Black Hawk Day Rewind: An action packed spy thriller (Mark Savannah Espionage Series Book 1) (6 page)

20

Mark had hidden the three VHS tapes in the false bottom of his bag where he kept his weapons.

He was going to send the tapes to his friend Pavel in Sofia, Bulgaria. Pavel was a computer engineer who led a double life; he was a professor of Computer Science at the University of Sofia and also one of the most famous hackers in Eastern Europe, code-named "Digitrevenant69."

Pavel Doko was single and had no friends. He lived with a female robot that took care of the cleaning in a bunker he had built “ad hoc” in the basement of a building in the city center, where his experimental laboratory was located.

During the day he had a room on the University Campus and he received people in his office in the department. His “official” life was thus apparently only academic and moved within the walls of the university.

Mark had met him at King's College during a conference in which Doko presented an app that he had developed in both Objective-C and Android versions. The app made it possible to use the new generation of smartphones for the optical analysis of cross section images of the layers of the sub-basal nerve fibers of the cornea.

Doko's app had been tested in several trials conducted in Florida, Ohio, Texas, Paris and London, where it had achieved excellent experimental results that had confirmed its use as an aid to clinicians in the early diagnosis of diabetic neuropathy.

Doko had already sold the rights to the app to a non-profit organization, keeping only some royalties that he used to finance the development of his experimental laboratory.

He and Mark got along with each other right from the beginning. They had long discussions about discovering new diabetic neuropathy diagnosis methods and they had begun to spend time together as good friends. Pavel had then opened the doors of his bunker to Mark, the only person who had ever crossed the threshold and had won the trust of the solitary and genial Pavel.

When Mark joined the British secret intelligence service, he told Pavel, who was not at all surprised. In fact, Mark told him about his entire life and about his father one long night spent together doing laboratory research, drinking too much beer and discussing neural systems.

Mark had to warn Pavel in advance of the shipment so that he could get organized. At the moment he could not send the material from either Afghanistan or Pakistan, but he needed to get an answer from his friend soon.

When his guard duty ended at midnight, he left the observation post by saying he needed to relieve himself and he hid behind a rock, a little more than three hundred yards from his colleagues.

He took out his smartphone, tuned it to a secure data line created by Pavel and sent a short message to his friend:

“Digitrevenant69, three VHS movies, urgent check on subtext data, be prepared, pending shipment, payment made for translation performed, warn you when outgoing MK.”

Pavel was in front of the computer when he received the message from Mark. He slept little and stuffed himself with ice cream, since his physical activity had been reduced to zero he had put on about twenty pounds, but he didn’t care. Unlike his friend, his impossible missions were on the World Wide Web and required an agile and ready brain, but not a body in perfect shape.

Pavel read Mark’s message. He did not know where Mark was, but he knew that Mark was involved in a very delicate operation in the Middle East.

“QSL, don’t burn your ass. Digitrevenant69,” answered Pavel in Q-code.

Mark went back to Kamaal and BAT FK23 Bantam and fell asleep for a couple of hours leaning against a rock.

21

Suddenly, at two in the morning, the warehouse of the plantation came to life again and the loading of the trucks started.

Mark, Kamaal and Bat were awake and watched everything that was going on. Inside the warehouse, the microcams and bugs had stopped working because their batteries were dead, but not before they had captured the necessary data.

“Let's get ready to leave the area within an hour,” BAT FK23 Bantam said. “There are several of them moving the load, it won’t take them long. I’m going to prepare the van for the transit to the Pakistan border; you stay here and follow the operations. You will find me behind the wheel of the van with the engine running.”

An hour later, the three trucks were ready for the journey to Peshawar.

Mark and Kamaal dismantled the equipment and erased all traces of their presence before joining Kamaal in the van.

Kamaal, who was driving, would also have to cross the border with Pakistan. Not only did he know the area and the roads by heart, but he was also the only one who spoke Pashto and could speak with the officers without arousing suspicion.

The three trucks started their engines and slowly took the road to Kandahar, from there they would go on to Kabul and then to the Pakistan border and the frontier town of Peshawar.

“I’ll follow them at a distance of one hundred fifty feet; this is a busy road with convoys of all kinds, no one will be watching us. I’ll drive as far as Kandahar, then it will be your turn to take the wheel for a few hours Li-2, and Bat will drive us to Kabul, then I'll drive again until we get to the refinery in Pakistan. The whole trip is about 6oo miles so if there are no problems, we should arrive at the border tomorrow at 5:30,” said Kamaal, with a huge yawn that almost sucked up Bat who was sitting next to him.

“Did you get freeze-dried coffee?” asked BAT FK23 Bantam.

