Dead fall, p.31
Dead Fall, page 31
Harvath shook his head. He had grabbed a bottle of water and an MRE before starting his watch. He’d be good until Jacks relieved him.
* * *
When Jacks did take over, Harvath was glad to get up and stretch his legs. He mixed up some coffee and used a flameless heater to warm it up. It wasn’t piping hot, but it was better than nothing and he was glad to get a boost of caffeine.
As he drank, he did a thorough review of his gear, double-checking that all his magazines were topped up and making sure that everything else on his battle belt and his chest rig were secure.
Once that was complete, he decided to put his feet up for a bit. There was no telling what the night would bring, and the evening would soon be upon them.
Unrolling his sleeping bag in the bed of the truck, he made himself comfortable. He checked to make sure that he was still getting a good cell signal and then shut his eyes. Even with the coffee in his system, he could still slow his breathing down and get himself into a rejuvenating, meditative state. It wasn’t the same as a good solid nap, but it did have its advantages—one of them being that sometimes he did fall asleep, which was exactly what happened.
Yesterday had been a hell of a day and he hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep overnight to make up for the beatings he had been through. Oftentimes the body knew best what it needed.
He shouldn’t have been surprised and yet, when he woke up to the chime of his cell phone several hours later, he couldn’t believe how long he had been out.
Reading the message from Vesna, he hopped out of the back of the truck and said, “Heads up, everyone. The Ravens are on the move. Get your gear together. We’re leaving in five minutes.”
The good news was that the Ravens were not taking the night off. The bad news was that there had been a cell service interruption and the bush telegraph was behind in warning about the mercenaries’ movements.
This time, Harvath put Krueger behind the wheel, and he rode shotgun. He wanted to review the map and study the terrain in order to put together the best plan.
One of the options that he had considered was to simply hang back, let the Ravens strike, and then follow them back to their lair. But having seen the evil they executed when they hit a target, that struck him as morally unacceptable. It was also way too risky.
Not only might the Ravens have night-vision equipment, allowing them to pick up a tail, but they also might have lookouts along the route back, making sure no one was following them at a distance.
Though Harvath had no idea how he was going to do it, he was going to have to figure out a way to thread the needle. He needed to prevent any further loss of life and locate the hostages. At this moment, he had no clue how he was going to make that happen.
As soon as the team was loaded, Harvath opened the mill doors, waited for Krueger to pull out, and then, shutting the doors behind them, climbed into the Novator and they headed out.
He plugged his phone into the charging port and kept everyone apprised of Vesna’s updates.
His hope that the first village to send in a report might give them a fix on the Ravens’ safe house was a bust. From what he was able to gather, the Ravens varied their routes. Villagers never saw them two days in a row.
From a security standpoint, it was smart of them to vary their routes. And from a looting perspective, you’d want to be rolling through fresh towns and villages every time you went out.
The good thing was that by Vesna reaching out, up and down the bush telegraph, the inhabitants in the area knew that as soon as they heard the Ravens were coming, it was imperative they flee. They could not wait. While the Ravens might drive straight through a village without stopping, there was no way to know for certain. The only certainty was that not moving meant death. Harvath instructed Krueger to drive faster.
As the man drove, Harvath used the Signal app to send Nicholas a message. There was no text, just a pin, dropped on a digital map of where he believed the Ravens were headed. Nicholas would know what it meant.
Nobody in the vehicle spoke. All of the men had their game faces on. There was the occasional rattle of equipment as weapons were checked or gear was repositioned, but other than that, silence. The only time any words were exchanged was when Harvath gave driving instructions to Krueger and Krueger confirmed them.
The area was a patchwork of farmers’ fields studded with strips of heavily wooded forest. It reminded Harvath of places he had seen in Germany and Switzerland—both rugged and beautiful.
With the purple light of twilight turning into the blue-black sky of evening, Harvath checked his watch. Like vampires descending from the clouds, the Ravens would be entering the village at any moment. He and his team would be at least ten minutes behind. He just prayed that the locals had heeded Vesna’s warning.
As the road dipped into a small valley, the ribbon of asphalt began to wind back and forth just like his map showed. What the map hadn’t reflected, however, was how thick the trees were. Along with the turns, they made it difficult to see what was up ahead.
Nearing the village, Harvath cautioned Krueger to slow down. There was a dirt road that cut through the forest, and he didn’t want to miss it. It would allow them to loop around and come up behind the Ravens. It was also going to be their escape route and it was important to confirm that it was devoid of any obstructions.
When they found the road, they took it and headed into the trees. It was a bit overgrown, but in relatively good shape.
Because the Novator was a diesel, it wasn’t the quietest, most stealthy vehicle. They were only going to be able to risk getting so close to the village before having to get out and proceed the rest of the way on foot. Harvath had decided both where the truck would stop, and who would remain behind with it.
Biscuit wasn’t crazy about being left behind, but he understood why it was necessary. If the team needed an extraction, he was going to be the one to do it.
As the truck came equipped with night-vision tech, Harvath swapped his thermal device for Biscuit’s night-vision goggles.
