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“I tasked a Predator to Dushanbe shortly after you had your earlier excitement there,” Culler said. He replayed the recording of the Predator footage on his computer. It showed the Russian Mi-8 helicopters taking off from Dushanbe International, after taking unknown cargo held in massive wooden crates removed from the GlobeEx Antonov. Although the choppers quickly out-flew the Predator, the drone later spotted the helicopters at Ayni Airbase. There, the cargo was loaded onto three heavy Ural trucks. “Shortly before you landed, we tracked those trucks to the TCIDC factory Dushanbe station investigated last year. Your intuition paid off.”

Avery wasn’t surprised.

Dushanbe station’s file on the innocuous-sounding Tajikistan Cement Investment and Development Company, or TCIDC, contained scant information, which wasn’t surprising since Cramer had called off all inquiries into the company and placed a tight reign over the flow of any and all information pertaining to the plant. According to publicly available sources, the firm worked on infrastructure development projects in Gorno-Badakhshan, but there was no available information as to who owned TCIDC or managed the factory. TCIDC was based in Dushanbe and had close financial ties to a Russian-based NGO that was a known front company for Aleksander Litvin’s GlobeEx.

American intelligence agencies regularly tracked construction activity in rogue and terrorist states, looking out for projects that were larger than they should be, had unusual levels of military or police presence, didn’t correlate with known projects, or had the potential to manufacture dual-use equipment. They also closely monitored the firms involved in these projects and their purchase orders.

This was how CIA and Mossad were alerted to the existence of Syria’s North Korean-built nuclear reactor, which had been capable of fueling two bombs a year, at the al-Kibar facility in Deir ez-Zor in 2007. Israeli Sayerat Matkal operators, dressed in Syrian army uniforms, later infiltrated the facility to obtain samples of weapons grade materials, prompting Tel Aviv to launch Operation Orchard, the Israeli Air force strike that demolished al-Kibar.

It was common practice to disguise WMD facilities as legitimate civilian operations. The IAEA had inspected Iraqi and Libyan industrial plants possessing dual use infrastructure. A fertilizer plant in Rabata had been the centerpiece of Gadaffi’s chemical weapons program. In Malaysia, AQ Khan used a legitimate industrial plant to manufacture centrifuges for sale on the black market.

But if Cramer had reported to Langley that Dushanbe station thoroughly investigated the TCIDC project in Gorno-Badakhshan and found nothing to warrant suspicion and found no connection to missing Pakistani nuclear scientists, then that would be sufficient for CIA’s analysts to lose interest and close the file.

From the satellite photos the TCIDC plant looked exactly like what it claimed to be: a medium-sized cement factory, complete with a rotary kiln, cement mill, pre-heater tower, remix silo, and exhaust stack. Until the 1970s, the plant had been fully operational, later becoming one of numerous ex-Soviet assets acquired by Litvin and then upgraded over the past year, ostensibly for humanitarian and developmental assistance in Tajikistan.

There was no indication of military usage or enhanced security measures, or anything else that the satellite analysts looked out for, although there was a pair of men atop the network of scaffoldings mounted around the pre-heater tower, which would make for an ideal guard post. The only feature that really stood out was the landing pad capable of receiving small helicopters atop the pre-heater tower, but in an area as remote as this, it made sense to have helicopter accessibility, and TCIDC owned helicopters provided by GlobeEx Transport. Other than a tall perimeter fence, there were no visible defenses around the plant. No guard posts at the gates, machine gun encampments, trenches, or military vehicles. None of the visible personnel carried weapons.

But that also wasn’t unusual, and it didn’t mean that the factory was as innocent as it seemed.

In the vast desert surrounding the al-Kibar facility, Syria had operated an extensive air defense network of Russian Tor-M1 missiles, which had been easily jammed by the Israeli Air Force, but there’d been no heavy military equipment or troop concentrations at the site itself. Missiles, radars, and armored vehicles can quickly attract the attention of aerial surveillance platforms. Usama bin Laden’s compound in Abottabad also had practically non-existent security, which was partially why it had gone unnoticed for as long as it did.

“So this is why Wilkes was killed,” Avery thought out loud. “He must have connected the nuclear smuggling pipeline to this place. Then he sent CERTITUDE to check it out. So Cramer set-up a fake meet in Khorugh between Wilkes and CERTITUDE, and they were ambushed by that Chechen asshole I tossed into the Caspian.”

“So it would seem.”

“Fuck, I lost Cramer, Matt. I don’t see how we’ll pick up his trail again from here. He’ll know how to make himself disappear.” He supposed that CIA and the FBI would need to take over. Then it’d only be a matter of time before the inevitable scandal exploded across the headlines and the congressional investigations began, placing the National Clandestine Service on the chopping block.

“Don’t worry about Cramer for now,” Culler replied. “We’ll catch up with him at some point. Right now, our first and only priority is a terrorist nuke factory operating right under our noses.”

Avery shook his head. Everything was fully sinking in now, sight of the bigger picture and not just a narrow-sighted desire to run Cramer down. “The Taliban have the materials, infrastructure, and the personnel now to produce nuclear weapons. It’s probably only a matter of months. This target needs to be taken out, Matt.”

“No can do,” Culler said. “Sure, we have the airpower right here at Bagram, but Washington won’t risk the fallout and environmental damage. An F-16 drops a couple smart bombs on that place, and it’ll turn into a giant dirty bomb, dispersing HEU all over eastern Tajikistan.”

This was the same reason the US Air Force hadn’t taken out Serbia’s Vinca Institute of Nuclear Science, which had been on the target list in 1999. America’s restraint spared Belgrade from glowing in the dark, but German BND later reported that Slobodan Milosevic sold quantities of Vinca’s nuclear material on the black market to Russian organized crime.

“But this isn’t a populated city,” Avery protested. “This is the middle of nowhere. The nearest village is a dozen miles away with a population of fifty.”

“There may be low risk of civilian causalities, but the White House still can’t risk turning a former Soviet republic into a radioactive wasteland. High winds can easily carry the fallout into neighboring countries, including India and Afghanistan. The White House would also prefer that this matter be handled discretely, to use as leverage against the Russians in the future. The Kremlin will know damn well what happened here, and they’ll want to keep it quiet.”

Of course, Avery thought. If the air force bombed the site now, America would take the blame for the fallout and for conducting offensive military operations violating the sovereignty of a former Soviet republic. But if they could covertly and safely extract the HEU, then the White House would have the upper-hand against the Kremlin.

“There’s something else, Avery, something that may change your mind about bombing the site. Sideshow reported that the GKNB handed Aleksa Denisova over to Oleg Ramzin.”

Culler continued playing the recording of the Predator footage of the TCIDC plant. The time stamp indicated that this clip was barely two hours old. Avery watched a Russian thug help a female down from one of the trucks. He couldn’t see her face, but he recognized Aleksa from her size, hair, clothing, and gait. He wondered if they were intentionally holding her there as a human shield. Probably not, he decided. Most likely they were going to question her and then kill her.