The Russian Deception

CHAPTER 4

The team met in Elizabeth Harker's office at Project headquarters. Elizabeth had been director of the Project from the beginning. President Rice had given her a free hand to pick her personnel and backed her up with the resources she needed to accomplish whatever was required. The Project wasn't like the other agencies in Washington's intelligence community. She had almost unlimited funding that was untouchable by Congress. Most people in Congress and in the government had no idea who she was or what the Project did. That was the way Elizabeth liked it.

She almost always dressed in a tailored black pantsuit and white blouse and today was no exception. The one thing she tended to vary was the pin she wore over her left breast, today an abstract shape of gold and emeralds. The emeralds picked up the deep, radiant green of her eyes. Elizabeth was a small woman. People with power tended to dismiss her because of her size but usually it didn't take long for them to discover their mistake.

Elizabeth's desk was across from a large couch where Nick, Ronnie Peete and Selena were sitting.

Ronnie held up a Hawaiian shirt Nick had picked up in a thrift shop on Kauai. The colors were soft, a subtle mix of bamboo green and sand.

"Thanks, Nick."

"You're welcome, amigo."

"It's a Tori Richards from around 1970," Ronnie said, pleased. "I think I have one with the same pattern but in different colors somewhere."

Ronnie had been brought up on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. He had the broad shoulders and narrow hips typical of the Navajo people. His face was wide and strong, his skin a reddish-brown, a classic image straight out of the old American West. He'd been a Gunnery Sergeant in the Marine Corps. Someone who understood what that meant knew he was no one to mess with. Most people didn't find that out until it was too late.

Ronnie had over two hundred Hawaiian shirts hanging in his closet. Most of them were gaudy tourist catchers no self-respecting Hawaiian would be seen in dead or alive but Ronnie didn't care. He loved the colors and the imagination of the artists. His favorite shirt featured Elvis-like surfers in big finned Cadillacs flying across the sands.

The shirts were perfect for the humid East Coast summers. One of the things Ronnie hated about the cold months was that he couldn't walk around in short sleeves. Today he'd dressed in a warm outer jacket, a blue shirt and slacks. He never wore a tie unless he had to.

Ronnie glanced at the patio and flower garden outside Harker's office. The green of summer was gone and the dreary brown of early November had taken over. He held up the shirt.

"I'll wear this next time we go someplace warm," Ronnie said.

"That may not be any time soon." Elizabeth looked at her watch. "Where's Lamont? He's late."

"Speak of the devil," Nick said.

Lamont Cameron came into the room and sat down next to Selena and Nick. Lamont never seemed to change. He was as muscular and wiry as he'd been the day Nick first met him, when Nick's Marine Recon unit was on a joint mission with the Navy SEALs in the Persian Gulf. Lamont was a little shorter than Nick's six feet, about Selena's height. He had a thin scar that trailed across his face from just above his right eye and down across the bridge of his nose, the aftermath of shrapnel he'd taken in Iraq. The scar stood out like a pink worm across his coffee colored skin. Lamont had blue eyes, a remembrance of his Ethiopian ancestors.

"Sorry, Director. My alarm didn't go off."

"Where's Stephanie?" Selena asked.

"She had a doctor's appointment. She should be here soon," Elizabeth said.

Stephanie Willits was Harker's deputy.

"Let's get down to business." Elizabeth touched a button on her keyboard. A large monitor on the wall lit with a map of central Europe.

"The Balkans?" Nick asked.

"Specifically, Macedonia." Elizabeth clicked again and Macedonia took up the center of the screen.

The country was completely landlocked, bordered by Serbia on the north, on the east by Bulgaria, to the south by Greece and on the west by Albania. That put it right in the middle of one of the world's continual sore spots. The area had been devastated by war throughout history.

"I thought Macedonia was in Greece," Lamont said.

"It was, until 1913. The area was split up between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. There's still part of Greece called Macedonia but that's not the country. The country has a complicated and bloody history. It was part of Tito's Yugoslavia and has a large Slavic population. It declared independence in 1991. Since then it's been in the heart of all the Balkan conflicts."

"Aren't they part of NATO?" Nick asked.

"No. Greece has blocked their membership every time they've applied. The Macedonian government leans toward Moscow. They get most of their military supplies from Russia."

"Go figure," Lamont said. "A Moscow ally in the heart of Europe."

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" Ronnie said.

Elizabeth said, "Macedonia has constant problems with Albania. The country is mostly Orthodox Christian and Slavic. Albania's population is mainly Muslim. There are radical Albanian Islamists who want to incorporate Macedonia into a greater Albania. Sometimes it gets violent. Back in 2001 they almost had a war that would have been a bloody rerun of what happened in Bosnia. It got stopped by NATO but it's simmering still."

"Same old story," Lamont said. "I wonder if this bullshit is ever going to stop."

"Not in our lifetime," Nick said.

"You don't know that, Nick," Selena said. "Don't be such a pessimist."

"Radical Islam is setting fire to the world. No one is going to put that fire out anytime soon."

"That's what I mean about you being a pessimist."

Elizabeth tapped her pen on her desk. "Let's leave that discussion for some other time, shall we? Would you like to know why Macedonia is up on my monitor?"

