“Polorski hasn’t made the deal yet,” Zim told me as I sat down in an overstuffed leather chair. “Now it’s even more critical to stop him.”
“How do you know he hasn’t made the deal yet?”
“Because of this.” Zim took a piece of paper from his suit jacket and handed it to me. It was a copy of an e-mail sent to a Google account. Only the address and e-mail header were readable; everything else was in computer character gibberish. For all I knew it could have been an encrypted ad for penile implants.
“Sorry, I don’t read geek,” I told him, handing it back.
“The unencrypted message says ‘Transaction is ready.’ It gives a GPS reading for a port on the Somalia coast. It’s set for four weeks from now—about the time it would take for your trawler to get there from Russia.”
“That’s easy then. Sink the damn thing.”
Jimmy Zim smiled in a way that suggested he wished it were that easy.
“The trawler set sail from Kamenka a few hours ago. We want you to give the Russians the information about it and join them on the raid.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. The Russians may have their own agenda. And frankly, I don’t really trust them.”
“The Cold War is over, Dick,” intoned Fogglebottom solemnly.
That’s right. We’re all joining hands and dancing around the maypole now, one big happy family.
“Actually, there is a bit more to the plan,” said Zim.
A lot more—a force of Navy SEALs would be made available to “assist” the Russians on the QT. They wouldn’t be officially involved, of course, just available if something went wrong—say, for example, the Russian commander was paid to let the ship and its cargo continue on their way. Or if the Russians decided not to turn Yong Shin Jong over to me. Having me working with the Russians would accomplish several things. Number one, I’d be there to sound the alarm if there was a deviation in the plans. Number two, I’d be cover for anything the SEALs did—the U.S. could always claim that it was Demo Dick who was shooting up civilian ships on the open seas, not real Navy SEALs. I’d also be the fall guy if anything went wrong.
And then there was the matter of Yong Shin Jong. The State Department still wanted him returned to his father—not for the sake of family harmony, but the nuclear treaty. If he was aboard the trawler, which seemed like a good guess, I would come away with him and proceed to North Korea.
I’ll spare you the back and forth “discussion” that ensued. I wanted to talk to Yong Shin Jong, believing that I could get more information about the bunker from him. And I definitely felt the Russian missile should be destroyed. But the operation violated several basic precepts, not least of all was the golden rule: KISS, or Keep It Simple, Stupid. Coordinating action between two different branches of the military is very difficult; coordinating an operation with another country, especially one like Russia that isn’t even a member of NATO, is even harder. (Lest you think the task was so simple that even the Russians couldn’t screw it up, in the past the U.S. has managed to lose track of several arms shipments that came out of North Korea via ships. Those “only” involved things like spare parts and guns and Scud missiles though, nothing too important.)
Let the SEALs take the ship and forget the Russians—that plan made sense. Or hell, let the Russians go in, screw it up, then sink the damn ship, diplomacy and public relations be damned. Doing it arm in arm, with me in the middle and the SEALs pretending not to be there, made about as much sense as letting a bunch of lawyers and congressmen write the tax code.
Obviously, I’m too dense to understand the finer points of geopolitics. In the end, I agreed to tip colonel Setrovich off to the information and suggest that “assets” including the SEALs could be made available to help if things got nasty. Setrovich laughed and insisted that while things certainly would get nasty, neither the SEALs nor our navy was needed. Then, without me having to say anything else, he invited me along for the show.
[ II ]
JUNIOR HAD GIVEN the NSA a copy of the data we’d gotten from Setrovich’s office. But he kept a copy for himself, and while I was discussing things with Fogglebottom and Zim, Junior put on his hacker cap and waded through the Russian mob’s web of bank accounts. He had a very distinct style: leaning closer and closer to the screen, he would type furiously for five or ten minutes. At some point he would lean so far forward that he would literally fall out of his chair, leaving it to roll behind him and crash into whatever was nearby, usually Trace. Oblivious, he would keep pounding the keyboard until suddenly he’d straighten, and with a big grin on his face announce the mobsters’ bank balance.