Once they were mounted to his helmet, the team did a quick radio check and, with Biscuit keeping an eye on the Novator, struck off for the village.
They moved soundlessly through the forest, weapons ready. Just before the end of the road, they stepped fully into the trees and crept to a position where they could get their first look at the village.
It was a mixture of stone buildings and wooden houses organized across a hodgepodge of crooked streets. There was a church with a small, domed steeple, as well as a tiny square built around a communal well. Standing at the entrance to the village was an old Russian 4x4 military jeep known as a Tigr. Four Raven guards leaned against it with their rifles slung over their shoulders. They were smoking and chewing the fat. They were also doing something else—passing a bottle of vodka back and forth. No one was keeping an eye out for trouble. Harvath now knew exactly what he wanted to do and quickly laid out his plan.
From what he could see, the village was empty of inhabitants. There were no lights, and no smoke rose from any of the chimneys. Apparently, they had taken the warning seriously and had gotten out in time. That gave Harvath and his team one less thing to worry about.
Continuing to use the trees to conceal their presence, they moved parallel to the village.
At a narrow strip of farmer’s field, they stepped out of the forest and moved as quickly as they could to the closest village building. In the distance, they could hear the other Raven vehicles, the cargo trucks and the Humvees, as they carried out their operation.
Pressing themselves up against the wooden structure, Harvath gave the signal for the team to split up. Hookah and Krueger would continue around the back of the buildings and Harvath and Jacks would go up the front.
It was the one facet of the scenario Harvath hadn’t been able to visualize until he was physically on scene. The placement of the guards at each end of the village had been meant to fend off any external threats. None of the Ravens had anticipated trouble from inside—at least not anything they couldn’t handle via the .50-cals atop their two Humvees.
Harvath and Jacks covered each other as they scrambled from building to building.
When they were within striking distance of the guards, they took a fraction of a second to catch their breath. Then Harvath double-clicked the transmit button on his radio.
As soon as Hookah double-clicked his in response, Harvath counted down from five and gave the “Go” command.
He and Jacks then crept from their hiding spot and popped up from behind the jeep.
“Ne dvigaysya,” he ordered, taking the guards completely by surprise. Don’t move.
Startled, the men did move and tried to back away from him. That’s when Hookah and Krueger appeared around the front of the jeep, their weapons pointed right at the men.
When one of the Ravens reached for his radio, Jacks butt-stroked him with his rifle, knocking him to the ground, unconscious. Slowly, the other three men raised their hands in surrender.
As Jacks stood guard, Hookah and Krueger disarmed and secured the prisoners while Harvath stripped them of their radios and patted them down for any other weapons.
“What are we going to do with them?” asked Krueger.
“Throw them in the back of the jeep,” Harvath replied. “We’ll drive them out of here and make it look like they went AWOL. I’ll let Biscuit know we’re headed his way.”
Moving back to the rear of the jeep, he dropped the vehicle’s tailgate and saw something he hadn’t noticed a moment ago when making sure no one else was inside—two RPG-26 antitank shoulder-fired missiles. “Change of plans,” he immediately told his team.
Grabbing the RPGs, he handed one to Jacks and helped load the prisoners as he rattled off a quick list of instructions.
“Good copy?” he then asked.
“Good copy,” Hookah replied.
“Ooh-rah,” said Krueger.
As they fired up the jeep and drove off with the four Ravens, Harvath and Jacks headed back into the village. They had a chance to level the playing field a little bit. It was time to go hunting.
Subtlety was no longer on Harvath’s agenda. He wanted to deliver the biggest blow he could. To do that, he needed to take out the Humvees. Because of the crooked streets, they were going to have to get pretty close to do it. They were also going to have to split up.
According to Harvath’s list, a home in the village was hiding 2,300-year-old gold artifacts from the Scythian empire, dating back to the fourth century BC. It was one of the reasons he had reached out to Nicholas. In case Vesna’s warning didn’t make it through, or if the person responsible for safeguarding the items was suspicious, someone in the Ukrainian command structure could warn them.
With the house empty, there was no one to torture into revealing the location of the artifacts. The Ravens would be reduced to tearing the place apart brick by brick. The Humvee pulling security at that location was the one Harvath would take out. Jacks would hit the one covering the Ravens who were looting the other properties in the village. They went as far as they could together and then they split up.
With the RPG slung across his back, Harvath hopped fences and ran through yards, stopping every couple of houses to use his ears to triangulate on his target.
Finally, he found it, and once he did, he radioed the team. “Norseman in position.”
Up ahead he could see the Humvee, its gunner standing in the turret, as well as the cargo truck, which, to his delight, was positioned nearby.
A few moments later, Jacks came over the radio with his confirmation: “Jacks in position.”
All they were waiting for now was for their other team members to be in position. The Novator and the jeep were key to pulling off the rest of the operation.
The radio squawked, “Hookah en route,” followed by “Biscuit en route.”
A minute later they heard “Biscuit in position.”
Then Hookah’s voice came back again: “Hookah, fifteen seconds out. Send it.”
