The Leveling Read online

  He deleted the solicitations to visit porn sites or buy Viagra that had slipped past his spam filter. There were a few notices from Western University concerning changes to the spring schedule, which he deleted as well.

  Then he came to an e-mail with a blank subject line. It had been sent from [email protected]. Someone with the e-mail address of [email protected] had been CC’d.

  If he’d been on his own computer, he might not have opened the e-mail for fear of downloading a virus. But at the Holiday Inn, what did he care?

  “What are you doing?” demanded one of his minders, jogging to keep up with Mark.

  “I need to back up some files.”

  “Slow down.”

  “No.”

  Mark bought two thumb drives at a little hotel store just off the main atrium. Back at the Holiday Inn business center, he made two copies of the photo files. Then he deleted all the e-mails in his online account and changed his password.

  “Change in plans,” he told his minders. “I’m not going to London.”

  “There is no choice, sir. Minister Gambar has insisted that we witness you leaving the country.”

  Mark recalled with photographic precision the departure list he’d seen in the airport terminal, comforted by the fact that he was naturally reverting back to his hypervigilant self. He considered about ten flights that were departing soon before deciding, “Flight nine eighty to Bishkek takes off in fifteen minutes.”

  “Why there?”

  “Personal business.”

  That e-mail had been sent just ten hours before someone had tried to kill him. If he hadn’t been at the conference in Tbilisi, he would have downloaded all his e-mails to his laptop first thing in the morning, just like he always did.

  That’s why someone had stolen his laptop.

  Nobody gives a shit about your book.

  Whoever had tried to kill him, whoever had ransacked his apartment, had done so because of something to do with those photos.

  But why take the backup files too? Maybe they’d been looking for passwords. Like passwords to his e-mail account, so they’d be able to get the photos.

  He might never get his old life back, but he wasn’t going to be driven out of town with his tail between his legs. At least not until he figured out who was doing the driving, and what could be done to stop them.

  Running to catch up, Mark’s minder said, “The flight to Bishkek will already have boarded.”

  Mark thought about the assassin in the library, and his conversation with Orkhan, and his stolen book, and the indignity of his ruined tomato plants, and the rushed and unprofessional resignation letter he’d just written to Western University. He thought about the view from his apartment that he would never see again and the casual way the Azeri security forces had been ashing their cigarettes on one of his plates.

  Then he thought about the picture with the arm in it, an arm that he was now virtually certain he recognized.

  “Then insist that they hold the plane until I’m on it. Airport security will listen to you.”

  “You don’t have a visa.”

  There was a reason why Mark had kept his black diplomatic passport. “I don’t need one.”

  14

  Washington, DC

  “CENTCOM IS REQUESTING that the uss stennis divert to the Arabian Gulf.”

  The president steepled his hands and waited for his chief of staff to continue.

  “So that when you come to a decision, whatever course you choose won’t be limited by a lack of assets in the region. If you approve the request, the Iranians are sure to protest. You can expect a complaint to be filed with the Swiss embassy in Tehran.”

  If the USS Stennis was ordered to the Arabian Gulf, three aircraft carriers would be patrolling just off the coast of Iran. The Eisenhower was already in the Persian Gulf, and the Nimitz was in the Arabian Sea.

  Two aircraft carriers was normal. But three? That was an anomaly.

  “If the Iranians protest, tell them the Stennis will be replacing the Nimitz,” said the president.

  “They’ll know that the Nimitz has only been on patrol for one month and isn’t due for replacement.”

  “Then we’ll tell them the Nimitz is experiencing mechanical problems and needs to be recalled early.”

  “They won’t believe it.”

  “I don’t expect them to. Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are going to be held five days from now, on the seventeenth. We’ll tell them the Nimitz will be fully repaired and leaving the Arabian Sea by the eighteenth. They’ll think we’re trying to tell them not to meddle with the elections.”

  “That might fly.”

  15

  Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan

  BRUCE HOLTZ WAS a square-jawed thirty-two-year-old former football player for Texas A&M who towered over Mark as they faced each other at the entrance to Manas Air Base, the main transit station for NATO supplies bound for Afghanistan. On his hip he wore a smartphone as if it were a sidearm.

  “Mark Sava. I gotta say, this is definitely a surprise.”

  Holtz flashed a big smile that appeared genuine, extended his hand, and did the squeeze-too-hard thing.

  It was early evening. The air was cold, the sky an angry gray that promised rain. In the distance, a few US Air Force C-130 planes were lined up near the main runway, ready to fly arms and rations to Bagram. The flight from Baku to Manas International Airport—Kyrgyzstan’s biggest airport, located just outside the leafy capital city of Bishkek—had taken four hours. After landing, Mark had caught a cab to the section of the airport leased by the US military, the part known as Manas Air Base.

  He and Holtz exchanged a few lies disguised as pleasantries. Eventually Mark got around to saying that he’d gotten sick of teaching college kids, so he’d quit his university job in Baku and left for good.

  “That mean you’re looking for work?”

  “Maybe…”

  “CAIN could use you.”