He was getting such a kick out of his new role as Red Cell International’s favorite dweeb that I felt like a heel telling him he was going to have to stay in Japan while Trace and I went on the operation with the Russkies.
“But don’t you t-t-trust me?”
“Sure I trust you, Matt. But you’re not trained for an assault.”
“I’ve done skydiving. Three hundred jumps. Fifty-three at night.”
“We’re not parachuting,” I told him.
“It’s going to be a night assault from helicopters,” said Trace. “It’s not going to be a joyride.”
His frown deepened. I think he thought she was rubbing it in.
“I need you to work with Doc,” I said. “We need to set up a contingency plan in case something goes wrong here. And I’m still interested in what sort of accounts Yong Shin Jong has in Singapore. You have a lot of work ahead of you.”
I can’t say he was really happy, but within a few minutes he was pounding on the keyboard again.
“I have an address one of the companies used in Kamenka,” he announced. “It looks like it’s in the harbor area.”
“Write it down for me, and keep checking.”
“Maybe I can check it out myself?”
“You do and I’ll personally put you over my knee and spank the living shit out of you,” said Trace.
Junior opened his mouth to say something, saw from Trace’s expression that she wasn’t kidding, then reached for a piece of paper.
COLONEL SETROVICH MET Trace and me at the airport in Khabarousk, Russia, late that evening. An elaborate assault plan had been worked out—two Russian Hind Mi-24P helicopters carrying a dozen Russian marines would be escorted by two Mi-28 Havoc gunships; the marines—and we—would board the trawler while the gunships provided cover. Two destroyers were steaming toward the trawler and would be about ten miles away when the assault began—close enough to get there quickly if there was trouble, but far enough away that they couldn’t take the credit if things went smoothly. It was a classic FSB maneuver.
Two U.S. Navy surface ships, along with a submarine carrying the aforementioned SEALs, were also in the vicinity, though a little farther away. Setrovich didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell.
The “P” in Mi-24P stands for pushka, a Russian word for cannon, and refers to the double-barreled 30mm cannon in the Hind’s nose, an upgrade over the not-all-that puny-in-itself four-barreled machine gun carried in the other versions. The pushka makes a very low thud-thump sound as it fires, and in the dark the flash from the muzzle is impressive, even when the gun is aimed harmlessly at the water.
“Just to let them know we mean business,” Setrovich yelled over the whine of the helicopter’s rotors. He put his hand to his ear, listening to something from the pilot attempting to communicate with the captain of the trawler. I turned around to the window, watching the floodlight beneath one of the gunships illuminate the forward deck of the trawler. The helicopter was hovering about twenty feet above the trawler. I couldn’t see anyone aboard.
Nor could I see anything that looked remotely like it might be a missile.
The marines rose and lined up near the door, ready to fast rope down. Trace got up and moved to the head of the line, her MP5 cradled beneath her arm. I slipped in behind her.
“Nazdaróvye!” yelled the team’s jumpmaster
, and off we went. I grabbed the line and shot downward as if speeding down a fireman’s pole. The ship looked like a sore prick in the night, easy to see, but the twenty or so feet between me and the forward deck was a long twenty feet, the chopper bucking with the wind and trawler rolling hard starboard as I hit the deck. I managed to land with the roll, keeping my balance as the trawler pitched back to port. I ran forward to the cargo hatch, then tucked around a winch assembly for one of the shipboard cranes. Working my way up the ship’s starboard side, I reached a railing that separated a ladder off the deck to the superstructure; glancing behind me to make sure the marines were with me—they were—I jumped up and over, securing the catwalk as the rest of the small team followed.
To this point, there had been no sign of resistance aboard the ship—in fact, there was no sign that it was occupied at all. But that changed quickly: light flashed on the port side of the deck. A boom and a crash followed, topped off by a serenade of automatic rifle fire. I threw myself against the side of the catwalk, watching as a pair of Russians near the bow fired at a lifeboat, their tracers blazing across the night.
