SCORPION II Chapter One

 I'm running a bit behind on SCORPION II, so here's the first chapter....

Although Avery was expecting his visitor, the sound of gravel crunching beneath tires still caught him off guard for a second, so rarely did the sounds of civilization intrude upon his quiet redoubt in the backwoods of northern Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. His nearest neighbor was a retired dentist and Vietnam veteran, whose wife recently passed away, and Avery sometimes went fishing with the septuagenarian or took him into Roanoke for lunch. Rarer still, an army buddy might come by. Most frustratingly, a motorist might become lost and turn into his driveway, looking for directions.

Otherwise Avery received little human contact here, which was how he liked it.

Not to say that he was unwelcoming of today’s visitor. To the contrary, after sustaining a life threatening wound ten months earlier and just recently re-qualifying for service with CIA’s Global Response Staff (GRS), Avery had been looking forward to Matt Culler’s call. Still, his instincts told him something was wrong, that he probably wasn’t going to like what Culler had to tell him.

After all, it was beyond unusual for the head of GRS to come all the way out here to see Avery in person, instead of calling him in to Langley.

The Global Response Staff is a section of CIA’s National Clandestine Service (NCS) tasked with employing independent contractors, mostly former special operations soldiers and SWAT shooters, for security operations: guarding CIA bases overseas, babysitting case officers, transporting personnel or materials in combat zones. The best, most lethal of these operators are known informally as scorpions. Invariably their activities overlap into operations, especially in areas where the Agency finds it necessary to leave zero footprint by utilizing deniable agents on low-vis ops. GRS contractors often worked alongside Special Activities Division paramilitary operators.

Wearing shorts, a tank top, and running shoes, and well-tanned from time spent outside during the recent summer months, Avery turned off the fire on the stove and stepped out from the combined kitchen-dining room into the living room, crossing the spotless hardwood floor to the front door.

The outside air was cool and musty and smelled of pine needles. The land around the ranch house was well shaded by the towering trees that vaulted up on either side of the driveway and around the yard.

By the time Avery descended the three steps on the wooden porch, the stopped Lincoln Town Car’s driver side door swung open. Culler climbed out with ease while his driver, a security protection officer, remained behind the wheel.  Culler was in far better shape than most fifty-plus year old men, and he definitely stood out amongst CIA’s middle-aged, suited, executive class. But unlike most of Langley’s Seventh Floor suits, Culler was a former ops officer, a veteran of Afghanistan and elsewhere. He’d also formerly headed CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. He was one of the few people at Langley Avery actually respected.

Handshakes were exchanged.

“You’re looking well,” Culler said, appraising Avery. The comment was a genuine observation, not an intro to contrived perambulatory pleasantries, which Culler never bothered to go through with Avery, because he knew Avery had little regard for such social customs.

The last time they’d talked in person, Avery had been restricted to a hospital bed at Walter Reed, with tubes sticking out of him, connecting him to a half a dozen blinking and beeping machines. After being stabbed in the side with nearly the full seven inches of the Viper’s combat knife, Avery underwent multiple surgeries to fully repair his torn oblique muscles, severed blood vessels, and perforated large intestine.

The wound took over four months to fully heal. The first month was by far the worst, because he’d also suffered from infection, which nearly became life threatening. It was the closest Avery had ever come to dying. He’d come close to bleeding out by the time the FBI and Homeland Security agents reached him on the California-Mexican border, where he’d lain in his own blood and vomit, barely conscious.

Recalling that afternoon, Avery could still feel the distinctive sensation of the titanium blade inside his body, the sudden wave of nausea and numbness that overtook him, and the deep burning pain. The thought of it still made him feel sick and cold and sent a chill through his nerves. He’d been shot before, but that was nothing compared to the damage this knife had caused.

The ordeal didn’t end with the painful recovery process.

After, Avery found the sudden loss of muscle mass, strength, and stamina to be the singularly most wretched, depressing feeling he’d ever known. Worse, he wasted three weeks drinking nearly every day, all day, breaking almost a decade of sobriety, until he finally decided to stop feeling sorry for himself and get his shit together. That was followed by another miserable week of riding out the withdrawal symptoms.

