Collateral (Tier One #6)

Mariupol Maritime Logistics (MML)

Covert CIA Ukrainian Operations Station

Mariupol, Ukraine

0212 Local Time

Jonah Knight cursed as he tried and failed to correctly enter the combination using the dial on the safe in his office for the fourth time. His fingers were shaking from the adrenaline. And the fear. Probably more fear than adrenaline, although the former stimulated the latter. Or was it the other way around? Regardless, his sympathetic nervous system was to blame for the hormonal cascade causing him to—

Shut up, he chastised himself. Why his brain did shit like this during times of stress, he would never understand. Mom was right . . . I should have been a doctor.

“Jonah, what do you want me to do with this stuff?” a nervous female voice asked from the doorway.

He glanced over his shoulder to find Marci Miller holding a cardboard box against her chest.

“I’m not a mind reader, Marci,” he said. “Tell me what this stuff is.”

“All the Kuznetsov transcripts,” she said, referring to the rising political activist and regional troublemaker Maksim Kuznetsov. Marci had painstakingly transcribed and translated hundreds of hours of recorded conversations between Kuznetsov and numerous Russians during the months leading up to the recently signed treaty, conversations confirming what Jonah had long suspected . . . Kuznetsov worked for the GRU.

“That’s just the print copies you have there?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Are you positive everything is on the UMBRA dumpster?”

The “UMBRA dumpster” was what he and everyone in the office had taken to calling the CIA’s confidential cloud server. Jonah had mixed feelings on the matter. On the one hand, putting shit on the cloud made things soooo much easier than having to worry about managing the integrity of local data servers and computers. On the other hand, was it really the best idea to put Amazon Web Services in charge of safeguarding the nation’s most sensitive and confidential intelligence?

“I haven’t checked today,” she said. “But last time I looked it was all there.”

“Then burn it.”

“Okay,” she said, then, “Do you want me to . . . ?”

“Yes, please,” he said, waving her over. “You know how bad I suck at these stupid fucking things.”

“It’s fine,” she said, setting the cardboard box down on his desk and kneeling beside the safe. “What’s the combo again?”

This was the little game they played every time, with her pretending she couldn’t remember the combination and him reciting it slowly like he believed her. “Thirty-seven, two, twenty-nine . . . Why I have to use this old piece of shit instead of a biometric safe—”

An explosion somewhere outside shook the windows, cutting him off and making them both flinch.

“What the hell was that?” she said, glancing up at him.

“It’s starting,” he said, as a car alarm outside began to wail, undoubtedly triggered by the shockwave from the blast. He’d always known this day would probably come, but now that it was here, he wasn’t ready for it. Photos of Russia’s little green men—so called for the lack of insignia on their green uniforms—on the streets of Mariupol had started appearing on social media this morning. The riots, led by Russian GRU agents pretending to be Ukrainian civilians—undoubtedly spearheaded by Maksim Kuznetsov—had started by late afternoon. By nightfall, Mariupol was burning.

Marci turned her attention back to the safe, and with steady fingers, finished dialing the combination and jerked the lever to open the door.

“There you go,” she said and got to her feet.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” She flashed him a brave smile, but her eyes told a different story.

“It’s going to be okay, Marci,” he said. “We’re going to close up shop and get out of here without a hitch . . . I promise.”

She met his gaze, nodded once, and jogged off.

God, I’m going to miss tapping that, he thought as he watched her disappear around the corner. Assuming they both survived this, one thing was certain: Mariupol Maritime Logistics would soon cease to exist and he and Marci would both be reassigned.

Setting up this outpost operation had been Jonah’s idea—an idea born of frustration because of the amount of surveillance and scrutiny all the players in Kiev were under. The CIA liked to piggyback its operations on the State Department’s diplomatic missions. As such, the vast majority of CIA stations were located either in or in close proximity to a US embassy. This made sense for many reasons. First, modern embassies were hardened structures, built with physical and cyber security in mind. They had a stout security presence, staffed by the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group and duly equipped to rebuff a wide range of potential threats. The other advantage to working out of the embassy was the close proximity and access to the actual diplomatic staff, including the US Ambassador—a billet with significant clout and political sway.

But in Jonah’s opinion, the embassy in Kiev was too far away from the eastern front to be of any value. To truly understand what was going on in Crimea and Donetsk, the CIA needed to have officers closer to the action. Mariupol, he’d argued, was at the epicenter when it came to Petrov’s aspirations in Ukraine. As the largest Ukrainian seaport on the Sea of Azov—and only thirty miles west of the Russian border—Mariupol was strategically significant in any annexation scenario. Popular wisdom held that if Mariupol absconded to Russia, then all of southeastern Ukraine would follow, forcing Kiev to concede its eastern coastline, and thus the entire Sea of Azov, to Moscow.

After convincing the station chief in Kiev to let him set up his own shop, Jonah and his team had been busy recruiting local assets. His focus had been threefold: one, assess and report Ukrainian separatist activities; two, identify Russian GRU agents and assets operating in southern Ukraine; and three, monitor potentially compromised public officials in Mariupol and Odessa based on their interactions, or lack thereof, with GRU-connected persons. The results had been worse than he’d expected. The GRU had deeply penetrated the local government ranks.

Jonah knelt in front of the safe and started emptying its contents. Everything went into his backpack except for the Glock 23, which he slipped into the waistband of his trousers. He zipped the main compartment closed, then turned his attention to the open notebook computer on his desk. He checked his secure email account for any updates or instructions from Kiev. Finding nothing new since the last time he’d checked, he opened the self-destruct protocol application from his desktop. After logging in, he authenticated with his sixteen-digit passcode and pressed “Enter.” A pop-up window appeared:

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO ERASE ALL DATA?

THIS ACTION CANNOT BE REVERSED.