There was no answering fire. My guess is that the boarding party had used flash-bang grenades to enter the ship, and someone outside got a case of jitters. Once the genie’s out of the bottle it can take quite a while to restore order, and gunfire erupted from several quarters at once. With adrenaline flowing like beer at Oktoberfest, the NCOs had a hell of a time calming things down. Curses and pleas to stop firing overran the radio circuit.
Just as the gunfire stopped, a figure climbed out of the forward cargo hatchway and made a beeline toward the ladder to my right. Realizing he’d be much more valuable alive than dead, I jumped up and ran for him, tackling him just as he reached the catwalk. Unfortunately, in the confusion it probably wasn’t clear whose side I was on; bullets started whizzing overhead.
Trace’s voice cut through the chaos over the radio.
“Stop shooting or I’m going to kick each one of you in the balls!”
Either the marines understood English or they’d run out of ammunition, because to a man they stopped firing.
I pulled the man I’d flattened up. In the dim light he didn’t look like much of a mafioso, Russian or otherwise. And he wasn’t Yong Shin Jong, either. He looked all of seventeen, weighed two pounds less than your average house cat, and spoke Vietnamese.
Very scared Vietnamese.
He jabbered something about being a seaman and papers lost at sea. One of the Russians who’d come up the catwalk behind me escorted us as I brought the kid to Setrovich’s command post near the bow. My Viet namese was a little rusty, but as near as I could tell the kid claimed the only cargo were tins of fish. He said that they were going to South Korea, not North. And he didn’t know anything about missiles or passengers. He claimed all of the crewmen were Vietnamese, and had been hired within the last three weeks, during the ship’s last visit to Haiphong, the North Vietnamese port not far from Hanoi.
Setrovich didn’t believe him, and called him a liar in Russian. While the seaman didn’t understand the words, he got the implied threat and began shaking, but stuck to his story. Personally, I didn’t see much reason for him to lie, outside of the obvious fib about having lost nonexis-tent identity or work papers. Neither his nationality nor the cargo would be unusual.
The general outlines of his story were confirmed ten minutes later by the trawler’s captain, a Russian who looked like Santa Claus with a black beard and smelled of sweat and stale vodka. Setrovich, frowning in my direction, ordered the marines to conduct a full inspection of the ship.
Trace and I conducted our own search. There were plenty of crates of canned fish in the hold, along with several stamped “bicycle parts” in Russian. These turned out to contain . . . bicycle parts.
Setrovich was looking cross when I found him on the bridge. He didn’t blame me as much as give Polorski and company credit for outwitting us.
“He is always two steps ahead. Even of the great Rogue Warrior.”
“More likely he’s behind us,” I said. “This ship was probably a decoy. He’s probably still in Russia somewhere.”
“Ah. First you tell me he is in Beijing, then you say Russia. You must be working with American CIA—always backward ass.”
“Ass backward.”
“Yes. I will call the helicopters for pickup.”
“Why don’t we look for him in Kamenka? If he sent the ship out as a decoy, he may still have the missile there.”
“His hideout is not in the city.”
“You’re sure?”
Setrovich shrugged. “Where it is, who knows?”
“Let’s look here.” I gave him the address that Junior had found. A light seemed to go off in Setrovich’s head—a dim one, but a light nonetheless.
“Yes. Yes. This might be useful,” said the colonel. “Tomorrow morning, we will visit.”
“Let’s do it now,” I told him. “This way no one can tip him off. The helicopters have to go back there anyway.”
Setrovich frowned, which I expected. But then he nodded, which I hadn’t.
“Rogue Warrior lives up to his expectations,” he said, clapping me hard on the back. “Always thinking.”
