Black Hawk Day Rewind: An action packed spy thriller (Mark Savannah Espionage Series Book 1) (8 page)

29

Mark had just entered his room at the hotel and, before reading the operation instructions, he sent a message to Pavel.

“Digitrevenant69 QRL?”

“Digitrevenant69 negative, QRV.”

“All about CIA agent Richard Reed, no photos, works for ISI and UNODC, no evidence, my hands are tied. He who finds an enemy, finds a treasure MK.”

“QRV-Digitrevenant69, HD steganography confirmed nuclear power plant images, you will see the movies tomorrow night in cinemascope. Leaving?”

“QRV Digitrevenant69, QSL steganography found something else in addition to the plant?”

“Negative, Digitrevenant69 over and out, I'll call you when QRV.”

Mark had confirmation that the CIA technicians had done a good job and that there was no other encrypted information on the hard disk.

He turned on the smartphone and activated the black and white drawing. Departure had been arranged from Washington for the following afternoon and he would arrive in Paris the next day. In Paris he would meet with the team at 4:00 pm in the basement of the Gendarmerie Nationale. He would then describe the action plan and receive logistical support from the French service, supervised by the British; then they would all leave for Fessenheim.

Mark went out for dinner and decided to eat alone in a Tex Mex restaurant, fajitas, burritos and quesadillas with a side dish of the consequent heartburn that stayed with him all night.

At 2:00 in the morning, while he was taking two tablets of anti-acid, he saw the smartphone light up. It was a message from Pavel.

“Digitrevenant69, found Swedish cracker for security test on CIA, he wants $5,000 to do it and keep quiet. I’ll need $ 1,000 to change the line after receiving his files. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good, Digitrevenant69. Payment upon results. Goodnight, MK.”

Finally, at three in the morning, Savannah fell asleep, but forgot to turn out the bedside table light.

30

The flight to Paris was intriguing; Mark was in fact sitting next to a Somali model on her way to Paris for the casting of a luxury brand.

Aisha lived in New York, spoke four languages, was the daughter of a diplomat, and flirted with him blatantly the whole time they were both awake.

She also invited him to dinner in Paris the evening of their arrival, telling him that she was staying by herself at the Hyatt Regency Paris Madeleine.

Although she was beautiful, Mark wasn’t aroused by her; the conversation was light but felt contrived, as if it had been written phrase by phrase by a Barbie doll script writer who was only interested in superficial details.

While a puzzled Mark was reflecting over this type of direct and intrusive approach, thinking that once the plane landed, he would check on her to see if she was an enemy agent, Aisha shamelessly put her hand between his thighs and let it slip.

“Do you like that?” she asked.

Savannah removed her hand from between his thighs, even if it was too late for him to control an erection.

“Forget it Aisha, we’re on a plane.”

“Yet I got the feeling that you liked it.”

“I am not made of steel.” he replied.

“Don’t you like me?” she continued, not giving up.

“What do you want from me?”

“Kiss you, fuck you. I don’t think it's a mortal sin...or does it bother you when a woman takes the initiative?”

“I am not a one shot guy. I don’t like being an object of pleasure for you to use and throw away and, if I have to tell you everything, you may have some serious infectious disease hidden behind your beauty.”

“Um... in fact, you told me you were a doctor.”

“A psychiatrist to be precise. Listen, I don’t know who you are, I don’t know you. I couldn’t have fun with you, and even if I was interested in you, I would need time to adjust, that's all.”

Aisha didn't bat an eyelid, “Complicated, this psychiatry, however if you change your mind this is my phone number. I think we could have fun together...I’m very attracted to you.” And she gave him a business card that smelled of spices.

The plane landed five minutes earlier than scheduled at Charles de Gaulle; Mark left Aisha with a cold handshake in the terminal, his mind already on the appointment at 4:00 pm.

He climbed into a taxi and asked to be taken from Roissy to the city center.

31

Savannah stopped in a bistro to eat something quickly; he still had an upset stomach and wanted to avoid irritating sandwiches filled with sauces, afterwards he briefly strolled down the Champs Elysées and took another taxi to rue St. Didier.

At 3:50 pm in the basement of the General Directorate of Gendarmerie his team of American agents was already waiting: Stein, Moore, Wilson, Jenkins and Hayes. There were also two supervisors from British intelligence that Mark knew very well indeed: Dickinson and Stevens. Immediately, he introduced them to his team.

The men of the French service arrived at 4:00 o'clock; there were six of them.

