by Trevor Scott
Zaiga barely stopped long enough for Karl to jump into the back seat of the Skoda. Then she squealed the tires as she pulled away.
Jake turned to his son. “What are you carrying?”
“Just my handgun with two extra magazines,” Karl said.
Finding the extra comm ear buds and receiver in the glove box, Jake handed them back to his son.
“Have you been to the Gates of Dawn?” Karl asked.
“Of course. It’s a nightmare to defend. The streets are narrow, and a bunch come together there. Any idea where Hans and Kadri are located?”
Karl pulled out his phone and said, “I can find out.”
“You told them the Russians might be striking tonight?” Jake asked.
“Yes. She said their security is good.”
Jake found his own cell phone and punched in a message to Sofia. He got almost an instant text back from her saying she had been informed by the American CIA they might come under attack. Sofia was already at the Presidential Palace. She was assigned with a tactical team on high ground, which Jake guessed was a sniper position.
“Jake,” Karl said. “Hans and Kadri are blending in with the locals on the street out front of the Gates of Dawn.”
“Ask her how much longer they expected the vigil to take.”
Karl nodded and texted his question. Seconds later and his phone buzzed with a response. “At least a half hour.”
Traffic tightened as they got closer to the Gates of Dawn. Jake could see that the road ahead was closed, with perimeter security at an access point.
Zaiga pulled over and parked the car against a curb. Then she immediately found her phone and typed in a message to someone.
“Are you letting them know we’re coming?” Jake asked.
“Yes.” She waited impatiently for a response. “Here we go. Switch your comm to the proper channel.” Then she flicked down and read again. “All right. I am to meet with our tactical team. I have the location.”
Jake looked back at his son. “All right. You’re with me, Karl.”
“Roger that.”
They got out of the Skoda and Zaiga pulled Jake aside as they moved up the street to the perimeter security.
“Be careful,” she said.
“I was going to say the same to you,” Jake said. “You might need to get us past security.”
“No problem.”
Once they got to perimeter security, Zaiga pulled out her badge and said that Jake and Karl were with her. That got them in. But now Jake had no idea how to find the Russian agents, or even if they would show for their strike. Considering that two Baltic presidents were in attendance, security should have been much tighter, Jake thought.
Zaiga vectored off without fanfare, leaving Jake and Karl to wander into the crowd, which got thicker the closer they got to the Gates of Dawn.
By now they could hear a speaker saying something in one of the Baltic languages, but Jake had no clue which one or what the man was saying.
“You understand any of this?” Jake asked Karl.
“Just a few words I’ve picked up recently working here,” Karl said. “That’s the Estonian president.”
A female voice came over Jake’s comm saying the president was simply giving a prayer for peace. Jake recognized the woman as Kadri.
Karl pulled his father against a building and turned off his comm for a second. Jake did the same.
“What’s up?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Jake,” his son said.
“Looking for any nefarious shit. There could be two teams of four assigned to this mission.”
“There are police everywhere. Not to mention all of the plain-clothed security types.”
Jake suddenly got a text, which he checked out. It read, ‘Look up and across the street.’
Letting his head drift upward, Jake saw Zaiga at a sniper position. He smiled at her.
“What’s up?” Karl asked.
“Zaiga.” If Jake could see right above his position, he guessed there would be another sniper position, which would give them the ability to cover the entire street from blocks behind them to the Gates of Dawn.
“Turn your comm back on,” Jake told his son.
They both turned on their ear buds. Much of what was coming across the comm was in English, since there were at least three languages spoken in the area.
“We need to break up,” Jake said. “Cross the street and keep pace with me.”
Karl nodded and then weaved his way through the crowd.
Checking his watch, Jake guessed the event would be over in about fifteen minutes. Maybe he was wrong. Perhaps the Russians would strike as the presidents traveled to the summit in the morning.
Then two things happened almost simultaneously. Jake got a text and the next speaker came to the microphone. The Gates of Dawn was the most significant religious site in the Baltics. It was essentially an open air altar above a gate that crossed through what had been the Old Town wall which surrounded the city. It was the only gate still standing after all the wars and occupying forces throughout history.
Checking his text, he saw that it was from Sofia Sepp. She said that the Lithuanian president would make a surprise appearance at the Gates of Dawn.
The crowd suddenly cheered with this new speaker.
“Someone speak to me,” Jake said across his comm. “Is that the Lithuanian president?”
Jake got a number of affirmative responses. Crap. Now he knew the strike would be here and soon.
“Be prepared,” Jake said into his comm. “This is going down now. All three targets are in place.”
He heard a bunch of frantic speaking in various languages and Jake didn’t understand a damn word. Glancing across the street at his son, Jake saw a young man unsure of himself. He had been there himself at about that same age. Jake nodded his head for them to move toward the shrine at the Gates of Dawn, which was now about a block away. But here the crowds were more densely packed.
