“Mark Sava,” said Kaufman. “He was my chief of station/Azerbaijan until six months ago. I persuaded him to come back on a contract basis.”
Amato skimmed the first page of Mark’s file. Education: Rutgers State College of NJ…Thespian Society…Fulbright scholarship, Soviet Georgia…Place of Birth: Elizabeth, NJ…Mother deceased (suicide), Father…
Sava’s father, Amato read, was a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian who owned a gas station in Elizabeth, NJ. Amato glanced at the photo again and this time noted that Sava wasn’t quite as unremarkable as he’d first thought. It was his eyes — they were wide set, in a way that made him look a little reptilian.
The second page of the file included a list of countries in which Sava had operated. “He’s certainly been around the block a few times,” said Amato.
“In addition to investigating this Campbell business, I authorized Sava to do what he could to help Daria Buckingham. As a result, he’s put some feelers out to his contacts in the Azeri government.”
“What contacts?”
“If the president wants us to share that information with the National Security Council he’ll have to put in an official request.”
“Is Sava going to be doing anything to actually secure her release?”
“That wasn’t my impression and I don’t see what good it would do even if he could. We haven’t claimed her as our own, but realistically her cover’s as good as blown. So even if we were to get her out tomorrow, she wouldn’t be able to operate in-country. In the meantime, Gobustan might not be the worst place in the world for her to hole up in. At least she’ll be safe there.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
“You know something I don’t, Colonel?”
“Let’s say I just don’t share your optimism about her safety given your recent track record.”
“No one’s denying that we got hit pretty bad—”
“Pretty bad—”
“But now we’re gearing up to play offense and—”
“Find a way to get her out.”
“Talk to me in a couple days.”
“All I can say is that if anything happens to Buckingham, there’ll be hell to pay. I hope you understand that. I hope the DCI understands that. We — and by we I mean the president,” lied Amato, “don’t abandon our own.”
Since Amato’s boss was James Ellis, the president’s personally appointed national security advisor, and since the president did indeed direct national security largely through Ellis, and Ellis in turn directed much of the president’s policy through Amato, it could genuinely be said that on matters related to Iran, Amato usually did speak for the president.
But Kaufman wasn’t easily bullied.
“No one’s abandoning her, Colonel. She’s alive and safe and we’ve let the Azeris know we’d like her to stay that way. If the president feels we should be doing otherwise, have him contact the DCI. Meanwhile, I’ve got other priorities.”
20
In a vast desert south of Baku, Mark lay hidden amid an elevated cluster of mud volcanoes — bizarre little cratered hills that popped out of the desert like acne and burped up gray mud and methane gas. He held a pair of Zeiss binoculars to his eyes, focusing on an isolated collection of low-slung buildings visible in the far distance. Decker lay a few feet to his right.
The summer sun remained a brilliant, blinding white. No shade existed for miles around and the heat rising up from the baked earth was brutal. Beyond the mud flow in front of him, Mark could see patches of white salt crystals, the desert equivalent of a dusting of snow. The rest of the expansive landscape was dotted with dry scrub brush, wild lavender, and black puddles where oil had oozed naturally out of the ground. Gobustan Prison looked like a lifeless island surrounded by a sea of desert.
The road leading up to it was lined with steel pylons, remnants of the jail’s former incarnation as a stone factory. Just beyond the prison lurked the bottom half of a mountain — its top half had been blasted apart and carted off to Baku in the form of limestone blocks. Mark wiped the sweat off his forehead and thought about all the poor schmucks who must have slaved away at that factory for their Soviet overlords. A couple decades of hell and then dead by forty. His life hadn’t always gone as planned but at least he hadn’t been born into that.
He refocused on a point just past the pylons where there was a gated break in the high chain-link fence surrounding the prison compound.
At ten past five, an olive-green van with military markings on it passed through the gate. It was similar to the one Mark had been stuffed into the night before.
“That’s us,” he said.
They hopped in Mark’s Niva and took off across the desert, bouncing over rocks and smacking down scrub brush until they intersected the road ahead of the van at a secluded railroad crossing. Mark pulled over in a cloud of dust and parked the Niva in the middle of the road where it narrowed just before the train tracks. He popped open the hood as though he were having engine trouble. When the van came into view, he told Decker to get out.
“Flag him down. He should know what to do.”
It was all supposed to be a big charade, so that Orkhan could cover his ass. A fake ambush.
Decker got out and raised his arms, but the van just sped up.
“Uh, he ain’t stopping, boss.”
“Fire a warning shot above him.”
Decker did, but the van just blew by them at top speed.
“Well, shit,” said Mark.
“Game on.”
Mark wondered whether they had the right van. He held up his binoculars and looked down the road toward the prison. It was empty.
“Get in. We’ll take him out on the road.”
But the van reached the highway to Baku before they could catch up and as they drove through Gobustan, Mark kept his distance. Other cars were on the highway, weaving in and out of their lanes. On the edge of town they passed a collection of modest houses and then the landscape opened up again — just desert and power lines to the left and the Caspian Sea and a couple offshore oil platforms to the right.
“I’ll get you close enough to take out the tires,” Mark said. “Be ready.”
But then the van made a sharp turn off the highway and started bouncing along a dirt road, headed east toward the sea. Mark turned off as well and floored it. The Niva’s engine screamed and the rear shocks sounded like gunfire. Decker’s gear bag fell from the backseat to the floor.
At the water’s edge, the dirt road turned into a decrepit wood platform held up by rotting stilts. The platform skimmed the surface of the water, snaking as far as the eye could see out into the Caspian. Mark had seen roads like it before — they were decaying relics of the Soviet empire and inevitably led to aging offshore oil derricks.
He followed the van onto it, slowly gaining ground.
“I don’t like this,” said Decker.
“Me neither.”
As the Niva bounced over the rickety wood planks, Mark squinted, leaned forward in his seat, and gripped the steering wheel even tighter. They were about ten feet above the sea. In some places, there were holes in the road where the wood had fallen away.
“Ah, you want me to drive, boss?” asked Decker.
“I got it.”
“You sure? Because I’m pretty good behind the wheel.”
“I said I got it. Where the hell are you going?” Mark said, thinking aloud. What was out here? He guessed that the road would dead-end at the last oil derrick, but that could be miles away. The blue sea that surrounded them was disturbingly vast.
Decker picked up the binoculars and did a 360-degree scan. There was no one behind them and no one other than the people in the van in front. They passed a series of rusting derricks, each one rising forty feet out of the water. Little iridescent oil slicks were visible under most.