Blacklist Aftermath

20

Their exfiltration route had involved chartering a boat out into the Black Sea and rendezvousing with a Black Hawk chopper whose crew would haul each of them up and into the hovering bird. However, Kobin had arranged for a much more pleasant yet equally clandestine exit. The crew of a private yacht owned by one of his gunrunning associates met them in Bichvinta, a city about thirty miles south of the hotel. They boarded the yacht and were ferried across the Black Sea and back to Trabzon. There, they met the crew of a CIA charter jet and were whisked back to Incirlik, some 360 miles southwest of Trabzon.

In order to maintain operational security, Nadia would stay aboard Paladin, where she would be examined by a doctor before being transferred to another jet for a flight back to the States. The 39th Medical Group’s commander sent them a general practitioner named Evren from the Deployed Flightline Clinic. The doctor was blindfolded and taken aboard the aircraft, where he was guided by Briggs to the infirmary.

“Sorry about all the secrecy,” Fisher said, removing the man’s blindfold.

Evren’s gaze panned across the room and toward the hatch beyond. “C-17?” he asked.

“Something like that. Gets us from point A to point B.” Fisher glanced over at the cot near the far wall, where Nadia was resting, covered by a blanket and with an arm draped over her forehead. “The doctor’s here to examine you,” Fisher said in Russian.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“I insist.”

Fisher muttered in the doctor’s ear, “I want you to check her from head to toe. I want you to look for recent incisions, small ones. We think she might have a tracking chip, and we need to get it out.”

“All right. And of course, I was never here, never saw you, her, or this plane.”

“My diagnosis for you is sudden, acute amnesia.”

Evren snickered. “Why don’t you leave the diagnoses to me. If we could have a moment of privacy?”

Fisher grinned and gestured to Briggs. They left the infirmary and returned to the control center, where Charlie spun around in his chair and said, “She talk yet?”

Fisher shook his head. “We need to take this slowly.”

“She knows where her father is,” said Charlie.

“Maybe not,” said Briggs. “He’s figured out now that they’ve got her, or at least had her, so he’s trying to anticipate what she might say.”

Fisher sighed. “And right now she’s not saying much, trying to protect him.”

“She said they killed her friend in front of her. What makes you think we’ll get her to talk?” asked Briggs.

Fisher considered that. “We need to earn her trust.”

Grim, who’d been conferring with Ollie, came back over to Fisher. She was holding Nadia’s diary. “There’s nothing in here to suggest a location — just a lot of rantings about teachers, school, books, and how ugly the boys are in her classes. Actually, pretty depressing stuff for a little rich girl.”

“Hey, Sam, you get a chance to try the khachapuri?”

Fisher glanced at Kobin, then returned his gaze to Grim. “Does he need to be here?”

“Hey, spy boy, who got you home from Sochi? And by the way, Bab is pissed about her guns.”

Fisher snorted. “We’ll pay her back with peanut butter.”

“Yeah, the old hag would love that.”

“And tell her the ammo sucked!” cried Briggs. “She’s probably had her grandsons reloading it.”

Fisher wasn’t complaining. The ammo sucked, all right, but it had also saved his life.

“So you got the girl,” said Kobin. “Now you call Daddy and wave the bait in his face.”

“And you think it’s that easy?” asked Grim.

“It is — if you know the right players.”

“And you do?”

“Look, if you want, I’ll put the word out to my contacts that we have her,” said Kobin. “See if any of them can pass it on. Maybe it’ll reach Kasperov. He’s got personal security, and a lot of those guys, well, let’s just say they’ve worked the black markets. You never know. If he realizes the Americans have his daughter, maybe he’ll come running to you.”

“No way. We’re not advertising that we have her,” said Fisher. “If that gets back to the Kremlin it’ll really stir the pot. We’ll take it from here.”

“And where are you taking it?” asked Kobin.

Fisher glared at Kobin, who threw up his hands.

“Look, I just want to help,” Kobin said.

Charlie turned back from one of his monitors. “Sam, the doctor’s calling for you.”

Fisher returned to the infirmary, where Evren frowned and kept his voice low. “There is a small incision near her lower back. I felt a capsule-shaped mass embedded beneath the skin.”

