During this time, Cramer made a number of close contacts amongst diplomats, military and intelligence officers, and assorted community and tribal leaders, who had become close personal friends. That was the way to acquire first-rate intelligence, the kind you couldn’t get from reading people’s e-mail and looking at satellite photos.
Once, he’d convinced a Kazakh army colonel to hand over a brand-new T-91, Russia’s latest tank model, and it cost CIA’s bean-counters nothing more than a few cheap dinners and several bottles of vodka. Langley was grateful for the tank, but they reprimanded Cramer for buying alcohol on the Agency’s expense account and expected him to save every receipt.
Cramer understood Dushanbe was his last field assignment before retirement.
After this tour, once he was recalled to Langley, there would be nowhere to go from here, other than perhaps a job as an instructor at the Farm. He had no interest in ending an otherwise productive and rewarding career by recounting everything he knew to some young, naïve recruits, most of whom would never even serve overseas or recruit agents or have to utilize anything they’d been taught. Most would digitally push papers and drink coffee and work a nine-to-five shift, and then return to their middle-class homes in the surrounding suburbs around Langley and DC.
The only alternative was likely some menial position, like special adviser to the deputy director on Central Asian affairs, and an office where he would be kept out-of-sight and out-of-trouble, forgotten. They’d never make him a division or desk chief. Those lofty positions went to professional careerists who wrote the right reports and provided favorable analysis that towed the Company line and who sported Ivy League class rings.
Cramer’s predecessor had been recalled to Langley following a small sex scandal involving himself and a secretary on the ambassador’s staff and reports of alcohol and substance abuse. If the story hadn’t made the papers and cable news, where the word “rape” had been thrown around rather flagrantly in the interests of sensationalism, then Langley probably would have ignored the problem and allowed things to continue as they were. Dushanbe station hadn’t produced any worthwhile intelligence, but it was quiet and didn’t create any ripples in the water, which was a job well done, as far as the Seventh Floor was concerned.
And Cramer probably would have already been forced back to Virginia had this backwater post not suddenly become available and presented the director of the National Clandestine Service (D/NCS) a suitable post to dump him and keep him out of the way for a couple years, while also turning around this little station in a vital region.
Tajikistan, and Central Asia as a whole, was becoming increasingly important to American interests. The well-intentioned but often short sighted D/NCS wanted to take the opportunity to put an experienced and veteran intelligence officer at the helm of Dushanbe station. D/NCS pulled rank and gone over the head of Cramer’s immediate superior, the Central Eurasia Division chief, to give him the job.
Truth was, D/NCS did Cramer a favor by putting him in Dushanbe, keeping him in the field a little while longer and convincing the Seventh Floor that they needed an old pro like Cramer to turn-around one of the Agency’s smallest stations that continuously offered piss-poor performance and intelligence product.
And Cramer had so far been immensely successful, exceeding all of Langley’s low expectations over the past three years. Regardless of personal animosities and burnt-out cynicism, when Cramer was presented with a job, he did it well and went all out, giving it everything he had.
He wasn’t some chief of station who left his office only to attend diplomatic cocktail receptions and barred his officers from recruiting locals as agents, so as not to offend the host government. It often put him at odds with the ambassador, but Cramer was one of those rare station chiefs who expected his officers to actively engage in the business of espionage and take risks, and he led by example.
In Dushanbe, Cramer immediately brought in veteran case officers, with whom he had previously worked in Europe and Central Asia. He re-organized the small station from the bottom up, expanding the staff from three case officers to five. Under Cramer’s stewardship, they established a small but valuable network of highly placed agents, including a couple rare and oh-so valuable Russians and even a high ranking Chinese trade official.
Under Cramer’s predecessor, most of Dushanbe station’s intelligence came from official meetings and briefings with the Tajik Defense and Interior Ministries or GKNB, or even local newspapers, nothing of any relevance or usefulness that told the White House what was really happening inside the country. Now the station regularly provided the White House with first-rate product on the workings of the Tajik government and economic and political conditions within the country.
But nothing ever stays the same.
In three months, Cramer’s stint was up, and he’d sit down before D/NCS’s desk, where he’d get a pat on the back and be sent unceremoniously out the door.
Shortly after 1:00PM, the flip phone sitting on Cramer’s desk vibrated. It was a cheap, pay-as-you-go cell purchased locally. Tajikistan had surprisingly vibrant cell phone coverage, supported by a Kazakhstan-launched satellite and supplemented by European satellites. The phone was undeclared to the Agency and the embassy. His possession of it violated numerous security protocols.
Cramer grabbed the phone and looked at the number. It was the call he’d been expecting since early morning, when he’d sent Wilkes to meet CERTITUDE in Khorugh. He flipped the phone open, thumbed the “send” button, and said, “Yes?”
He listened for several seconds before ending the call.
Then, he selected and dialed another number from his contacts. The phone rang three times before being picked up. “I’m leaving now,” Cramer announced in flawless Russian and hit “end.”
Other than the clothes on his back, he carried only $10,000 cash in $100 dollar bills in two sealed envelopes stuffed in his pockets and a Beretta 92FS in a holster concealed beneath his suede jacket. It would have been nice to bring along a couple changes of clothes and other items, but being seen leaving the embassy with a case, or bag or having items missing from his office or personal apartment, would raise questions.
There was little for him to leave behind anyway, just some clothes, books, and files. He was never one to accumulate useless possessions and was not prone to placing sentimental value on material objects, so he owned nothing that was not necessary and could not be easily replaced. There was nothing that could compromise him. He’d already carefully destroyed those few relevant files or notes. He excelled at discretion and covering his tracks.
Cramer headed out the door of his office, through the CIA section’s cipher lock door, down the empty hallway, and to the staircase. He descended the stairs to the ground floor and went down another hallway. He passed a young woman he recognized from the ambassador’s staff and nodded his head politely and said hello as he passed her. Half a minute later, he was through a set of heavy double doors and across the main lobby.
He proceeded through Post One, the security checkpoint at the front of the building, manned by the local Marine Security Group detachment. One of the uniformed marines on duty recognized him and wished him a pleasant afternoon. Cramer nodded his thanks and smiled curtly, but said nothing, as he walked past the marine and stepped outside into the dry, warm air.