Chapter Fifteen
I moved faster than I would normally, snatching up the handset and answering before the second ring. The caller was Mark, the DIA HUMINT guy with whom I’d been dealing. Exactly the person whom I’d been trying to figure out how best to approach. That problem was now solved.
“There have been some developments of an extreme nature. We need you to come in as soon as possible. Can you be here by 0600?”
“Sure, no worries. Can you give me some idea of what’s up?”
Mark paused a moment and when he replied there was a note of careful consideration in his voice.
“No, it wouldn’t be secure. Are you all right? Have you been involved in anything unusual tonight?”
“I had a date which turned out quite well but while that is maybe unusual given my track record it isn’t stop the presses news. I’ll shower and be in ASAP.”
“OK, I’ll alert the Marine at Post One,” Mark replied.
Thirty minutes later, Glock carefully hidden in the BMW, I was presenting my passport at Post One and a few minutes after Mark was shaking my hand. We did the usual polite greetings as we walked toward the section housing the DIA offices. Mark seemed both subdued and on edge and I prepped myself to be shocked and angry when presented with the news of Aferdita’s kidnapping. After all, there wasn’t much else they could be calling me in for and I needed to play it consistent with the story I had ready to tell.
Once we were safely ensconced in a side office, fresh coffee in hand, Mark ran a hand through his thinning hair and then shook his head. He was a decent guy, late thirties and with a strong work ethic and sense of duty. I liked him and was glad that I would be able to keep him out of the shite. I figured he’d see the truth eventually but would also appreciate my giving him and his boss, a full bird, plausible deniability. He seemed a bit more rattled than I expected but then again it isn’t every day you get an asset snatched out of a safe house.
“I really don’t know how to tell you this and wish to hell I didn’t have to. I guess straight up is best. Sometime last night, probably early morning, Aferdita was kidnapped from the safe house. Someone forced entry and took her out. There are some signs of a minor struggle and no witnesses so far. We figure Enver for it.”
I kept my face carefully blank, something that would be expected. We get bad news about friends and comrades in this business and you learn to stonewall your emotions at those times. Mark was watching me sadly, nodding as he let what he thought was a shock sink in.
“OK, here’s the worst part. We figure Enver because of a note found on her body. It said “There are plenty more where this bitch came from.” There was nothing else, but the note was written in Albanian.”
I was nodding as he spoke, just taking it in. It took a second for what he’d said to hit me.
Body? What the fuck? He’d only say body if she was dead.
Something of my sudden comprehension must have shown because Mark nodded again and then reached out as if to steady me.
“Yeah. Sorry you have to hear it this way but Aferdita is dead. Shot twice in the back of the head. Her body was dumped near the gypsy section of town. The safe house shows signs of her having a guest over last night. I’m gonna guess that was you. Which makes this even more shitty than it ought to be. And, of course, I have to ask…were you there? Do you have any idea what happened?”
There have been times in my life where I’ve felt the cold numbness that accompanies emotional shut down. Times when the truth was simply too great a weight to bear immediately and the mind, seeking to preserve its ability to maintain rational behavior, cuts off the part of you that feels. I slipped into that same icy depth now. It felt like I was hearing Mark through a tunnel, as if this were a strange dream sequence. Of course, I knew it wasn’t a dream. Some part of me had been thinking all along that this would be how it would end. That part slapped the rest of me across the face and brought me out of my mental deep freeze.
I ran my hand across my face, ordinarily a sign of potential deception but under the circumstances more readily explained by shock.
“Dead? Fuck. I know you have to ask, don’t worry about it. Yeah, I was there last night, had dinner and…things took their natural course, you know what I mean?” I looked at Mark who was nodding sympathetically. Keeping my eyes on his I continued. “I left around midnight, maybe one o’clock. I didn’t see anyone unusual.”
I stopped as if considering and then burst out angrily.