Avery spent the next five months working out and training hard to rebuild what he’d lost, determined not to retire early from doing the only thing at which he’d ever been particularly good, the only thing that gave his life some vague sense of purpose. He still hadn’t quite gotten back up to his former maxes on squats and deadlifts, and he doubted he ever would, but his run times were the best they’d ever been since when he was a twenty-two year old army Ranger. And he could still give a navy SEAL or Delta operator a run for their money on the gun range, which he sometimes did.

After getting back in shape, there came another month of going through the exhausting bureaucratic hoops and procedures to get reinstated with GRS, and even that was a close call. The psychological evaluators knew Avery was holding something back, but Avery wasn’t about to tell anyone about the kid he saw murdered in Colombia and the lingering affect that had on his psyche. That job had been totally off the books anyway. He also didn’t tell the psychologists about the drinking relapse, either. He only told them what they expected to hear, about how he was coping after coming so close to death. They wanted to make sure he didn’t exhibit any PTSD symptoms and that he handled the psychological stress in a healthy way, which he generally did.

“Good as new,” Avery replied, “except for the new scar on my side. Hopefully, that detail doesn’t get out to anyone, but at least it’s not visible.” His body carried no other visually distinguishing features that could potentially be used to identify him. “Though there’s only one group I know of who would have a personal interest in me anyway.”

Culler knew what Avery meant. “Far as we know, the Russian mafiya have no reason to know of your involvement with what happened on the Mexican border, so they won’t be able to make any connections.” He paused. “And that’s a good thing, because I’m sending you into FSU again.”

Avery recalled unpleasant memories of his mission into Tajikistan and Belarus the previous year. Chasing down loose nuclear material headed for the Taliban. Putting down a former friend turned traitor. When Culler called yesterday, Avery was expecting to be sent to Iraq or Syria to make life difficult for ISIS.

But FSU?

He sighed.

Well, it wasn’t like he could turn Culler down now. Avery was extremely lucky to have gotten a second chance with Langley as it was. Beggars could not be choosers.  

“I know it’s not what you expected, but after you hear what I have to say, you’ll want this,” Culler said. Looking Avery in the eye, he added. “Trust me.”

That grabbed Avery’s attention and re-focused his thoughts, though he knew Culler wasn’t above a little manipulation. He’d subtly poked Avery’s ego before to get him to take on a shit job no one else wanted.

“What is it?” Avery asked.

“Did you hear about the car bombing in Tbilisi three days ago?”

“Yeah, I saw it mentioned briefly on CNN. What, ten or so people were killed? A couple Americans from a natural gas company are among the dead. Some local militant group that no one ever heard of claimed responsibility.”

“It wasn’t a terrorist attack.”

“You know something CNN doesn’t?” The question was sarcastic, but not entirely without merit. Almost every office TV at Langley was tuned to CNN throughout the day.

“It was quite clearly a targeted assassination, but the White House and Langley aren’t going to acknowledge that,” Culler said. “They hit one of our NOC officers, and his bodyguard. The bomb was rigged to their vehicle, though that particular detail won’t be made public for obvious reasons of OpSec.”

If the identities of the slain CIA personnel were revealed, then the identities of other officers and agents connected to them and the front company would potentially be put at risk. Even in death, the slain officers would have stick to their cover story.

“Who did we lose?” Avery asked, unprepared for Culler’s response.

“Poacher was running security for the NOC.”

A dozen memories flashed across Avery’s mind. Afghanistan. Poacher’s bearded face and big grin. Being welcomed into Poacher’s home and meeting Katie. He remembered the last time he saw Poacher, seven months ago, at a Task Force Dagger reunion BBQ.  

Avery took a deep breath. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to lash out and punch something, anything. Instead he said, “Who’s responsible?” His voice cracked a little. He felt his stomach churning.

“So far we’re going with the Black Fist, an unknown militant group based in the Caucasus that initially claimed responsibility.”

“I never heard of them.” And Avery’s knowledge of the worlds’ insurgent and terrorist organizations was near encyclopedic.

“Neither has the Eurasia Desk or the Counterterrorism Center at Langley,” Culler admitted. “And the Georgian security services don’t seem to know a hell of a lot other than the Black Fist is a small, close knit, radical offshoot of Adamon Nikhas, an older Ossetian nationalist group. They’re also connected to assorted Armenian and Chechen groups in the region. The Georgians claim this is all bullshit and that the group’s financed off-the-books by the Kremlin as a proxy terrorist force, but we have nothing substantial to support those allegations. We have to take anything from Tbilisi with a grain of salt.”

