A Hostile State Read online

  I put it in my pocket. There would be time to think about it in detail later. For now I had to get out of here to a place of safety. But first it would help if the shooter told me who he was and who he worked for.

  I was too late. When I looked down his eyes had gone slack and dull and there was no chest movement. I bent close to him. He’d stopped breathing. I debated covering him with stones but the predators in these hills would soon rip them away. It would also take too much time which was something I might not have. If the shooter had someone waiting for him, say a back-up staying with whatever transport had got him here, they’d eventually come looking when he didn’t report in. I thought it odd that he didn’t have a phone or a radio on him, but maybe he’d forgotten it or left it behind for safe keeping.

  I used my phone to take a photo of the man’s face. It wasn’t a trophy but a potential means of identifying him and the people behind him. If he was an official assassin it was possible there might be a picture of him on the vast databases which western intelligence agencies spend millions of dollars and man-hours building and feeding. It was a big if, but if he was in there it would eventually show up. Then I got the hell out of there. I paused long enough to survey my surroundings, then jogged across the hill to the track where I’d left my car.

  I scanned the area where I’d left it in the lee of a rocky outcrop at the side of the track and waited. I couldn’t see any other vehicles but I wasn’t about to go rushing out there and get my head blown off. Wherever the shooter had left his ride it was out of sight somewhere and I didn’t have time to look for it.

  I crossed the track to see if anybody had touched the Land Cruiser. There were no broken windows, which was a good sign, and when I peered beneath the chassis I couldn’t see any little black-box type surprises. I’d taken the precaution of throwing a handful of dust on the door handles before leaving for my observation point, but they were untouched. I jumped in and closed the door carefully.

  Just as I pushed the key in the ignition I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

  A man had stepped out from a depression in the rock wall.

  He was busy zipping up his pants so I guessed he hadn’t heard me arrive or spotted me. Nor, it seemed, if he’d heard the shooting, had he been concerned enough to go take a look.

  I eased back in my seat and watched him, assessing my chances. I knew he wasn’t here for the scenery because he had an AK-74 assault rifle hanging from his shoulder on a webbing sling. If he had a back-up weapon it was probably out of sight beneath his jacket. Like the other man he was dressed in a camo jacket and pants, two peas out of the same military-style pod.

  There was no time to get out and hide, but being inside the car was no protection either. If he saw me and got the rifle into play, the bullets would punch holes through both door panels and out the other side. On the way they would rip off shards of metal and other debris to spray the inside of the car with shrapnel and put me out of action.

  I bit down on my impatience to move and waited for him to get closer. He’d have to unsling the rifle to do anything, and providing he wasn’t too far off I had a good chance of taking him by surprise. When I heard the crunch of grit beneath his boots getting closer I clicked the door open and stepped out. It had occurred to me as soon as I saw him that there might be a third man somewhere and I didn’t want to use the gun in my pocket if I could avoid it. I also wanted to get him to talk and find out what was going on here and why the shooter was carrying my photo.

  He had his head down surveying the ground for footprints, and I figured he hadn’t expected me to be here but lying dead somewhere on the hillside. When he finally became aware of me and looked up it was with a stunned expression and a grunting noise of disbelief. As he stopped and threw his shoulder forward to dislodge his rifle ready to open fire, I pushed myself away from the Land Cruiser and charged across the space between us.

  He was quick, but off the pace. The rifle came into his hands while I was five steps away. Two more and he was bringing it up. Another two and he was struggling with the sling caught between his hand and the trigger. It was about as much of a break I was going to get so I launched myself at him and brought him down with a full body slam. He hit the ground hard on his back but he kept on rolling, shouting something and trying to scrabble away. He hadn’t let go of the rifle, which was a worry, so I followed him using my knees to drive myself forward, grabbing the rifle as I caught up with him.

  He was tough and lean, and coiled beneath me like a snake, grunting furiously. He let go of the rifle as a lost cause and began chopping at me with short, sharp strikes, one after the other, bucking in an effort to throw me off. A strike to my head was followed by another to the side of my neck and another to my upper chest, all delivered in a desperate volley. Each contact carried sting and power and I realized that if I didn’t neutralize this guy very quickly I was going to be in real trouble.

  He changed his approach and snapped his elbow around against my head. I went to block it but it was a feint, and he reached instead for the inside of his jacket. When he brought it out he was holding a pistol, a companion piece to the Browning I’d found on the first man.

  I grabbed it before he could pull the trigger and twisted it back on him. We stared at each other for a split second, then he spat in my face, desperately trying to push the muzzle towards me. Being on top I had the advantage of weight and leverage.

  He struggled like crazy, kicking his heels into the ground and shaking his whole body in an effort to dislodge me. Then I gave it one last effort and pushed the gun into him, hoping he’d see sense and give in because this was only going to end badly for one of us. And I really didn’t want to kill him.

  But he didn’t see it the same way. He scrabbled frantically for the gun, piling on the pressure with his other hand, and I felt it beginning to slip from my grasp as our hands and the weapon became slick with greasy sweat. I could also feel the strength in my hands and wrists ebbing away. I took in a deep breath and gave it one last try, knowing it was now or nothing.