After making the introductions, Mark took the floor, “Everyone has already received their instructions; therefore, the goal of this meeting is to get to know each other to finalize operation details. Dickinson and Stevens will only be supervising our work, they will never be directly involved in the operation, they don’t really exist, but they will always be in contact with the team.

“The U.S. and French teams will be responsible for thwarting the sabotage-attack, killing the terrorists and allowing me to terminate Bouda. I am the only one responsible for this last task. Remember that the bodies, including that of Bouda, must be left on the ground; the UK cleaners will be in the area as of tomorrow, and invisible as usual.

“The U.S. team will be deployed on the outer perimeter of the two reactors that you have already studied, together with fifteen men of the Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN). The French team will cover the internal area, mingling with the staff on duty.

“We will not use our code names during radio contact for the operation, but rather numbers from 15 to 44, also for the GIGN, whose faces and numbers you need to learn quickly.

“No one will sleep for the two days of the operation. You will find your meals in the bag which will be provided to you by the logistics department at the exit. The numbers will be assigned to people according to the usual procedure and then inserted into the smartphones which will later self-destruct.

“The weapons and equipment are already loaded in four anonymous cars ready in basement F from which we’re going to leave for Fessenheim within two hours, starting with the first crew of three men from the French team. After twenty minutes, the next one will depart and so on.

“The keys are on the table, we will meet the men of the GIGN in Fessenheim. That's all, have a good trip and see you soon. Jenkins and Hayes, the three of us will start last; we’ll meet in underground F in an hour.”

All the agents left the room and Mark closed the door again; he had seen a message come in from Pavel and he wanted to read it in peace; he knew that the basements of the Gendarmerie had no cameras or bugs. In fact, one of the cleaners had checked the area a few hours before.

“Digitrevenant69, Terminator 2 has surprised me; the others are completely superficial and boring. I’ll talk to you when you are online.”

“Digitrevenant69, QRV, go ahead.”

“I recovered the frames that Terminator 2 had overwritten; there are three amateur microfilms all made the same way but with different content: Bouda is blackmailing the person in the movie by threatening to use the recorded video if he is betrayed. Mark, you’ll want to watch that last part slowly, meanwhile the cracker is working. Digitrevenant69 over and out. Call whenever you want.”

Pavel had announced something that was extremely unpleasant, as if it was a personal matter; he hadn’t used the usual Q code and he didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t like him to behave like this.

Savannah looked at his watch; he had time to look over the videos before leaving the Gendarmerie and he was alone in the room. He opened the file without hesitation.

Pavel was right. Initially it appeared that Bouda was threatening retaliation with the page of the newspaper showing the news and the day of release of the newspaper and then the videos.

The first two were from the year 1992 during the first phase of the Afghan civil war: two factions of mujahedeen were trying to destroy each other through attacks camouflaged as the work of the Islamic Party.

The third video forced him to sit down, feeling light headed and with a violent attack of tachycardia and sweating: the date on the newspaper was that of October 4, 1993, and the news was about the Black Hawk shot down with Bouda threatening to supply the frames in question to the CIA.

Mark felt his blood pressure rising and his heart going mad as he watched: a Westerner picked up an RPG and fired on a U.S. Humvee that was passing by at the time; he had waited in ambush for the Humvee knowing it would have to pass through his fire.

The camera operator shot the first scene showing the rocket hitting the vehicle in the middle and destroying it, and then the second scene showing the face of the shooter: Richard Reed, CIA agent, involved in drug trafficking and one of Bouda’s lieutenants. He had killed his father fourteen years before and Mark had met him by chance in the cafeteria of the intelligence agency’s headquarters the day before his departure for Paris.

Mark let a few minutes pass. When he had recovered, he wrote a message to Pavel: “Digitrevenant69, Richard Reed is my father’s murderer, I am waiting for detailed information about him, ask the cracker to take a ride on the Mogadishu files, it will be a breeze for him once he gains access, 500 USD more.”

“Digitrevenant69, QSL, I'm sorry to reopen old wounds, what will you do?”

“I'll take care of him myself when the operation is over…too risky to disclose these images, he is surely protected.”

“I agree with you. Let me know how I may help, Digitrevenant69 QRT. Goodbye.”

“See you soon, my friend. I would like to return to Langley immediately and kill him, but right now I can't do that, and I want to learn as much as possible about him and about his protectors, QRT MK.”

Inexplicably it occurred to him that he should check on Aisha’s background.

“Let’s see if you're clean or you are part of the circus.” Mark accessed the reserved line for the database of the British services; he had taken a photo of her while she was sleeping, so an automatic search based on her physiognomy and her metrics was easy.

