by Scott McEwen
Ruiz took another drink. “Walton will have to pay as well.”
“That’s understood. You’ve never had trouble receiving payment, Captain.”
“You were never an exile,” Ruiz said. “Now you are, so I can extend you no more credit. From now on, our business requires payment up front.”
Peterson could feel the walls starting to close in on him, but he reminded himself to look at the positive side. Pope’s handpicked assassin would soon be dead, and it would be some time before he could find someone else qualified to penetrate Cuba for a second attempt. In the meantime, he and Walton would formulate a plan to mitigate future threats.
“I kind of like being called an exile,” he said thoughtfully. “It has an exotic ring to it.”
Ruiz snickered. “So does ‘hermaphrodite,’ but I wouldn’t want to be one.”
The phone rang in the kitchen, and Peterson went to answer it. “Digame.”
“It’s Roy,” said a male voice. That was not, in fact, his name, but he was Peterson’s contact in Mexico City.
“What can I do for you, Roy?”
“I thought it might interest you to know that His Majesty has gone off the grid.” Roy was referring to Tim Hagen. “Disappeared from his hotel room without a trace.”
“Well, that’s not surprising. I knew he’d run sooner or later.”
“I don’t think he ran. I think he was taken. One of Pope’s pipe hitters was here in the city when he went missing: an ex-Delta operator named Crosswhite.”
“Do you have anything else?”
“Only this: Crosswhite was seen in the company of Antonio Castañeda while he was here. There was a female agent with him, but I don’t have a name on her yet.”
“It’s probably Mariana Mederos,” Peterson muttered. “Crosswhite’s already here in Havana.”
“Then Pope is definitely cleaning house,” Roy said. “You’d better think about getting the hell out of there.”
“There’s nowhere else for me to go. All my money is invested here.”
“In that case, I wish you luck. You’re going to need it.”
61
HAVANA,
Cuba
Crosswhite stood watching out the window from Paolina’s bedroom as the CIA assassins pulled up in front of the house in their own car. There were three instead of two, and that immediately complicated matters because Crosswhite knew one of them would remain outside to watch the street. As they dismounted the vehicle, it became immediately obvious they were ex-military. All three were of Cuban descent, muscular, confident, and alert, with their hair cut high and tight.
Crosswhite looked at the .45 revolver in his hand. It was far better than nothing, but every round would have to count.
Two of the men stepped up to the house and knocked. Crosswhite went to watch through a crack in the bedroom door as Paolina’s father got up from the table.
“Who is it?” he asked in Spanish.
“The police. Open the door.”
Duardo opened the door, and the men stepped inside without waiting to be invited. “We need to speak with Paolina,” the driver said, his Miami accent obvious.
“May I see some identification?”
The driver lifted his shirt to reveal the butt of a Beretta pistol. “We don’t want to hurt her. We need to know about the American she was fucking earlier tonight.”
“I’ll get her,” Duardo said, holding his temper as he turned to leave the kitchen.
One of the men followed him into the other room, and Crosswhite pulled back the hammer on the .45. He stepped into the kitchen and blew the driver’s brains all over the wall.
The other man ducked into the bathroom and started firing into the kitchen, sending Crosswhite diving into the corner for cover. The third man, who’d been left outside to watch the street, kicked open the door a second later, and Crosswhite shot him in the chest. He flew backward but did not go down. Crosswhite shot him again, and still he didn’t go down.
The man fired a shot and hit Crosswhite inside the left thigh.
Crosswhite fired a third time, hitting him in the base of the throat, and this time the man crumpled to the floor.
“Duardo!” Crosswhite shouted. “You okay?”
“I’m okay!”
Crosswhite grabbed the Beretta from the driver’s pants and checked to be sure there was a round in the chamber. “Hey, asshole!” he shouted in English at the man in the bathroom.
“What the fuck you want?”
“Cops are comin’!”
“That’s a bigger problem for you than me,” the Cuban called back in perfect English. “I got friends inside. You won’t last twenty-four hours, white boy.”
Crosswhite knew that was probably true. He looked at the floor where the blood was pooling on the tile between his legs. “Throw out your gun, and I’ll let you go.”
“Fuck you! Throw me your gun, and I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out with it!”
Crosswhite laughed. “You’re a funny motherfucker! I’ll remember that when I take a piss on your dead fuckin’ body!” He glanced out the open door, knowing he should take off in the car, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon Duardo.
“Hey, where’s the little whore?” the Cuban called out.
“Your mama? Last I heard she was still takin’ it in the ass for five bucks a carload.”
The Cuban laughed. “Stick around, asshole. You’ll be takin’ it in the ass pretty soon yourself!”
“Listen, I got an idea,” Crosswhite said in Spanish. “How about you let my man pass? That way we can all get the fuck outta here before the fuzz shows up.”
The Cuban was quiet for a moment. Then he answered in Spanish, “Okay. He can pass.”
“Duardo, what do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Duardo answered. “What do you think?”
“He knows if he kills you, I’ll never let him out of here, and we’ll both go to prison. That’s all I can promise.”
“Get the fuck outta here!” the Cuban said. “I’ll catch up to you two pendejos another time!”
“Okay, I’m coming out,” Duardo said a few seconds later.
As he was passing the bathroom, the Cuban grabbed him from behind, screwing the pistol into his ear. “Ni una palabra!” he whispered, using Duardo as a human shield as they approached the kitchen. Not a word!
Duardo opened his hand and let the bayonet slide down out of his shirt sleeve. As they neared the kitchen doorway, he jerked his head away from the pistol and stabbed the blade deep into the Cuban’s thigh, striking bone.
The Cuban howled, and Duardo spun around, knocking the gun from his hand and kicking him in the groin. The stricken assassin dropped to his knees, and Crosswhite bound into the room, shooting him in the head with the last round from the .45.