“Anything useful from the investigation so far?” asked Avery.

“The detonator used in the blast has been linked to a theft from a Romanian munitions train earlier this year. Sometime when the train stopped in a city called Brasov, on its way to Bulgaria, four containers of eighty detonators went missing, along with dozens of kilos of RDX plastic explosives. Along with the FBI, Langley sent people to coordinate with Romanian investigators in Brasov.”

Avery tried to listen, but he’d inadvertently started to tune out. The news of Poacher’s death had broken through even his normal stoicism. He didn’t even notice when Culler paused for several seconds.

 “Look, Avery, this is way bigger than the guys we lost in Tbilisi, and I’m not sending you on a routine counterterrorism op here. In fact, given your personal connection to Poacher, I’d prefer not send you. I need a clear head on this.”

“So why me then?”

“Regardless of the possible Ossetian terrorist angle, what happened in Georgia is just the latest in a long string of compromises we’ve experienced in the former Soviet Union over the past year. Ever since Tajikistan and Belarus, really. Chief of station Tallinn was exposed and expelled from Estonia. Case officers have been caught in stings and deported from Russia, Belarus, and Turkmenistan. We’ve lost highly placed agents in Ukraine and Azerbaijan. The Russians obviously have a line into the National Clandestine Service’s operations in the FSU, and it comes at a time when Putin’s become increasingly aggressive in places like the Baltic, Ukraine, and Syria.”

“So that’s why you’re here,” said Avery. “You don’t know who within NCS might be compromised right now or, worse, a double agent.”

 “Partially, but not exactly. D/NCS came directly to me with this and asked for you by name,” Culler said, referring to the director of the National Clandestine Service, the CIA’s top spymaster.

Avery frowned as he thought it over and put the pieces together. Counterterrorism was his normal province, not the former Soviet Union or conventional espionage work. He knew there was only one thing that connected him in any way to anything involving Russia.

“Cramer?”

Culler’s tight-lipped expression answered for him.

“He’s dead,” Avery said.“I watched him burn.”

“All of the assets we’ve lost so far, including the NOC in Tbilisi, were active before Cramer’s treason. Cross referencing their 201 files, they’re all veteran officers with prior experience in Eastern Europe or Central Asia, and they have all worked with Cramer on past assignments, or at least have crossed paths with him operationally in one fashion or another. D/NCS doesn’t believe that to be a coincidence.”

Robert Cramer was an almost thirty-year CIA veteran who had been slated to end his career as the chief of station in Dushanbe when he conspired with the Krasnaya Mafiya to fake his kidnapping and murder. He then helped organize a network smuggling highly enriched uranium from Belarus to the Taliban.

“Makes sense,” Avery said. “We know Cramer was collaborating with the Russian services. Organized crime or state agencies, there’s no distinction between the two in Russia. They probably debriefed him very extensively, and we don’t know just how far back their relationship goes or the extent of their network.”

“D/NCS always thought that shit with Cramer would back to haunt us one day. He might be right.”

“So where do we start?” Avery asked. “We wouldn’t be talking if you didn’t already have something to go on.”

“If this does go back to Cramer, then it might be worth starting with the only loose end you left in Dushanbe.”

Avery took a couple seconds to search the names and faces stored in his mind. “Ramzin.”

“You got it.”

Oleg Ramzin was a Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) counterintelligence officer who had been assigned to Dushanbe. Ostensibly he was Cramer’s agent, providing cover for status for their relationship and frequent meetings. In reality, Ramzin was Cramer’s link to the Krasnaya Mafiya, and he helped Cramer organize the nuclear smuggling network.

“We know the Lubyanka promoted him shortly after Tajikistan,” Culler said, referring to the FSB’s headquarters. “He’s a colonel now. He stayed in Dushanbe for another four months after everything that went down there, did some work in Moscow, where we know he personally briefed Putin on a highly classified matter, and that’s when we lost him. Moscow station confirmed Ramzin’s still doing fieldwork, but he’s almost certainly adopted a pseudonym after you compromised him in Tajikistan.”

