by Brad Thor
“I was almost home,” he said, putting his rig in gear and pulling out of the truck stop. “Then I get a message that I must turn around and come to get you.”
“We appreciate it,” said Harvath. “Thank you.”
“Tell me the Russians will be unhappy.”
Harvath smiled. “I think the Russians will be very unhappy.”
The old man smiled back.
They rode together without speaking. As the Lithuanian listened to his radio, Harvath put his head back and closed his eyes. He needed to rest up. Their exfil was going to suck.
• • •
When he felt the truck slow, he opened his eyes and looked at his watch. He had been out for well over an hour. “Where are we?” he asked.
The driver pointed to the sign. “Ten kilometers from the Polish border. This is as far as I go.”
Harvath thanked him and, climbing down from the cab, accompanied him around back to let his teammates out.
The driver had several cases of bottled water and encouraged them to take as much as they needed.
Staelin made a point to take the driver aside and thank him personally. “You come from a family of warriors. It is an honor to know you. Thank you for helping us.”
Normally in a situation like this, Staelin would have handed the man one of his military challenge coins. This was a covert operation, though, and they weren’t carrying anything that could identify them as Americans.
But in his boot was a small backup knife designed for Delta operators called the Sgian Dubh. Bending down, he removed it and handed it to the man.
The Lithuanian was touched and tried to refuse it, but Staelin insisted.
Reaching into his pocket, the man pulled out an aged pocketknife. It had been hand-painted with some sort of a religious icon, probably a saint.
It was apparent that he had owned it for a long time.
Staelin tried to refuse the gift, but the man insisted, so he relented, accepting it graciously.
“Ready to roll?” Harvath asked, interrupting the moment between Staelin and the descendant of the Forest Brothers.
“Yup,” said the Delta Force operative. “Good to go.”
One by one, the team all shook the truck driver’s hand, thanking him. Then he climbed into his cab and drove off while they disappeared into the woods and got ready for the most dangerous part of their mission yet.
CHAPTER 72
* * *
On behalf of Lithuanian Intelligence, Filip Landsbergis had done an exceptional job. The cow pasture drop zone notwithstanding, everything else had been perfect. He had provided a critical part of the operation, getting Harvath and his team into and out of enemy territory.
Landsbergis’s final piece of intelligence had been about where the team was now headed.
Across from the border checkpoint, along the shores of Lake Goldap, was a Russian campground. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a wonderful place to take a family. It had cabins, picnic tables, showers, toilets, a dining hall, a trading post, and a stage for skits. But for all its outward appearances, in reality, it was an underground railway stop for Russian spies.
As they moved into and out of Poland, Lithuania, and other adjacent NATO countries, many of the spies came to the campground to unwind and be debriefed. It was a hangover from the KGB days when vacation camps had been created to provide inexpensive holidays for officers of good standing.
There was plenty of cheap booze and even cheaper women, rotated in from neighboring Belarus a month at a time.
American movies, dubbed in Russian, played in the theater while meals that sounded classy, but were actually very low-rent, were cooked up in the vermin-infested camp kitchen.
Over at the Russian border patrol checkpoint, the officers had been instructed to ignore the alcohol-fueled parties as well as anything else that took place at the camp—if they wanted to keep their jobs.
But those kinds of things usually happened at the height of summer. Now it was off-season. Activity at the camp might just give the border guards something to pay attention to. It could go either way.
Covering the distance to the camp was made difficult by Tretyakov’s unwillingness to walk. They would shove him forward and he would cooperate for a few steps and then he’d go back to shuffling his feet.
Harvath reached over and placed his fingers beneath the man’s injured jaw. The area was so sensitive that the Russian’s entire body seized, his eyes began to water, and he came right up onto his toes.
It only took once to secure his compliance. There was no more slowing the team down after that.
From where the Lithuanian had dropped them off, it was a full ten kilometers to the border, but only three klicks to the campground.
They proceeded in a staggered formation, with their night-vision goggles on and their suppressed weapons hot, ready for anything.
Their hope, of course, was that they wouldn’t encounter anything; that they would just move quietly through the campground and no one would know they had ever been there.
That hope, though, was dashed the moment they set foot on the property. Coming up the road from the main camp building was a small Russian military unit.
Sloane was on point and gave the signal for the team to melt into the woods. There, they all froze and didn’t make a sound.
Harvath had Tretyakov lie on his stomach. Crouching next to him, he placed his fingers under his jaw, a subtle threat of what would happen if the GRU officer tried to call out through the duct tape over his mouth, or if he made any sound at all.
They waited for what felt like an eternity for the soldiers to pass. There were eight of them, and they were heavily armed.
From where Harvath and his team were hiding in the trees, it was impossible to make out whether these were regular troops augmenting the border patrol, or if they were a more specialized unit. Harvath didn’t want to get close enough to find out. Getting Tretyakov off the ground, they pressed on.
They had only been back on the road for a few moments when they heard a vehicle coming from behind them and were forced to return to the woods again.
