Black Flagged Redux (20 page)

He turned to Cherkasov.

"I'm pulling my men out of the ward. The locking mechanisms on these doors are dependent upon electricity, but they aren't connected to an emergency backup. Fucking idiots. We'll have to barricade from the outside to keep any of these crazies from escaping."

"Shit. All right. Good luck, sergeant."

Cherkasov continued her journey up the stairs, moving slowly through the severe muscle aches in her legs. She coughed most of the way up to the third floor landing. A bright light hit her face, followed by an authoritative announcement.

"Cherkasov is here," the guard said, lowering his assault rifle.

The light from the rifle's side-mounted flashlight left bright green splotches in her vision.

"Doctor, the lieutenant needs to talk to you immediately.

"Funny coincidence. I was just on my way up to see him."

Cherkasov passed the two grim-faced soldiers and entered the third floor. She was overcome by wailing and whimpering, as hospital staff tried to calm the patients crowded into every conceivable space offered by the modest hospital. Mattresses had been cannibalized from other floors to fill the gaps between beds. The staff and soldiers could barely move through the long hallway, which resembled a refugee camp dormitory. The two emergency lights on the floor, each located above the stairwell doors, barely cast enough light into the room.

To her immediate right, Lieutenant Altukhov and one other soldier sat huddled around a small coffee table that had been pushed into the corner. On the table sat an olive green communications backpack that held a military VHF radio. The lieutenant held the radio receiver to his ear, while furiously scribbling on a partially opened map with his other hand. The enlisted soldier held a flashlight over a map, illuminating the lieutenant's work.

"Hold on, Doc," the lieutenant said, still writing.

Gunfire erupted from below, catapulting the entire floor into hysterics. She could barely hear Lieutenant Altukhov yelling to her over the screams and cries for help.

"Doctor! The ER has been overrun. My men are retreating to the stairwells to cover our escape. It's time to abandon the hospital."

"Escape to where?" she said.

"Anywhere but here. My commander has lost all communications with the squad assigned to guard the power plant. There's no reason for the power to fail. He's pretty sure it was targeted."

"Targeted? By whom? How are we going to get all of these people out of here?"

"We're not. My orders are to leave immediately. Russian Federation forces have blocked all exits from the city and our observation posts report armored vehicles headed in this direction. The major is convinced that the government knocked out the power," the lieutenant said.

"Why would they do that?" she demanded.

The lieutenant folded the map and stood up from the table, issuing orders to the rest of the soldiers in the room. His radioman secured the radio and heaved the backpack onto his shoulders, handing him the receiver, which was attached to the radio by a thick elastic wire. The officer issued orders into the handset.

"What's going on?" she said, grabbing the young radioman.

"Ma'am. We're evacuating the hospital. The lieutenant is ordering the soldiers to hold the stairwells for two minutes. We'll all depart through the east stairwell," he said, pointing to the other side of the room.

"What about the patients?" she said, turning toward the room.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. We need to get out of here before Federation forces arrive," he said.

"Why? Aren't you Russian Federation military?" she said.

The lieutenant gave the handset back to the soldier and started walking toward the far stairwell exit while providing her with the answer to her last question.

"Not any more. Our unit was given orders to strip the armory and vacate the city two days ago. As you can see, we didn't obey that order…we all have families here. They'll shoot us on sight. They've already started to shoot civilians trying to drive north…before they hit the roadblocks."

"No. This can't be happening. I can't just leave these people," she said.

"The choice to stay is yours, but my men are leaving. We'll escort anyone who can move during the next two minutes. After that…they're on their own," he said and continued walking.

Cherkasov looked around for members of the hospital staff. She could see roughly a dozen men and women in green hospital scrubs engaged in calming the patients. She spent the next minute repeating what the lieutenant had told her, careful not to let any of the patients eavesdrop. Some of the staff were as sick as the patients and opted to stay. About half of them started to edge their way toward the eastern stairwell, torn between duty and personal safety. Once the soldiers disappeared, chaos would descend upon the entire hospital, pitting each of them against their own personal hell. Rape, torture, murder, burning…all at the hands of the deranged populace that was sure to swarm the hospital within minutes.

Valeria Cherkasov stood next to the door with the two soldiers left to guard their retreat down the stairwell. One of the men held a two-way radio to his ear, obviously not willing to take the slightest chance that he might miss the final withdrawal order. The radio chirped and he acknowledged the transmission before locking eyes with her.

"It's time," he said.

She glanced into the room one more time and saw one of the older nurses trying to calm a young mother who kept screaming. Her listless child lay with her on the mattress. She froze until the nurse turned her head and nodded, mouthing "go." Cherkasov found herself shuffling through the doorway and down the stairs. As she passed the metal door to the second floor, she heard gunshots inside. She paused on the landing and the sound of dampened gunshots continued. One of the soldiers prodded her with an elbow.

"Keep moving," she heard.

"What's happening in there?" she whispered.

"The right thing to do," one of the soldiers said.

BLACK OPS

Late April 2007

Chapter 20

11:40 AM

Astana International Airport

Astana, Kazakhstan

Daniel Petrovich rode an escalator down toward the vast lobby area of Astana International Airport. The modern airport completely upended his expectations for Kazakhstan. He had expected a complete shithole and had instead emerged from his Austrian Airlines flight into a structure that could be used for the next
Star Trek
movie. The newly constructed, glass and steel encased engineering marvel stood in stark contrast to everything he had envisioned about the former Russian satellite country. He glanced up into an immense dome structure that formed the roof of the modernistic lobby. The front of the dome, directly in front of Daniel, held a flat steel girder-supported window that towered several stories high. His first glimpse of the turquoise dome from the window of his sparsely populated flight reminded him that he was indeed landing in a Muslim country.

