Shadow wars, p.35
Shadow Wars, page 35
“No joyride, Carl. You were out of contact when we needed to stay in touch.”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t have been if our esteemed partners hadn’t scared me.”
“Then perhaps you’ve experienced the same feeling as I have. That Malik is acting like a loose cannon.”
“That’s an Americanism I like. You’re absolutely correct. And what do you think about your ambassador in Prague?”
“Wallace is a man of ideas, not a man of action,” Smith answered. “Do you like that, too?”
“Let’s not play games, Norman. We’ve both come to that conclusion the hard way.”
“Where is Wallace’s daughter?”
Halder jerked his head toward the door. “In there. She’s displaying a very ugly temperament. Tough girl. She probably should have been the ambassador instead of her father.”
“I wouldn’t call this a very safe place for her after that little display of firepower down at the lake. Wallace wouldn’t be happy.”
The methods he employed didn’t concern Halder. “Do you have any idea why someone would be following you? Teupitz is a dead place this time of year. I couldn’t imagine why you were there, even less why someone was trailing you.”
“Forget the innuendo, Carl. I was on top of everything until I got to the cottage at the lake and saw you weren’t there. The car that followed me was going the opposite way the last time I noticed it. It must have turned around and followed me. I guess I was dreaming until that damn Havoc of yours appeared in front of me.”
“I sent someone else down to the lake after we left to make sure there weren’t any survivors. Hopefully they might find out who it was before the police found them. But apparently someone survived. There was some sort of trail. My unit hasn’t reported back, which isn’t good. So much for sitting back and watching. I’ve got a bad feeling, Norman. Someone’s interested in us,” he said with an unusual sense of urgency. “I just sent out an armed vehicle and a couple of snowmobiles to check out another disturbance a few kilometers south of here.” He shook his head with frustration. “For a run-down town and a lost airfield, we seem to be attracting some attention.”
Smith could sense Halder’s discomfort and was slightly surprised. “Can we sit down somewhere? It’s been a long day.”
“I’d rather leave Miss Ellyson alone in there. Your face may still be too familiar with Americans. There’s some coffee over there.” His eyes shifted nervously around the large room before he nodded toward the back of the hangar where there was a table and some chairs.
Smith sniffed his coffee, then sipped it cautiously. “I remember a time in Vietnam that scared the living shit out of me because I was about to buy it and I could see it coming … and I couldn’t do anything about it. I don’t feel that way this time,” he added calmly.
“Are you aware of what our partners are saying over unsecure lines to each other while the world is coming apart around their ears?”
Smith nodded. “I’m nervous about the Russians. Anyone who trusts them is crazy.” He stopped and smiled at Halder. “Imagine me saying that when I want to get them back to their old, normal, shitty ways.”
Halder actually laughed. “I’ve had to work with them ever since I joined the Stasi, especially with the KGB. I guess I trusted General Raskova more than Malik. Malik’s the one who’s claimed he could win a nuclear war.”
Smith sipped the coffee, then took a mouthful. “The real reason I’m here now, Carl, is because it was impossible to sit down in Nice and be satisfied reading the papers and watching the news on television. I convinced myself you might need help. We discussed this before and some of the weaknesses we anticipated seem to be surfacing.” He smiled knowingly. “It’s not easy to coordinate what you’re doing when you have to worry about Wallace and Arkady.”
“That’s why I—we, now, I guess—have Wallace’s daughter here. Before this is over, they just may fuck things up, Norman. We may not be able to control Malik if he gets himself in trouble, but we have Wallace by the balls.”
Berlin Control warned the pilot that the transport was beyond the easternmost extent of its holding pattern at approximately the same time SEAL Team Six jumped from the ramp in the rear of the C-130. One by one, just seconds apart, starting with Holloway and ending with Chance, they launched themselves into the cold black sky just a second apart. They were outfitted in combat vests and white outfits insulated against the cold. They carried an assortment of personal weapons—Smith & Wesson suppressed 9mm automatics, Heckler and Koch and MAC-10 submachine guns, two Steyr SSG sniper rifles, shotguns, stun grenades, and 9mm Beretta or .357 Magnum handguns.
They glided sightlessly, too high yet to identify places on the ground, guided by compasses, altimeters, their watches, and tiny lights attached to each helmet. The only sound was the wind whistling faintly through the shrouds and an occasional course correction from Holloway over the voice communication system, Motorola walkie-talkies with lip mikes and earpieces.
“I have what appears to be an airfield north of you,” Chance said. “Not too well lit, some camouflage, but I can make out two plowed runways and helos on deck. Over.”
“That’s got to be our target,” Ryng answered. “That’s been reported as a dead airfield for a couple of years. Over.” Their descent was gradual, an extended glide, timed to bring them down to about three thousand feet as they neared Bernie Ryng’s position. The Black Hawk’s crew chief came on the circuit to report his position in relation to the landing zone. He was almost exactly where he and Ryng had anticipated as he lit off the directional flare on Chance’s command.