  “I’ll give it some thought. Right now I’m working on another project.”

  “You’ve been giving it some thought for a year now.”

  “I’ll think harder.”

  Over the course of his career, Mark had served in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Abkhazia, Tajikistan, Nagorno-Karabakh Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and even briefly in Kyrgyzstan when the Americans were building Manas Air Base in the run-up to the war in Afghanistan. All that experience had earned him the kind of reputation that was worth something. Especially to someone like Holtz, who had only served with the CIA as an operations officer for five years before starting up CAIN.

  Mark added, “I’m actually trying to track down one of your employees. Was hoping you might have some contact info.”

  “I got a lot of employees. We’re up to twenty now.”

  “John Decker.”

  “What do you want with him?”

  “He’s kind of a friend.”

  “Friend?” Holtz crossed his arms and stared down at Mark.

  Mark noted that Holtz’s eyes were small and mouse-like.

  “I didn’t think you had friends, Sava.”

  “Well, acquaintance might be closer to the mark. We worked together last year. Can you help me?”

  “Come on, we’ll talk inside.”

  They cut across the air base in Holtz’s black Jaguar, on a utility road that paralleled a tall chain-link fence that separated the US section of the airport from the civilian section. Holtz parked between a couple of Humvees, in front of a one-story steel-sided building that looked like something in between a shed and a small warehouse. Mark had heard that Holtz was allowed to lease office space from the US military in exchange for giving them priority status whenever they needed to use CAIN.

  “So, yeah, we’re up to twenty employees now,” Holtz repeated as they entered his office. On his desk were a couple of manila folders, a few loose papers, and a laptop.

  Mark took a step toward the desk. One of the papers showed a diagram that looked like the
sketch of a subway system. On the back wall, a Dallas Cowboys pennant was pinned to imitation-wood paneling, just above a watercooler. The whole place had a temporary, slapped-together feel to it.

  “That so?”

  Holtz gathered the papers on his desk and placed them inside his top drawer. “We’re in five countries; business is good. Decent client base, some industry gigs, some government.”

  Mark had heard that Holtz, though considered more brash than bright by CIA insiders, had landed quite a few DoD and State Department jobs simply because the United States had no one else to turn to in Central Asia. After all the cutbacks at the CIA, Holtz was one of the few players in the region.

  “Heard you were in Turkmenistan,” said Mark.

  “Who told you that? Decker?”

  Decker had indeed been the one to tell him, over beers in Baku, three months ago. He’d said that Holtz had approached him about a security job in Turkmenistan and that he planned to take it.

  “No, but word gets around, you know.”

  “That’s confidential information. Deck shouldn’t have been running his mouth.”

  “You’re making quite a name for yourself. I’ve been impressed.”

  Holtz nodded, as if this didn’t surprise him. “What I can tell you is that we’re well positioned in most of Central Asia, Turkmenistan included. You come to CAIN and you can run your own minidivision if you like, pick your country. Hire your own guys. I wouldn’t be in your hair. And I’ll tell you something else—I’m looking at selling in a couple years. A few of the big military contractors want to get into the private intelligence game, and it might be easier for them to buy CAIN than build from scratch and compete against us. You could make out like a bandit. We both could. I can show you some figures if you like.”

  Mark didn’t much care for the idea of working for, or even with, Holtz. But he certainly wasn’t opposed to making out like a bandit. “I’m not saying no, but I’d rather focus on Decker first.”

  Holtz sat down in his leather executive chair, popped open his laptop, tapped and dragged his finger on the touch pad for a while, and then grabbed a piece of paper and a pen.

  “Here,” he said to Mark. “E-mail, cell phone, address on record in Baku. You’re welcome.”

  Mark studied the information. “This is my address in Baku.”

  “That’s the address he gave me.”

  “Because he didn’t have one of his own at the time, so he used mine. I need a current address.”

  “Then call or e-mail him.”

  “I already tried. He’s either not answering or not getting his e-mails. And his cell phone number has changed. I need his real contact info, Bruce. As in, a way to reach him now.”

  “Unfortunately I can’t help you in that department, buddy.”

  “Doesn’t he work for you?”

  Holtz moved his tongue around in his mouth before finally saying, “Not no more.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, I don’t want to shit talk the guy behind his back.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Means I don’t want to shit talk the guy behind his back.”

  Mark just stared at him.

  Finally Holtz said, “A few days ago, John Decker pretty much went AWOL on me. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Went AWOL or disappeared?”

  Holtz just leaned back in his seat.

  Mark said, “What was Decker doing in Turkmenistan?”

  “What CAIN was doing in Turkmenistan is classified information. I’ve signed confidentiality agreements with my clients, which means I can’t tell you jack and you know it. I will say this—whatever Decker was doing, he was doing it with full knowledge of all the occupational hazards involved.”

  “Occupational hazards? I thought you said he went AWOL?”

  “This conversation is over.”

  “Bruce, I’m here because there’s been blowback. And I think it might have something to do with whatever Decker was up to.”

  Holtz stared at him. “What kind of blowback?”

