paid the big bucks, Deputy Director Bauer."

"Thanks."

"There's something else I'm keeping an eye on," Berg said.

"Related to this?"

"I'm not sure, but I have a hunch it's connected. My analysts came up with a string of Reznikov search parameters, which we inputted into the data analysis system a few days ago. This system looks at everything and puts up flags—"

"I'm aware of how it works, Karl. I haven't been out of the trenches that long," she said, shaking her head jokingly.

"My sincerest apologies for suggesting that you might be more of a bureaucrat than a CIA agent," he said.

"Touché. So what's up?"

"Reznikov grew up in an industrial city south of Murmansk called Monchegorsk. He was sent to live there after his father and mother died when he was eight. The circumstances surrounding his parents' death was suspicious according to one of my Russian sources. Anyway, something really strange is going on in Monchegorsk. ELINT is catching all kinds of military and civilian chatter about quarantines and roadblocks. Communications to Monchegorsk are down, and I'm trying to confirm what's going on, but we don't have any HUMINT assets on the ground there. Assets in Murmansk and St. Petersburg are on the road as we speak. I expect to confirm the presence of roadblocks within the next few hours. The link to Reznikov is too strong to ignore at this point."

"I agree. Do you think he's responsible? Why would he poison the city he knew as a child?"

"Maybe it wasn't a good childhood. I have no idea, and we don't even know if Reznikov is still alive. Muslim extremists have a tendency to clean up after themselves. I'd be surprised if he was still alive, but I'm not taking any chances."

"Good work as usual, Karl. I'll be in the building until this is over. Let's hope we can wrap this up cleanly," she said.

"I'm not counting on it," he said.