The Leveling Read online

  Decker heard one of his own ribs snap and felt a kick to his head. The last thing he heard before experiencing the strange sensation that his head was being knocked off his neck was a swish of something—a rifle butt?—traveling fast through the air.

  7

  Almaty, Kazakhstan

  DARIA BUCKINGHAM SAT down on a bench in a little park near her apartment, took a sip of the coffee she’d just bought, and closed her eyes. It was only two in the afternoon, but she was tired. In just over three hours, she needed to show up for her third day at her new job—concierge at the plush InterContinental Hotel in downtown Almaty. These side trips outside the city were taking their toll on her. Physically and emotionally.

  She tried to block the image of the slum from her mind and allowed herself to rest for a moment, enjoying the feel of the spring sun on her face. The oak trees in the park had just leafed out. In the distance, the rugged mountains of the Tian Shan poked through the white clouds that hugged their steep sides. A flower vendor sat nearby, beneath a rainbow-colored sun umbrella, and little kids swung back and forth on an orange-and-green-painted swing set.

  Almaty was a beautiful city, she thought, telling herself she should notice that beauty more often than she did. In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, it had gone from a dismal backwater dump to a wealthy center of commerce.

  On a bench adjacent to her own, an old woman with dirty swollen fingers was tossing bread crumbs to pigeons. She wore old army boots, some soldier’s castoffs that she’d laced up with rough twine.

  That made Daria think of the slums again.

  The meeting with the director had gone well. She hadn’t made any promises, but she had seen the hope in his eyes when she’d asked what—if money was available—would be most useful to him. Even with the trace of scarring on her face, she knew she looked like someone who had lived a privileged life, someone who might actually be able to deliver such funds. Her teeth were white and straight. She dressed well, and she knew how to carry herself like a rich foreigner when she found it advantageous to be perceived that way.

  Daria thought about the meeting for a moment longer, jotted down a few notes to herself on her phone, and then checked her e-mail.

  The new message had a blank subject line.

  She didn’t recognize the sender’s address—[email protected]—and was about to delete it, thinking it was spam. But the .tm domain indicated that the e-mail had come from a server in Turkmenistan, which struck her as odd.

  Turkmenistan was one of the most insular and technologically backward countries in the world. All Internet traffic was closely monitored, so the country generated far less spam than some of the other former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Daria knew the country fairly well. Until just three weeks ago, she’d been working there.

  The e-mail came with three attachments.

  Another reason not to open it, thought Daria. An e-mail from an unknown sender, from a backwater country, with attachments that were probably viruses.

  On the other hand, most viruses out there weren’t designed to hit smartphones. And she did know someone who was probably in Turkmenistan right now. This wasn’t his e-mail address, but…

  Daria opened the e-mail. There was nothing in the text box. Which left the attachments, all JPEG photo files.

  She looked around to see if anyone was behind her, anticipating that porn ads would pop up when she clicked on them. The first photo was of two men—one tall with Asian features, the other olive skinned and wearing a black turban—exchanging a briefcase; the second was of a three-story brick mansion with a tile roof, high balconies, and a large portico; and the third was a strange blurry nighttime photo that Daria had trouble deciphering at first.

  She stared at the last photo for a long time, trying to make sense of it.

  The center was dominated by a vertical swath of white. But it was the blurry form on the edge of the photo that really captured her attention. A hand and muscular arm were held high in the air. A single finger extended up from the hand. Affixed to the wrist was a bulky black watch trimmed in blue.

  She enlarged the photo, focusing on the watch. The lousy quality of the photo made it impossible for Daria to be sure, but she could have sworn the watch was a Timex Ironman. And that the same arm, wearing that same watch, had been around her shoulders just a few weeks ago.

  Decker, she thought.

  Daria stared at her phone. The faceplate of the watch glowed green, as if the nightlight button had just been pushed—maybe with the hope that the day and time would be visible? It wasn’t.

  John Decker was a former Navy SEAL, a freak of nature when it came to physical ability—one of those guys who Daria was sure, by the age of ten, had been able to run faster, climb higher, and lift more weight than 90 percent of guys twice his age—and an unlikely friend. Until two weeks ago, she and Deck had been working for the same private intelligence contractor in Turkmenistan. Decker had gotten her the job, pulling her away from a lousy situation back in the States. She’d been grateful that he’d thought of her.

  You’re weirding me out, Deck.

  Daria hit Reply and sent [email protected] a message: wtf?

  She tried calling Decker’s cell phone. No one answered. When she tried to leave a message, an automated voice told her Decker’s voice mail account was full. Which was also odd, she thought. You’d have to have an awful lot of unopened or saved voice mail messages to fill up an account.

  Or maybe someone had just butt dialed Decker and left an hour-long message by mistake. That could fill up a mailbox. Or maybe Decker had just butt dialed himself. That she could see happening.

  She sent him a text message—Hey John, what can you tell me about 3 photos from Alty8?

  Then she called the Hotel President in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, where, last she knew, Decker had been staying.

  No one named John Decker was currently a guest, the receptionist told her.

  “He’d be registered under CAIN, or Central Asian Information Networks. A group of us had a block of rooms.”

  “Everyone from CAIN checked out three days ago.”

  As Daria considered that bit of information, she thought to click on Details at the top of the e-mail from Alty8. It turned out that Alty8 had CC’d one other person: [email protected].

  She drew in a quick breath.

  What the hell is going on, Deck? And what could Mark possibly have to do with it?

  Mark’s apartment in Baku, eight months earlier…

  “I didn’t know you were up,” said Mark.

  It was seven in the morning. Daria had heard him making coffee in the kitchen but hadn’t wanted to ask for his help.

