Though Battat had not been blamed officially for what Annabelle did, he was the one who had run the background check on her. He was the one who had hired her. And her “seconding action,” as it was officially classified, had happened during his watch. Psychologically and also politically, Battat needed to atone for that mistake. Otherwise, chances were good that he would get back to the United States and discover that the field agent who had been brought in from Washington to operate the office in his absence was now the permanent New York field director. Battat might find himself reassigned to Moscow, and he didn’t want that. The FBI had all the ins with the black marketeers who were running Russia and the Bureau didn’t like to share information or contacts with the CIA. There wouldn’t be anything to do in Moscow but debrief bored aparatchiks who had nothing to say except that they missed the old days and could they please get a visa to anywhere west of the Danube?
Battat looked out over the tall grasses at the dark waters of the Bay of Baku, which led to the Caspian Sea. He raised his digital camera and studied the Rachel through the telephoto lens. There was no activity on the deck of the sixty-one-foot motor yacht. A few lights were on below deck. They must be waiting. He lowered the camera. He wondered if the passengers were as impatient as he was.
Probably, he decided. Terrorists were always edgy but focused. It was an unusual combination, and one way that security forces zeroed in on potential troublemakers in crowds.
Battat looked at his watch again. Now they were five minutes late. Maybe it was just as well. It gave him a chance to get a handle on the adrenaline, to concentrate on the job. It was difficult.
Battat had not been in the field for nearly fifteen years. In the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, he had been a CIA liaison with the Mujahideen guerrilla fighters. He had reported from the front on Soviet troop strength, arms, deployment, tactics, and other battlefield details. Anything the military might need to know if the United States ever fought Soviet or Soviet-trained soldiers. That was back when the United States still had people on the ground collecting solid, firsthand intelligence instead of satellites gathering pictures and audio transmissions, which teams of experts then had to interpret. Former operatives like Battat who had been trained in HUMINT — human intelligence — called those experts “educated lucky guessers,” since they were wrong just as often as they were right.
Now, dressed in black boots, blue jeans, leather gloves, a black turtleneck, and a black baseball cap, Battat was watching for a possible new enemy. One of those satellites Battat hated had picked up a communication during a test run in Moscow. For reasons as yet unknown, a group known as “Dover Street” was meeting on the Rachel, presumably a boat, to pick up “the Harpooner.” If this was the same Harpooner the CIA had missed grabbing in Beirut and Saudi Arabia, they wanted him. Over the past twenty-five years, he had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in terrorist bombings. After discussing the contents of the message with Washington, it was decided that Battat would photograph the individuals and return to the American consulate in Baku for positive ID. After that, the boat would be tracked by satellite, and a special ops team would be dispatched from Turkey to take him out. No extradition debate, no political hot potato, just a good, old-fashioned erasure. The kind the CIA used to do before Iran-Contra gave black ops a bad name. Before “do something” was replaced by “due process.” Before good manners replaced good government.
Battat had flown to Baku. Clearing customs, he had taken the crowded but clean metro out to the Khatayi stop on the sea. The ride cost the equivalent of three cents, and everyone was exceedingly polite, helping one another on and off and holding the doors for late arrivals.
The United States embassy in Baku maintained a small CIA field office staffed by two agents. The agents were presumably known to the Azerbaijani police and rarely went into the field themselves. Instead, they brought in outside personnel whenever neccessary. The embassy would not be happy to be presented with the action as a fait accompli. But there were increasing tensions between the United States and Azerbaijan over Caspian oil. The republic was attempting to flood the market with inexpensive oil to bolster its weak economy. That represented enormous potential damage to American oil companies, who were only marginally represented here — a holdover from the days of the Soviet Union. The CIA in Moscow did not want to inflame those tensions.
Battat spent the late afternoon walking around a section of beach, looking for a particular boat. When he found it, anchored about three hundred yards offshore, he made himself comfortable on a low, flat rock among a thatch of high reeds. With his backpack, water bottle, and bag dinner at his side and the camera hanging around his neck, he waited.
The smell of salty air and oil from the offshore rigs was strong here, like nowhere else in the world. It almost burned his nostrils. But he loved it. He loved the sand under his rubber soles, the cool breeze on his cheek, the sweat on his palms, and the accelerated beat of his heart.
Battat wondered how many foreign invaders had stood on these shores, perhaps in this very spot. The Persians in the eleventh century. The Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Russians in the eighteenth century, then the Persians again, then the Soviets. He couldn’t decide whether he was part of a dramatic historical pageant or an ugly, unending rape.
Not that it matters, he told himself. He wasn’t here to safeguard Azerbaijan. He was here to redeem himself and to protect American interests.
Crouched among the high reeds at this isolated section of beachfront, Battat felt as though he had never been away from the field. Danger did that. It was like a fond song or a familiar food smell, a bookmark in the soul. He loved that, too. He also felt good about what he was doing. Not just to atone for Annabelle but because it was right.
Battat had been here for nearly seven hours now. The cell phone communications they’d intercepted said that the pickup was scheduled for eleven-thirty P.M. The Harpooner was supposed to be there to examine the parcel, whatever it was, then pay for it and leave.
Just then, something happened on the boat. A hatch door opened, and a man climbed out onto the deck. Battat looked out at the water. The man turned on a radio. It was playing what sounded like local folk tunes. Maybe that was a signal. Battat’s gaze swept across the water.
Suddenly, an elbow locked around Battat’s throat from behind and yartked him to his feet. He gagged. He tried to tuck his chin into the elbow, to relieve the pressure on his throat so he could breathe, but the attacker was well trained. He had locked his right arm around his throat and was pushing Battat’s head with his left hand so he couldn’t turn it. Battat tried to drive an elbow back into the attacker’s gut, but the man was standing to the side. Finally, he tried to reach back and grab the shoulder of the choking arm and pull the attacker over.
The attacker responded by tilting his own body back and lifting Battat from the ground. Although Battat was able to grab the man’s shoulder, he couldn’t throw the attacker. Battat’s feet were in the air and he had no leverage.