  He swore, long and loud, then there was a muffled shot between us and I felt the heat against my chest as the blast rippled out from the muzzle.

  I rolled off him, tearing the gun out of his hand and getting to my knees, bringing it to bear and ready to shoot in case he was faking it. But there was no need. He was dead.

  I sat back, dropping the gun. I was trembling with the after-shock of the fight and knowing the situation could have so easily gone the other way. But the bigger shock was the realization that the man lying there was Russian.

  Or had been.

  FIVE

  I searched the dead man’s pockets. Hearing him swear so fluently in Russian had done away with any idea that he might have been an innocent local hunter. When your life is so close to the edge you might call for God or your mother, but the last thing you do is adopt a language that is not your own. And the spare magazine for the pistol discounted the hunter idea even further. Other than that he was a carbon copy of the first man: no ID, nothing personal, just the photo of me in his jacket pocket. Which was as personal for me, at least, as it could get.

  I dragged the body across to the depression in the rock face where I’d seen him emerge. A wet squiggle in the dust of the ground showed where he’d urinated, and a loosely screwed-up ball of greasy paper holding the remains of a shawarma sandwich lay nearby. I rolled the body into the gap and left him there.

  Instinct and experience told me the Browning Hi-Power might come in useful, so I picked it up and walked back to the Land Cruiser. I started the engine and hit the gas, keeping an eye out for other vehicles and following the land downhill. I had to force myself to slow down; I was shaking with after-shock from the fight and my breathing was painful where he’d caught me on the side of the neck with a solid knuckle strike. I desperately wanted to take a slug of water but I needed to put distance between us before I could think of stopping. Having already been wrong about there being an
other man I didn’t want to be wrong again.

  A quarter mile later I spotted a pickup parked in a gap between two giant boulders. It was a Nissan and looked dusty and inconsequential, a go-anywhere vehicle that would attract little attention in this country. I skidded to a stop and jumped out. This had to be their ride.

  The doors were locked so I smashed a window, apologizing to any innocent folk this might be offending. Inside I found a paper bag with more sandwiches, bottles of water … and a cellphone in the armrest-lockbox.

  Hold the excitement. It was a dud, well-used and with no history or numbers. A burner for one-time use, probably stolen and stripped. But it had a full charge so I knew it had to belong to one of the two men. Who else but a kill team would carry around one of these and nothing else? If caught they’d be identified. The solution was, don’t carry anything more than you have to and nothing personal that could be back-tracked to a home or employer address. More than ever it made me think the men hadn’t been local military or security forces, otherwise why worry about being so secretive in a country where being military was all the clout you ever needed? Whatever ID they’d had must have been left somewhere while they were engaged in their mission.

  I got back in my car and gave it fifteen miles at a steady clip before I considered pulling over. So far I hadn’t seen any signs of being followed, but that didn’t mean I was alone. I’d seen a handful of vehicles coming the other way, but they were mostly small family-size sedans along with a couple of ancient pick-up trucks and three motorbikes each carrying a single elderly male rider with a variety of bundles on the rear panniers. Farmers or traders going about their business. Life going on as normal. A couple of them waved but that was local good manners. I waved back and kept going.

  I stopped in the shelter of a large sandstone formation and killed the engine, then got out and took a walk. The fight had been brutal and I felt a wave of dizziness sweep through me as various pains in my body began coming awake. A bruising fight is nothing like they portray on film. For one, you don’t automatically get up again if someone hits you, and while the shock of hard contact might be delayed, it soon catches up with you.

  My breathing had slowed down and I could feel the adrenalin rush leaving me, but it would be some time yet before I could draw a straight line on paper or take a drink from a wine glass without spilling it. When I felt better I got back in the car and dropped the window so I could hear if anybody happened along. It was time to report in.

  My current assignment was on behalf of the CIA and Brian Callahan – the same Callahan I’d first met in New York. I’d worked for him a few times now and trusted him implicitly, which is rare in this business. When you work undercover in hostile situations long enough, even your own handlers can fall into the bracket of those not to be fully trusted until proven otherwise. Most of that suspicion is internal, a natural blow-back of seeing everyone out there as a potential enemy until proven otherwise.

  Callahan had explained in his briefing that this Lebanese mission had been on the cards for a couple of months, but had been placed on hold waiting for various factors to be in place. One of those factors – the main one as it turned out – was for a US Defence Intelligence Agency source – an official in Lebanese security – to load some information on a memory stick and get it away from watchers at the Office for State Security so he could pass it to his DIA handler. His position didn’t allow for transmission of data other than strictly on an in-house network share, otherwise he’d have been able to send it by email and I could have saved myself a job.

  The trip, according to Callahan, was well worth the effort to get hold of the memory stick, which was believed to include internal reports containing the identity of agents in the military suspected of selling information to, among others, the CIA and DIA. Sister agencies aren’t always keen on sharing agendas until they’re forced to, but in this case the DIA handler on the ground had fallen ill and been evacuated out of the country. That had left his bosses in the embarrassing situation of having to ask CIA Langley for help.

