Dead fall, p.16
Dead Fall, page 16
The other issue Harvath had to contend with was exactly when, and how, to engage the Russian soldiers. He and the Ukrainians might be able to leverage the element of surprise, but once that was gone, they would be at the mercy of whatever the Russians threw at them. If Russians decided to rain down RPGs, or worse, Harvath was going to need a very good Plan B.
That was why he was intent on quickly gathering as much intelligence as possible.
He decided he’d be the one to conduct reconnaissance, taking one other soldier with him. The best English speaker was a tall, blond-haired twenty-two-year-old from Odesa named Oleh. Harvath told him to load up on extra grenades and ammo and then went to speak to the APC driver. He was leaving him in charge of everything until he got back.
Certain that the driver knew what he wanted him to do, Harvath grabbed a few extra items and then slipped out the back of the school with Oleh.
Weapons up and at the ready, they stuck to backyards, moving swiftly but carefully from the ruins of one building to the next.
However many Russians there were in the village, it wasn’t going to take them long to locate the APC. Once they had found it abandoned, there’d be a house-to-house search for its occupants. Harvath wanted to be back at the school before that happened.
His plan was to push to the town square, loop behind it, and come up the other side. That would put him in the vicinity of where the church sniper and the Russian with the RPG had been.
Like the forest with its dachas outside of Kharkiv, this area had seen some pretty heavy fighting at some point. If not for the bullet holes and bomb craters, it might have been easy to imagine that a massive tornado had swept through, flattening almost everything in its path.
Surveying the destruction, particularly the downed power lines, torn-up streets, and uninhabitable houses, Harvath couldn’t help but wonder what had become of all the inhabitants. How many had survived? Where had they gone? How would they start over?
These had not been wealthy people. Many would have had children and grandparents and pets. Judging by the debris, they had left many of their possessions behind, probably fleeing with whatever they could carry or cram into a vehicle.
He was reminded, yet again, of images of World War II—civilians fleeing the Nazis with everything they owned in a suitcase, or piled high on a wagon, maybe balanced on the back of a bicycle. It was almost surreal thinking about this happening today—in the era of smartphones, high-speed internet, and artificial intelligence. No matter how many leaps forward we took in technology and modern conveniences, war didn’t disappear. Many human beings were still nothing more than animals at their core.
It was reality, but it still pissed Harvath off. Oleh should have been at university, dreaming of graduation, and maybe thinking of a more serious commitment with his girlfriend. Instead he was carrying a rifle, picking his way through some rubble-strewn village he had probably never heard of, risking his life to push foreign invaders out of his country. Had you told him a year ago that this was where he was going to be, he might never have believed you.
But maybe he would have. The Ukrainians knew that they had a revanchist Russia on their doorstep. When nothing happened to Peshkov after his first incursion, back when Oleh was just in grade school, why wouldn’t the young man have expected the Russians to be back?
The death. The destruction. The gruesome barbarity. It was difficult to find words for. It was even tougher to wrap your head around—especially in the twenty-first century.
Harvath’s heart broke for these people. No matter how this war ended, things were never going to be the same for them.
He felt even worse for their children. No adult, much less a child, should ever be exposed to what so many of them had been forced to suffer. He had no idea how you ever fully healed from that kind of psychological and sometimes even physical trauma.
The cost of this war would continue far beyond any hoped-for cessation of hostilities. The bill would be revisited upon many of the survivors for the rest of their lives. War, without question, absolutely was hell. The Russians deserved every bad thing that was coming to them.
Pausing near the square, Harvath had Oleh radio their sniper for a SITREP. For the moment, everything was still quiet, and so they kept moving.
Scrambling over splintered timbers, piles of broken bricks, and jagged pieces of metal roofing panels, Harvath was careful where he placed his footholds. The last thing he needed was to suffer some stupid, preventable injury that would slow him down or, worse, knock him out of the fight. He had come too far and had already been through too much to allow that to happen.
Completing their hook behind the square, they were coming up along the other side of the village when Harvath spotted something up ahead and gave Oleh the signal to halt.
Adjusting the magnifier atop his suppressed rifle, Harvath peered through his optic and assessed the situation.
“What do you see?” Oleh whispered.
“Four Russian soldiers,” Harvath replied. “And they’re headed right toward us.”
The young Ukrainian was confused. “Toward us? That doesn’t make any sense. Unless—”
“Unless they’re a flanking element and the rest of their team is already headed for our APC.”
At that moment, almost in answer to their question, the sniper’s quiet voice came over the radio and Oleh translated, “Multiple Russian soldiers, moving fast, approaching from the east.”
“How many?” asked Harvath.
“Ten, maybe twelve. At least two are carrying RPGs. What do you want to do?”
Harvath would have loved to have waited until the Ukrainians back at the school had as many fish in the barrel as possible. Then, with their shots all lined up, let them be the first to fire. But that wasn’t in the cards.
Directing Oleh behind some rubble, he told him to take up a firing position and to radio two orders to the others. First, the sniper’s primary targets were the men with the RPGs. Second, neither the sniper, nor anyone else, was allowed to shoot until Harvath gave the command.
