The Sniper and the Wolf

by Scott McEwen

  35

  CAPO SAN VITO,

  Sicily

  The Cape of San Vito was on the northwestern point of the island, two miles wide and five long with particularly rocky terrain running the length of the western shoreline. Gil and Dragunov were now well ensconced among the rocks, having ditched their car in the village of San Vito Lo Capo a click and a half to the east. Nothing but a lonely stretch of dirt road lay between them and the open waters of the Mediterranean a hundred yards away.

  Gil scanned the water through a pair of infrared binoculars that had been stashed beneath the driver’s seat of the car, watching for the telltale flash of an infrared strobe that would be invisible to the naked eye.

  “Typhoon actual, this is Typhoon main. Do you copy? Over.”

  Gil picked up the sat phone, answering the USS Ohio’s transmission: “Roger that, main. I copy. Over.”

  “Actual, be advised your driver is parking the car. Over.”

  “Parking the car” meant that the SEAL team from the Ohio had arrived at its insertion point and was now in the process of “parking” the SDV on the ocean floor in 5 fathoms, or 32 feet, of water. The divers would be using rebreathers for stealth, recycling their unused oxygen to eliminate the large bubbles released by standard scuba tanks. The Ohio waited silently three miles out in international waters, 160 feet below the surface.

  “Roger that, main.”

  Gil looked at Dragunov. “Ready to get wet again, partner?”

  Dragunov rubbed a hand over his face in the darkness. “This is always when I am most nervous—waiting for extraction.”

  “Me too. Glad to hear it’s the same for Russians.”

  “It was the same for the British at Dunkirk,” Dragunov said grimly. “The same for the Greeks when Themistocles ordered the evacuation of Athens. It’s always the same when the enemy is on your heels, and you’re about to show him your ass.”

  The captain of the Ohio had already advised them that the extraction point was compromised, and they had agreed to proceed with the exfiltration; given their collective physical condition, another twenty-four hours on the island without food and water would be too dicey. Both men suffered from dehydration and suppurating wounds, and Gil had begun to run a low-grade fever, signaling the onset of infection. Without proper hydration, such a fever could quickly turn severe, particularly under the stress of combat conditions.

  “How much longer?” Dragunov asked.

  “They’ll park the SDV two hundred meters out then swim in beneath the surface. They’re lugging our dive gear, so that’ll slow ’em down a bit, but we should see the strobe in ten minutes or so. Only thing that concerns me is the delay in comms.” The Ohio had to relay its sat phone communications to the SDV team by radio, and this made it impossible to communicate with the divers in real time.

  Dragunov grunted. “Kovalenko’s here. I can feel him.”

  “Sorry to hear it. That fucker’s too good with a rifle.” Gil scanned up and down the coast through the binoculars, seeing nothing but jagged rocks on their side of the road in both directions. “At least it’s inside-a-black-cat dark out here.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have thrown away our rifle.”

  “Woulda, coulda, shoulda,” Gil muttered. “You can stay here on the island if you want. I’m not sure we need a Spetsnaz major aboard one of our subs anyhow.”

  “Why? Do you think I have a microcamera hidden up my prick?”

  Gil snorted, secretly aware that Dragunov would be sequestered immediately aboard the Ohio, kept in the wardroom. There he would be well treated and well fed but unable to mingle with the crew or see anything of any intelligence value whatsoever.

  “What are the chances they’ll let me see the con?” Dragunov asked, smiling from the side of his face.

  “Ivan, you got a better chance at seein’ a Swiss combat medal than you do the con of that submarine.”

  A little over a hundred meters to the south, also well hidden among the rocks, Kovalenko lay in wait with the AWS, still cursing the GRU operative who had failed to supply a nightscope for the rifle.

  “Hey, what the hell do you want from me?” the smartass had said to him. “You’re lucky I came up with anything on such short notice.”

