The Hidden Vector: A Spy Thriller Read online

  Kamran lifted his head to see the vibrant orange and yellow explosion far off and above, beyond thin clouds. He knew what he’d seen and cried out. The pretty girl Ana and the old Georgian man—all of them gone in milliseconds. All dead because of what he carried out of the lab in Koltsovo. Blood for blood.

  Andrei said nothing as the pair glided down for minutes. Kamran saw a faint glint of moonlight on an uneven plane of roiling black glass that rose up before him. They splashed into the Black Sea, frozen by the dark water but alive.

  Part I

  The Passenger

  Chapter 1: Chasing Phantoms

  Tbilisi, Georgia

  7:54 p.m., Monday, May 6

  Ethan Pierce stepped down from the agency Learjet and scanned the terminal at the far side of the Tbilisi Airport runway. Two-hundred yards away, twin gangways stretched out over the tarmac. A roaring jetliner parked at the end of one gangway awaited passengers who moved like little quivering shadows behind glass. At the end of the other, tatters of yellow tape whipped in the hot wind. Georgian police had removed the two bodies that had lain there barely twenty-four hours earlier—one a crewman, the other a young flight attendant who made a terrible choice. Now 183 people were dead, and Ethan had to find actionable intelligence before more died.

  Two fellow CIA officers followed behind him, shielding their eyes from the glare of the setting sun. Wade Dixon squinted, batting away the hours of sleep from the flight, as he took in the scene. Wade could sleep through anything, a knack he’d learned in the Marines. Ethan once spent a long night with Wade after a failed agency operation in an Afghanistan village during a mortar attack. Wade had snored for two hours while Ethan waited out the explosions on his haunches, shivering and starting at the delayed bursts of mortar shells in the nearby neighborhood.

  The new face that trailed behind was Marcus Eldridge, a young language officer who three months ago was still training at the Farm. But Eldridge spoke Russian fluently with a passable handle on Georgian. They needed his expertise for this operation, but Ethan didn’t need another unknown in the form of a rookie. Marcus surveyed the scene and whistled. No one else could hear him amid the drone of taxiing jetliners, but still the reaction grated Ethan’s senses.

  There wasn’t much to learn from the scene at this distance. Wade’s eyes were sharper than his, but Ethan could still see the baggage carts parked at awkward angles below the empty gangway. The dead passengers’ luggage spilled out on the ground. Next to them the eight-wheeled BTR towered over the scattered luggage. More shreds of yellow tape surrounded the armored personnel carrier, as if to pen the thing in with the feeble strands. Georgian soldiers walked lazy circuits around the vehicle. Its side door hung open, a last and lingering sign of the hijackers’ deadly plan.

  They moved to a vacant hangar that swallowed up the sounds of the airport and echoed with the squeaking of their shoes on the epoxied concrete. A checkerboard of lights reflected on its surface, shifting as they crossed the expanse. Two men in suits stood at the far end waiting for them, standing like untouched chess pieces in their black and gray wool. The taller man greeted them with a curt handshake for each.

  “Gentlemen.” His mouth barely moved.

  “You must be Alan Sanger,” Ethan said. “Paul Corso says hello.”

  Alan was Chief of Station in Georgia, a veteran Agency man who had risen through the ranks over years of maneuvering in a tumultuous country up against the hard edge of Russia and a stew of ethnic tensions. Ethan’s supervisor, Paul Corso, had warned him about Sanger—his exact words were horse’s ass. What he meant was that Sanger would resist the team’s need to move quickly.

  “I’m sure he does,” Sanger said with a slight frown. “Is Corso still burning the midnight oil trying to save the world?”

  “When he has to.”

  “He’s got more reason than ever now. Follow me. We’ll take you to your flat where you can all settle in.”

  Outside, a conspicuous Chevy Suburban with windows as dark as its paint waited with the engine purring, heat emanating from beneath the vehicle in a visible blur. Wade carried most of their gear. He heaved his bulging duffel bag into the vehicle’s rear with ease, along with Marcus’ knapsack, while Marcus climbed into the rear seat row.

