The pictures weren’t the typical ones with the CIA director or secretary of state or some other VIP that adorned the walls of so many Agency careerists. These pictures showed Cramer rugging it in the mountains of Afghanistan, with Northern Alliance tribesmen and bearded American Special Forces soldiers on horseback. Another showed a much younger Cramer standing in front of the wreckage of a Soviet Mi-24 gunship, beside an Afghan mujahedeen carrying a Stinger launch tube.
The two five-shelf bookcases were packed with volumes on Islam, post-Soviet Russian politics, philosophy, biographies, and the geography, history, economics, and politics of the region. Most visitors were amused to find John le Carrè and Frederick Forsyth hardcovers thrown in, too, but Avery didn’t care for fiction.
“When Bob left the embassy, he was on his way to meet an agent,” Avery said. “Who was this agent?”
“CK/SCINIPH is an FSB captain assigned to the Russian military contingent based at Ayni. He’s one of our most valuable Russian agents in the country.”
“Did Cramer ever make that meet?”
“We’re not sure. We haven’t been in contact with SCINIPH yet.”
“Why the hell not? He may be the last person to have seen Cramer alive.”
“SCINIPH is spooked, understandably so, and wants to hang low. Plus he’s going to be reluctant to start working with a new handler, someone he doesn’t know. He always dealt with Cramer, and no one else. Darren was going to see him tonight, if SCINIPH doesn’t call it off again. Maybe we’ll know more then.”
Gerald’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Grateful for the interruption and not having to explain himself further, he answered it. He listened for half a minute, acknowledged what he was told, and ended the call.
“This is it,” he told Avery urgently. He walked behind Cramer’s desk and dropped into the chair and turned on the computer.
Avery came over and stood behind him, looking over the younger man’s shoulder.
Gerald opened the web browser and logged into Intelink, the secure Internet network used by American intelligence agencies. He downloaded a file, and Windows Media Player popped open on the screen.
“This showed up three hours ago on a jihadist propaganda website. Analysts have just confirmed its authenticity.”
The video was of poor, grainy quality and looked like countless others to have appeared on the Internet over the years, first made popular by Iraqi insurgents.
Cramer sat in a chair. Two men wearing black ski masks stood on either side of him, towering over him. They were dressed in mismatched, ill-fitting camouflaged combat fatigues. One man carried an AK-47. The other held the long, curved blade of an Arab Jambiya dagger against Cramer’s throat. The IMU flag, bearing an open Koran against a blue globe within concentric yellow and black rings, covered the wall behind them.
Cramer appeared pale, bruised, battered, and bloodied. One eye was puffy and swollen shut, the other black and blue. His hair was disheveled. His white shirt was wrinkled and torn, with tiny dark stains on it from where the blood had dripped down from his face. His shoulders were hunched forward, like it was too painful for him to sit up straight. He stared into the camera with a vacant, downtrodden expression. It was a look Avery had never seen on Cramer before. He appeared completely defeated, worn out, and succumbed to despair, like a man who had already suffered greatly and knew that painful death was imminent and inescapable but also a welcome relief.
Avery felt uncomfortable seeing Cramer wounded and vulnerable. He remembered Cramer in the Afghan mountains, drawing up a battle plan with the tribal leaders of the Northern Alliance, confronting the enemy head-on. He’d always been confident and self-assured, a natural leader.
One of the masked men spoke in Uzbek. The English translation appeared in captions transposed over the bottom of the screen. Then there was silence. The masked man nudged Cramer’s throat with the blade, prodding him. Cramer barely moved, but on cue he finally spoke. His voice sounded coarse and weak as he stated his name and identified himself as a senior officer of the Central Intelligence Agency assigned to the Republic of Tajikistan. He stated that he was being held prisoner by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and that he was an enemy of the people of Islam. The masked man with the dagger then said that Cramer was to be tried for war crimes committed against the Muslim people. The IMU spokesman vowed that there would be no negotiating for Cramer’s release and that only God’s judgment would spare him.
The video ended.
Gerald replayed it once more.
Then he sat back in silence, staring at the screen with Avery, letting it sink in.
“I also have the video analysis,” Gerald said. He opened this file and skimmed through the contents. “But it doesn’t appear to offer any relevant insight. They did voice analysis and facial recognition to confirm that it’s really Bob. The voiceprint of the IMU spokesman doesn’t match anything NSA has on file, but their analysts confirm he’s a native Uzbek speaker. From the environment on screen and ambient, background noise, they’re unable to determine a location where this was recorded.”
Gerald continued clicking and kept reading quietly. After a minute, he raised his eyebrows and exclaimed, “Oh, shit!”
“What is it?” Avery asked.
“The Russians positively identified the IMU speaker as Otabek Babayev.”
Avery leaned in to look over Gerald’s shoulder at the file he’d just opened. At the top was a picture of a man with a long, scarred face, scraggly salt and pepper beard, and angry, hateful eyes.
“So what’s his story?”
“Babayev is a nasty, hardcore Jihadist piece of work,” Gerald explained. “He was a part of Namangani’s inner circle in the IMU. He graduated from an Iranian training camp in the Fergana Valley and fought in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan, but he didn’t appear on our radar until last year when he assassinated the Indian ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, blew up a school bus full of kids in Kabul, and beheaded an American aid worker in Kandahar. We’re also pretty sure he personally tortured and executed at least two of our PINION agents. He’ll work for any jihadist group that can afford him. He’s sold his services to the Taliban and Laskhar-e Taiba. If this guy is holding Cramer, then that’s some seriously fucked up bad news.”
Avery thought Langley would now turn to Moscow for assistance. The Russian special services, which actively pursued terrorists in Central Asia and the Caucasus, might have a lead. Plus Otabek Babayev was at the top of their hit list. CIA would also press Uzbekistan’s National Security Service to go after IMU targets within that country in the hopes of producing some new intel on Cramer’s location and captors. Inside Tajikistan, Dushanbe station would be working closely with the GKNB now.
Unfortunately, Avery had been involved with too many hostage recovery operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to believe that this would produce a desirable outcome.
“Well,” Gerald said, “at least we know what we’re dealing with and where to focus our resources. There’s no more speculation about what happened to Bob.”
But Avery still wasn’t convinced. “Maybe.”
Gerald frowned. “What do you mean ‘maybe’? There’s no maybe about it.”
“It’s supposed to look like IMU, no doubt about that, but the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan did not orchestrate this. I’d bet money on it.”
“You just saw it with your own eyes. What more do you need?”
“Come on,” Avery scoffed. “You’re going to tell me IMU blew one of your covert ops, penetrated a CIA station, systematically rolled up a whole agent network, assassinated an officer, and then grabbed the station chief? This Babayev asshole might be the new terrorist threat in the region, but he’s not that good. We annihilated IMU’s forces and took out their leadership when we first went into Afghanistan. They’ve just recently started putting themselves back together. They couldn’t pull off something this sophisticated without significant outside help. The IMU’s also more interested in smuggling heroin.”