“Sounds more like a dead end than a lead,” Avery observed.

“Not necessarily. NCS’s Russia Desk might have an access point to Ramzin. His name’s Yefremov. He’s also FSB, Ramzin’s former superior officer and mentor. They served in Chechnya together. According to the analysts who profile Russian intelligence officers, Ramzin and Yefremov are still real close together.”

“And you know where to find Yefremov, I take it?”

“We do, as a matter of fact.”

Avery read Culler’s expression, felt an unpleasant sensation in his gut, and said, “You’re going to tell me something I won’t like, aren’t you?”

“Hey, if this was going to be easy I would have gone to someone else.”

“Where is he? Syria? Fucking Moscow?”

“If only,” Culler said without humor. “Yefremov currently runs counterintelligence for the pro-Russian separatists in Donbass.”

Avery blinked and hesitated before responding as he digested this. Suddenly his last ops in Colombia and Mexico didn’t sound so bad. “Yeah, well that’s pretty fucked.”

“We can get you into Donbass easily enough through a local Ukrainian agent network.”

Avery opened his mouth to protest, but Culler cut him off.

“Don’t worry. We know they’re clean, and they have a contact in Donbass that can provide support and point you in Yefremov’s direction.”

“So what do you expect me to do?” Avery said. “Sure, I’ll have a chat with Yefremov, but he can’t possibly walk away from this, you understand?”

He suddenly realized exactly why Culler came out here instead of summoning him to Langley for this discussion, and the sick feeling in his stomach grew deeper and more pervasive. Culler didn’t want any official record of Avery’s role in this. Avery generally targeted sub-state actors, but now Culler, likely with D/NCS’s blessing, intended to put him directly up against another power’s agents. 

“After I’m through with him,” Avery went on, “it’s not like we can let Yefremov go back to Moscow reporting that Americans grabbed him and questioned him about Oleg Ramzin’s whereabouts. Somehow, I also doubt you’ll be able to just stick Yefremov in one of your secret prisons in Poland or Romania, assuming I’d even be able to bring him out of Ukraine undetected.”

“What happens to Yefremov after you’ve spoken with him is not our concern,” Culler said bluntly. “D/NCS intends for this to be totally deniable. Deep black. Zero footprint.”

This meant if Avery was detained by the Russians, he was fucked. But what else was new? “How am I even supposed to talk to Yefremov? My Russian is shit.” He’d been trying to learn the language after the operation in Tajikistan and Belarus, but his progress was slow.

“According to the profilers, Yefremov speaks decent English, like most senior Russian intelligence officers do.”

“Because it’s not like the analysts ever get something wrong.” Avery couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He had little use for the Directorate of Intelligence, which was comprised predominantly of academics and subject matter experts with little, if any, firsthand experience in their areas.

“This intelligence is reliably confirmed,” Culler said. “There are several reported occasions where Grigory Yefremov spoke English, and that comes not just from us, but from the British and German services, too.”

 “There’s no way I can pull this off as a singleton. Where’s Flounder and Reaper?”

“They’re at the Point, but they’re active duty Ground Branch. D/NCS can’t just order them to-”

“He won’t have to. If they know this is connected to Poacher, they’ll be onboard. Trust me. There’s no security risk. Remember, they were with me in Tajikistan, and they know all about Cramer.”

“Look, Avery, there’s-”

“Either I get Flounder and Reaper, or I don’t go. It’s that simple. I’m not going into Russian-controlled territory in a war zone with only some local assets for back-up.”

“Alright,” Culler finally relented, knowing that once Avery decided on something there was no room for negotiation. He wouldn’t have felt good about sending Avery into Donbass alone anyway. “I’ll get D/NCS to clear it with SAD, but you better bring everyone back.”

“Don’t worry, Matt, I know the drill. The Seventh Floor would rather have us dead than taken alive to the Lubyanka. I share the sentiment. Fuck spending the rest of our lives in a Russian prison with our faces all over the news.”

In 2014, the bodies of several Americans with M16 rifles, Meals Ready to Eat (MRE), and other American-manufactured armor and kit, turned up in eastern Ukraine after a firefight between Ukrainian soldiers and separatist forces. The State Department denied any knowledge of or responsibility for the Americans, even after a couple of them were identified by Russian intelligence services as contractors with Greystone, a private military corporation and former Blackwater affiliate that was registered in Bermuda and often did work for the Agency and allied foreign governments..  