“Roger that,” said Harvath. “Jacks, you’re cleared hot. I’ll see you at the pickup.”
“Jacks is cleared hot. Roger that. See you on the other side,” the Brit replied.
Unslinging the RPG, Harvath prepped the disposable launcher, flipped up the sighting device, and sighted in his target.
He waited until he heard Jacks’s RPG launch and then he fired his own. Depressing the firing mechanism, there was a loud bang as the rocket exited the launcher, the switchblade-like fin stabilizers popped out, and it screamed toward the Humvee.
The explosion was the equivalent of being hit by six and a half pounds of TNT. Shrapnel was sent in all directions, including into the cargo truck.
Before the last pieces had hit the ground, Harvath was already up on his feet and running.
He didn’t stop until he reached the entrance to the village. There, Hookah had replaced the Russian jeep right where they had found it. The four Ravens were now lying hooded and hog-tied in the bed of the Novator, which was idling in the center of the road, waiting for him.
Jacks, who was right on Harvath’s heels, arrived and hopped into the truck. Hookah and Harvath then removed frag grenades, pulled the pins, and pitched them into the jeep.
Whether the rest of the Ravens were going to hang around long enough to investigate what had happened or, believing they were under attack, would take off, Harvath wanted to add as much uncertainty as possible to what had happened to his four prisoners.
He and Hookah made it to the Novator and shut the doors just as the frags detonated.
As the Russian jeep exploded in a massive fireball, Biscuit hit the gas and they disappeared back into the forest.
CHAPTER 32
KYIV
Nicholas felt as if he had let Harvath down. No matter how hard he had tried to get Kozar to share the information with him, the Ukrainian Intelligence officer wouldn’t budge. “Some things are too precious,” the man had said. “Too sensitive.”
Of course, the man was correct. In war, intelligence was as indispensable as bombs and bullets. The lengths that the United States and its allies had gone to keep the D-Day invasion secret were extraordinary. The operation itself was shrouded in a thick mist of half-truths and outright lies. In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the disinformation campaign had taken almost as much time, money, and manpower as the planning of the actual event.
Great Britain had been shot through with spies. The ability of the enemy to penetrate its intelligence services and other critical wartime efforts was astounding. Nicholas could only imagine how little sleep counterintelligence chiefs got during the war.
But if the Brits knew one thing, it was how to ferret out moles and other enemy operatives. It was often by very clever, yet very simple means. Their record wasn’t perfect, but in the end Hitler and the Axis powers had been defeated.
One of his favorite counterintelligence operations was called the Double-Cross System, or the XX System for short. It was a program by which captured Nazi spies, or those who had voluntarily surrendered, were used to transmit false information back to their German handlers. Interdicting fresh spies was made even easier once the Brits had broken the Nazi encryption machine known as Enigma.
The idea of using spies against their controllers appealed to Nicholas. There was something poetic about turning a dagger around and plunging it into the unsuspecting heart of the person who had intended to use it against you.
But in the wilderness of mirrors, as the espionage game had been dubbed, crosses and double crosses could be quite dangerous. In his estimation, the simplest, most straightforward operations were always the best.
Tonight he was going to present to the GUR’s digital unit another case study in hacking and utilization of the electronic dark arts against the Russians. Codenamed “Fortitude,” this operation had been inspired by the Double-Cross System back in World War II.
As he sat at his desk, preparing the slides for his presentation, he saw the dogs perk up and then heard a knock at his door. It was Yulia.
“Hungry?” she asked, holding a pizza box.
“That’s what the cafeteria is serving tonight?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I have to take a break from that food every once in a while. I’m all for patriotism, but it’s like being force-fed by my grandmother.”
The little man smiled. He had a sophisticated palate and very expensive taste, but anyone who said they didn’t like a good slice of pizza every now and again was a liar.
Clearing a space on his desk, he said, “What did you get and where did you get it?”
“It’s a place called Napule,” she replied, setting the box down and giving the dogs a little attention. “They call this pizza ‘a cafona.’ It has tuna, onion, tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil.”
Tuna on pizza was a very European thing. He could remember asking for it at a pizzeria in the United States and how the room had gone absolutely silent. Everyone had looked at him like he was some sort of a monster. They had no idea what they were missing.
“In the middle of a war, I’m stunned that Kyiv has pizza to go.”
“Life goes on,” she responded, pulling a bottle of Chianti out of her backpack. “Even in the middle of a war.”
“Are you allowed to bring alcohol into the office?”
She smiled. “Nope.”
Nicholas smiled back. “This is all very nice of you. Thank you.”
“Consider it Ukrainian hospitality. Except to exercise the dogs, you never leave the building. You work with our digital people all day and then give an evening lecture. If you’re going to keep these hours, this is the least we can do to repay you.”
Opening the wine, she produced two paper cups, filled them, and then, raising hers, said, “Cheers.”
Nicholas tapped his against hers and replied, “Cheers.”
After they had taken a sip and had each helped themselves to a slice of pizza, she asked, “What are we going to learn about tonight?”