“Will correct to pass over you,” Holloway reported. “Then turn into the wind for landing. Will advise if I want a flare. Do you …?” Holloway stopped in the middle of his transmission. “I have lights below headed your way. Do you have friendlies in your vicinity?”
“Negative,” Ryng answered. “I had problems with a Havoc and snowmobiles. Are your lights in the air or on the surface and how many?”
“There’s reflection from the snow. Must be the surface. Two are traversing what could be some woods and open fields, probably your snowmobiles again. I’ve also got one that was tracking due south, then turned in your direction. Must be following a road.”
Ryng imagined himself floating down in a parachute, as he had so many times, then imagined automatic weapons shooting up at him, helpless as he attempted to control his landing. “We’re not going to light off these flares. We’re going after our visitors before they have a chance to see you.
So you’re going to have to use your imagination. I’ve got a helo here I’m sending airborne to check out whatever we have on the road. That ought to get their attention. My two Marine recon will slow down the snowmobiles until you’re on the ground.”
“Understand your concern. We’ll drop in on you a little sooner than intended for backup.”
While the KGB may have been divided in its loyalties, no one from the outside was foolish enough to interfere with its senior officials, and particularly Viktor Shaporin. As a highly decorated general and head of the KGB’s Hostage Rescue Unit, he retained the respect of men on both sides of the fence. Since he wouldn’t be bothered within the confines of the headquarters building where he also maintained an office, that was where he chose to bring Paul Voronov. Sergei Markov was quite safe in his command center and was as much in charge there as he had been in his Kremlin office. Ostensibly, the meeting was to coordinate their plans, but it was also a method of protecting Voronov. After Malik’s attempt to kill him on the drive back from Sheremetyevo, which had been confirmed by Shaporin’s intelligence group, even Voronov was forced to admit that he was extremely vulnerable. But he also believed that they had to make one final bold move to ensure Sergei Markov’s safety. Convincing Shaporin was another matter.
“You know,” Shaporin began, “I still have a difficult time accepting that I may be safer with these Americans than with my own people. After all these years,” he concluded, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “it just doesn’t seem right.”
Voronov smiled sadly. “I’m no different. But I’ve fought against the Americans and you haven’t. Imagine how I felt. I was ordered—no, I guess Markov requested, although it would have been an order,” he decided, “to establish contact with the man I hated most.”
“We live in a fishbowl. The world keeps changing around us. I never thought I’d almost be a hostage within my own office. Now you want to convince me to kidnap Arkady Malik.” He grinned ruefully. “I remember in my early days that the KGB used to take people in the middle of the night and no one would ever hear of them again. Then Sergei Markov vowed to change all that. Whether or not they wanted to, my compatriots, or most of them, changed, too. Now, you want to turn back the clock by doing exactly what Markov stands against, and do it in his name. Actually, this would be the second time. You did the same to Raskova.”
“There are so many people, both the military and KGB, who are waiting for a reason to make a choice—continue with the hazards of the new way or return to the horrors of the old. The loss of General Raskova made a big difference, especially to Malik. He tipped his hand. If Malik disappears, how do they all make their choice?”
“He has more people behind him than Markov,” Shaporin said. “But none are as strong as Markov. He’s our balance. What bothers me most is that I still don’t know who controls Malik. They don’t seem to be in this country. Remember that Raskova was taking orders from someone in France. Until he talked, we weren’t sure who we were after.” He wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully. “I’m sure he and Malik had the same boss.”
Shaporin nodded.
“If I’m wrong, we’re in no worse shape.”
“True.”
“I’d like to use my men,” Voronov said. “But I guess yours are more experienced in something like this.”
“You are assuming I agree to go ahead with this wild idea.”
Voronov raised his eyebrows in anticipation. “My best men are protecting Sergei Markov.”
Shaporin studied his right hand as he rolled a pencil expertly from his index finger to his little finger, then back again. “You agree that my people are more qualified to walk into Malik’s headquarters and ask if he’d like to join them for a little picnic.”
Voronov smiled. “If that’s how you’d like to explain it. I like to feel that my men are trained to kill everyone. Yours are trained to protect the ones you want to save while they kill off the rest. To be honest, a live Malik is to our advantage. As long as we can prove he’s not dead, Sergei Markov might just have the odds on his side. If Malik’s supporters understand that we have their leader in custody, I suspect they might quickly profess their undying support of President Markov.”
“All that’s required is to remove the rabid lion from the lion’s well-protected den against his will.”
Ellyson forced himself to slow down as he neared Fürstenwalde. The snow had become deeper, piled higher on the road sides, and the countryside was dark and flat and ominous. There was black ice on the road. Once he skidded on a corner and bounced off a snowbank.
He’d been to Fürstenwalde only once in the past. It had been summer then and the fields were deep in grain. Now there was nothing visible to identify. He relied on his map to get him to the Fürstenwalde turnoff and his memory for the secondary roads. He passed a dirt road that he was supposed to take and had to turn around a hundred yards down the road.