It was a truck carrying additional Russian troops, and it was headed into the camp.
Damn it, thought Harvath. They’re flooding the zone.
Whether the troops were just bivouacking at the campground between shifts at the checkpoint or were being spread out in a more organized fashion along the border, it didn’t matter. They were standing between the team and their exfil.
Staelin came over and crouched down next to Harvath. Keeping his voice barely above a whisper, he said, “I’m guessing the plan didn’t involve the campground being full of Russian soldiers.”
Harvath shook his head. “If I’d known, I would have brought more hot dogs.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to avoid contact at all costs. I’m not really in the mood for another gunfight.”
“Agreed,” Staelin replied. “So do we try to go around them?”
For the time being, it seemed like the only possible answer, and Harvath nodded. Getting Tretyakov to his feet, they changed course and pushed deeper into the woods.
It made for even slower going. The ground was uneven and there were plenty of hidden hazards—rocks, roots, and downed branches to trip them up. But it wasn’t as if they were swimming in options. They had no choice but to push forward.
If they could get to the other side of the campground, there would be a small clearing to cross, and after that, Harvath prayed, nothing preventing them from getting to the water. Then, once they had reached Lake Goldap, they could head for Poland, and freedom.
But no sooner had the thought entered his mind than Sloane heard something up ahead and gave the signal for the team, once more, to freeze.
CHAPTER 73
* * *
Harvath tightened his grip on Tretyakov, just as a barrage of gunfire erupted around them.
“Contact left! Contact left!”
Sloane yelled.
Somehow, somewhere in the woods, the Russians had spotted them. Immediately, the team returned fire.
“Move! Move! Move!” Harvath ordered.
Everyone, including Tretyakov, kicked it into gear.
The wild, indiscriminate shooting seemed to be coming from every direction. The Russians were not only undisciplined, but were also going to end up killing one of their own.
At that moment, Harvath heard a cry from Tretyakov’s duct-taped mouth and saw him drop. He had been shot in the back of the leg.
Slinging his weapon, Harvath helped him back up and forced him to keep moving. It was obvious that the Russian soldiers weren’t planning on taking any prisoners.
Whether they knew Tretyakov was with them was immaterial. They were throwing so much lead in their direction that there was no way they could expect anyone to survive.
Raising his Rattler in his right hand, Harvath fired off a burst to their three o’clock.
The soldiers pursuing them from that side responded, and Tretyakov was shot again—this time in his upper arm.
“Fuck!” grunted Harvath.
They needed to find cover fast, or they were all going to be cut to ribbons. There were just too many guns on the other side of this fight.
Through the branches up ahead, Harvath spotted what looked like the remnants of an old stone foundation—maybe from a caretaker’s cottage or a previous lodge of some sort.
“There!” Harvath shouted, directing his team to it.
They all scrambled or leaped over the foundation wall. Harvath helped Tretyakov as Chase and Sloane laid down cover fire.
Finally getting up and over, Tretyakov landed hard on the other side, followed by Harvath.
“If I had known we were going to be taking on the whole Russian Army,” said Staelin as he changed magazines, “I would have brought along a little more ammo.”
Like Tretyakov, Harvath’s exfil plan was shot to shit. All the work Haney and Barton had done staging dry suits, full face mask SCUBA gear, and propulsion devices was out the window.
Even if they could get to all of it, it was highly unlikely they could successfully transport Tretyakov, underwater, to the Polish side of the lake where the boat was waiting.
He was going to have to come up with another plan. And right now, there was only one plan he could think of. Activating his radio, he hailed Barton.
• • •
“What the hell is that for?” Jasinski asked, as the SEAL flipped open the Storm case and removed a Mark 48 belt-fed machine gun.
“It’s for you,” he replied, quickly attaching it to its mount. “Did they teach you how to load and fire one of these things in the Polish Army?”
“What are you trying to do, start a war?”
“Actually,” he replied as he opened three ammo cans and then fired up the engine, “I’m trying to stop one.”
Down the lake, they could hear the withering fire that Harvath and the rest of the team were under.
Hailing Haney over the radio, Barton said, “Good to go, on your mark.”
“Roger that,” Haney replied, “stand by.”
The SEAL looked back at Jasinski through his night vision. He could see that she hadn’t yet loaded the weapon. “If we don’t go, the Russians are going to kill them.”
When she still didn’t do anything, he pushed past her, loaded a belt of 7.62 ammunition, and charged the Mark 48.
When Haney’s voice came back over the radio and said, “Now!” Barton told Jasinski to hold on as he pushed the throttle all the way forward.
The engine of the Rigid Inflatable Boat roared to life as they raced down the water toward the buoys and the demarcation line between Poland and Kaliningrad.
The closer they got, the louder the gunfire became. Barton prayed that they would make it there in time.
Up ahead on the western shore of the lake, he could see the Polish side of the border crossing. He could only imagine what the officers there were thinking as the gun battle raged across the water from them.
“Time to turn out the lights, Mike,” said Barton, as he could see the buoy line rapidly approaching up ahead.