“Don't you have other things to think about Bat? We’re not in Kabul; you can't find coffee. Drink some of the black tea in the clear plastic bottle.”

“Did you make it?” said Bat with a grin, looking at the bottle that looked as if it had come straight out of a landfill.

“No, my grandmother did. She makes good tea, she even puts in extract of scorpion, it increases your virility...” replied Kamaal calmly.

Bat said no more. He didn’t know if Kamaal was joking or not…and furthermore, looking at the bottle, he felt a little nauseous, although the idea of improving his virility was intriguing.

Mark took a piece of cheese and opened a can of beer, “By the time we get there our balls and asses will be square. These shock absorbers are still the ones the Russians used before Gorbachev pulled them out!”

“If you prefer cheesecake ladies...I can leave you here; the Taliban are very fond of American food,” Kamaal said, pretending to pull the van over to the side of the road.

“Shut up and don’t lose them, asshole. I think you secretly drank two gallons of scorpion tea, and now you want to get rid of us to amuse yourself elsewhere...even if you have to pay for it,” BAT FK23 Bantam said, laughing.

22

At five o'clock the next morning, the three trucks packed with opium and the cargo van loaded with wheat were in the queue at the border; they were discretely letting other convoys go ahead of them, waiting for the exact moment when the garrison changed at the customs checkpoint at 6:30 am.

Mark watched the bustling chaos of people in the queue gesturing, eating and selling their wares; patchwork trucks loaded to unsafe levels, smugglers and moneychangers negotiating inside the cabs of vehicles, and then huddling together and talking about deliveries.

There were dozens of stolen cars abandoned on the side of the road, looted for their parts, and even cars loaded with drugs that had been seized, gutted and left to die by the border police outside the customs office.

Suddenly, there was a burst of Kalashnikov fire just outside the van and the two operatives immediately grabbed their weapons ready to fire.

“Stop! Don’t move! Pretend nothing happened! It's all right...fuck! Didn't they teach you anything in school?” Kamaal shouted furiously. “Here people manufacture and recycle weapons of all kinds, street vendors sell them directly in the queue at the border...the guy with the green pakol is showing off a very old Kalashnikov used by the Russian armed forces. They often shoot in the air.” Kamaal kept talking between his teeth and lowered his voice. “Are you interested in a light machine gun, ladies?”

“If you don't stop calling us ladies, we’ll buy it and shove it up...where the sun doesn’t shine after trying it out on the ground; maybe we’ll even see how well you dance,” answered BAT FK23 Bantam pointing to the weapon that was being examined with interest by a Turkish trucker, three vehicles ahead of them.

At 6:25 am, the trucks started their engines and the convoy didn’t let anyone else in front of them, arriving at the barrier at the agreed hour.

Mark and the other two operatives saw the three truck drivers get out of the vehicles and enter the guards’ booth to discuss things with them. After less than a minute, they came out and climbed back on board, crossing the border without any inspection.

The patrol service started to approach their vehicle and Kamaal got out, leaving Li-2 and Bat on board. The Afghan began, showing their documents and explaining that they were farmers and traders carrying a load to sell in Rawalpindi.

The customs officers decided that a quick inspection was necessary, but they didn’t ask for money having already pocketed enough earlier.

After about ten minutes, the three agents were able to resume their journey and enter Pakistan.

“We have to catch up with them again.” BAT FK23 Bantam said worriedly.

“Yes, we’re twenty minutes behind them, but since this is the only way to Rawalpindi for a truck of that size, I'm not worried at all. I’m sure we’ll catch them up shortly. This van will start moving faster once we get away from the prying eyes of the patrols,” Kamaal said, blowing his nose loudly.

In fact, after twenty minutes, they were once more behind the trucks and they followed at a distance as they turned off towards Nowshera.

They drove through the city and headed several miles into a barren and hilly area, then they stopped in front of a dilapidated and seemingly abandoned building, the only one that could be seen on the horizon and that must have been a goat farm a long time ago.

23

Kamaal parked the van behind a rock wall and covered it with a sand-colored truck cover, then he joined the others with the last of the equipment and they sneaked behind a boulder a safe distance away.

“Who the fuck is that guy, he’s a Westerner!” Li-2 exclaimed while taking photos of a man in his forties with dark blond hair and blue eyes.

“I don’t have the faintest idea,” said Bat surprised, too.

The Westerner directed the unloading of one of the trucks. Following his orders, the other two trucks had been parked and locked up in a sort of garage equipped with metal shutters.

“I don’t see Bouda,” Kamaal said.

“We should set the bugs and micro cams in place as soon as possible, if this is indeed the refinery of Bouda, he will be here at any moment. Based on the conversations we heard, someone has to come and get the trucks that are in the garage and pay for the opium.”