  “Tvayu mat’,” Kovalenko murmured, biting off a chunk of chocolate and chasing it down with a long drink of French mineral water taken from the house where he had killed the Sicilian couple in their sleep.

  There was no rolling surf along the shoreline, and that was good because it meant there was less noise, and any wake kicked up by a boat would be more likely to stand out. He knew how much the American SEAL teams liked their high-speed Zodiac boats, and he was looking forward to shooting one of them up.

  There had been no sign of the Italian navy since his arrival the hour before, and he assumed this was because the Americans had probably suggested that the Italians steer clear of the cape for the night, but there was never any telling how much cooperation took place between the two governments. The Italians and the Americans were forever pretending to be at odds while secretly jerking each other off under the table.

  “Kozly.” Jackasses.

  Kovalenko pulled the rifle into his shoulder and scanned the shoreline for movement, looking for lights or reflections out on the water. Unable to see much of anything, he settled in to wait, certain that Dragunov was hiding somewhere along the shore and that the American sniper was with him.

  Watching through the binoculars, Gil spotted the infrared strobe beneath the surface of the water and grabbed the sat phone.

  “Typhoon main, I have visual on the strobe. Team is clear to surface. Over.”

  “Roger that, actual. Relaying now.”

  A couple of moments later, the heads of two SEALs from SEAL Team IV appeared above the surface.

  “Let’s go, Ivan! We’re on.”

  They moved out of the rocks, taking it slow as they covered the fifty yards to the dirt road. Once across, they double-timed it to the waterline, slowing again as they moved into the water to avoid making noise or kicking up a froth.

  The waiting SEALs crouched low in the waist-deep water fifty yards from the water’s edge, having switched out their full-face diving masks for night vision goggles. They watched for danger as the Spetsnaz man and their fellow SEAL waded out to meet them. Then they rose up to their full height, each of them holding a second set of dive gear. They were armed only with suppressed M11s (SIG-Sauer P228s).

  No one said a word as the SEALs began helping them into their dive gear. They were almost home, and no one wanted to risk ghosting the mission.

  KOVALENKO WAS STILL studying the shoreline when a car came around the curve to the north, stopping abruptly with its headlights shining on four divers standing out in the water 150 meters from his position.

  “Blyat’!”

  He swept right and fired without even bringing the rifle to a stop, picking off one of the divers. The other three dropped below the surface as Kovalenko steadied the rifle and fired into the water. The water began to bubble, and one of the divers resurfaced with air hissing from his rebreather, which he immediately threw off.

  Kovalenko fired again, and another diver resurfaced holding his chest.

  Dragunov hurled the hissing rebreather into the water, jerking the Beretta from his pants and firing at the car. The car immediately backed away through the curve, and darkness swallowed them again.

  Gil barked into the radio-equipped face mask of the wounded SEAL cradled in his arms: “Typhoon main, be advised we are taking fire! Repeat. Taking fire. One KIA. One severely wounded. Request immediate surface evac—over!”

  Dragunov waded over to him. “I can use the dead man’s gear. Let’s go!”

  “We can’t,” Gil said, pushing the wounded SEAL into Dragunov’s arms. “He’s hit through the lung. The dive would kill him
.”

  The Ohio answered his transmission: “Typhoon actual, stand by for immediate surface evac. Over.”

  “Roger that, main—expedite! We’re standing by in the shallows.” Gil dropped the mask and pulled on the SEAL’s night vision goggles. Then he took the M11 pistol from the holster on his leg. “Keep him alive, Ivan. I’m going after Kovalenko.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Dragunov hissed. “Stay here in the goddamn water! Your people are coming for us.”

  “They’re three miles out, coming in rubber boats that make a lot of noise. Right now Kovalenko is displacing for a closer shot, and if I don’t take him out before the surface team gets here, he’ll kill every damn one of us.”

  “Shit!” Dragunov swore, holding the wounded SEAL so that his head and chest were out of the water. “Don’t get killed!”