Jake thought about what he would do if he wanted to strike these leaders. Assuming they couldn’t get a bomb to the area, he would try to get higher. The buildings here were only two or three stories high. Zaiga was on the tallest of them, so she would be able to see the tops of the other buildings. The other sniper team was similarly positioned. That meant the strike would have to either come from within the street crowd or from the buildings.
He wasn’t sure what made him see what he saw, but something caught Jake’s eye in a salmon colored three-story building across from him. A window opened on the second floor just as Jake got his gun out. He saw the gun barrel aimed toward the Gates of Dawn.
Jake yelled “Shooter” and fired five times into the window where he suspected the shooter sat. Automatic gunfire echoed through the night, the flashes from the rifle breaking upward.
The crowd started to panic and run, people trampling each other to clear the street around the Gates of Dawn.
Now more gunfire came. This time from the building right above his head. People dropped in the street.
Then one louder shot rang out and the gunshots above him stopped. Jake looked up and saw that Zaiga had hit her target.
As the crowd scrambled, Jake whipped his head around to make sure the Baltic leaders were all right. But they had disappeared into the chapel building.
“Can anyone see the evacuation route?” Jake said into the comm.
“We have the back side of the Gate,” came a woman’s voice. It had to be Kadri.
Running against the flow of humanity, Jake pushed his way toward the Gates of Dawn. His son took his lead and did the same across the street.
Now there was more gunfire. This time it came from the other side of the gate and chapel.
Jake started running in that direction. As he ran there were more voices yelling directions in various languages. It was complete chaos. And with so many plain-clothed intelligence officers, it would be tough to know which target to shoot. He could be kil
ling a friendly now.
As Jake got to the gate, he passed under the shrine and came out the other side. A gun battle was taking place where the presidential motorcades sat.
Stopping, he waved for his son to do the same thing. If they moved in now, the security officers would think they were the bad guys.
He wasn’t sure what made him turn, but Jake swiveled around just in time to see a man moving toward him with a handgun. Jake hesitated, not knowing if this man was good or bad. He was an older man. And something in the man’s eyes gave Jake a reason to lift his gun. It was the man who had set up across the square in Tallinn. Jake went to pull the trigger, but not before the man fired his weapon.
Jake returned fire and dropped the man to the cobblestone street.
When Jake heard shots behind him, he swiveled around to see a second man drop. A man with a knit cap. The driver from Riga. Now Jake’s eyes turned to his son, who had just shot this man.
His adrenaline pumped his heart beat out of control as Jake shuffled across the street toward his son. More gunfire now came from both directions, ahead by the motorcade and behind them from where they had come.
Jake got to the other side of the street but suddenly stumbled, as if he had tripped on a raised cobblestone. He felt weak now and his vision started to blur.
His son caught Jake before he could crash to the ground, setting him on the sidewalk.
“Dad, you’re hit,” Karl said.
Was he? But there was no pain. Not at first. Then, as if a wave rushed through his body, Jake felt a familiar feeling of having been shot. He reached to his stomach and felt warm moisture on his left side.
“Where’s the short, stocky woman,” Jake mumbled. “She might have a camera.”
Now Jake’s mind swirled as he fought to stay awake. The last thing Jake remembered was his son saying that Jake would be fine as he tried to apply pressure to Jake’s stomach and Karl called for an ambulance over his comm.
•
Karl held his father’s stomach with his left hand, while he scanned for any potential danger and waited for an ambulance.
Finally, Kadri rushed around the corner from where the motorcades had just sped away.
“My God,” Kadri said. “Is he all right?”
“I hope so. He needs an ambulance.”
Kadri got on her comm and urgently yelled for medical personnel at her location.
Karl was almost too entranced with Kadri and the state of his father to see anything else, but something made him look up and consider the woman with a camera and large lens shuffling toward them. It was his father’s last words that stuck with him.
By now the woman was only twenty feet away, her left hand holding onto the camera. Then suddenly her right hand came out from behind her back.
“Gun,” Karl yelled.
Before the woman could gain her target, Karl shot three times, hitting her center mass and dropping her in a jumble to the cobblestone street.
Kadri swiveled around just in time to see the Russian woman sprawled on the street.
40
Twenty-three Hours Later
Jake had woken in unknown beds many times in his life, and a few of those had been following various surgeries. But this time seemed different to him for some reason. Part of that, he knew, was the nurse speaking to him only in Lithuanian, as if he knew exactly what she was saying. She was a Nurse Ratched type, who looked like she could kick some major ass if a patient didn’t listen carefully to her instructions.
Luckily his surgeon had been fluent in English and had told him hours ago that Jake would be fine. The bullet had entered low enough to miss his lung, but high enough to also miss his kidney on the way out. But the expanded bullet cut through the bottom of his spleen, so that had to come out. Jake guessed he didn’t really need his spleen for anything important.
Now, hours after waking from surgery and a number of additional drug-induced slumbers all day, he gazed out the window and saw only darkness. He must have been on a higher floor, he guessed, because he couldn’t see any city lights.