Harker's voice was light but Nick could see the warning signs. When Elizabeth was about to get angry the tips of her elfin-like ears got red. They stood out against her milk white skin. With her green eyes and black hair, red tipped ears gave her a fey look that warned of a coming explosion.

"Sorry, Director."

"All right. To continue. Two days ago there was an incident in a town called Kumanovo. It's in the north of Macedonia, about twenty kilometers from the capital of Skopje. Albanian insurgents got into a shooting match with Macedonian police. Kumanovo is predominantly Muslim and the police are mostly Christian. People were killed on both sides."

Nick scratched his ear. "Doesn't sound like anything out of the ordinary, given the ethnic and religious tensions in that part of the world."

"I might agree with you except that in the past week there have been serious street protests in Skopje over corruption in the government. The protests forced the interior minister and the chief of the intelligence service to quit. That's a bad sign for the current regime. The protests are getting larger every day and the demonstrators are demanding that the president step down. It looks like a popular revolution is brewing, something like what happened in Egypt."

"Skopje's the capital?" Lamont asked.

Elizabeth nodded. "Yes. The President of Macedonia is Apostol Mitreski. Mitreski is laying the blame for the protests on Western manipulation. Moscow has been quick to pick up on his accusations and there's noise starting to come out of Russia about Slavic brotherhood and common roots. Russian newspapers are printing articles with the same kind of propaganda and rhetoric they used during the Serbian war. The official line is that the protests are part of a plot by the West to destabilize a friendly government and install a Kiev type regime hostile to the Federation and friendly to the West. One that would threaten Russia's security."

Lamont said, "It wouldn't be the first time we tried something like that."

"As a matter of fact we are trying something like that," Elizabeth said. "The president feels the protests present an opportunity to improve our position in the Balkans. The Pentagon wants to install new missile batteries in the region that would be part of our first response to a potential Russian attack."

"Here we go again," Ronnie said.

"What does that have to do with the protests?" Selena asked.

"If Mitreski is forced out of office by a popular revolution a new president would be more favorable to our goals."

"Let me guess," Nick said. "We have someone in mind."

"We do."

"I hate politics," Ronnie said.

"Director, are you saying the Russians are right?" Nick asked. "We're fomenting a popular revolution to gain an advantage against Moscow?"

"The Macedonians thought up the protests on their own. We didn't start what's happening over there but we damn well want to finish it."

"So we have an interest in supporting a revolution," Nick said.

"The Macedonians will be better off if they can get Mitreski out of there. He's corrupt to the core. He and his cronies have been ripping off the economy for years at the expense of the people. That's what's really behind the protests, that and anger about the Albanian incursions. People don't think the government is doing enough to protect them. Moscow is unhappy with Mitreski but he's better than someone who is genuinely pro-Western."

"Do we have a reading on what will happen if Mitreski is forced out?"

"Not a good one. That's where we come in. Rice wants us on the ground in Macedonia to find out what's going on."

"That's Langley's job. Spook stuff. You know, covert agents and all that. Isn't that what they're supposed to be doing?"

"Normally, yes. But there's a problem at Langley."

"There always is," Lamont said.

"It's the same problem we dealt with on the last mission. There's a leak at CIA, possibly a mole. Any covert operation over there runs an almost certain risk of being exposed in the media. That's the best case scenario. The worst case is that agents would be identified and arrested or killed. At the moment, CIA has been hamstrung for serious intelligence operations. President Rice thinks we are the best alternative."

"Is he going to cover our ass if something goes wrong?"

"You know better than that, Nick. This unit is officially deniable. But you'll have as much backup as I can give you."

"I don't suppose it would do any good for me to say that I think this isn't our job."

"No, it wouldn't."

"What, exactly, is our mission?"

"The opposition groups are roughly united in something called the 11 October movement."

"11 October?"

"October 11th is a national holiday called Revolution Day. The date marks the beginning of active Macedonian resistance against the Nazis by partisans in World War II. I want you and Selena to go over there and find out what's going on. Your cover will be as reporters, part of the international press. I want you to talk to people, find out who they think should take over if Mitreski is kicked out. See if you can get a sense of their feelings toward NATO and the Russians. Try to identify competing factions. Find out what they think should be done about the Albanians."

"I can already tell you that," Lamont said. "If Macedonians are like everybody else in the Balkans, their attitude toward the Albanians is going to be something like kill them all and let God sort it out."

"What about weapons?" Nick asked. Weapons were one of the first things that came to mind when he began thinking about a new mission.

"You won't need them. You're press, remember? Reporters don't carry guns. If you're stopped and questioned and you've got a gun you might be visiting Macedonia for a long time."

"Director…"

"If you get in trouble you'll have to improvise. If things really get bad, take refuge in the embassy. This isn't a combat mission, it's a reconnaissance to gain information."

"I want Ronnie and Lamont with us if you're sending us in naked. More is better if things get rough."

"There's no reason why they should."

"Are you kidding? You're talking about thousands of people who are all pissed off about something. Not all of them are angry about the same thing. Some of them will be supporters of the regime. There are bound to be clashes and we'll be right in the middle of it."

Elizabeth considered. "All right. The whole team goes. But try to stay out of trouble."

Nick reached up and scratched his ear. Ronnie looked at him and sighed.