‘So Aisha, you are clean and the fact that your father is a diplomat is pure coincidence. But even if you're not a spy, you're too cheerful for my tastes,’ he thought with a smile. He left the room to go to basement F still shaken.

32

Fessenheim is a town located in the Haut-Rhin department of Alsace.

Gloomy and without personality, the city is dominated by the oldest French nuclear power plant, which had often been the subject of bitter controversy concerning its safety over the last five years.

Mark first checked the position of every man involved in the mission and afterwards went to his surveillance point.

He hoped that the information about the date was right and that they would not have to wait for days to get into action. He was eager to return to the U.S. and quietly take care of Reed.

Bouda and his team of saboteurs were not long in coming: they arrived after eight hours, and didn’t even have time to penetrate the center before all of them were killed by the GIGN; none of them had expected the ambush. Savannah fired the first shot. Bouda fell to the ground lifeless, hit in the head by an expanding bullet, without even the time to react.

In accordance with the instructions, Bouda’s body was left on the spot with the other bodies and Mark, abandoning the field of battle, turned for a moment and saw six men quickly taking care of the bodies and erasing all traces of their presence.

33

Two days later, at 8:00 in the morning, Savannah was back in London at the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service.

Operating Unit 27 director F. Shaw was waiting for him in his office for a face-to-face meeting. The Telegraph lay on his desk in front of him.

“Hello Savannah, apparently they didn’t kick your ass in Afghanistan. I'm glad about that! My congratulations! Fast, effective and a perfect sniper! Take a look at the front page of the Telegraph: "International terrorist who provided false information about Saddam Hussein’s WMDs killed in Kabul in a firefight with British and U.S. Intelligence Services." Just as expected, perfect timing! What are you doing next week?”

“Back to the US for a holiday in New York, I’ll be visiting some friends. I want to completely disconnect for a week.”

“Be sure to get plenty of rest, you’ll need it. I want to see you in my office next Monday at 9:00 am. This time you’ll be able to choose a task that will be more to your liking.”

“Thank you, sir. Goodbye.”

Mark shook hands with the director and, as he was walking back home, he saw that Pavel had sent him a message.

He stopped and sat on a bench along the Thames and logged on to the protected line.

Pavel was offline, so he downloaded the files directly.

Richard Reed was 45 years old; he was a supervisor in the “Drug Trafficking" department of the UNODC, and at the same time he also had a diplomatic role between the CIA and ISI, a role that was very delicate and very questionable.

The ISI was in fact known to have internal rogue cells that were working for the warring factions and who were in contact with the Iranian secret services.

‘You are a greedy, double-crossing bastard Reed, and a pusher and a fucking murderer!’ Mark thought, clenching his fists.

Reed was also the son of CIA director Colonel Walton I. Reed, number three in the CIA, who despite his age was still influential and head of the Biotech Division, which dealt with the development of military and non-military projects in the nanotechnology field.

“That's the saint who’s protecting you, you bastard; some influential father developing nanotechnology for military purposes in the New Mexico desert. Who knows what Biosketch Technologies Inc. is involved in? I really would like to know more about it,” he said aloud.

As far as Mogadishu was concerned, the dossier revealed information that had never been disclosed about the Black Hawk shot down and the subsequent operations, but there was no reference to the killing of Turner C. Cooper, nor to the wounding of Andrew Davis, who was the head of squadron A of the Delta Force, aka Professor Zimmermann of the University of Buenos Aires.

“They covered up the operation and destroyed all the evidence. Reed senior, you really are a big shot!”

Mark settled accounts with Pavel and paid for the services, then he went home passing by the supermarket on the way to buy food.

He returned home and after having put the fresh food in the fridge, he remembered Elizabeth and instinctively dialed her cell phone number.

“Elizabeth?”

“Oh, hello Mark. How are you?”

“Well, thanks. And you? I was wondering if you were free tonight…we could talk calmly.”

“Thanks Mark, but I already have a commitment. It's all right. I've been thinking about everything: I don’t believe it’s worth repeating what we said before…besides I have started dating someone else.”

“You didn't waste any time, but I understand. Goodbye, Elizabeth.”

“Goodbye, Mark, have a nice evening.” They both hung up at the same time.

Savannah felt relieved. He would have seen his ex, simply because he didn’t want to end a relationship over the phone, but the fact that he had avoided a hard evening full of clichés made him feel good; after less than a month Elizabeth hadn’t left a mark on him.