Foreign Agent

CHAPTER 54

Despite his pride in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Oleg Proskurov didn’t wear a uniform. Neither did the four-man Spetsnaz team assigned to protect him. They rolled in civilian clothes and armored civilian vehicles. The idea was for them to fit in. But in Syria, the gaggle of Russians stuck out like a sore thumb.

The one thing that didn’t stick out, though, was a building they had code-named the “saltbox.” During his interrogation in Malta, Viktor Sergun had given up both its purpose and location.

It was part safe house, part interrogation facility. Proskurov had chosen it because it was close enough to the Russian Embassy to be easily accessed, but in a part of town known to be hostile to the Iranians. Tehran was notorious for the volume of spying it conducted. The less chance the Iranians had of stumbling onto or surveilling the saltbox, the better.

It was a spoke in the wheel of a larger GRU operation. Proskurov had been tasked with eliminating ISIS. Using Sacha Baseyev to infiltrate their ranks had been his idea. The operation, thus far, had gone better than he had planned. Baseyev was an incredibly gifted operator.

Which made the email he had received from Colonel Sergun very disturbing. Sergun was suddenly having doubts about Baseyev.

Using a false American passport that had been left for him in Washington, Baseyev had flown to Rome. From there he had flown to Athens and on to Cyprus. From Cyprus, a plane was waiting to fly him to Syria. ISIS was anxious to congratulate him and celebrate his attacks on the United States.

As long as Baseyev was going to be back in Syria, Proskurov thought it a good idea that they sit down and have a talk. He wanted to measure for himself whether or not Baseyev’s loyalty was slipping. And so, he had sent an encrypted email to Sergun in return, ordering him to set it up.

What Proskurov didn’t know was that he hadn’t been communicating with Sergun in Berlin but rather with a little person in northern Virginia named Nicholas.

For his part, Nicholas was on very thin ice. Getting into Sergun’s email account wasn’t a problem, nor was communicating in Russian, as it was his mother tongue. The problem was selecting the right words. That’s where Vella had come in.

Vella worked very carefully to draw all the correct information out of Sergun. This included identifying any codes he would be expected to use to indicate whether or not he was under duress.

Everything appeared to have gone off without a hitch. Proskurov had requested a rendezvous with Baseyev for Sunday night and had set the saltbox as the location. After that, it was all up to Harvath.

The first and biggest problem for Harvath was Proskurov’s security detail. The only advantage he had on his side was surprise. The Spetsnaz operatives were elite, far better trained than anyone Thoman or Mathan Hadid could bring to the fight.

They were going to get one shot at taking Proskurov. That one shot had to be so overwhelming that his detail had absolutely no hope of surviving.

The problem, though, was how to take out Proskurov’s men without taking out Proskurov himself. For what Harvath had planned, he needed Proskurov — at least for a little while longer.

The other issue they faced was equipment. The CIA had only made certain weaponry available to the rebels. The things Harvath really wanted were impossible to get.

And even if he could get them, he didn’t have nearly enough money to pay for them. In the condition Syria was in, no one was taking IOUs — especially not for the kind of sophisticated shopping list Harvath had envisioned. He would have to make do with what the Hadids had been able to rustle up.

In addition to enough radios and AK-47s to outfit the entire team, they had one 12-gauge shotgun, one Iranian Sayyad-2 .50-caliber rifle with night-vision optics, a few sets of individual thermal goggles, a box of old Soviet F-1 hand grenades, and two Yugoslavian Osas, or Wasps in English; antitank rockets with launchers.

Harvath didn’t like having to hang the success of his operation on hand grenades from the Soviet days or rockets from the former Yugoslavia, but it was all they had.

Their only hope of taking Proskurov was when he was in transit. And when he was in transit, it was via armored Land Cruisers. Harvath’s plan was going to have to work.

Having seen Mathan’s helmet with its full face mask and shaded visor, he asked if he could borrow his motorcycle. He would only get one opportunity to drive by the saltbox and this seemed the best way to do it.

Thoman, in his cab, led the way through the crowded city streets. Harvath followed behind on the motorcycle.

When they were two blocks away, Thoman pulled over and rolled down his window. Harvath pulled up alongside him.

“At the next intersection, make a left turn. The building is halfway down on your right. You can’t miss it. I’ll wait for you here.”

Harvath drove up to the intersection and made a left turn. Keeping the motorcycle in low gear, he moved slowly up the street.

He tried to take everything in. It would have been nice to have some sort of a low-profile video camera with him.

The neighborhood was a mix of shops and residences. If they got into it out in the street, there was a good chance innocent people might get killed.

It wasn’t Harvath’s first choice, but as he rolled forward, he was hard-pressed to see any other option. They had to take Proskurov and they were going to have to take him in the street.

But then, as he drew even with the saltbox, he saw its pair of solid metal gates. This wasn’t just a building. It was a compound.

The curb was cut away and there was a driveway of some sort. Courtyards were a common architectural feature throughout the Middle East. While they often had a fountain, Harvath was willing to bet that this courtyard was used for parking.

It made sense. If you were smuggling people in or out, you wanted to hide as much of your activity as possible. And one of the last things you wanted to do, in a hostile nation like Syria, was to risk having your vehicle tampered with by leaving it unattended outside. If you could, securely storing it off the street was the best plan.

The rent, even by Syrian standards, must have been very expensive for this property. There were some things, though, that even the notoriously cheap Russians were willing to spend money on.

Harvath continued his slow tour past the saltbox and then around the block before circling back to Thoman.

The next thing he wanted to do was to get up onto one of the nearby rooftops.

After finding a place to park, they identified a building six doors down from the saltbox that appeared abandoned. With Thoman standing guard, Harvath went to work on the lock. In less than a minute, he had it open and they slipped inside.

The interior of the empty structure was coated in a heavy layer of dust. The unventilated air was stagnant. It was four flights of rickety wooden stairs to get to a narrow door that led out onto the roof.

Here he had an amazing view over the rooftops of Damascus. It was an ocean of satellite dishes, hot water tanks, and solar panels as far as the eye could see.

The buildings leaned right against each other, so he and Thoman were able to move from rooftop to rooftop until they got close enough to have a perfect view of the two-story saltbox.

Peering down, the first thing Harvath noticed was that he had been correct. There was a paved courtyard right in the center and it was just big enough to hold two, maybe three SUVs, but no more.

He noticed something else. There was no back door, at least not for the vehicles. They would have to go out through the gates, the same way they came in. People, though, were a different story.

No safe house had only one way in or out. There was always an additional exit. Sometimes more.

It could be through a neighboring property on either side. Through the building that abutted the saltbox in back. It could be through a tunnel or sewer system underground that people weren’t aware of. It could also be via the rooftops where Harvath was right now. It could be any combination thereof. There was no way to be absolutely certain. They would have to cover all their bases.

The effective range of their shoulder-fired missiles was 350 meters. Harvath turned in a slow circle, looking at the other buildings around them. Once he spotted the perfect position, he pointed at it and said, “That’s where we’re going to put the Wasps. The shooters will have a perfect view of the courtyard from there and should be able to take out both of Proskurov’s armored SUVs.”

Thoman looked at the building he was pointing at and then back at Harvath. “There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“None of my people have ever fired a Wasp before.”