Oleh relayed the message and then confirmed that it had been received by the others. “Now what?” the young Ukrainian asked.
Preparing his magnifier for closer combat, Harvath replied, “We get ready for one hell of a gunfight.”
CHAPTER 16
There were a lot of things Harvath would have preferred—more guns, more men, a better-prepared trap—but in warfare, having the element of surprise was an advantage you never squandered. That was why he had seized the moment.
As the four Russian soldiers approached, he made ready. They were moving exactly as he and Oleh had—carefully, from building to building, optimizing their cover and concealment. There was an area coming up, an open piece of uneven ground, where they were going to be in the open and exposed. That’s where they would take them.
At the same instant, on the other side of the village, their sniper would take out the two Russian soldiers who were carrying the RPGs. Once those soldiers were down, the sniper had permission to take out any other Russians at will.
It was Harvath’s hope that the sniper fire would drive the remaining Russians toward the school, where the balance of the Ukrainian soldiers would be waiting to finish them off. A lot was going to have to go right for his plan to be successful.
Looking through his holographic sight, he gauged the distance of the four Russians closing in on them. He had no idea how good a shooter Oleh was. Because of that, he wanted to wait until they were within a hundred yards before engaging them. The only downside was that they’d mostly be through the open space and almost to cover by then.
If Harvath was lucky and if nothing went wrong, he figured he could take out two of the men. The other two were Oleh’s responsibility. He was about to see what they both were made of.
“Ready?” he asked.
Oleh nodded and snugged the butt of his weapon in tighter against his shoulder. Like his colleagues’ rifles, it was an older, Russian AK-74 with no fancy optics or attachments—just iron sights and heavily worn, wood furniture. It looked like it had been liberated from some Cold War museum.
When the AK-74 had entered service via Soviet forces in Afghanistan sometime around 1979, the CIA had been anxious to study it and had allegedly offered a $5,000 bounty for the first one captured by Afghan mujahideen forces.
Judging by the condition of Oleh’s weapon, it might have been the very same rifle. Harvath’s concern about the young Ukrainian’s ability to make not one but both of his shots was growing. That said, it was too late to change the plan. The Russians were almost in range.
They had agreed that Harvath would take the first two targets and Oleh would take the remainders.
Though the soldiers were wearing plate carriers, there was no guarantee that they had any ballistic plates inserted. Nevertheless, Harvath would be targeting vulnerable areas other than center mass. He had encouraged Oleh to take the best shots he could. The object was to take these men out of the fight by any means possible.
With the first of the Russians coming into range, Harvath waited for the second and then sent two squelch clicks over the radio, which began their five-second countdown. Applying pressure to his trigger, he exhaled and lined up his shot.
Three. Two. One. Harvath, Oleh, and the sniper on the rooftop on the other side of the village all fired at the same time.
Harvath didn’t bother waiting until his first target had hit the ground. Moving the suppressed muzzle of his weapon a fraction of an inch to the right, he exhaled and pressed the trigger again.
A couple of feet to his left, Oleh had already fired four rounds in an attempt to double-tap each of his targets.
Staying calm, Harvath inhaled and scanned the open area. Both of the targets he had engaged were down. Oleh’s targets were not only still up, but were running for cover.
Harvath sighted in on the slower of the two men, pressed his trigger, and sent a round through the base of the man’s neck, dropping him like a stone. He then canted his rifle to the side, ready to shoot the other soldier, but that Russian had already disappeared. Fuck.
“I’m sorry,” said Oleh as he and Harvath leapt to their feet. “I thought I had both of them.”
There were a million things Harvath could have said to buoy the young Ukrainian’s confidence, but now wasn’t the time.
Off in the distance, he could already hear a gun battle beginning to rage. They needed to take out their fourth Russian and then get to the school.
“Let’s go,” Harvath ordered as he signaled for Oleh to fall in behind him and began maneuvering toward the building their target had escaped into.
The young Ukrainian followed Harvath’s command, intent not to let the American down again. He made sure to keep his eyes and ears open, constantly checking their six o’clock to make sure no one was coming up on them from the rear.
Entering what must have originally been some sort of repair shop, Harvath buttonhooked left while Oleh went right. The clack, clack, clack of gunfire outside echoed through the shop’s broken windows up front and bounced off the walls.
Bits of old, rusted junk hung from the ceiling and the rough-hewn lumber shelves had been all but stripped bare. Harvath motioned for Oleh to crouch down as they each took an aisle and moved forward.
He had no idea what the Ukrainian was seeing, but the first thing that Harvath noticed in his aisle was a stream of blood. Fresh blood. Perhaps at least one of Oleh’s shots had been better placed than he had thought.
Keeping one eye on where he was going and another on the blood, Harvath advanced. Either their missing Russian had hauled ass through the shop and was already outside and on his way to reuniting with his team, or he was still inside and close. Very close.
As the hairs stood up on the back of Harvath’s neck, he was certain he had his answer.
Coming around the endcap of his aisle, he saw Oleh with a pistol to his head and the missing Russian standing right behind him.
“Drop your weapon,” the Russian ordered.