Avery had long accepted that he’d meet a similar fate one day. He knew it was just a question of when and where.

Viper in the News

This week, elements from VIPER are in the news. The Washington Post has published a story about factions within FARC, and their allied militias, who may reject the Colombian peace deal and resume their fight against the Colombian government. Their motivation for doing so has nothing do with any ideological beliefs, but rather a desire to retain their role in the region's lucrative drug trade. One such faction has kidnapped a United Nations official earlier this month. 

Scorpion in the News Again, and Other Stuff

Elements of Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel continue to show up in the news. In my book, Russian organized crime factions, with the blessing of the Kremlin, are arming the Taliban. And now in reality, the Kremlin is providing arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Russian Foreign Ministry has also opened diplomatic channels with the Taliban and supports the Taliban's position demanding the removal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.Putin has even met with Taliban leaders at a military base in Tajikistan. Both Russia and the Taliban have denied the claim, though.

The Taliban are essentially the product of the anti-Soviet mujaheedin, so why is Russia supporting their former enemies? Because one of Russia's greatest security concerns is that ISIS, already present in Afghanistan, will spread into the neighboring, former Soviet republics of Central Asia, all of which are home to poor, repressed Muslim populations. Especially as ISIS loses territory in Syria and Iraq, their fighters are fleeing mostly to Lebanon and Afghanistan. 

Russia's not alone. China, concerned about Islamic extremism spreading to their restless Xinjiang province, has also opened diplomatic relations with the Taliban. Of course, in addition to their concerns about the spread of ISIS, both Russia and China would also like to see American and NATO military forces removed from the region.

And speaking of Scorpion, I've completed Scorpion II. Now it's time to sit on it for a couple weeks before going back with a refreshed mind for final edits. Expect it June/July.

Scorpion II Prelude

James Dalton fully lived up to the namesake of his longtime call sign, Poacher. The name had been given to him years ago by his mates in Delta, in reference to his penchant for hunting bear and deer in the backwoods of Montana, where his grandfather had taken him camping and hunting when he was just a boy. Nearly everyone who had ever served with him in A Squadron had accompanied him on a hunting trip at one time or another.

In addition to which, after seventeen years in Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and another five in the CIA Special Activities Division’s (SAD) Ground Branch, he’d proven himself a supremely skilled and lethal hunter. He’s pursued prey across Iraqi deserts and through the Afghan mountains. He’s hit targets in Pakistan’s lawless, tribal frontier region, and made covert forays into Somali and Libyan warzones in pursuit of individuals his government designated high value targets. Most recently, he’d just returned from a four-month cycle in northern Syria, assigned to a JSOC-CIA task force working alongside Kurdish Peshmerga fighters taking the fight to ISIS as part of Operation INHERENT RESOLVE.

Poacher didn’t derive any pleasure from killing—special ops and Ground Branch selection programs were carefully constructed to identify and weed out the psychopaths and the thrill seekers, as well as those likely to suffer psychological breakdowns after taking a human life—but killing a target was simply easier and much safer than trying to snatch an unwilling person in a non-permissive environment and deliver them from Point A to Point B. 

And that’s why Poacher’s present assignment found his temperament borderline surly.

Quite simply, tagging along and babysitting a CIA case officer on his agent meets was a waste of Poacher’s unique skill set, even if the work did require trips into the Republic of Georgia’s volatile Pankisi Gorge or the remote, the Russian-backed, separatist enclave of Abkhazia.

It was a routine job for any ex-SWAT shooter or SEAL turned security contractor.

But Peter Budny was an old friend of Dalton’s going back to the time they’d spent together in the trenches, at Kandahar base, running ops against the Taliban. There was nothing that Poacher wouldn’t do for a friend, and Budny was as much a brother as were Poacher’s former mates in Delta. So he begrudgingly acquiesced when Budny personally requested him for the job.

Besides, looking at his alternatives, Poacher supposed that bodyguard duty was preferable to going through yet another redundant training rotation at Harvey Point, where SAD was based. It also gave him and Pete plenty of time to catch up. It’d been over a year since they’d last exchanged words.

