Page 46 of The Fourth Option
He returned the clipboard without writing anything.
“I’m not big on paperwork. I’ll connect with him through Facebook. Thanks anyway.”
“Oh yeah?” the marshal said, staring intently at Walker’s face as though memorizing every detail.
“Appreciate your time,” Walker said as he turned back toward the exit.
Coming here was a mistake. The final link in a long chain of them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kabul, Afghanistan
2021
Two Months Before U.S. Withdrawal
AFTER THE SOVIEToccupation, before the Taliban swept through like a sandstorm, the Ariana Hotel had been the closest thing Kabul had to a Western outpost.
Ten stories of brown masonry, it looked more like a college dorm than a hotel, but in a city where the power grid was a suggestion and plumbing a luxury, the Ariana had become a beacon for diplomats, journalists, and spooks after the Soviet withdrawal.
When the Taliban rolled in with black flags and Kalashnikovs in 1996, the Ariana had been seized within hours. They turned it into their de facto seat of government. The bar was shuttered. The satellite dishes ripped down. The pool filled with sand.
After 9/11, the reversal was swift and surgical.
American Special Forces, working with Northern Alliance fighters, retook the city in weeks, and the Ariana was among the first objectives, with Taliban ministers slipping out the back as U.S. operators breached the front. Within days, the building was rebranded as the “U.S. Embassy Annex,” a name that meant nothing and everything. In reality, it became a CIA base of operations.
The Agency wasted no time. They set up a bar in the basement, an unofficial morale booster in a dry country. They called it the Tali-Bar, a dark joke in a war full of them. General Order Number One of the United States Central Command forbade alcohol for U.S. troops, but the CIA didn’t answer to CENTCOM. The alcohol flowed freely.
Walker found Fisk in the back corner, nursing a drink under the dim glow of a bare bulb. The walls were lined with graffiti, messages left by those passing through over the past twenty years of misadventure,including Kipling’s warning from “The Young British Soldier.” A Soviet RPG launcher was suspended from the ceiling, a scorched fragment of the Twin Towers bolted to the wall near a framed photo of the CIA team killed at Camp Chapman.
“What are you drinking?” Walker asked.
“Manhattan,” Fisk said, though his glass was nearly empty.
“Want another?”
“Better not.”
Walker ordered a Foster’s oilcan-style beer and poured it into a frosted mug. The bar was loud with operators, contractors, and case officers blowing off steam. In the next room, pool balls cracked and laughter echoed through the haze of Cuban smoke.
Fisk drained the last of his drink. “I’m headed back to Langley. Orders came through. Gave up my quarters yesterday. Can’t say I’m going to miss that container.”
Walker wasn’t surprised. Fisk would be reassigned to a desk, maybe a liaison role. Something cleaner.
“Where you headed?”
Fisk gave a tight smile, his cheeks ruddy from the bourbon. “Need to know.”
Even after serving together, Fisk maintained the divide between his job as a case officer and Walker’s as a Ground Branch paramilitary officer. Different tribes in the same war.
“We’ve got a gap coming,” Fisk said, perhaps realizing he’d sounded like a dick. “I’m recommending you take over handling duties for Mongoose.”
Walker raised an eyebrow.
He had been the one running brush passes in the bazaar, keeping eyes on the source, making sure Mongoose had not been burned. Fisk approved extra surveillance, but Walker and Staub had been doing the legwork.
“Mongoose is still viable,” Fisk said. “Langley wants to keep him in play.”