“Five seconds,” Haney replied.
And like clockwork, five seconds later there was a detonation at the electrical substation, followed by smaller detonations at the generators that provided backup power for the Polish border crossing.
At the buoys, Barton stopped only long enough to use a pair of bolt cutters to sever the line, before once again throwing the throttles all the way forward.
“Norseman,” Barton said over the radio. “We are inbound to you. Sixty seconds.”
• • •
The soldiers, having zeroed in on the position of Harvath and the team, had discovered some semblance of discipline and were pushing in with a coordinated attack in order to flank them.
“We’re not going to have sixty seconds,” he replied over his radio. “We’re low on ammo and about to get overrun. Tossing out strobes. Hit them as hard as you can.”
With that, Harvath activated two IR strobe lights and tossed them as far as he could in the direction of each advancing group of soldiers.
Harvath, Ashby, Palmer, and Staelin then took turns trying to hold them off. They were all on their last rifle magazines.
• • •
Barton had the RIB moving as fast as it would go. Approaching the shoreline of the campground, they could see muzzle flashes in all directions. It was absolute bedlam.
Then, through the chaos, they pinpointed the strobes. There were at least fifty Russian soldiers advancing on the team’s position.
Barton swung the boat to the side and slowed so that Jasinski could strafe the Russians.
“Light them up!” he yelled.
For a moment, she paused. But before he could repeat the command, she opened up with the Mark 48 and swung it back and forth, cutting down every Russian in sight and littering the woods near the beach with their dead bodies.
Back behind the stone foundation, Harvath and the team hunkered down as the heavy rounds from the machine gun crackled all around them.
When Jasinski had run the weapon dry, Barton came back over the radio and told the team to keep their heads down—they were reloading and about to make another pass. Seconds later, the Mark 48 lit up the woods again.
When Barton came back over the radio, he said, “On the beach in twenty seconds.”
Transitioning to his pistol, Harvath looked at the team and said, “Time to go.”
Staelin transitioned to his pistol as well and helped get Tretyakov to his feet and down to the shoreline.
There was sporadic gunfire, as more Russians came through the woods, but Sloane and Chase handled it, dispatching several more soldiers.
By the time they got to the water, Barton was already there.
Loading Tretyakov, Harvath climbed in, followed by Staelin. Chase and Sloane helped push the RIB off the shore, and then hopped in and joined the rest of the team.
As Barton punched the throttle, Staelin began applying pressure to Tretyakov’s wounds. Harvath offered to take over on the Mark 48, but Jasinski waved him off. Going hot, she lit up the Kaliningrad shoreline one last time as the RIB disappeared into the darkness toward the freedom of Poland.
CHAPTER 74
* * *
GOVERNORS ISLAND, LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE, NEW HAMPSHIRE
FOUR DAYS LATER
Artur Kopec was still stunned. He didn’t know how Lydia Ryan had done it, but the missile upgrade kits were gone, off the market.
When he asked her about it, she had simply shrugged and said, “We found a workaround.” That was it. She hadn’t offered any further explanation.
He had asked his man Wójcik to query his source, but Kushner didn’t know what had happened either. His source had been as vague as Ryan.
To her credit, though, Ryan had kept her word and had arranged a final visit for him with Reed Carlton. The old spymaster was a sh
adow of his former self. He had lost weight and had aggressively aged.
Due to the combination of severe dementia, and medications for comfort, Carlton was really out of it. So much so that Kopec wasn’t sure if his old colleague even recognized him. He had come expecting to spend the entire day together, but instead decided to leave before lunch and catch an earlier flight back to D.C.
He wasn’t surprised that the visit had been supervised. Because of all the national security issues, Ryan had made it a condition. What did surprise him was who had done the supervising.
Scot Harvath was Carlton’s protégé and heir apparent. Kopec had met the operative only a handful of times and had always liked him. He felt as if they had a bond. Though he was younger, he understood the great game and what was at stake.
In fact, Harvath had spent a portion of their time together confiding in Kopec. Ryan, it turned out, had not been very forthcoming at all. Carlton’s rapid memory loss had crippled their organization. There was all sorts of information about spies and double agents that had been lost.
Unlike Ryan, Harvath wasn’t hopeful that the material would turn up in some yet-to-be-discovered journal somewhere in the man’s personal effects.
The most devastating thing, Harvath shared, was that in addition to Matterhorn, there were two more high-level spies feeding the Russians disinformation whose identities would be taken to the grave with Carlton. It was a massive blow to NATO’s anti-Russia efforts.
There was much more that Kopec wanted to discuss, but he was cautious not to overstay his welcome. Harvath looked as if he had been through hell. Obviously, losing Carlton was taking its toll.
They agreed to meet for dinner back in D.C., and Harvath walked him to the door.
“I’m sorry he was unable to interact,” he said. “I know you had a long friendship. I’m sure he appreciates you coming all this way.”
Kopec smiled and extended his hand. “It is what friends do.”