He clicked the “Yes” button. The computer’s processors fired up and the cooling fan whirred as the machine went about the business of rendering itself into a brick. With that done, he looked around his office. For all intents and purposes, it looked like it was supposed to—the unassuming office of a small local logistics company. With a heavy sigh, he slung the backpack over his right shoulder and headed out to address his team. He had five organic CIA—three officers from clandestine services and two analysts—as well as two Ground Branch shooters who provided security. Seven souls whose lives he was responsible for, and the weight of that realization hit him for the first time.

I will not let this be my Benghazi, he told himself as he made his way to the back room where his team was shredding and incinerating documents. Despite having jury-rigged the incinerator exhaust duct into the cold air return, the atmosphere in the room was heavy with smoke. A large-screen television, sound muted, streamed live news from the streets of Mariupol. As soon as he entered the room, the frenetic activity stopped and everyone looked at him with expectant eyes.

“Where are we?” Jonah asked, his gaze going to Nathan, his unofficial second-in-command.

“All the computers are wiped, or in process, except for the one handling the external security camera feeds. We swept and sterilized the offices, and document incineration is well underway, as you can see.”

“How long until it’s done?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“All right, good,” he said, then let out a heavy exhale. “Look, everybody, here’s the deal. When we signed on for this gig, we all knew this could happen and, well, it’s happening. Troop carriers were spotted on the M14 rolling into town this morning, and there’s chatter on Twitter and VKontakte documenting the progress of Russian armor rolling south on the H-20. Last tweet I saw had a nine-MBT convoy at Volnovakha, which means that it could be here within the hour. This is the exact Russian pincer move we’ve feared. Mariupol will fall; it’s only a matter of time.”

“Then we need to get the hell outta Dodge, Jonah,” Nathan said.

“We’re going to exfil, but we’re not going to try to do it alone. The station chief is working on a plan to get us out. In the meantime, we shelter here in place.”

“By the time the bureaucrats come up with a plan, it’ll be too late. Russian tanks are en route. We need to go right fucking now, man.”

“Go where, Nathan?” Jonah said, his voice as hard as granite. “We can’t go east, because that’s Russia. We can’t go north, because that’s where the tanks are rolling. We can’t go south, because the Russians have just declared the entire Sea of Azov Russian territorial waters. So, where do you want to go?”

“Fucking west, of course!”

“And you don’t think the Russian Army stationed in Crimea is going to drive the hundred kilometers north to block the bridges in Kherson?” he fired back. “Of course they are. They will set up multiple roadblocks on the M14 and we’d have to talk our way through all of them.”

“As opposed to what, shooting our way out later? No thank you, I’ll take my chances with diplomacy and tradecraft any day. Our NOC is solid. We’ve never had any indication that Russian intelligence is onto us,” Nathan argued.

“We think that’s true, we hope it’s true, but it’s not something I’m willing to gamble all of your lives on. I’ve been assured help is on the way. We just need to hang tight until then. So, let’s finish up with the incinerator, get it cooled down and hidden, and then we can open the windows and get back to work looking like a logistics company.” When nobody said anything, he scanned their faces and said, “Okay?”

“Okay,” came several replies in unison, and everyone returned to their tasks at hand.

“Hey boss, a word?” the lead GRS guy said with a lift of his chin.

“Yeah, Brock,” Jonah said, walking over to him.

“Probably a good time to read me in on the plan?”

“Like I said, our orders are to execute Omega protocol and shelter here until the cavalry arrives.”

“Yeah, I heard that, but uh, what if the cavalry don’t show up?” the shooter said, running his tongue over his front teeth. “What then? You got a contingency plan?”

Jonah met the other man’s steely, grey-eyed stare. “Look, Brock, I get it, I do . . . you’re looking at me, thinking, ‘This dumbass is going to get us all killed because some lying bureaucrat told him to shelter in place.’ But I can assure you, I am not going to let this turn into another Benghazi. I take your expertise and your counsel seriously. If you tell me we need to relocate, then I’ll consider it.”

“And if not, then it’s up to me and Steve to hold down the fort?”

Jonah nodded.

“Awesome,” Brock said with that fatalistic sarcasm that only SOF guys could pull off. “Do we have any shooters in this crew, or is everyone baggage?”

“Nathan, Marci, and Sergei all graduated from the Farm, but Sergei is the only one you guys would consider tactically proficient. Nina and Bess are analysts.”

“What about you?”

“I can plink targets, but me on my best day couldn’t handle you on your worst,” Jonah said, telling it straight.

“I appreciate the candor, boss,” Brock said as automatic weapons fire echoed outside. “And now I’m going to return the favor. If the shit hits the fan and nobody comes for us, then we’re fucked. As a base of operations, this building and location is fine, but as far as security goes, it sucks. So, here’s what needs to happen. One, I’m going to get the van and park it at the back door. When it’s time to go, we all pile into one vehicle. Two, you’re going to fire up that sat phone of yours and inform the station chief that Russian armor is rolling into town right fucking now and see if that changes the calculus on us sheltering in place. And finally, you’re going to give your guy an alternate pickup location.” He slapped a scrap of paper in Jonah’s hand with hand-scribed lat-lon coordinates.

“What’s this place?” Jonah said, looking down at the paper, committing the digits to memory, then looking back at his head of security.

“That is a house in Nikolske that I’ve been renting for a scenario just like this,” Brock said with a tight grin. “Always be prepared. That’s my motto.”

Jonah arched an eyebrow at the operator. “Funny, I never took you for a Boy Scout, Brock,” he said.

“There’s probably a lot about me that would surprise you,” the shooter said, giving Jonah’s shoulder a squeeze. “And if we’re lucky enough to get outta here alive, maybe I’ll read you in on some of it.”