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

out of these
establishments.
    From the
outside, Port Said looked like a shabby, dirty dive bar. It was a small and low
white brick building with big red doors and no exterior lights. The signs
outside were in Tajik Persian, and Avery only recognized the building from
pictures he’d looked up on a tourist website. He paid the cover and was ushered
through the door.
    Inside, the
latest European techno music blasted loud enough over a poor sound system to
become distorted. Young inebriated women, most of them prostitutes, in short, tight-fitting
dresses grinded their bodies against over-eager men pumping their fists in the
air and reeking of cigarette smoke, beer, and heavily lathered cologne. Local
Tajik men happily danced with each other. They weren’t gay; it was just how
Tajiks partied. A large throng of people surrounded the bar across from the
dance floor. There were tables hosting couples or groups of people eating and
chatting.
    Avery pushed his
way through the crowd and got to a spot off the side of the bar offering him a
good vantage point. He didn’t know what Dagar Nabiyev looked like and had no
means of identifying him. He’d expected Port Said to be a quiet, local bar, not
a goddamned circus.
    People started
eying Avery, so he ordered a Coke. He rarely consumed alcohol, never on a job
and never to excess. Last time he’d been drunk, two years ago, a rare breakdown
of discipline, he’d come close to blowing his brains out, and it had taken his
body three days to fully recover from the extreme intake of cheap convenience
store vodka. He tried hard, struggled, to not have another moment like that.
    The Coke came in
a highball glass with two thin straws and packed with ice.
    With a drink in
his hand, he could better blend in now. Drunken partygoers were inherently
suspicious and unwelcoming of a sober person in their midst. As he took a wad
of cash out of his pocket, counted out a few bills, and paid the bartender, he
was aware of a pair of tough-looking Russians seated nearby watching him. He
glanced their way and maintained eye contact with them until they averted their
glare, letting them know he knew what was up and warning them not to fuck with
him.
    Once a stool
opened up, Avery sat down. He put his back to the bar and sipped his Coke and
scanned the crowd. A whore approached him with a fake smile. As she came up
between his legs, brushing her hands over his knees, he shook his head and sent
her away before she could even verbalize her solicitation. She pouted and moved
over to the Russians. One of them slapped her ass, while the other lasciviously
eyed her up and down, and she giggled.
    Several minutes passed,
and Avery was soon nursing his second Coke and continued sweeping his eyes over
the crowd. He did a double take when he spotted the dark pakol hat. It
was a Pashtan hat worn by every man and his brother in Afghanistan. It was also
common among Tajiks from the Gorno-Badakhshan region. It was an obvious
recognition signal.
    Damn, so that
meant Dagar had somehow managed to slip by him undetected.
    Avery got up and
carefully squeezed and pushed through the sea of people. Near the dance floor,
a young and pretty Tajik girl came enthusiastically up to him, swaying with the
rhythm of the techno music. Avery smiled at her, flattered, but passed by her,
missing the disappointed, pouty look on her face once his back was to her.
    The Tajik in the pakol hat watched Avery approach his table, sized him up, and gestured
for him to take a seat. He held a bottle of Stary Melnik, cheap and strong
Russian beer. Three more identical bottles, empty, had accumulated on the
table.
    Avery took the
open chair across from the Tajik.
    “You’re Dagar?”
    “You’re the
fucking American spy?” Dagar Nabiyev looked Avery up and down, and shook his head.
“What the hell is wrong with you Americans? You ask for attention, coming to
Dushanbe like this and looking like a fucking American spy. The way you move,
the way your eyes