  “Someone came after me. In Baku.”

  “When you say came after you…”

  “As in tried to kill me. Yesterday.”

  Holtz took a moment to run a hand through his short-cropped hair, then said, “What makes you think it had anything to do with Decker?”

  Mark studied Holtz, wondering whether he was the person who’d been CC’d on the photos and was just playing dumb. No, he didn’t think Holtz was playing. “Call it intuition.”

  Holtz leaned back in his chair. “Intuition’s not going to cut it. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. And that’s final.”

  Mark stared at the Dallas Cowboys pennant behind Holtz’s desk. “So I see you’re gathering intel on the Atyrau oil collection station. The one the Chinese are putting in for the Kazakhs, if I’m not mistaken?”

  Holtz glanced down at his desk, to where the sketch of the oil collection station, the one resembling a subway map, had been.

  “You already put it away.” Mark’s vision wasn’t so great anymore when it came to focusing on small print—he knew he should wear reading glasses more than he did. But the map had been far enough away for him to see it just fine.

  “That’s classified information.”

  “Then you should be more careful with it.”

  “Up yours, Mark. You know, I don’t think you have a base pass. I think maybe it’s time for you to leave.”

  Mark made eye contact with Holtz. “Bet the Kazakhs would be interested to know what you’re up to. Of course, if they ever found out, you could kiss the idea of ever setting foot in Kazakhstan again good-bye.”

  Holtz crossed his arms in a way that made his biceps bulge and assumed an expression that Mark interpreted as an attempt to appear intimidating.

  “Don’t go there, brother. I don’t respond well to bribes. Remember, we’re on the same team.”

  “It’s actually called blackmail. And if I don’t get help with Decker, I guarantee you I’ll be on the phone selling this info to the Kazakhs within the hour. Whether you respond well or not.”

  Holtz pointed a long finger at Mark. “I’m warning you. Don’t. Go. There. I will find a way to fuck you over, and that is a promise.”

  Mark stood and began walking to the door. “You’re embarrassing yourself, Bruce. I’m outta here.”

  Holtz caught up with Mark outside.

  “Hold on, buddy. Jesus, don’t be such a dickhead. I had a contract with the State Department. That’s why I was in Turkmenistan. I hired your guy Decker to protect State diplomats and stand around and look tough.”

  “A contract to do what?”

  Sounding ruffled, Holtz said, “Help State get some leverage with the Turkmen before the ChiComs sign deals that’ll guarantee they, and they alone, get to spend the next hundred years sucking every last drop of gas and oil out of the region.”

  That bit of news didn’t surprise Mark.

  The Americans, Russians, and Chinese—or to Holtz, ChiComs, short for Chinese communists—had long been waging diplomatic and intelligence wars on multiple fronts as they fought over Central Asia’s resources. It was the New Great Game, and it had kept Mark employed for years.

  As for the specific case of Turkmenistan, that country happened to be sitting on top of huge natural gas reserves. A lot of that gas currently went north through aging Russian pipelines, and the Turkmen had recently inked a deal to send some of it to the Arabian Sea via Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the Chinese were pressing hard to get the Turkmen to send the bulk of their natural gas east, to China.

  At the same time, Mark knew that the Chinese had signed a secret deal to build a huge oil pipeline from Iran to China, which would cross through both Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. That’s what the eruption of violence in Baku eight months ago had been about. State would be doing everything they could to get the Turkmen to deny or delay extending transit rights.

  “How’d it
go?” Mark asked.

  “Shitty. Negotiations broke down two days ago and we got kicked out of the country. Decker never showed up for the plane home. I’ve asked the Turkmen to try to figure out where the hell he is, but so far I haven’t gotten a response. Needless to say, this is a bit of a clusterfuck for me.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. That’s what I know.”

  “Where was Decker staying in Turkmenistan?”

  “President Hotel, big place in Ashgabat. I will say this—not long after I hired him, he gave me the name of this half-Iranian ex-CIA girl who speaks Turkmen and half a dozen other languages. Daria Buckingham. You know her?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Yeah, she worked in Azerbaijan for a while, so I figured.”

  “I was under the impression she’d gone back to the States.”

  What the hell was Daria doing working for Holtz?

  “Guess she came back. Anyway, there’s only a handful of people out there who can translate Turkmen so I hired her, and for the next two weeks Decker was like a tick on her ass. It was embarrassing. He really had a thing for her, always following her around, which I don’t get because if you ask me, she’s a first-class bitch. But if you want to find out about Decker, you might start by talking to her. Don’t fucking look at me like that, I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “What did Daria say when you talked to her?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “You’re really leaving no stone unturned here, aren’t you? Mounting a real manhunt.”

  “I had to fire her a couple weeks ago, long before we got kicked out of the country. I’m the last person she’d talk to.”

  “Fire her for what?”

  “It’s confidential.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Almaty, I think. I heard she was trying to run private intelligence ops against the ChiComs.”

  Almaty was only 150 or so miles northwest of where they were now, in Kazakhstan. Mark figured he could be there in a few hours.