  For his part, Ethan traveled light. When Corso had called him at his old apartment just twenty hours earlier, he had stuffed two wrinkled shirts, a toothbrush, and his holstered Beretta into a small duffel bag. From his half-empty dresser he had grabbed a newly minted passport with the name Ryan Sawyer and a recent photo of his dark hair growing over his ears, an affectation he’d acquired more from idleness than fashion on his last excursion in Istanbul. He left behind an older photo, one he kept in a frame atop the dresser. Then his hair was shorter and lighter, and Sarah still smiled next to him, locked in a moment that seemed like someone else’s life. In a way, it was. Leaving the quiet apartment for Tbilisi was his duty, but it came as a needed relief.

  “So, what have we got?” Ethan said once he stowed his bag at his feet.

  Wade took the seat next to him and shut off the hum of the engines outside. The Suburban left the airport gate and merged onto a busy highway that flowed into the heart of the city. Sanger sat in the front passenger seat. Ethan watched the balding spot on his head as he looked up into the visor mirror to address them, his face sober as a tomb.

  “I want to make one thing perfectly clear to the three of you. Georgia is my responsibility. This thing is more volatile than you realize from both sides of the border. You’re not going to come in here and scare off what my teams have worked a long time to build just to placate an over-eager deputy director.”

  “This isn’t our first day of school. We know how it works,” Ethan said. That was mostly true. He didn’t want to mention Marcus, and he hoped Sanger wouldn’t push it. He hoped even more Marcus was smart enough to stay quiet.

  “Look, I don’t know you. My people don’t know you. You’re here because Corso thinks you can do something we can’t. I doubt that’s the case. But we’re all batting for the same team here, so my people will assist you,” Sanger said. He turned from the mirror to face the three of them in the back of the Suburban.

  “But do not get in our way. You do not come and go as you please. You stand out too much here. Just work with our agents under my officers’ supervision. You don’t talk to the Georgians without my say so. None of you so much as takes a shit without my approval. Do we understand each other?”

  Ethan understood very well. Like all station chiefs he’d worked with on operations, Sanger protected his turf—and his dominance. Ethan had no time for it. Corso’s comments about Sanger echoed in his mind. He envied his boss’ ability to cut agency politics to the bone, and he fought a smirk, then matched Sanger’s glare with an expression as stern and stubborn.

  “Understood,” he said, tilting his head. “Now what can you tell us?”

  Sanger calmed slightly. He turned again to the front as the Suburban wove among speeding traffic headed into downtown. Ethan had called his bluff for now.

  Tbilisi lay ahead, thickening with more modern buildings hemmed in by steep foothills covered with trees and looming electrical towers. It was a city shedding its old skin, trying and frequently failing to slough off the troubles of the old empire and enter a new world. Ethan sensed more trouble lurking somewhere ahead of him. The trick was finding it before the trouble found them.

  “They briefed you on Pankisi Gorge, I take it?” Sanger said.

  Ethan knew the place by reputation. He’d read more than twenty briefs alone on the flight. Jihadists had been crossing the border from Chechnya there for years, and the traffic steadily increased since Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov had clamped down his domain to the north to curry favor with Vladimir Putin. The valley had become an artery of rage, exporting violent men into hotter war zones across the Middle East.

  “That where we’re headed?” Marcus asked.

  Ethan winced, trying to avoid
Sanger’s notice as he glared in the mirror.

  “Settle down, Rambo,” Sanger said as he scowled in the mirror at Marcus, then shifted his ire again to Ethan. “This is what I’m fucking talking about, Pierce. I’m not putting up with Corso’s antics under my watch. I will put you back on that plane right now.”

  Ethan leaned back, waving his hands casually. “You’re right. That’s not the plan. We just want to get pointed in the right direction. Marcus is just eager to do the right thing here. We all are. So, tell us what your teams are reporting, and we’ll figure out how we can help.”

  Sanger sighed. “We have a promising lead for you. We’ve been chasing phantoms in the gorge for years. In the last twenty-four hours, we reached out to every agent we could. Two of them pointed to the same contact. A smuggler in Pankisi Gorge.”

  “Does this phantom have a name? Any verification at all?” Ethan said.

