regular transparent attempts to make us believe they are abiding by the rules of international law. However, this colonel served only five months for the murder and torture of Chechen civilians in Russia’s last war there. His release was kept secret from everybody. But one of our senior analysts and field personnel recognised him.”
“You mean Resnikov,” Pasconi demanded.
“I can’t reveal who,” Logan said. But everyone around the table knew that only Anna Resnikov would be able to recognise a colonel in the
“What else?” Pasconi said, evidently unwilling to be denied an answer a second time.
“Burt Miller is setting up an operation on the ground with the intention of intercepting one of these border smuggling operations.”
“Resnikov again,” one of the terriers said triumphantly.
Logan looked at the young officer with pitying contempt. “So you have a tongue that doesn’t just hang out,” he replied, and received an evil look in return. Then he turned back to Pasconi.
“We hope to have evidence from on the ground in the next two weeks,” Logan continued. “In view of any terrorist implications, Cougar is requesting that the CIA offers its help. But with or without your help, we believe the Russians are preparing something from across their border with Ukraine.” He leaned in now. “The background to this leads in one direction only, Miller believes. For years the Kremlin has been interfering with oil and gas supplies that have to come through Ukraine before they can get to Western Europe. Threatening western European energy supplies, in other words. On top of that—and in another theatre of their Ukrainian operations entirely—there are tensions in the south, mainly in and around the Crimea. These tensions are deliberately being raised by Russian actions on the ground. The Russians’ provocation of the Ukrainian border police there, and even the Ukrainian military, is on the rise. Russian foreign intelligence teams have been on the increase in this southern sector, too. While this is going on, up in the northeast of the country—in the Donetsk region—there are reports of weapons caches and planned artificial labour strikes. Some of these reports suggest that these preparations are being made in order to disguise an armed uprising against the government in Kiev. A labour strike followed by a ‘spontaneous’ armed rebellion.” He paused to let this sink in. “It seems the Russians are throwing a bewildering number of different strategies at Ukraine in order to destabilise the country.” Then he dropped his voice so that the two terriers in black suits had to lean closer from the end of the table to hear him. This was his coup de grace, and it was the real reason Burt had called the meeting together this evening. This is what they really
Logan sat back slightly in his chair and casually watched the reaction of the group that sat around him at the table. He could see immediately that he had hit his mark dead on. As Burt had anticipated, it was a bull’s-eye.
It was undoubtedly known to the agency’s Kiev station that the Ukraine’s semiautonomous territory of the Crimean peninsula, which jutted out into the Black Sea, was a region of seething discontent. In fact, that was common knowledge in the media whenever newspaper editors applied their desiccated attention to the subject. As with most of the current problems in the former Soviet Union, the Crimea’s problems dated from Stalin’s time. Hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars had been deported in 1945. Then, since 1991, a quarter of a million of them had returned. The Tatars were Muslims, not extreme Muslims and not even all practising ones, that was true. But they were Muslims, nevertheless. The building of mosques and madrasahs on the peninsula had increased tenfold in the past few years. Burt had briefed him—though God knows on the basis of what information—that the region was ripe for trouble from various different quarters: Russians with their military and empire-building interests in the region; a restless, growing, and politically marginalised Muslim population; and a general desire for Crimean self-rule, apart from Ukraine, among its pro-Russian population.
At some point in the pause that followed Logan’s final remarks, MacLeod finally looked up and back into Logan’s eyes, which hadn’t left him.
However they treat you at first, Burt had told Logan, once you introduce the words “al Qaeda,” you’ll have their attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Just plant the seed. “But is it true?” Logan had asked him. “I said it doesn’t matter,” Burt had replied, rather testily for him, and Logan was none the wiser.
“What group do your intelligence reports point to?” Pasconi asked disbelievingly.
“Qubaq,” Logan replied.
“They’re a nonviolent Islamic organisation,” she shot back at him immediately. “They’ve never committed a single attack.”
“Exactly,” Logan replied. “The perfect peaceable Islamic organisation. Something in the West we should be courting, but alas we haven’t been. And something the embassy and the CIA have consequently taken their eyes from.”
MacLeod’s face growled back at Logan. And now he could no longer remain aloof. The idea that the station in Kiev wasn’t doing its job properly was too much for him. “Kind of reverse logic, isn’t it, Halloran?” he said acidly. “Because someone has done nothing fundamentally wrong, then they must be on a suspicion list.”
Logan didn’t hesitate this time. “I think the point is, Sam, that the Qubaq supports others who do perform terrorist acts,” he said, knowing that the use of the station head’s first name would rile him more. “That’s the question. If someone supports terrorist acts, even tacitly, then they’re complicit. That’s the dictum. Qubaq also supports the reestablishment of the Caliphate, sharia law, a unified Muslim world. The question is, surely, what are they doing promoting radical Islamic culture in a secular country? Ukraine isn’t the northern Caucasus. It’s an Orthodox Christian country.”
But Logan could see the Pavlovian reaction he was getting simply from the mention of an Islamic group that Cougar believed came under some suspicion. The CIA will take it from there, Burt had said. All you have to do is cast suspicion. The last thing the CIA dares risk is to be upstaged by a private intelligence company, let alone ignore a potential terrorist group. Once we reel them in, we can use their resources and direct the play.
Logan continued now, confident that finally he had broken down their refusal to listen. This was the final play of the evening. “We are receiving information that funding for Qubaq is coming from the Centre in Moscow, right from Department S, in fact. It’s coming from the very top of Russia’s foreign intelligence operations, in other words. We also have information that Russia’s military intelligence, in the form of the GRU, is actually now recruiting agents from within the Qubaq group. It’s common knowledge that the GRU and Department S recruited Muslims in Chechnya and other parts of the northern Caucasus, not to mention the Middle East. It’s a potent combination, Burt Miller thinks—Russian foreign intelligence and a radical Muslim group with a clean record.”
“Evidence?” Pasconi demanded.
“Page eleven,” Logan replied and at last the four CIA employees opened their files.
The initial part of the thesis was Anna’s. She had seen the training of foreigners, and particularly radical Muslims, firsthand when she’d been at the Forest. The thesis began with a history of the KGB’s and, specifically, Department S’s involvement in the training of foreigners—in this case Muslims—to commit terrorist acts back in their own countries. Then it narrowed down into an account of Muslims being trained at the Forest, outside Moscow, to commit terrorist acts specifically in Western countries deemed hostile by the Kremlin. Finally, it was brought up to the present day with several of Cougar’s inside agents’ accounts from Russia of how this training continued to be performed in the highly secret “Foreigners’ Area” of the Russian intelligence services outside Moscow at Balashiha-2. One such trainee had been abducted by Cougar’s heavy-boot brigade in Jordan and had given much interesting insight into the methods and purpose of such KGB training. This man was now under lock and key in one of Cougar’s private military bases in the United States. The report didn’t mention what kind of pressure the abducted man had been put under in order to get him to reveal the information.
Pasconi was reading avidly, looking for objections. “No mention of Qubaq here,” Pasconi said, looking up from the report.
This was always going to be the most difficult moment for Logan to pull off. Burt had refused to put the name in writing. Logan found that disturbing. Did the group really have a connection, Logan wondered, or was Burt just unsure? And why, anyway, did Burt want the CIA’s resources? Cougar had more than enough of its own. Normally, in fact, Burt strained to keep the CIA at arm’s length from Cougar’s operations. This was evidently one of Burt’s long and opaque games, and he hadn’t given Logan any more information than was in the file and in his personal briefing to Logan.
“There’s hearsay, there’s rumour, there’s suggestion, and, finally, there’s the record of the KGB’s activities in