This was Poacher’s first time in Georgia, but he already felt as much at home as he did in any of his more familiar stalking grounds. He’d never had any problem adapting to and being comfortable in a foreign place, no matter how dangerous. Georgia was a typical, struggling Third World ex-Soviet backwater state, ripe with government corruption, terrorists, separatists, ethnic conflict, and organized crime. Georgia was also a strategically important country, and therefore of immense interest to the West. 

In order to do his job, Budny often had to venture into the seamier parts of town to meet with less than savory characters. The “official” or “declared” case officers hung out at the bar of the Tbilisi Marriot Hotel, from midnight to dawn each morning, where the diplomats and spooks from a dozen countries came to hang out, drink, shoot the shit, and pass along gossip.

Not Budny. He operated with non-official cover, meaning he had no diplomatic protection at the American Embassy. He went out and got his hands dirty, and the only other person in the country who knew his real status was Tom Harker, the Tbilisi chief of station. Budny felt a hundred times better knowing Poacher had his six covered.

They left the Tbilisi safe house at 0815 that morning, with Poacher behind the wheel of the green Ford Excursion, while Budny consulted materials befitting his cover—geological maps and reports concerning untapped natural gas deposits and the routes of pipelines. Budny’s cover was backstopped to a CIA-front company based in Texas.

Poacher’s cover for status was easy: he was here as Budny’s bodyguard, which wouldn’t raise eyebrows. More than a couple Western oil workers or developers have been kidnapped for ransom in the region, since many of Georgia’s natural resources, or the pipelines accessing them, lay in havens for rebels and bandits, or terrorists transiting between Chechnya and the Middle East.

Poacher even had the proper paperwork from the Georgian Interior Ministry permitting him to carry the Glock .45 he carried at his side at all times. However, the Israeli-made mini-Uzi he kept in the Excursion was less than kosher, even here. But corruption was rampant at nearly all levels of Georgian government, and Poacher carried plenty of extra cash at all times for bribes. Poacher and Bundy had already paid off a couple cops during their two weeks in-country so far, and Poacher took certain pleasure in extensively detailing each illicit transaction and payoff for the stingy bean counters back at Langley.

As Poacher negotiated Tbilisi’s twisting, winding streets, Budny gazed out his window and watched the now-familiar Old Town sights pass by. Crooked blocks of low, squat houses with red rooftops set around large courtyards. Narrow alleys. Medieval and Stalinist architecture intermixed with touches of modernity. Winding roads that twisted over and around the hills of the Trialeti mountains. The placid green surface of the Mtkvari River. Some streets were still flooded from the previous week’s flash floods. Despite the dangers in the countryside, Tbilisi remained one of the safest cities in the world, and the place popping with Western tourists.

Poacher followed an exhaustive, pre-planned surveillance detection route (SDR), looking out for Russian spooks and watchers from the Georgian security service. He drove without urgency, his eyes flicking constantly to check his mirrors, taking in everything around them. The big Excursion fit right in on Tbilisi’s streets. Every other driver had an SUV, which, given the state of Georgia’s roads and the country’s terrain, was a necessity for anyone intending to drive outside of the city.

When they ascended a particularly steep hill, Budny could see the fertile green hilltops far outside the city, mountaintops far off in the distance below a clear, blue sky. Budny thought it was going to be a beautiful day, which was generally the norm for Tbilisi. Georgia definitely was one of the more scenic countries he’d been assigned to. Even Poacher agreed.

The SDR took longer than necessary due to Tbilisi’s crowded streets, but over an hour later it came up dry. Satisfied, Poacher proceeded to deliver Budny to the meet site, the Dry Bridge Market, near the Kura River. They still arrived at the open-air marketplace over twenty minutes early, allowing them plenty of time to scope out the site on foot and collect what Poacher called atmospherics.

The market was crowded, as usual. This was where foreign tourists flocked to buy antiques, jewelry, and medieval weapons, and where locals came to buy cheap Western electronics and other goods. Many Tbilisi residents’ livelihoods depended on this market.

“Hopefully this isn’t going to be another total waste of time,” Budny thought out loud to Poacher as they passed a stall selling stringed instruments, the shopkeeper demonstrating his products to some kids from Germany. 

“Hey,” Poacher said, trying to be optimistic, “you said Mongoose set this up, and so far Mongoose has been first rate by any measure.”

