Free Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition) by Ross Sidor Page A

that she never saw the pistol. Then he executed
his commanding officer and killed the two soldiers and the KGB political officer
who attempted to apprehend him. He wandered into the mountains alone and joined
the Afghan mujahedeen. After the war, he returned to Uzbekistan and learned
that his mother was imprisoned and tortured by the Russians in reprisal for his
actions. He met up with that lunatic Namangani and joined the IMU.” Ramzin
shook his head again. “Babayev killed many of my friends. Now I am afraid he
has another.”
    “Your country is
confident that the IMU is responsible for what happened to Cramer?”
    “ Da , we
know IMU is responsible. This has been confirmed by our Tajik and Uzbek agents.
 Unfortunately, my service will not openly cooperate with you, you understand, but
I will pass along anything that I hear. Do you think I may be in danger? Have
you heard anything? It would create trouble for me if my people were to learn
of my association with Robert.”
    So it’s your own
safety you’re concerned about , Avery though, but he understood why.
If the IMU posted Cramer’s interrogation, and he named agents, Oleg Ramzin
could expect a long and unpleasant stay at the Lubyanka. He probably hoped that
Cramer was already dead. “I’ve heard nothing to indicate that you personally
may be in danger, but you know how the game’s played. If Robert is under
extreme duress and drugged, it’s a possibility that you’ll be named. Hey, just
be careful and smart.  If we suspect you’re compromised, we’ll bring you out.”
    That seemed to
placate Ramzin, though Avery realized he’d just made a promise he didn’t know
if CIA would keep. It depended on how valuable he was to the Agency. He
suspected the answer was not very much. The joke was that agents, except for
the rare highly placed one, were like mushrooms. They were best kept in the
dark and fed shit.
    “When was the
last time you spoke with Robert?” Avery asked.
    “Last month. We
meet once a month.”
    “You were
supposed to see him this past Sunday, in Ayni.”
    “This is true.”
    “What happened?”
    “He never came.
I arrived at the café, our meeting place for this month, at three that
afternoon. I wait another ten minutes, and he never arrives, never contacts me.
So I leave. It happens sometimes that he may not be there, but he leaves the
signal, a chalk mark, so that I know. This time, there was no chalk mark, and
later there was no communication from him to reschedule.”
    The gears turned
in Avery’s head. Cramer left the embassy at 2:34PM. If he never made it to
Ayni, then he must have been nabbed within an extremely short time-frame.
According to Gerald, it was maybe a twenty minute drive to Ayni from the
embassy.
    That meant
Cramer allowed himself twenty-five minutes to make a twenty minute drive.
That’s nowhere near sufficient time to do a proper surveillance detection run and
then make it to Ayni, signal SCINIPH they were clear, and get to the designated
meeting site. That was just sloppy and lazy tradecraft. That definitely wasn’t
Cramer.
    Avery’s
instincts also told him that SCINIPH was omitting something. Maybe not
necessarily lying outright, but he was almost definitely withholding something.
Avery checked his watch. He didn’t have much time left. He continued chatting
with the Russian for another several minutes, then placed some money on the
table to cover his dinner and left Ramzin alone in the restaurant.         

EIGHT

Dushanbe
     
     
     
    An hour later, Avery discovered that
Dushanbe had an active nightlife. Near the hotels there were numerous
restaurants, bars, and clubs, with bright, flashy lights and loud music
blaring. An assortment of local Tajiks in Muslim-style clothing, Euro-trash
with popped collars and designer labels, Westerners in jeans and t-shirts, young
men from the Russian and French military contingents in the country, and local
prostitutes traversed the sidewalks and flowed in and