  She was slumped on the hardwood floor in the spare bedroom—a room that had been his office until two weeks ago—trying to tie a plastic garbage bag around the fiberglass cast on her broken arm. Her teeth marks were all over the ripped black plastic. Mark stood in the doorway, his brow furrowed with concern.

  The intelligence war that had decimated the CIA’s Baku station was over. That bloody conflict, fought over a proposed oil pipeline from China to Iran, had left her deeply wounded, physically and emotionally. The only reason she was still alive was because of Mark. But she couldn’t stay in his apartment forever. She had to learn to care for herself.

  “I want to take a shower.”

  Daria tried to speak calmly, but found it impossible to mask her anger. She was breathing heavily and trembling, partly from frustration, partly from the exertion of having attempted to tie the plastic bag around her arm with only one hand and her teeth. She wanted to rip the bag apart and throw it out the window.

  “OK,” said Mark.

  “I’m not supposed to get the cast wet. I need help tying the bag around my arm. Please.”

  She glanced at her bicep, where the cast ended, and was struck by how waiflike it looked. She knew the bruises and cuts on her face still looked angry and raw. She turned her face away from Mark.

  “I did
n’t know you were up,” he said again. “I would have helped you.”

  Daria was embarrassed by the sweat on her forehead. Mark noticed the smallest details when it came to other people; he was always sizing people up. The sweat would tell him how hard she’d been trying to tie the bag herself, how utterly dependent she was on him for even the smallest things.

  “Just get it around my arm, above the cast.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  As he approached her, she looked at the crow’s-feet around his deep-set, heavy-lidded eyes. Feeling his fingers on her arm filled her with a sense of well-being, and for a second it didn’t bother her that he could see the sheen of sweat on her forehead. He cinched a knot tight above her bicep. She stood up.

  “You want help getting to the shower?” he asked.

  “I’ll be OK.”

  But she wasn’t OK.

  She could feel his eyes on her as she made her way from the bedroom to the bathroom. He was sizing her up, she was sure. He was so damn calculating.

  Part of her hated him for what he saw. But part of her wanted him to touch her again. To put his hand lightly on her forehead or her shoulders.

  She managed to turn on the water and adjust the heat, but a minute into her shower—as she was trying to shampoo her hair—her legs gave way and she fell.

  “Daria?” called Mark from the bathroom door.

  The deep bruises in her thigh muscles were spasming. Water from the shower sprayed into her nose. She felt as though she were drowning. She wasn’t sure she could pick herself up without falling again.

  The bathroom door opened and a little stream of cool air blew over her face.

  “Daria?”

  “I slipped.”

  Her good arm grasped the lip of the bathtub, poking out a bit from behind the dark blue shower curtain.

  “Can you stand?”

  “I think so.”

  She tried to push herself up, but her legs spasmed again.

  Mark reached around the curtain, grabbed her wet arm, and lifted her up. Her hand trembled as she struggled to stay upright.

  “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.

  She checked her watch. She should start getting ready for work soon. If she was going to call him, she should do it now. But was she overreacting? Just looking for an excuse to call? Or was she looking for an excuse not to call him, when it was obvious she should?

  She thought about the first of the three photos. Two men had been exchanging a briefcase. A briefcase full of what?

  Daria had a bad feeling about that briefcase.

  Call him.

  She checked her phone, confirmed that Mark’s contact info was still in it, and hit Dial. His cell number was no longer good—which didn’t surprise her. When he’d been her boss at the CIA, he’d been religious about regularly swapping the SIM card out in his phone; he’d rarely kept the same number for more than a few days. Old habits die hard, she thought. She tried his home phone. The answering machine picked up.

  “Mark, this is Daria. Call me back, please, as soon as you get this message. I need you to call Bruce Holtz for me. I’m hoping he knows where I can
find John Decker. Something weird’s come up. I wouldn’t bother you if I didn’t think it might be important.” Then she left her number.

  She’d sounded professional, she thought. Nothing more.

  10

  Baku, Azerbaijan

  MARK TOOK ONE step into his apartment and stopped short.

  The bookshelves in the living room had been torn apart, and the hand-knotted Azeri carpets he’d hung on the wall had been ripped down. The kitchen cabinets had been pulled open, and glass jars of red pasta sauce lay shattered on the tile floor. All the furniture cushions had been slit; white stuffing protruded from them like entrails.

  In the center of his living room, three twentysomething uniformed officers from the Ministry of National Security sat on his mutilated leather couch, smoking cigarettes and using one of his kitchen plates as an ashtray. One of them stopped mid-laugh when he saw Mark and his escorts.

  “What the hell?” said Mark.

  The security officers stood as one. The tallest demanded to know who Mark was.

  Mark stood there in shock for a moment, taking it all in. His easy chair, where he liked to read in the early evening, when natural light spilled in from the balcony, had been flattened. The tomato plants he’d kept outside had been overturned. The little American flag he’d stuck in one of the planters lay on the floor half-covered with potting soil. “I live here.”

  One of his plainclothes minders from the Ministry of National Security nodded in confirmation.

  Mark’s apartment building was a gleaming modern construction, completed just two years ago as part of the oil-fueled gentrification that was sweeping the city, but he’d always loved the literal window into history his balcony had afforded him—the end of the Cold War, the ruins of an empire he’d helped, in a very small way, to bring down…Past the sliding glass doors leading onto his balcony, he could see the top of the old Dom Soviet, a government building that had been built during the Stalin era. Next to the Dom Soviet sat the Absheron, an enormous, bulky Soviet-era hotel that had recently been turned into a high-priced Marriott.