Nobody would tell him anything about what had happened. Either they didn’t know, or they were some of the most tight-lipped hospital personnel Jake had ever encountered.
When Jake heard movement at the door, he instinctively went for his gun. But of course it wasn’t under his left arm, and he had nearly struck his bandage.
“Hey, it’s just me,” Karl said. His son rounded the end of the bed and came to Jake’s right side.
“I thought you’d be on your way back to Tallinn,” Jake said.
“We’re leaving in the morning,” Karl said. “Could you handle some more company?”
Jake looked around his son and saw a few people lingering out in the hallway trying to get a view inside. He waved his right hand at them and they all paraded in. First came Sofia Sepp, who leaned in for a hug and kissed Jake on both cheeks. Then Hans Vaino shook Jake’s hand and said something about his boss wanting to give Jake his agency’s highest honor, but would have to settle for a civilian equivalent. Jake just shrugged. Honors like those meant nothing to Jake. Now came another hug, this time from Estonian officer Kadri Kask, who also kissed Jake on each cheek.
Karl saw Zaiga lingering back, so he cleared the others from the room. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said.
Now Jake and Zaiga were alone. She gave Jake an extended hug, before kissing him on both cheeks. “What the hell,” she said, and then kissed him firmly on the lips. “I hope that German girlfriend knows what she has. If not, you come back to Riga and we’ll make some time for each other.”
“Thank you,” Jake said. “Even older guys need positive affirmation once in a while.”
She held his hand and tears streaked from both of her eyes. “You take care, Jake.”
“You too,” he said.
Then he watched her leave and hug Sofia outside in the hallway.
Karl came back in and said, “I think she has a thing for you, dad. Should I mention this to Alexandra?”
“You dick.”
“I learn from the best,” Karl said.
“Just good genes. Now, are you going to tell me what I missed?”
His son let out a long whistle with a breath of air. “Wow. You really called it right, dad. Although a number of innocent folks died in the crossfire last night, it could have been a lot worse.”
“How many?”
“Five bystanders attending the vigil were killed. Another fourteen were injured, which included security personnel. They think they rounded up or killed all of the Russian agents and officers. Many were from Belarus and Chechnya. A couple are being interrogated. But the big news is the purge of SVR officers from every Baltic State. They’ve rounded them all up in the past twenty-four hours and kicked them the hell out.”
“That’s good for now,” Jake said. “But they’re like cockroaches. They’ll be replaced. What about the Russian forces amassing through Belarus and off the coast?”
Karl smiled. “The Russians have blinked. After the strike against the Baltic State leaders, NATO said they were ready to initiate Article Five. Moscow said these SVR officers acted on their own.”
“That’s bullshit,” Jake said.
“I know. So does NATO and our government.”
Jake nodded. “What’s your plan?”
Karl shook his head and said, “This is interesting work, dad. But it’s more than that. It’s making a change.”
“It is that, son. But remember that most people will never know about all the cool shit you do.”
“I know. I don’t have a problem with that. What do you think I should do?”
“I can’t decide this for you, Karl. It has to be in your blood.”
“With you and mom, it is in my blood. I have already agreed to go with the Agency. I start terminal leave with the Army next week. I’ll have to do my final Army out-processing back in the states. But they’ve given me some time off. I just have to tie up a few loose end
s in Tallinn first.”
“That’s a hell of a way to speak of Kadri,” Jake said, holding back a smile.
Karl glanced out to the hallway. “Yeah, there’s that also. I really like her.”
“Then try to make it work. It won’t be easy. But nothing worth a damn ever is.”
“The world according to Jake?”
Jake put his hand on his son’s arm and squeezed down. “Come to Italy for a while before heading back to the states. Bring Kadri.”
Karl took his hand in his. “Are you a mind reader? That’s already planned. I talked with Alexandra right after you got out of surgery.”
“Seriously? I haven’t been able to talk with her yet.”
Reaching into his pocket, Karl pulled out Jake’s phone and handed it to him. “She’s expecting a call.”
Karl started to leave, but Jake grabbed his arm.
“Hey. Thanks for helping me out there. You saved your old man’s ass.”
“You saved mine first,” Karl said. Then he wandered out to Kadri and the others.
Jake looked at his phone and then typed in Alexandra’s number.
Just as Jake got off the phone with Alexandra, he got another visitor. A crusty old Russian.
“Jesus,” Jake said. “I thought they kicked all Russians out of the Baltics.”
Ivan Bragin shook his head and said, “I think they took pity on me, since I turned over Pavel Tursunov to the Lithuanians.”
“And helped save the Lithuanian president, along with those from Latvia and Estonia.”
“That was more you than me,” Bragin said.
The two of them simply stared at each other for a moment. Jake broke this silence. “Do they still have a hit out on you?”
“Afraid so.”
“Where will you go?”
“Someplace warm maybe. That is why I am here. You are the only man I trust in this world, Jake. I only want you to know where I plan to go. What about South America?”