  36

  ABOARD THE USS OHIO,

  Mediterranean Sea

  “Chief of the Watch, emergency blow!” said Captain Daniel Knight, ordering the boat to the surface. “All lookouts to the bridge.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Knight crossed the con to the SEAL team leader, Senior Chief Dexter “Dex” Childress, who had just heard over the radio that one of his SEALs was dead and another wounded so badly that he couldn’t return to the Ohio via the SDV.

  “You’ll be going ashore hot, Chief, so take whatever you think you’ll need.”

  Childress, thirty-five, was of medium build, with a perpetual five o’clock shadow. “Aye, sir. Any idea who’s doing the shooting?”

  “You know what I know, Chief. Let’s just hope it’s not the Italian navy, or we’ll all be standing tall before the man when this is over.”

  “Roger that, Captain.”

  Minutes later, Childress stood on the deck of the surfaced submarine with his NVGs on, watching as six other SEALs finished inflating a pair of black CRRCs—Combat Rubber Raiding Crafts.

  “I guess so much for a low-impact exfil, eh, Senior Chief?”

  Childress looked at his number two, Petty Officer Winslow. “I warned the head shed to send more men, Winny. What the fuck else could I do?” He felt sick to his stomach, never having lost a teammate before. “Fucking half measures.”

  “We’ll get it sorted,” Winslow said, bumping him on the shoulder. “We’ll get it sorted.”

  The boats were ready and in the water a minute later. The SEALs loaded up four men to a craft.

  Knight stood in the conning tower, watching them through a pair of night vision binoculars as they sped away.

  “What do you think, Captain?” asked the chief of the boat.

  Knight glanced at him. “I think we’re probably about fifteen minutes away from an international incident, Chief—but we’ll see.”

  “How long before we contact Fleet Command, sir?”

  “Let’s get below and do that now. The admiral’s going to have a cat. All lookouts below, and prepare to submerge the boat to one-six-zero feet.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Childress sat in the team leader’s position on the forward port side of the boat, watching out over the gray-white surface of the water through infrared, the cold sea spray on his face. He and his men were headed into allied waters—armed to the teeth—without the Italian government’s permission.

  Winslow spoke to him over the radio headset as they raced along the surface. “What are the rules of engagement, Senior?”

  Childress glanced over at the other boat, seeing Winslow looking back at him. “Whatever’s necessary to make sure no more of our people get killed.” He took an instant to make sure of his feelings and then added: “I’ll accept full responsibility.”

  “Roger that,” Winslow said. “I’ve got your back.”

  Within ten minutes, they were in sight of the extraction point, and Childress spotted a man on the beach, kneeling over another man. As they drew closer, he realized the kneeling man was performing CPR—and that another, much cooler body lay not far off, with its legs still in the water. He signaled the coxswain to head directly for them, and the coxswain gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Come on, you stupid American,” Dragunov growled. “Breathe!” He gave the dying SEAL a precordial thump to the sternum in an attempt to get his heart going again. He could hear the encroaching boat motors behind him as he lifted the SEAL’s chin and breathed into his mouth. He then resumed CPR: fifteen chest compressions for every two breaths.

  The boats came ashore on either side of him, and two SEALs rushed to take over CPR as four others spread out in a defensive arc.

  “Sir!” Childress said. “Are you Major Ivan Dragunov?”

  “Yes,” Dragunov said, sitting back in the water to rest against his arms, his chest heaving. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him. I did my best.”

  “I appreciate you—”

  “He’s got a pulse!” Winslow said, his tone desperate. “Permission to haul ass, Senior Chief?”

  “Go!”

  Both the dead man and the dying SEAL were loaded immediately into the CRRC, and the secondary team raced back out to sea in the dark.

  “Major, where is Chief Shannon?”

  Dragunov got to his feet and pointed inland. “He went after Kovalenko to keep him from killing you as you came ashore. He could be dead, for all I know. But I think probably he is still alive because Kovalenko hasn’t shot at us. Give me a weapon, and I’ll go look for him.”