“I'm hungry. What about you?” said BAT FK23 Bantam, biting at a piece of two-day old bread.

At ten o’clock, they heard the sound of a car approaching the building: three men got out while the driver stayed in the car with the engine running.

One of them, with almond-shaped eyes, dressed in a suit and tie, began talking to the Westerner, pointing to the garage with the other two standing behind him.

“They’re negotiating for the truck load,” said Mark. “Clearly, Bouda is not there.”

After five minutes, the two men returned to the car and got a briefcase and a bag that they opened in front of the Westerner.

“Those are US dollars,” said Bat, who was closely following the situation with his binoculars while Li-2 took photographs of the scene.

“They are counting the money; clearly the blond guy doesn’t trust them. Look at that, now he’s putting a wad of cash in his pocket that the Chinese guy took from the other bag. Cute. He’s taking money from Bouda and also from the buyers by giving them more product without Bouda knowing about it?” BAT FK23 Bantam said.

“He is a Westerner. He can make sure that the opium gets where it needs to go,” Mark replied. “That doesn’t surprise me. During the Soviet occupation, some members of the CIA controlled the heroin trade and Bouda was an agent of the ISI trained by the CIA. Is it just my imagination running wild or is this gentleman more than forty years old and perhaps Bouda too?”

As soon as the negotiations ended, the Westerner lifted the metal shutter and let the buyer’s two men get into the trucks. They quickly left the mock refinery, preceded by the car that had brought them and which now held the driver and the man with almond-eyes.

The Westerner then called over four men and talked with them for a few minutes. He paid them and then he got on a motorcycle that was leaning against the north wall of the building and went away.

Immediately afterwards six other men left the place, two were the drivers that had driven the truck from the Helmand region of Afghanistan.

“It's almost lunchtime and everything stops in Pakistan; let's get ready to enter the building, Li-2,” said BAT FK23 Bantam.

The two agents arranged all the necessary equipment and waited until a small group of people had gathered at the corner of the garage to eat together.

“Kamaal keep your eyes peeled and warn us immediately if there are any problems. In five minutes, we’ll go into action. Let's synchronize our watches, please. Once we’re inside, Bat and I will each work on our own, following procedures. We will have seven minutes to place the micro cams and bugs and record information.”

After a couple of minutes, the two agents entered the structure.

Mark and BAT FK23 Bantam looked around: the ground floor of the building had only one room used as a kitchen: there were four rickety chairs, a wooden table full of holes, a wood stove and a cupboard that contained a few pots and some chipped dishes. Some dusty glasses stood on a shelf above a bowl of water now being used as a smelly sink.

The two officers went over the four walls of the room with their hands. They tapped on the walls with their fingers to see if there were any hidden passages or cavities.

“Bat, there must be a laboratory and it can’t be outside: the satellites would have detected it immediately. Let's try the floor.”

Both of them began meticulously searching the simple concrete floor.

We’ll place three cams and the same number of bugs, I'll take care of the bugs,” Mark said.

“Li-2!” whispered BAT FK23 Bantam after installing the last cam.

“Look under the cupboard, there is a wooden trap-door!”

Mark joined Bat. They gently moved the cupboard and lifted the hatch.

“Kamaal, what’s the situation out there?” asked Li-2.

“Calm, they are still eating and doing some real drinking, but we cannot be sure. You have four minutes.”

The two agents went down to the basement and turned on their flashlights: they found themselves in a large fully equipped and well-organized laboratory for transforming opium into morphine and part of the morphine into heroin; there was also an electronic machine for weighing and sachet packaging the two drugs.

At the end of the room on a metal table sat a desktop computer that was turned off. Mark wasted no time getting the first password.

“Take care of the micro cams and bugs Bat. I’ll take care of the computer,” he said as he was turning on the computer to extract the hard disk and copy it quickly using software also used by the Pentagon. The data transferred to another device would be sent to the two agencies.

As soon as Bat turned to place the last micro cam, Li-2 made a copy of the hard disk and hid it in an inside jacket pocket. Then he put the hard disk back into the computer.

“We have to go! Kamaal can we get out?” asked BAT F.K.23 Bantam.

“Affirmative, they are singing and drinking like crazy, the road is clear, no suspicious movement.”

Bat and Mark, after making sure they hadn’t left any clues behind, went back into the kitchen, closed the hatch and repositioned the cupboard in the same spot where they had found it; and, after checking that they had left no signs of their presence in the kitchen, joined Kamaal at the observation post.

“Must be payday, they are all completely drunk,” Kamaal said.

“Bouda is missing and we did not find anything that leads us to believe that he is the owner of the laboratory. Let's hope we have more luck with the hard disk and the micro devices,” said Mark, nervously inspecting the food bag in search of something to put in his stomach.