Harvath tightened his grip and began applying pressure to his trigger. He could see that the Russian’s fatigues were stained a deep crimson and that he was losing a lot of blood.
“Drop your weapon,” the Russian repeated, “or I will kill him.”
As the Russian pressed the barrel of his Vektor pistol harder against Oleh’s temple, Harvath locked in his sight picture and exhaled.
“I am not going to say it again. If you do not drop your—”
Harvath, still in a semi-crouch as he had come around the endcap, applied full pressure to his trigger and sent a round right through the cleft in the Russian’s upper lip, which exited out the top of the man’s skull. His pistol hit the shop floor only a second before his lifeless body did.
“Are you injured?” Harvath asked.
Too stunned to speak, Oleh merely shook his head.
“Good. We need to cross back over to the other side of the village. Are you with me?”
Slowly, the young man nodded.
“Okay,” said Harvath. “I’ll lead. You stay behind me. Stay close. Understand?”
Once again, Oleh slowly nodded.
Harvath snapped his fingers in the Ukrainian’s face to get his attention. “Are you all right? We good?”
The young man nodded. More with-it this time.
“On me,” Harvath ordered as he moved toward the front of the shop. Oleh followed.
Harvath opened the door, waited, and then carefully peered out. The gun battle was still going hard in the direction of the school and the APC.
As no rounds had been fired at him, he stepped fully into the open and took a wider look. All clear.
Satisfied that they were good to go, he signaled Oleh to ready his rifle and tighten up.
Once the young Ukrainian indicated that he was ready to move, Harvath gave the command and they slipped out of the shop and hustled to their first piece of cover.
They were sacrificing a little safety for a lot of speed, but it was a necessary trade-off. Harvath had no idea how many, if any, of the Russians the Ukrainian sniper had been able to pick off. What’s more, he had no idea if the rest of the Ukrainians back at the school had entered the fight, though by the sound of the gunfire, they were all fully engaged.
Moving from building to building, Harvath and Oleh arrived at an open space just before the town square. It would get them back to the school faster. With no Russians in sight, Harvath was willing to risk it.
There were two pieces of cover as they made their way across—a burned-out old Russian tank and an equally obliterated Russian APC. Their first objective was the tank.
Counting to three, Harvath sent Oleh running toward it while he covered him. Then he had the young Ukrainian return the favor. They both made it successfully to their first objective. Next was their run to the APC.
As he had before, Harvath told Oleh that he was going to count to three and cover him as he ran to the APC, at which point the young man would cover him. Oleh nodded, but seemed out of it.
Harvath snapped his fingers to get his attention once more and ordered him to focus. The Ukrainian shook it off and appeared to focus.
Using his rifle to scan for any threats, Harvath then counted to three and sent the young man running for the cover of the destroyed APC.
He waited for several seconds for Oleh to get his rifle up and to start scanning for threats. There was definitely something not right with the kid.
He finally got the young Ukrainian’s attention; Oleh signaled back that he was okay and that Harvath could make the dash to the APC.
Ready to return fire if any should come his way, Harvath ran his ass off, not exactly confident that Oleh’s head was fully in the game. He made it to the APC, however, in one piece.
“Oleh, seriously,” he said. “You need to snap out of it. We’re almost there. Can you do that for me?”
The young Ukrainian nodded, but it was another of those halfhearted nods. Harvath was worried that he wasn’t going to make it.
“We’re almost there,” he informed him. “You’ve got this. Okay?”
Once more, the Ukrainian nodded.
Harvath studied the distance from the APC to their next piece of cover. It was the longest they were going to have to be out in the open. He wasn’t exactly crazy about it, but as long as they moved fast, they should be okay.
“See where the front of that building has collapsed?” Harvath asked, pointing at their next objective. “I want you to run toward where the roof has caved in. Okay? Stay away from the window openings. Do you understand?”
The young man nodded, but that wasn’t good enough for Harvath. “Repeat it back to me.”
“Roof. Not windows,” Oleh mumbled.
It wasn’t the committed, emphatic response Harvath would have preferred, but at least he knew the kid had heard him.
“Move fast, keep your head down, and wait for me to get there,” said Harvath. This part was almost over. Once they had fully made it across, if Oleh couldn’t get his shit together, Harvath would park him someplace safe and come back for him once the dust had settled. The only thing he’d be in a firefight was a liability.
After a quick scan, Harvath reminded him to move fast and keep his head down, then counted to three and sent him running.
To his credit, the young Ukrainian moved fast. Not world-record fast, but fast enough. Just as important, he took cover where he had been told to. Now it was Harvath’s turn to cross.
But once again, Oleh wasn’t ready.
In almost any other circumstance, Harvath might have allowed him a moment to catch his breath, but they didn’t have a single second to spare. The kid needed to pull it together. Harvath signaled the Ukrainian to get his rifle up and cover him.
Readying his own rifle, Harvath was about to charge out from behind the APC when a shot rang out, kicking up a cloud of debris as it landed just next to Oleh.
Reflexively, the young man rolled away from where the bullet had landed, right toward the place Harvath had told him not to—the ruins of the open windows.