“That’s it. I need you to take it out right now.”

“What about her consent?”

“I’m telling you to take it out. That’s an order!”

“You have that authority?”

“Trust me, doc. I do.”

“I’ll need at least a local anesthetic and something to keep her calm.”

“We’ve got everything you need.”

“What would you like me to say to her?”

Fisher considered that. “You prep. I’ll get her ready.” He crossed back to Nadia’s cot and leaned over, softening his expression. “I know you’ve been through a lot. Do you remember if they sedated you? Maybe stuck a needle in your back?”

“They told me I fell and passed out and hurt my back. They told me I cut it and needed stitches.”

“They put a tracking device in your back. We’re going to remove it now. You won’t feel anything.”

Nadia bolted up and reached around to feel the wound. “You’re right. I can feel it in there.”

“Let us get it out.”

“Okay, yes, get it out of me.”

“First, did your father say anything to you about why he needed to run?”

“Not exactly. But he was always talking about all the pressure the government put on him. This is about them. I know it is.”

“Do you know if they were asking him to do anything for them? Maybe something he didn’t want to do?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t like to talk about work. He said it made him feel guilty. He always talked about vacations. Where are we going now?”

“There’s another plane on its way that’ll take you back to the United States.”

“I want to see my father.”

“Then help us find him. You sure you don’t know anything?”

She closed her eyes. “I keep telling everyone, I have no idea where he is.”

“You understand that if he broke the law or failed to obey them in some way, you’ll never see him again.”

“I know that!”

“Was there any secret way you spoke to your father, maybe through a third party or what we call a ‘cutout’?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“When I went away to school, he set up some kind of e-mail thing for family members, some kind of security thing, but I never used it and I don’t even know the address or the passwords or anything.”

“Do you know what this is?” Grim asked, standing behind them now.

Nadia frowned at the necklace and pendant dangling from Grim’s hand. “You were in my apartment? You stole my things?”

“No,” said Fisher. “Everything we borrowed will be returned to you.”

“So how did you get this?” asked Grim.

Nadia rolled her eyes. “It’s just an ugly piece of jewelry my father gave me.”

“Where’d he get it?”

“On one of his trips somewhere. He’s always bringing me back stuff I don’t even want.”

Grim turned to Fisher and said, “Ollie finished his analysis. There’s clay with traces of gold ore and mercury inside the pendant. The sample is Andean in origin.”

“The Andes. South America,” said Fisher.

“Correct. And there’s only one gold mining operation in the world where rampant mercury refining is still practiced by local miners. The place is called La Rinconada, and it’s in Peru. It’s known as the highest city in the world.”

Nadia’s eyes widened in recognition. “That’s right. My father’s been there several times. He was setting up a headquarters in Lima. And he was talking about the charity work he wants to do up there at the mining town. He was saying there’s terrible pollution and awful schools. He wanted to help the kids and clean up the environment.”

“Why there? The world is full of slums and misery,” Fisher said.

“I don’t know, but some of our ancestors were Donbass miners in Russia. Some went to Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines. My father liked to tell stories about them.”

“He’s a philanthropist. He’s got an attachment to miners. What else do you need?” asked Charlie, who was eavesdropping on the conversation from the hallway.

Fisher glanced back to the doctor. “Take out her chip. Please don’t damage it. Call us when you’re finished.”

Evren nodded.

Fisher gestured that they all return to the control center, where he said, “I think Kasperov’s up there in La Rinconada.”

Grim squinted in thought. “Why would one of the richest men in the world go there?”

“Because it’s not on the GRU’s radar. They’ll check out all the obvious places like we did and assume he’s a man of creature comforts and wouldn’t give them up. We might’ve blown off this place if it weren’t for the pendant.”

“So your gut tells you he’s there,” said Grim.

Fisher made a face. It was always his gut versus her facts. “Look, he probably doesn’t plan to stay long. He’ll wait it out until the Russians have to pull back most of their field assets. But for now, I say he’s lying low. Why not there? It’s hard to reach and a real shithole.”

“So he probably flew in to the nearest airport by jet, maybe took a chopper up to the city,” said Grim. “Charlie, get on it. Maybe you can find a charter company that ferries people up there, get into their records, get us anything.”