  “Negative,” Childress said, scanning the shoreline but seeing no heat signatures. “We have to go, sir.”

  “That’s your man out there,” Dragunov said. “You’re going to leave him?”

  “I’m sorry. We don’t have a choice. You’d better get in the boat now, sir.”

  To Dragunov’s own surprise, this angered him. “Shannon told me SEALs don’t leave their people behind.”

  Childress felt like shit. “We don’t leave our people behind, sir, but this is different. We have to go.”

  “You go!” Dragunov said, waving them off. “I’m going after Shannon. You won’t give me a weapon? Okay, give me your night vision!”

  Childress signaled for the other three SEALs to surround the Russian officer. “Major, the second that boat slid ashore, you became my responsibility. My orders are to see you safely aboard the Ohio, and that’s exactly what I intend to do—with or without your cooperation, sir.”

  Dragunov stood glaring, glancing over his shoulder at his competition and finding it formidable.

  Childress could see him swaying on his feet. “Major, you’re dog-ass tired, sir. Why don’t you get in the boat? We’re running out of time here.”

  “Chort!” Dragunov snarled, walking into the water and getting into the CRRC.

  The SEALs shoved the boat into deeper water, and Childress climbed in beside Dragunov, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about Chief Shannon, Major. He’s survived a hell of a lot worse.”

  “I know,” Dragunov grumbled as the motor was started. “I was watching on satellite when they tried to kill him in the Panjshir Valley.”

  “Say again?” Childress said over the drone of the motor.

  Dragunov shook his head, feeling very tired suddenly. “Nothing . . . nothing.”

  37

  SICILY

  Gil could feel the Wolf among the rocks now, and he somehow knew that Kovalenko could feel him as well, a strange electricity pervading the air. He realized the folly of hunting a Spetsnaz sniper over unknown terrain with nothing more than a pistol, but there was an arrogance within him that was tired of being beaten to the trigger, tired of running away. He and the Chechen had drawn each other’s blood, and there was no avoiding the now-personal nature of their enmity. So far each had survived what the other had thrown at him, but each was painfully aware that the contest would remain unfinished until one or the ot
her had proven himself the better man.

  Gil had lost the sat phone in the water, so there was no calling on Midori or the Ohio for support. He was completely on his own, and it was only a matter of time before the driver of the car called the police. Soon the entire cape was likely to be crawling with carabinieri—and dogs.

  He moved south for a hundred meters, stopping when his instincts told him the enemy was near. Poking his head around a boulder, he saw in the greenish-black field of his NVGs the figure of a man positioned in the rocks seventy-five yards to the south. The enemy sniper was aiming a rifle over the top of a jagged outcrop, obviously focused on the dirt road, leaving his rear entirely exposed. This made little sense to Gil until he moved east and saw that the grassland opposite the escarpment was sectioned off by the chest-high rock walls of what appeared to be ancient Sicilian farmlets. Any maneuvering through those farmlets would be slow and tedious, leaving him vulnerable every time he climbed over one of the walls.

  The only viable route of advance was over the rocky escarpment, which would mean taking his eyes off of Kovalenko for lengthy periods, maybe even losing his line of sight completely until he drew within just a few feet. He searched for a landmark parallel to Kovalenko’s position that he could use as a geological reference point to keep track of his progress. The last thing he needed was to step blindly around a rock and suddenly find himself face-to-face with the enemy.

  Gil was unable to find a definite geological reference, so he settled for what looked like a soda can alongside the road roughly even with Kovalenko’s position. He moved out, keeping tabs on the Chechen as best he could until a sheer rock face forced him up and over the top of the jagged escarpment, completely out of view of his target. The going was unsteady over the jagged rock, but within thirty feet, he came to a wide crevasse ten or twelve feet deep. He marked the location of the can and lowered himself down carefully, creeping forward toward the opening of the crevasse, expecting to emerge with a clear shot at Kovalenko from less than twenty feet.