  I could only hazard a guess at how that had gone down; there would have been considerable embarrassment on one side and some quiet jubilation on the other. But whatever the feelings in each camp, it was rated as an intelligence coup worth going for, especially if it saved the lives of other assets working on our behalf. Whether Hezbollah or the government, if the names on the memory stick got out, their lives would be forfeit. And if there’s one thing guaranteed to attract good and reliable assets it’s the knowledge that they will be looked after if their position becomes compromised.

  The volatile nature of the region and the strength of the security apparatus locally didn’t allow for a team to come in, but with none of their own Special Activities Centre or Global Response Staff available at short notice, Langley had hired me to meet up with Tango and make the pick-up. The last-minute nature of things had left me with no time to set up anything more sophisticated, but that’s often the way. Unfortunately, it now looked like the meeting wasn’t going to happen after all. It was a harsh conclusion to draw but when the collector of information – in this case me – finds himself on the wrong end of a sniper’s gun, it has to be recognized that the game is over.

  I texted Callahan a skeleton report along with snapshots of the dead shooters and the photo I’d found on them. I suggested he get the CIA’s research bodies to check the databases to see if they could identify the men from known Russian personnel. It was a long shot but worth a try. Find out who they were and we might get to know who’d sent them after me.

  A reply came surprisingly quickly. It was short and to the point.

  Copy that. Assignment terminated. Tango no longer in play. Suggest pull out. Report when clear. Further instructions follow.

  I acknowledged receipt and shut down the phone. If Tango had been compromised then he was lost for good and there was nothing I or anyone else could do for him. If they’d had him for more than a few hours, he’d have been drained of everything they could get out of him by now, including details of our proposed rendezvous and why we were meeting. The worst-case scenario was that they also had the memory stick, in which case the names on it were toast. But Callahan would know that and would be trying to pull them out already.

  In one way it might explain why a couple of shooters had been sent to get me, but what was unusual was the implied finality – and why Russian? Maybe they were mercenaries brought in to do a dirty job. If so they hadn’t exactly been the cream of the crop.

  There was also the matter of missed opportunity. Any counter-espionage service faced with an opportunity to intercept and capture a spy or, as in my case, a support asset, would prefer to do it with the person alive. Trophies were always useful as collateral and as a demonstration of how effective the security was in the region to anyone else tempted to come this way. To do that and in this kind of open terrain the usual reaction would be to send in as many personnel as they felt it needed to close down an intruder’s exit route. What they wouldn’t do was send out a couple of snipers. It made no sense. Having a suitably battered and chastened-looking live person to show to the world via internet feeds and video news channels was pure gold. And the possibility of an eventual swap for some agreed benefit further down the line was always worth exploiting; more so than a dead body, which could be written off as fake news. They did it, we did it, it was part of the business.

  I heard my phone beep and checked the screen. It was a text from Callahan.

  Proceed with urgency to emergency location (follows). Local contact Hunt. Stay safe.

  I pulled into the side of the road and took a long drink of water and had a think. With urgency was an expression I could have done without, along with being urged to stay safe. Callahan was an old hand at controlling assets and agents in the field and wasn’t given to showing the mothering gene. If he’d felt it necessary to tell me to stay safe it meant there was something serious in the wind.

  Most operatives who work un
dercover have a natural aversion to being high-profiled. It’s part of the job to stay in the background, presenting only their work persona to the outside world. The threat of exposure is not just an inconvenience; it’s life-threatening. And having your face displayed for anyone to see was more than just a bummer. Knowing these two men had been given my photo and whereabouts – and quite possibly my real name – was a huge concern. How many others had the same photo and the same instructions, to take what is euphemistically referred to in some quarters as ‘extreme prejudice’?

  Minutes later I got another beep and received three separate, random words which on the surface meant nothing at all. But they soon would. I called up an app on my phone and fed in the three words. That brought me a map and a pin-point location. The map showed the town of Aarsal, marked with a pin, lying some thirty miles to the north-east of my position. Touching the pin brought up the three random words to confirm the specific location.

  That made me uneasy. It put me closer to the Syrian border than I would have liked, but clearly it was the kick-off to an exit route that would get me out of here. Going back to the airport and hoping to get a ride out was no longer an option. Whoever had tried to have me killed would probably by now have decided that their men’s non-reappearance was not a good sign and would be watching for me to make a run for it back the way I’d come in.

  I studied the map. Getting to Aarsal wasn’t a problem if you were a crow. Thirty miles was a joy-ride to a bird on the wing, high up where earthly forces didn’t get in your way and all you had to look out for other than the next meal was an even bigger bird doing the same. But the roads here weren’t straight and I would have to cross the mountains and enter the Beqaa Valley. I had no sense of what the state of the road was like but I had a good idea of what to expect if I ran into trouble with one of the militant groups prowling the area. The only thing I had going for me was that I had a lot of time to get there.