“You got it.”

“I’ll assist on that,” said Briggs.

“Kobin, you got any contacts in Peru?” Fisher asked.

“There was a guy in Lima who used to transport some stuff for me. I know he had some ties to a cartel that bought a lot of gold. Couldn’t hurt contacting him.”

“Do it,” said Fisher.

“Hey, guys,” Charlie called from his station. “Looks like the nearest airport is in Juliaca. It’s about seventy miles southwest. It’s a real hub for contraband. I’ve already got the list of charter companies operating out of there. Working on getting into their records now.”

Grim and Fisher crossed to the SMI table, where Grim brought up a map of Peru and zoomed in on Juliaca. “Population a quarter million, and it’s the capital of the Puno Region. They call it ‘The Windy City’ just like Chicago.”

“That airstrip long enough for us?” Fisher asked.

“Most of the military airstrips we use are at least fourteen thousand feet. Checking…” Grim zoomed in on the airport and keyed in a request for statistics. “Well, there we go. Runway length 13,780 feet.”

“Should be enough?” Fisher asked.

“A C-17 like this once landed at a civilian airport in Tampa with a runway no longer than 3,400 feet. That pilot must’ve hit the brakes pretty hard and that’s cutting it as close as it gets.”

“No kidding.”

The big screens behind them lit up with a video call from President Caldwell. She looked exhausted but managed to lift her voice: “Checking in again, Sam. The CIA charter to pick up Nadia will arrive in less than thirty minutes. How’s she doing? I want to speak with her.”

“Right now we’re having a tracker removed from her back, but after that, I’m sure she’ll be able to talk.”

“Good. We’ll be transporting her to a safe house near Langley. I want you to assure her that she’s in good hands and that we’re doing everything we can to assist her and her family.”

“Of course. And now we have some actionable intel on Kasperov, all pointing to Peru.” Fisher gave her a capsule summary of what they’d found.

“If you find him,” said Caldwell, “I want you to offer him more than just asylum. Impress upon him that we’ll help rebuild and restructure his company. He’s dedicated his entire professional life to Internet security and probably thinks his career has ended. Well, it hasn’t. Tell him America can keep his dream alive — no matter how complicated he thinks that’ll be. And we’ll clear his name of all these preposterous allegations the Kremlin is leveling at him.”

“What allegations?” Fisher asked.

“They’re saying he embezzled funds, that officers of his company accepted bribes to disclose top secret documents, and the list goes on and on.”

“Wow, all right. We’ll take care of it,” Fisher assured her.

“We’ll be in touch.”

The screen went blank, and Charlie once more said that the doctor was calling.

Fisher and Grim met him outside the infirmary, where he handed Fisher a small plastic bag containing the translucent capsule/tracker, one Fisher had seen before used by the SVR and FSB.

“Simple operation. Four stitches. She’s sleeping now.”

“Excellent,” Fisher said.

“Well, other than some blunt trauma to her face, she seems to be doing okay,” said the doctor. “She’ll need to have the new stitches removed in a week or so. If there’s nothing else, I guess I’m ready for my blindfold.”

“We appreciate your cooperation,” Fisher said.

Grim called to one of the analysts to escort the doctor out. As she strode away toward the control center, Fisher drifted back into the infirmary, where Nadia had just rolled over to face him.

“Is it over?” she asked.

“Yes, we removed the chip. Your plane should be here very soon. I’m sorry about the wait.”

“Are you really going to help my father?”

“I work for the President of the United States, and she tells me that we’ll be doing everything we can. That means something. Those words come from the most powerful woman on the planet. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“The president wants to speak to you, when you’re ready.”

“All right. I just realized I don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Sam. And to be honest, you remind me of my own daughter.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

A shadow passed over them.

“Hey, Sam, my guy in Lima just called back,” said Kobin. “Oh, sorry to interrupt. But hey, don’t you think she’s a little young for…”

Fisher closed his eyes, trying to contain the explosion forming at the back of his throat.

“Sorry, yeah, well, anyway,” Kobin stammered, “My guy in Lima’s got intel that’ll blow your mind.”