As he reached the bottom of the escalator, Daniel spotted Andrei sitting on a nearby bench, reading a Russian newspaper. Andrei folded the paper and walked toward him, speaking in Russian. Daniel did the same, hoping his slightly rough Russian wouldn't be a problem. He had sailed through customs as Dario Russo, using Russian only as a convenience for Kazakhstan customs officials. English or Italian would have been a challenge for them and would have attracted more officials to the customs kiosk. His passport had been stamped through Buenos Aires, which didn't raise an eyebrow given his cover as an advanced liaison for a South American industrial company looking to partner with a Russian mining company. Kazakhstan welcomed the industry and the money it brought to their doorstep. Glancing around at the space station known as Astana International Airport, he figured they had plenty of money rolling their way.

Andrei was dressed in a warm gray wool jacket that fell below his waist, which gave Daniel some concern that he might be underdressed. His Iberia Airlines flight had been delayed leaving Argentina, which caused him to miss his connection in Spain. By the time he arrived in Vienna, he had no time to make a purchase at the Vienna airport, where he could find some appropriate winter clothing. He would be the last member of the team to arrive in Astana, and he didn't want to put the operation further behind schedule.

"Good flight, Mr. Russo?"

"Very nice, thank you. Are we ready?"

"The rest of the group is with the SUV outside of Astana. We're loaded up and ready. It's going to be a little crowded. We have a guest," he said.

"I can't wait to meet him," Daniel said.

"He's a little green for this kind of work, but he comes highly recommended from our sponsor."

"Any way we can ditch him?"

"I doubt it. He's not that bad," Andrei said, and Daniel paused before the sliding glass door.

"What's the temperature like?" Daniel said.

"Cold, and the wind makes it worse. This place is flatter than Siberia. Nothing to block the wind. I have an extra jacket for you in the car. Yuri figured you'd need some wardrobe help."

"Yuri is such a mother to me. I can't wait to see him again," Daniel said, before he stepped through the door into a dusty wind.

Chapter 21

5:59 AM

CIA Headquarters

Langley Virginia

Karl Berg saw Audra Bauer enter the National Clandestine Service Operations Center and check in with the watch officer in the processing area near the entrance. He waited for her at a semi-private computer work station on the opposite side of the room. A dozen additional workstations lined the wall, each situated so that the computer screens faced away from the center of the sizable room. She nodded at him and made her way around the outside of the NSOC. He watched as she passed several floor to ceiling, private cubicles on her left. The room was divided in half by a floor to ceiling, soundproof glass wall, with a translucent glass door in the center.

On the other side of the glass sat a large conference table with black leather chairs, and several workstations organized on the side walls. Three immense flat-screen monitors sat flush against the far wall, surrounding a large wall-mounted projection screen. Nicknamed the "Fish Bowl," larger scale, compartmentalized CIA operations were monitored from this room. When in use, the "Fish Bowl" went "dark," and thick shades would descend the entire length of the glass wall to keep prying eyes off the CIA's most secretive operations.

Berg occupied the only cubicle toward the rear of the room, which wasn't surprising at six in the morning. He could tell that a few of the private cubicles were in use, and judging from his own personal experience using these cubicles, the occupants had probably been sequestered inside for more than twenty-four hours. These cubicles were usually worked in shifts. Luckily, there was an eleven hour time difference between Langley and eastern Kazakhstan, which meant most of the action in Kazakhstan would take place during working hours for Berg. The team would likely arrive at the site within the next four to five hours and be back on the road a few hours after that. If all went well, he could be home in time for dinner.

He ensured that the operations screen on one of the monitors in his cubicle contained all of the active links he had programmed and that the other displayed all of the intelligence feeds he would monitor. The feeds were set to alert him according to the parameters he specified and were further linked to a pager designed to work only in the operations center. He could freely roam the room to grab coffee or use the bathroom.

"Everything good?" she said, standing behind him.

"Yes. They got a late start out of Astana, but they're on the road. They should be out of the area by sunrise. Everything is patched in and ready to go. Our guy is with the team, and SATCOM is clear. I have a direct line to the UAV control room in Kyrgyzstan. Two lines, actually, and a priority line to the Air Force Command Center responsible for the UAV. Thank you. I just hope we don't need it. It's a one-way mission, and I can only imagine that Air Force Special Operations Command wasn't very happy with the setup," he said.

"They weren't, but it helps to be the deputy director of the National Clandestine Service."

"Apparently it does. They assured me that the UAV could be airborne within thirty minutes of my phone call," he said.

"Impressive."

"Unfortunately, it's a minimum three-hour flight to get the UAV in position to help our team. This won't be a quick response close air support mission," he said.

"Like you said, hopefully we won't need it," Bauer said.

"I'll be in here until they're back on the main highway headed to Astana. I've enabled priority search strings on all of our live intercept feeds and I'll be looking for anything that might indicate a problem for them. We're focused on Russian side communications and any satellite transmissions leaving the area in the vicinity of Kurchatov."

"Sounds like you have all the bases covered. Keep me in the loop. I'll have a lot of explaining to do if we are forced to sacrifice one of the Air Force's Predator drones."

"That's why you get paid the big bucks, Deputy Director Bauer."

"Thanks."

"There's something else I'm keeping an eye on," Berg said.

"Related to this?"

"I'm not sure, but I have a hunch it's connected. My analysts came up with a string of Reznikov search parameters, which we inputted into the data analysis system a few days ago. This system looks at everything and puts up flags—"

"I'm aware of how it works, Karl. I haven't been out of the trenches that long," she said, shaking her head jokingly.