He squinted in a futile effort to pick out the lights he assumed would mark the tiny airport. Nothing. Was he supposed to take another turn? Maybe … maybe a left…
Ellyson was searching off to the left when the blackness of the night was shattered by a machine-gun burst just a few hundred yards ahead. Tracers streamed into the night sky. They were answered in an instant by a return fire from the sky that seemed destined for Ellyson’s car. He jammed his foot down on the brake, sliding sideways into the snow on the roadside.
Now the night was lit by gunfire. Ellyson could see the vague outline of a helicopter swinging through the sky followed by the tracers from the ground. A stream of flame erupted from either side of the helicopter as rockets raced toward their target. Their explosion ahead illuminated a military vehicle with a large gun on the back that fired without letup even after the rockets burst ahead.
The helo swung in a large circle almost over Ellyson’s car, painting it briefly with a spotlight as it passed over. He rolled off the seat, cowering on the floor as the bird roared away, guns chattering, for another run on the vehicle ahead.
The noise was deafening until the interior of the car suddenly seemed to burst into daylight. The light faded slightly, then expanded. Ellyson peered over the dashboard and saw that the helicopter was a mass of flame. The fuselage swung from one side to the other, then began to turn in circles, finally banking off to the left and diving. The darkened countryside flashed into relief as the helicopter exploded. Tracers from the armored vehicle ahead continued to rip into the flames for another few seconds.
Ellyson, terror-stricken, had remembered to turn off the car lights and now sat slumped behind the wheel, eyes riveted to the fuel-fed flames. Then he caught the outline of a road ahead to his left no more than fifty yards away. It was between him and the machine gun. That had to be the road into the airport. Safety! He turned the key. Nothing. Then he looked down and saw that the car was still in gear, stalled against the snowbank. He slid it into neutral, started the engine, and crept down to the turnoff. Once he was on the road, he pressed the gas pedal to the floor, racing to put as much distance as possible between himself and that machine gun. But there were no bullets ripping into his car. When he looked back, he could see the lights of the armored car moving in the opposite direction.
The Marine scrunched down into the snow wishing mightily that he had his white winter uniform. There was nothing to hide behind but the snow he’d pushed up in front of himself. The snowmobile engine grew louder with each breath as he peered over his little snowbank, the sights of his automatic rifle fixed on the machine’s light. The driver slowed down as he drew closer. Except for the light, there was nothing else that could be seen.
“What’s yours doing?” he whispered into his lip mike. “Circling out to my right a little.”
“Can you see how many are on board?”
“Too dark.”
“I’m going to shoot when they come out of a small dip about twenty yards ahead of me.”
“Jesus, tell me before you do. I don’t want to give this guy the advantage.”
There was a slight pause. “About ten seconds …”
“Can’t you wait? Mine’s still too far to be sure …”
“Shit. He’s speeding up. I gotta …”
He squeezed the trigger. The light on the front of the snowmobile shattered as 9mm slugs ripped into the machine. It careened wildly to the left, up on one ski, as he depressed the trigger a second time. He thought he saw a body fly in one direction as the snowmobile tumbled over in a cloud of snow.
Automatically, he rolled a few yards to one side, then scrambled another couple on his elbows and knees before falling to his belly again. There was no sound in front of him. As he slid another clip into place, he heard the familiar sound of a similar automatic open up on the opposite side of the field. But this one was answered by a distinctly different kind of gun. There was a steady chatter of automatic weapons, then silence.
“You okay?” he asked hesitantly.
Another round of fire from a foreign weapon rattled across the field.
“Bobby, you okay?”
Silence.
“Shit!”
He studied the area ahead of him. The snowmobile lay quietly on its side. There was no movement around it. A still form lay ten yards to the other side.
A warning voice came through his earpiece. “Stay right where you are. My guys in the air could see the firing on both sides.” It was Ryng. “Don’t move until they’re all down and I can identify you or you won’t have a chance.”
The Marine looked over his shoulder. Whitish forms were already moving across the white space behind him. He watched with a combination of fear and fascination as others dropped onto the field, broke away from their harnesses, and moved automatically into a defensive firing position as though they’d planned it all beforehand.
They had!
Holloway’s SEAL Team Six detachment was in place.
17
Meltdown
“Six, you may have at least one live target to your right,” Ryng cautioned. “Automatic weapon.”
“One of those we saw from the air?” Holloway asked.
“Affirmative. Snowmobile. May have been hit, no light, no engine noise currently. But my Marine on that flank’s down.”
“There were two of them from the air,” Chance added. “The other was taken out.”
“I’ve got two of my men on the way to take out the weapon to my right. Was that our bird that went down?” Holloway asked.
“Affirmative. I also need two of your men back here to take out the heavy machine gun that brought it down. We can’t move easily until we’ve neutralized it.”
There was a burst of automatic fire near the far side of the field to Ryng’s right. Then the night was briefly lit up by two sharp explosions, followed by the chatter of automatic weapons. Silence followed.
Then Holloway’s voice came over the net. “There were two of them. My front’s secure.”
Two SEALs in white combat outfits, stark against the snow, materialized by Ryng. He pointed down the dirt road where headlights had just blinked out at the sound of the weapons across the field. “Heavy caliber on that vehicle,” Ryng noted. “Don’t know what it is. Must have some armor.”