“Yeah, but you know me. I like to keep expectations low, especially when something sounds too good to be true. I’ve been doing this shit a long time, Poach, and I’ve run into my share of con artists and scammers, especially in FSU.” Former Soviet Union. “I don’t know, dude. Something about this doesn’t seem right to me.”

Poacher shrugged, his eyes assessing the crowds, taking in every detail, familiarizing himself with the placement of stalls and kiosks, preparing exit routes. “We’ll see what Mongoose’s guy has to say. If it sounds like he’s full of shit, we’ll fuck off and move on. No harm done.”

Poacher was right, of course, but Budny still felt uneasy. He always trusted his instincts, which were honed by sixteen years of fieldwork. He was just annoyed that so far this entire op was shaping up to be a wild goose chase, with nothing substantive to report back to Langley.

Peter was really Piotr. He was born in Chicago thirty-seven years ago to first generation immigrants. His dad was Polish, his mother Belarusian. He attended UIC on a scholarship and took joint degrees in sociology and economics. His gift with languages and his connections to Eastern Europe caught the attention of CIA recruiters, who interviewed him and then quickly made him an offer. Fluent in Russian and Polish, the Agency ran him through case officer training at the Farm and gave him additional Turkic language courses at the Defense Department Foreign Language Center. Then they put him to work in the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact; Belarus, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine.

A few years after 9/11, when CIA desperately needed experienced ops officers in Afghanistan, Budny volunteered, and that’s where he met Poacher.

As they walked, something on a jeweler’s table caught Poacher’s eye, and he made a mental note to stop here on the way out to pick something up for Katie. She turned twenty in two months, and was spending her first year away at college, studying social justice and English literature of all things. Poacher didn’t understand any of it one bit. He’d learned not to argue with her, and he wanted to make her happy, especially after spending most of her life overseas, and then finally leaving the army just to get a divorce three months later. Now he brought something back for Katie from every country he visited, an effort to re-establish a relationship with her and keep her in his life.

 Despite the toll his work had taken on his family and personal life, Poacher still wouldn’t have traded it for a normal job if he could go back and do it again. His time in Delta, his work for the Agency, his service to his country, he knew it was his calling in life.

Poacher refocused his attention on the job at hand. He scanned the sea of heads for the red hat Mongoose’s guy was supposed to wear as a recognition signal. Budny didn’t know anything about Usman, except that the guy was an ethnic Georgian and, from Mongoose’s vague description, likely a smuggler working in and out of South Ossetia. Smugglers were a dime a dozen in the former Soviet Union, and most of them tried to earn cash on the side by peddling bullshit, especially to Western intelligence officers.

Budny’s chief priority for his assignment in Georgia was looking into reports from multiple sources about elements within Russia sending arms to Ossetian separatist rebels as part of an organized campaign to destabilize the Georgian government from within. While there had been a rise in attacks against Georgian government buildings and troops within the past few months, the report from Mongoose last week was the first Budny heard about implicit Russian involvement as a matter of official Kremlin policy. It was a juicy of intel, but Budny if something was too big, too good to be true, it always was. The tiniest, innocuous bits of information were the ones that panned out

Plus, although the Republic of Georgia was friendly with the West, CIA couldn’t rely entirely on the word of Georgia’s intelligence service. The Georgian government was always crying foul and finding evidence of a Russian-hatched conspiracy behind every corner, both as a means of securing the support of the Georgian population and to secure Western military aid and defense agreements. So CIA had to operate independently here.

Everyone had an agenda here, and Budny didn’t fully trust anyone. He’d need to press Mongoose’s source hard, with his bullshit detector amped up all the way. If the man didn’t raise any red flags, Budny knew he’d be busy the rest of the week following up, trying to verify whatever the man offered to see if he was reliable as a source or not.

Budny eventually spotted the red hat first. He gently pushed his way through the crowd and made his approach. They exchanged pass numbers, verifying each other’s identities. Poacher shadowed them, always staying within twenty feet, his Glock holstered beneath his windbreaker in easy reach, while his eyes shifted periodically off Usman to scan their surroundings for potential threats or signs of surveillance.