THE ADDRESS BELONGED to a building that was part of a storage depot near the port, with a rail spur and several warehouses, along with a good-sized yard. Assaulting a facility of that size usually calls for a lot of careful planning and, if possible, a rehearsal or two. It’s also not the sort of thing you want to undertake with a unit that’s just coming off another mission, especially a nighttime operation in the middle of the ocean. But if we were really going to surprise Polorski and his group, any raid against them had to be completely spontaneous. Someone was tipping these guys off, and the only way to get them was to hit them when they thought we were elsewhere.
Setrovich told the helicopter pilots that they were going on a second mission, and then instead of telling them where it was, ordered them to simply follow his craft. He decreed complete radio silence, saying that anyone caught making a transmission would be thrown from the helicopter without a parachute. That’s my kind of punishment.
Setrovich’s assistant had a good set of satellite maps with him that showed the port area of Kamenka where the Shchi had docked; the maps happened to include enough of the nearby area for us to spot Polorski’s yard and the surroundings. It covered about two acres right along the water, separated from a long wharf by a set of train tracks. (The Shchi had sailed from a wharf about a half mile away, closer to the center of the port.) Two large steel buildings sat at the north end of the yard; there were two tractor-trailers, a pair of small tractors, and enough rusted steel drums to keep a calypso band in business for years. Setrovich and I worked out a plan with the captain of the marine detachment. We’d drop half a helo’s worth of marines at the south end of the yard, near the gated entrance to the port’s road network, sealing off access. The rest of the force would be divided up for assaults on the buildings. The gunships would make sure no one left via the water—there were two small speedboats tied up near the wharf—and provide whatever additional muscle was necessary.
My group consisted of six marines who could speak good enough English—they knew enough to nod if I said “listen up.” We’d come in at the eastern side of the buildings, fast roping down and heading directly to the building. We’d go in with the help of flash-bangs and as many submachine-gun bullets as necessary.
Trace was in another group tasked to land on the other side of the buildings. She and her marines would move to the fence separating the yard from the railroad tracks and approach the buildings from there, positioning themselves to cut off anyone trying to escape us.
The sun had just come up, but there didn’t seem to be any activity as the helos came in. We hit the ground in good shape, fanning out for our assignments.
The Russian marines were well trained, and used techniques for entering buildings that were very similar
to what a U.S. force would have done. A runty-looking sergeant named Mikhail stepped up to the door with a shotgun loaded with special steel slugs, then waited as a companion threw a flash-bang grenade through the nearby window.
Whap! Crash—ka-boom!
Lock obliterated, the door flew open. The team barreled inside, weapons ready. We were in a small room, maybe ten by ten, completely empty except for a wooden bench against the northern wall. There was an open interior doorway in the wall facing us as we came in, offset by a few feet. The marines and I took up positions at the side of the door, and we did the flash-bang routine once again.
Bounce—bounce—ka-boom!
K-k-k-BOOOOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOO-OOM!!!
The sound was a lot worse in person than it looks in print. The grenade had set something in the other room off, and the booms quickly crescendoed as secondary explosion begat secondary explosion. They may not have been the loudest explosions I’ve ever heard, nor the most powerful, but they were among the most inconvenient.
“Out!” I yelled. “Get the hell out of the building! Go!”
The marines ducked and ran past me as I waved them out. Tapped by the last man, I pitched myself toward daylight. I hit the dirt about twenty feet beyond where I’d been aiming, my flight assisted by a fresh round of explosions, which not so coincidentally pulverized a good portion of the building.
I didn’t have time to check for injuries. The fire we’d inadvertently started with our grenade sent a ball of flame surging upward. Spitting dirt out of my mouth, I managed to scramble to my feet and yell to the rest of the squad to retreat. They were already two steps ahead of me; a few of them three. We regrouped behind some oil drums about fifty feet from the building as fire completely engulfed it. A second group of marines tasked to watch the front of the building retreated and hooked up with us. One of the men had been hit by shrapnel that had cut his arm below his bulletproof vest; otherwise, we had no casualties.
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