The president, who was an exceptionally tall man, slowly sat back in his chair and crossed his long legs. He unbuttoned his suit — which had been custom made by his personal tailor in Milan — then frowned in a way that caused the hairs on his mustache to stick out.
“Men, we have a problem.” The room was silent as the president made eye contact with each of his three ministers. “Dark days are upon us.”
Again, silence. Orkhan knew he was supposed to be cowed by the silence, but he wasn’t.
Orkhan got along well enough with the president, but the truth was he’d had far more respect for the president’s father. Now there had been a leader. A strongman in the true sense of the word, a KGB tough who’d not only ruled Azerbaijan when it had been part of the Soviet Union, but who had also been savvy enough to steer Azerbaijan safely through the chaotic post-Soviet period. The son, by contrast, was a bit of a playboy — fond of fine wines and vacations to the Caribbean.
The president nodded to his prosecutor general, prompting the prosecutor general — a bald, gnome-like man who wore rimless reading glasses — to remove a folder from his black leather briefcase, open it, and say, “These are the minutes from the last meeting of the Security Council. All five of us were in this room.” He handed out copies of the minutes to each of the three ministers. “No one but the president, his secretary, myself, the three of you, and anyone the three of you may have personally entrusted, has had access to the contents.
“Note,” added the prosecutor general, “that portions of the minutes have been highlighted in yellow. They are the sections in which we discussed the status of the ongoing operation in Nakhchivan. Now compare”—he began to pass out copies of another document—“those highlighted sections with this.”
Orkhan did so. The second document was in Russian. But it too contained sensitive information about the operation in Nakhchivan. And the phrasing was almost identical to the highlighted sections of the minutes. The implication was obvious — someone who had been at the meeting, or had access to the minutes from the meeting, had leaked information to the Russians.
Orkhan was the first to finish. He exhaled loudly, shifted in his seat to relieve a bit of tension in his back, and let the Russian-language document fall to the table. “Where did this come from?”
The minister of internal affairs, the forty-year-old brother-in-law of the president, said, “From the briefcase of a man claiming to be a Russian diplomat. He was staying at the Four Seasons here in Baku. My men took a photo of the original document.”
“What diplomat?” asked Orkhan.
The minister of internal affairs gave a name, adding, “He’s an attaché with the Russian embassy’s economic development department.”
“Why wasn’t my ministry notified that you were planning this operation?”
“You have been notified,” said the president sharply. “Right now.”
“Yes, of course,” said Orkhan.
“Had I known what we would find, I would have notified you,” said the minister of internal affairs. “As it happened, I initially believed this to be a domestic matter. He came to our attention when one of my men witnessed him meeting with an opposition leader in the Majlis.”
The Majlis was the parliament of Azerbaijan.
“The question,” interrupted the president, as though addressing a class of first graders, “of how or why the information was obtained is not nearly as relevant as the fact that it was obtained.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, then added, “I’ve already issued the order to suspend the operation in Nakhchivan.”
The minister of defense said, “I transmitted your order to the ground commanders one hour ago.”
“I support that decision, Mr. President,” said Orkhan. “Until we can assess the extent of the damage, it is the only prudent course of action.”
“Yes, assessing the extent of the damage, that is the key, isn’t it?” said the president, his voice rising.
Orkhan, gesturing to the Russian-language document, said, “But I also think we can all agree that there is nothing in this that suggests that the Russians are aware of the true nature of our operation in Nakhchivan, only that some type of sensitive operation is ongoing. Of course—”
The president smacked his palm down on the table. “Of course, of course, Minister Gambar. Of course, you speak too much. Of course, what we must do is find the traitor in our midst and learn the full extent of what this traitor has shared with the Russians. Only then will we be able to fully assess the damage that this traitor has done.”
“My investigation will begin immediately,” said Orkhan.
The defense and internal affairs ministers concurred.
As Orkhan slipped into his limousine, he assessed his position. The president had demanded the head of a traitor, so a head would have to be produced. The only question was, whose?
Certainly not that of the prosecutor general’s, or anyone on the president’s staff.
The internal affairs minister was both related to the president through marriage and the one who had — allegedly — discovered the leak. So it was unlikely he was setting himself up.
The defense minister was a possibility, but he’d attended military school with the president, and he and the president liked to drink, and vacation with their families, together.
Orkhan, by contrast, had originally been appointed deputy minister of national security by the president’s father, and had only assumed the post of minister when the former minister had died. Though the president had accepted Orkhan, their relationship had always been more professional than personal.
“Where to, Minister Gambar?” asked his driver.
Orkhan considered his options. He hadn’t leaked anything to the Russians, so in theory he should have nothing to worry about. In reality, he was pretty sure someone was setting him up.
He searched his pocket for the blood pressure pills his doctor had prescribed — Lisinopril, 40 milligrams once a day. But he sometimes took an extra or two when he thought he needed it. He’d used the last of his extras yesterday, though, so instead he retrieved a lemon cough drop, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth.
“Back to the ministry,” he said.
28
Mark stood by the window in Raymond Cox’s office. He’d pulled the blind back just a bit and was peering out to the street.
Cox, who was sitting on his desk, said, “So this source I was running—”
“Start with what you were doing in Ganja in the first place. Why are you…” Mark turned from the window and gestured around the room. “…here? I assume it’s not because you really want to help educate the world.”
“Global Solutions is a good outfit, actually.”
“I didn’t say that it wasn’t.”
Cox took a moment to gather his thoughts, then said, “There’s a bunch of local groups, mainly run out of Ganja State University, that are agitating for clean elections. They have just about zero influence, but the government still worries about them.”
Mark thought about his experience with the Press Club in Georgia and how depressing it was that, twenty-four years later, the same old fights that were still being fought.
“A lot of the people affiliated with these groups come here for English lessons. They feel safe here, like we’re their allies, which we are. I learn what I can about what the government’s doing to them, and file reports. Granted, they’re reports no one reads, other than maybe a twenty-five-year-old analyst back at Langley, if she’s bored. But hey, I bear witness.”