“Shit. I didn’t see a goddamned thing. They had to be there, probably watching and getting ready to move. I must have missed them. If I hadn’t been so fucking slack maybe…”
I stopped, the emotion choking me. It wasn’t feigned. I really did feel awful and responsible although not exactly for the reasons Mark thought. I hadn’t been quick enough, hard enough, good enough to save a woman who, more than most people I knew, deserved saving. If I hadn’t been so fucking quick to kill, if I had wounded one of the mopes and questioned him, maybe I could have gotten to her in time. I felt the sorrow and the anger hit me and I had to set the coffee mug down carefully before I gave in and hurled it across the room. My eyes were filling and I ran the back of my hand across them quickly, taking deep breaths and regaining my composure. I felt like shit, not just because of the loss and pain but also because of the need to hide the truth. I clamped down on myself, getting my equilibrium again and turned back toward Mark. His expression of empathy was genuine and he stood and motioned vaguely to his left.
“Look, I know this is hard and unexpected. Don’t blame yourself. We figure the same thing. They set up, saw you there and waited until you left before making their move. It’s not your fault. We didn’t anticipate them either and frankly have no idea how they got onto the safe house. Our CI folks will be combing the local staff records and doing everything we can to find the leak. It’s not on you, man. You weren’t operational and nobody had a reason to suspect this might happen. I’m gonna go get another cup of coffee. Take a minute and I’ll be back. Here, let me get you a fresh one too.”
Grabbing my still full cup, Mark left quickly, leaving me alone with my thoughts and my guilt. The problem was that I should have been expecting it. I’m the paranoid son of a bitch after all. Just crossing a border and dropping into an Embassy safe house which I hadn’t set up or vetted wouldn’t have met my standard if I’d been operating. And yeah, I’d handed her off and stood down but still…I couldn’t escape the sense of failure and loss. And even worse, it felt like I’d blown her only hope by not trying to take a prisoner and make him talk. I shifted focus, trying to push it all away for a more appropriate time.
Like, say, after I was dead myself. I wasn’t going to sleep well for a long time, if ever.
My mind turned to what Mark had said. Someone had to have penetrated security enough to not only know Aferdita was here but also where she was hidden. That meant an inside source, someone who had betrayed the secret for whatever reason. Looking at the locals made sense but I flashed on the guy Aferdita had met at Enver’s party. The American, Eric, the one Aferdita had thought was somehow connected to Enver’s confidence in dealing with the unknown threat of what he thought was law enforcement. If he was in a position to access DIA info perhaps he was the link, the conduit through which the info came. I knew Mark had his description as it had been part of my report and debrief. I was also sure Aferdita would have mentioned him. Eric ought to have the CI hounds on his trail very soon.
Mark returned with two new mugs of coffee. We talked, my emotions now under control. I gave him a rundown of my sanitized story and saw no signs he doubted me. He would have no reason to until the Macedonians made the connection between the shootings and the safe house and shared it with the Regional Security Officer. Then he would make the connection as well. He’d also understand that my disclaimer meant the USG was safe from blowback. He could continue to state, truthfully, that so far as they knew, I hadn’t been there when the kidnapping occurred, they had no reason to believe
otherwise and there was nothing connecting me to either scene. If somehow I was found to be connected it would be simple to blame it on me and toss me to the wolves. That is, after all, the bargain we make.
I floated the idea of Eric as Enver’s source. Mark frowned at that and tried to shift the subject. I pressed, and after he hemmed and hawed a bit he finally told me that Eric was a case officer with “another agency.” This didn’t exactly violate the law against revealing the identity of covert intelligence personnel but was sufficient in context for me to understand that Eric was running Enver for another spook shop. Most likely the CIA but it was possible for him to be a member of any of several different organizations. This wouldn’t be unusual. Different groups work different sides of a lot of issues and info sharing and deconfliction is something national security intelligence has never done well. Law enforcement does much better but then the stakes are higher in terms of not only personnel directly involved but also personal responsibility for bosses who create a blue on blue situation.