  “Al Jamal. It’s a flimsy nom de guerre. Not much else on the individual’s identity. But it matches earlier activity. We’ve known about this one for a while. The Georgians have apprehended several smugglers in the last couple years. Arms dealers, human traffickers, sympathizers, that kind of thing. Al Jamal has eluded them.”

  “For now,” Wade said.

  Sanger shook his head—a slight tic that Ethan almost missed. Wade had scanned out the window since leaving the airport, his head swiveling at every curve of the road and turn of the city’s structures. Wade seemed to ignore Sanger’s ranting, but Ethan knew he heard every detail.

  “We suspect the hijackers were in the country for at least a week, which means Al Jamal probably sheltered them, and probably knows more about them,” Sanger said.

  “Then we need to make contact,” Ethan said.

  Sanger chuckled. “The Georgians can’t even seem to do that. We need to tread carefully here, or we’ll scare him away.”

  Marcus spoke up again. “Al Jamal knows you. Knows all your agents in the field. And the Georgians most of all. He doesn’t know us.”

  “He knows you’re American. That’s all that matters.”

  “So, I make sure he thinks I’m Russian. That I can do,” Marcus said.

  For the first time since meeting him, Ethan sensed Marcus relax. His voice grew louder, his pace slower and less anxious. Sanger hadn’t intimidated him either, and Ethan now saw what Corso had seen in him. He might just work out after all.

  “You said Al Jamal eluded the Georgians,” Ethan said. “You didn’t say anything about him eluding your officers. It’s not much of a lead if you don’t have anything to give us.”

  Sanger paused, considering the next move. Ethan guessed Sanger would either open up to them now or shut down their operation before it started. He let the quiet fill the air—he’d already pushed Sanger’s pride too much.

  Sanger finally spoke. “One of our assets provided a number,” Sanger said. “We shared with SIGINT, but there’s no activity since the hijacking.”

  “Then we start some activity. My team makes contact, offering to arrange an arms deal attractive enough for him to listen. You supervise. Loop in the Georgians, if you think it will help. Just let us get started.”

  Sanger grimaced. “All right. But you go with my officer. And Georgian intelligence. They won’t let this one go.”

  “Fine by me, but my team makes initial contact.”

  Sanger made a call while the driver knifed his way through the city’s center. They cruised along the river, where a postmodern government building shaped like a clump of white mushrooms glinted in the morning sun amid the older buildings and church spires. Next to Ethan, Wade kept quiet and still save for his fingers tapping on his thigh like a hidden code. From the back, Marcus whispered ideas in Ethan’s ear while he nodded, trying to listen as Sanger grunted commands into his phone.

  They coursed north of town near the U.S. Embassy. The driver pulled behind a sleepy apartment building filled, Ethan knew, with embassy staff. Some lounged on narrow second floor balconies drinking beer, smoking from their stocks of American cigarettes.

  Wade grabbed their gear from the back while Ethan met Sanger at the passenger window.

  “I’m giving you more leash than I’d like,” Sanger said. “Don’t make me regret it.” He flashed his phone to Ethan, then rolled the tinted window up without another word.

  “Can’t say I’m sorry to see him go,” Wade said. “You get the number?”

  Ethan nodded. “Find our car. You and Marcus trade it with someone. Get us something that blends in better, especially out of the city. We leave tonight.”

  Marcus gaped at the change in plan. “He won’t like it,” he said, motioning at the fading break lights of the Suburban.

  “No. But Corso will,” Ethan said. “Let’s go.”

  ◆◆◆

  By Wednesday evening, Ethan perched low on a ridge in the Pankisi Gorge watching for a target whose identity he still didn’t know. He peered through small binoculars ill-suited to the range. Nothing stirred below, and he wondered not for the first time if they had been played.

  Wade lay in a stand of long grass beside him surveying the nearby valley through a heavy scope mounted on a Dragunov rifle. The old Soviet weapon wasn’t Wade’s first choice. He was particular about his firearms, though his days as a Marine taught him to go with rugged and reliable. Firearms were almost as easy to acquire here as the car, and in this case the quality was equally lousy.