After a few minutes, Budny and Usman were deep in conversation, strolling along at a casual pace. Poacher noted that the former’s body language relaxed somewhat and became less guarded.  Smelling the aromas of seasoned, grilled meat emanating from a nearby kabob stand, Poacher’s stomach rumbled. He started thinking about what to grab for lunch on the way back to the safe house. One perk with operating out of this part of the world was the food, he always thought. All of it fresh and tasteful, none of that processed crap filled with cancer that came off a factory assembly line.

Less than ten minutes later, Budny and Usman parted ways. The Georgian quickly disappeared into the crowd while the CIA officer worked his way back to Poacher.

“How’d it go?” Poacher asked.

“Tough to say. He’s kinda hard to read,” Budny said.

Poacher blinked, surprised. This was a huge admission from someone whose profession and survival depended on his ability to size people up and make accurate assessments of their character, and find and exploit a person’s flaws and insecurities. Budny had helped several friends back home, in the civilian world, spot a con artist or a scam, and he was particularly adept at calling someone’s bluff.

“But he sounded legit,” Budny went on. “He didn’t come across like a fabricator to me, anyway. You can spot them a mile away. They’re always too open, too forthcoming, too smug, and dangle information that’s just a little too tantalizing, too good to be true. I’m not sure what to make of Usman, but I don’t think he’s full of a shit.”

“Maybe a plant,” Poacher suggested. Like the capitals of most Central Asian countries, Tbilisi was filled with spies from a dozen governments and private organizations. The main players here were the US, EU, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan, and, of course, oil and gas companies, as well as organized crime.  

“Maybe. I’ve set up another meet with him Tuesday. I think he’ll be worth a follow-up at the very least.”

“Oh? Did he offer you something good?”

“Maybe. He passed me a thumb drive.” Budny patted the pocket on his vest. “Said it has photos he took of Russian commandos and weapons at militant camps in South Ossetia, snuck in through the North Ossetia enclave in Russia. We’ll check it out when we get back, after we scan it for viruses or tracking software.”

“Let’s grab something to eat first, huh?” Poacher suggested over the growl of his stomach.

“You read my mind. I’ve been thinking Chanakhi all morning.” Lamb stew with potatoes, eggplant, and garlic. They’d found a good place for it just a few blocks from the safe house, and now they ate there regularly.

“KGBs?” Poacher asked. The “G” in the restaurant’s logo was composed of the Soviet hammer and sickle, with the words “still watching you” displayed underneath. A prominent sign on the tatty, rundown street café indicated that they offered knives and forks for their customers. According to local lore, this restaurant had been a favorite hangout for KGB officers back in the day, and still served Lenin’s favorite meal.

“Why not?” Budny chuckled. “I don’t see why today should be any different than the past four.”

Approaching their parked Excursion, Poacher palmed the key fob and unlocked the doors. They hopped in.

Poacher keyed the ignition and yanked the gear shift into drive. He turned the wheel around and took his foot from the brake to lightly press the accelerator. The Excursion jerked into motion. This movement proved sufficient disturbance to jar the sensitive mercury tilt switch on the device that had recently been mounted beneath the SUV’s undercarriage. The liquid mercury within the switch flowed to make contact with tiny metal electrodes, completing the device’s circuit. Less than a second later, an electrical signal was sent, detonating the half kilo of thermite-coated RDX plastic explosive. The resultant thousand-plus degree, white and orange explosion consumed the Excursion, incinerated its occupants, wiped out two occupied vehicles nearby, and killed another half dozen bystanders.

A Little Scorpion II Background

I'm over halfway through Scorpion II, and have just left off with Avery accompanying a Georgian special ops team to recon a terrorist camp in the mountains of South Ossetia. Here, Avery gets his first glimpse of his very dangerous, new adversary, Khuseyn Dimayev. 

This article offers some insight into the character's origin.

Summer Updates

I haven't updated the blog in a while, but here's the latest. For the time being publication of Cobra will be halted, for various reasons. I hope to get back to it in the future, but I really wanted to move onto something more topical and exciting, and more appealing to my slowly growing number of readers. So I moved onto the next completed outline I have ready to go and started writing last month. It's going great so far and moving along well, and the summer is shaping up to be very productive.

This book will explore the current geopolitical situation between the US and Russia. Avery and a few other familiar characters will be back. It's tentatively called Scorpion II.