GEORGIAN BEET SALAD
Put boiled beets, pitted prunes, garlic, walnuts, and sour cream in a food processor and pulse to a grainy paste. Garnish with rough-chopped walnuts and cilantro. Serve with crusty bread.
18
Phase Two
Nate’s primary liaison contact in the TNP was a thirty-year-old captain named Hanefi. He was short and dark, with a single caterpillar eyebrow and a thick black mustache, which would twitch sideways whenever he was agitated. He was learning English and tried to use it at every opportunity. The backs of Hanefi’s hands were something out of Phantom of the Opera—burned during an explosion—and he self-consciously hid the shiny disfigurement by keeping them in his pockets. Nate and Hanefi worked well together, but not before the intense police officer began trusting Nate. Gable had warned him about working with Turks: “No recruitment attempts, no case-officer moves, not even if one of them volunteers. They take their time warming up, but once they’re satisfied you’re not working them, they’re your friends for life. But if they later catch you trying to pick their pockets, they’ll never forgive or forget.”
Nate spent hours with Hanefi, listening to teltaps of Shlykov on the phone with Moscow and various PKK cell leaders—Russian and fractured English were used—discussing the upcoming weapons delivery. For an officer of his rank, Shlykov’s comsec (sense of communications security over the phone) was nonexistent. Each careless call to a separatist would identify five more members, those five, ten more. Each identified location led to the next two, then the next three, all of them in Istanbul’s sooty suburbs: Cebeci, Alibeyk?y, Güzeltepe; an apartment in a rust-stained high-rise; a daub-and-wattle shed on a muddy lane; or a sagging farmhouse in a garbage-choked gully. There were so many sites that additional police units were brought in from Ankara to assist in surveilling all the locations.
Then the munitions arrived and a TNP helicopter with a HYENA receiver vectored TNP surveillance teams—they were as good as Nate had ever seen anywhere—to warehouses where the explosives would be stored before dispersal. The patient Turks set up on each location, watching, marking suspects. A coordinated assault plan was finalized. The Turks were impressed with Nate’s beacons; they were a marvel, said Hanefi.
“How did you do it, Nate Bey?” asked Hanefi late one night in a smoke-choked listening post, referring to the crates. Nate smiled.
“If you asked me whether we did it in Russia, I couldn’t tell you,” said Nate. Hanefi put back his head and laughed.
“Aferin, sen Osmanli,” said Hanefi. He meant, Bravo, you’re an Ottoman, a righteous stud.
The night of the multiple raids, Nate checked the QUICKHATCH beacon readouts from a terminal in the consulate. That technology was not releasable to the Turks—they were unaware of the redundant system—but all locations were corroborated 100 percent. Benford called on the secure phone and uncharacteristically praised Nate’s performance both in Sevastopol, and in working with the Turks in Istanbul, which he called “satisfactory.” Benford confirmed that the tech team for Phase Three would arrive the next day. Part of Nate’s plan to frame Shlykov had already been running for a time, a denigration ploy so insidious that a chuckling Gable had said Shlykov was already screwed, only he didn’t know it yet. “Good luck, tonight,” Benford had said, then terminated the secure link.
* * *
* * *
Nate hung up, remembering that Agnes had also wished him good luck after the WOLVERINEs returned by boat to Varna. He didn’t know it, but Agnes had booked a flight a day later than the rest of the team. Nate likewise was waiting for his flight to Istanbul, and was staying one night at the Central Hotel, a tired Romanian Black Sea resort where the lobby, corridors, and rooms smelled of hot elevator oil. Agnes had sneakily taken an adjoining room, and surprised him by pounding on his door while announcing servitoare, housekeeping!
Nate was secretly pleased. He was contemplating a dreary evening alone in his threadbare room watching the Berlin Euro Pop Contest on television. Agnes had other ideas. Whatever servomotor was ticking inside her, the chaste three-day return cruise apparently had spun it up to red-line levels. They made love everywhere but the bed: on the floor, in an armchair, in the bathtub with a sputtering hydro jet, and standing up on the tiny balcony ghost-lit by the neon hotel sign on the roof. Her heady perfume—she told him it was Chanel Cristalle Eau Verte—mingled with the whiff of Bunker C fuel oil from the harbor around the headland. She had whispered czuje miete dla ciebie, I feel mint for you, in colloquial Polish, meaning she had feelings for him. Mint wasn’t the only thing she felt.
Hours later, hands shaking, Nate poured Agnes some bottled water, but she was asleep on the bed, on her back, mouth open in a six-orgasm syncope, hair fanned out on the pillow, her witch’s streak partly visible. Nate floated a blanket over her and sat on the armchair across the room, looking at her breathing. Sleeping with Agnes the first time had been a midnight impulse fueled by pre-op nerves. Tonight it was a celebration, relief at getting out of Russia in one piece, maybe a bittersweet farewell. Nate rubbed his face and groaned. Maybe he wanted to put impediments between him and Dominika, so he wouldn’t—could not—stumble with her again. He resolved to properly act as backup to Gable during meetings in the safe house. He would arrive late, and leave early, making sure Gable was always in the room. He would let Gable explain to DIVA why Nate was acting like a skittish puppy, let him deal with the inevitable outburst. Only one problem: Nate loved Dominika. As if Agnes could hear his thoughts, she mumbled fitfully in her sleep, and turned over. She feels mint for me, thought Nate, miserably.
The next day they were waiting for their separate flights at the airport. In a white blouse, pink skirt, and sandals, Agnes looked cool and collected.
“Do you think I am too old for you?” she asked Nate, who looked up in alarm.
“After last night, I’ll let you know once my chiropractor hammers my spine back into alignment,” said Nate.
“I am being serious,” said Agnes.
“No, I don’t think you’re too old for me,” he said. “But Agnes, there must be somebody in your life.”
“I think there is somebody in your life,” she said, ignoring his question.
“What makes you say that?” said Nate. Scary good radar, he thought.
“Zerkalo dushi,” said Agnes in Russian, searching his eyes. Mirror of the soul, thought Nate. Christ.
“Things are complicated,” said Nate, who had no intention of discussing his seriously contorted personal situation.
“You live in London, isn’t it?” Agnes said.
“And you live in California.”
“Not so far, I think,” she said, not looking at him. Nate didn’t answer.
“Would a visit to London sometime be a bad idea?” Agnes said, then kissed him good-bye.
* * *
* * *
The Station’s outside line rang with an exultant Hanefi on the other end. “Nate Bey, come quickly; there is a police car waiting for you downstairs.” He was shouting over the sound of gunfire, a lot of it, including automatic weapons.
“Hanefi, where are you?” yelled Nate. “Are you all right?”