  Long shadows fell into the valley as the sun set behind them and the mountain air cooled. The valley stretched north and south where sparse village lights dotted the shallow banks of the Alazani River. The gorge was home to Kists, a little-known minority of Chechen Muslims from centuries-old wars. Their modern counterparts now found refuge among them, driven out by back-to-back wars in Chechnya and the hard hand of Kadyrov. Somewhere among these dispossessed was Al Jamal. Somewhere too, Ethan knew, were the answers Corso demanded—the jagged pieces of a puzzle scattered from here to the bottom of the Black Sea.

  “What do you think?” Ethan asked. He talked into his sleeve.

  “I think this is bullshit,” Wade said.

  “Maybe. You think Sanger’s source is playing us?”

  “You think too damn much. What’s bullshit is getting plopped right down here, and I haven’t even had time to sight this piece in. It’s like trying to score on an ugly ass blind date set up by my sister.”

  “My heart bleeds, big guy.” Ethan said.

  “It might if I have to cover you with this thing.”

  Below their position was a ramshackle farmhouse nestled at the western edge of the valley floor, far away from the nearest village. Its paint had faded and chipped away from long years of neglect, and the broad, low angled roof lacked tiles in places. At its side was a shed almost the same size as the house and in poorer shape. It nearly leaned against the house, its sideboards angled and askew under the curl of the corroded metal roof. Twin doors of dry, gray wood clasped together clumsily with a wooden latch. Yew trees sprouted up between the house and nearby road, and a low stone wall provided some privacy to the small yard where nothing moved. For Wade, the yard was an ideal position. A near perfect kill zone, but resorting to that meant their operation had failed. Worse, he and Marcus would have nowhere to go. Ethan didn’t like the risk, especially with an inexperienced officer at his side. For them the place was a trap.

  He heard the whine of the old Mercedes from far down the road. The car was the best Marcus and Wade could find back in Tbilisi. They needed a car for amateurish arms dealers, not intelligence officers masquerading as diplomats. It was plausible enough for Ethan’s plan, so long as the engine kept running. The car’s screech warned of imminent malfunction.

  “Here he comes,” Ethan whispered. He patted Wade’s shoulder. “That’s my cue. I’m headed down for the meet.”

  “You think he’s ready for this?” Wade said.

  “He’s ready.”

  Wade nodded without taking his eyes off the farmhouse. He
nibbled on a long stalk of grass, but the rest of his body lay flat and almost perfectly still.

  Ethan crouched low and moved away from Wade’s position. He slid down a slope and found a steep path that lead to a small pasture north of the yard. Below him, the Mercedes wove down the rural road, then groaned as Marcus slowed to await his arrival. Ethan climbed in, and Marcus turned on to the long farmhouse lane. Once inside the stone wall, Marcus killed the screeching engine. They waited. Nothing. Marcus opened the car door and stood in the yard, his hands open and at his side. Ethan followed, staying on his side of the car. He’d let Marcus do the talking, as they had planned.

  A man appeared in the doorway. He shined a bright light on them. It wasn’t yet dark, but the light stung Ethan’s eyes. The man approached with the flashlight aloft. It was a simple trick, disarming and clever. Ethan couldn't see any of the man’s face, and he held his hand high to block the glare. The man spoke as he came forward.

  “You are the Russian from the phone?”

  “Konechno,” Marcus said. Of course.

  “Where from?”

  Marcus shrugged. “Stavropol.”

  “You don’t seem much like someone from Stavropol.”

  “And you don’t seem much like Al Jamal.”

  The man lowered the light and his revealed face cracked an amused grin. Lines stretched across his leathered face. He appeared as broken down as his weary abode, worn from living between nations and eras. Nothing about the man alarmed Ethan. He seemed fixed here as though part of the scenery. He wore a checked shirt that tugged and bulged around a pot belly, partly untucked from his brown trousers. He was an unkempt, if well fed, local in a dilapidated house. Only his mischievous grin suggested otherwise.

  He scratched the back of his head and said, “Let us see what you have for us.”

  These were the old man’s last words. The flashlight fell to the ground, distracting Ethan from watching a single wound tear through the old man’s neck. In the span of a half breath, the report of the rifle shot punctuated the quiet evening. Marcus lunged instinctively toward the Mercedes as Ethan crouched around the rear. He heard a second shot as he rounded to Marcus’ side of the car. Blood already swelled at Marcus’ side. Stunned, Marcus slid to the earth.