Eric was probably running Enver as a source and Enver had turned to him for protection. That was normal. CIA has protected criminal sources in the past; they are undoubtedly doing so now and will in the future. It’s a necessary part of dealing with criminal sources. After all, the honest folks aren’t privy to the plans, operations and capabilities of the criminals. You have to deal with the folks who know which means those folks have to be dirty if they are to be of any use. There are lines though and helping such a source commit murder, especially of another agency’s asset, is a big step across that line. No doubt Eric had some rationale which enabled him to make that call. Or he was dirty, something possible when you consider the amount of money the Serbian Mafia has to throw around. Most likely he was just being expedient in a way he felt he could get away with and which tied Enver closer to him. Whatever the goal was, I didn’t care. There were things I suppose I’d sacrifice unknown innocents for as well. American innocents for one. And my hands were far from the cleanest. But the simple truth was whatever Eric’s reasons, they made no difference to me. I didn’t know in a legal sense that he’d been responsible but unless the CI investigation turned up evidence that a local was responsible, Eric was the guy I would hold accountable.
Not legally, of course. I would expect Eric to have been fully backstopped, to be able to show he wasn’t the only person with the information and then to counter attack by suggesting leaks in DIA, the Embassy and everyone else involved. In the end, unless someone turned up something concrete, DIA would write it off as a bad deal. Mark would make a note to watch Eric in the future and Eric would sail on, happily running Enver. He’d survive unless he’d been very careless and I doubted that would be the case.
This likely result, Enver and Eric living happily ever after, was entirely UNSAT. Still, I could do nothing now. I felt myself switch on to full operational mode. I began to play the game again, giving Mark and later the investigation team from the RSO exactly what they needed and wanted to hear. I sold the story, perfectly vague where it should be, detailed where it had to be and consistent throughout. No one mentioned a polygraph. I wasn’t a suspect after all, but I’d have gladly taken one and, as I knew from past experience, beaten the damn thing. I managed to gain some additional information in the process. Eric worked out of Vienna, no agency attribution. Enver was back in Pristina, acting as if he’d never left. And the trackers had stopped working the day before Aferdita was killed.
I held myself together for the two days it took to complete my part of the investigation. I never asked to see the body. It was just decomposing meat and seeing it wouldn’t bring closure. I already had a last sight of her that was staring in my nightmares and would for a long time. The one I’d had for the last two nights featured Aferdita, stumbling toward her death, hair falling over her face, looking up through it at me and, tears in her eyes, asking why, why didn’t you save me? I didn’t need to see a corpse and add that to the mix. Fortunately no one offered to let me view the body which spared me dealing with the issue. I finally left Skopje, driving south to Athens where I would turn in my rental BMW and put an end to KVSPARROW. I reached Athens, turned in the BMW, stashed the Glock and took a flight to Paris. The rudeness and melancholy of the French fit my mood better than the festive cheer of the Low Countries. A week after I arrived I called Mark to check on the progress of the case. He had no reason to speak to me about it but, being a decent guy he let me know they had no progress. The Counter Intelligence team had found no indications of an internal leak and the books were closed. I thanked him, shut off my phone and hurled it into the Seine.
The next few hours passed in a fog as I stalked the streets of Paris. I finally stopped at Notre Dame, the Gothic extravagance and elegance calming me and bringing on a reflective mood. I sat in a nave, quietly alone in the dimness with only myself for company. I considered my options. I had lost something I couldn’t even begin to name, something I couldn’t articulate to myself and which I was afraid to examine too closely for the fear of the deeper loss I’d feel at the possibilities dimly glimpsed and now gone forever. That loss was caused by someone else’s actions. Someone to whom I could put a name, a face and a location. I needed closure, something to help me sleep at night, something to restore balance in an unbalanced world. I walked from the church feeling a sense of wellbeing, a spiritual uplift which was due to decisions quite out of line with the values of the builders and occupants of the edifice. Still, one phrase ran through my mind like a chorus offering praise to a dark god.
Payback is a bitch. And I’m her favorite son.