“Well done!” Crosswhite said, patting the older man on the shoulder. He then grew dizzy and dropped down on the couch. “Rum?” he said in English. “Shock.”
Duardo didn’t speak much English, but he understood “rum,” and he understood “shock,” because they were essentially the same words in Spanish. He helped Crosswhite back to his feet and grabbed the bottle from the kitchen table on their way to the car.
A few minutes later, they arrived at his sister-in-law’s house five blocks away.
“My God!” Olivia cried, seeing the blood as her husband sat Crosswhite down at the kitchen table.
“What happened?” asked Duardo’s sister-in-law Carmen.
Duardo began to explain, and Paolina went into the bathroom, coming back out with a box of sanitary napkins.
“Good idea,” Crosswhite said, shrugging his trousers down to his knees. “Here, let me grab a couple of those things.”
A short time later, he was lying on a bed in the back of the house. The bleeding ha
d stopped, and Paolina sat beside him on the mattress.
Duardo and Olivia were in the kitchen trying to calm Carmen. “What the hell are you going to do with him?” Carmen demanded. “He can’t stay here.”
“He has to,” Duardo said. “We can’t give him to the police. He’s CIA.”
Her eyebrows soared. “I can’t have CIA in my house!”
Olivia was concerned too. “Won’t the police look for him here?”
“They may,” Duardo admitted. “But we have to think of something, because in jail he’ll be killed.”
Paolina appeared and stood leaning in the kitchen doorway. “Go back to the house, Papi. Tell the police the man you stabbed was with me when the others came to kill him. No one has to know an American was ever there.”
Carmen looked at her. “You’re going to lie to the police for a stranger? For the CIA?”
Paolina looked at her aunt with her soft brown eyes, innocent and guileless. “His name is Daniel.”
62
THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS
“I think we should make a stand here,” Gil said as he and Dragunov stopped to catch their wind. “Hit ’em hard with grenades, then haul ass again before they can maneuver to outflank us. That’ll slow their pursuit and get ’em off our ass.”
“Maybe, but we give up our lead if we do that.” Dragunov was holding his wounded groin, resting with one arm against a tree. It was almost light enough to see without night vision.
“I know, but they’re gonna catch us anyhow. This way we can hit ’em on our terms one last time before it gets light. We need to kill some of these fuckers before we enter that valley. If those guys catch us out there in the open, we’re fucked.”
“I have to tell you,” Dragunov said. “My yaytsa are killing me. I’m worried if I stop, I won’t be able to get moving again.”
“You’ll get movin’ again,” Gil said. “If I have to put a foot up your ass.”
Dragunov gave him a rueful grin, and they took up firing positions twenty feet apart. They could hear the enemy double-timing it in their direction, calling to one another as they came. It was a dangerous way to hunt the enemy, but without night vision or comms, there was no other way to organize a pursuit. Gil thought briefly of how it must have been for his father in the jungles of Vietnam, operating virtually blind in the night with nothing but a hazy starlight scope and unreliable comms, relying almost entirely upon the warrior instinct for survival.
“No way to have to fight a war,” he muttered, pulling the pins on a pair of grenades.
They waited until the Chechens drew within range and then lobbed two grenades apiece into their midst. The grenades detonated on impact, blasting men apart. Chaos ensued, and there was a lot of screaming as the forest erupted in an unholy display of machine-gun fire and tracer rounds. They hurled another pair of grenades each, and the enemy fell back under the bombardment.
Gil ran and grabbed Dragunov by the harness, hauling him up, and the two of them disappeared into the shadows.
DOKKA UMAROV SEETHED with rage over the enemy’s cowardly use of hit-and-run tactics.
“On your feet!” he shouted, kicking one of his men in the butt. “They’re already off again! Get after them!”
Anzor Basayev, his second in command, appeared at his side. “They’ll hit us again, Dokka. We need to be careful, or we’ll lose too many men.”
“How many grenades do you think they carry?” Umarov said. “At most, they have enough for one more ambush—and it’s getting light now. Soon we’ll have them in the valley, where they won’t be able to hide so well. Now get your unit moving!”
At this moment, the second runner from Lom’s group finally caught up to them. He’d gotten lost in the dark and hadn’t been able to find them until the sounds of battle told him the way.
“Dokka,” he said, his chest heaving. “I was sent to tell you the enemy cut our line and is coming this way. But it looks like they’ve already cut your line as well.”
Umarov bit back the foul remark that came to his tongue. “Where are Kovalenko and my idiot nephew?”
“Lom was wounded in the fight,” the runner said. “About Kovalenko, I don’t know.
Umarov looked at Basayev. “Do you suppose the Wolf has gotten himself killed?”
“I doubt it,” Basayev replied. “Dragunov and the American are running scared for a reason.”
Umarov grunted. “Get the men moving, tactical columns.”
Despite Umarov’s and Basayev’s hazing them on, the men were hesitant to move at the same reckless speed they had moved before, and the two leaders were forced to accept it; shouting at them would only continue to alert the enemy.
By the time they covered another couple hundred yards, it had gown light enough to see. A grenade went off at the front of the advance, hurling body parts into the air, and the men dove for cover, pouring fire at the unseen enemy.
“Stop firing!” Umarov screamed, grabbing a man by the jacket and jerking him to his feet. “Stop firing!”
“It was just a booby trap!” Basayev called down the line. “Everyone get up!”
The morale of the men was breaking fast. Umarov could smell the fear among them, and he knew that one more booby trap might be enough to break them for good. There was a commotion in their rear, and he turned to see Lom’s group dashing toward them through the forest. He was profoundly pleased to see his nephew, but not for the reasons Lom would have preferred.
“Where the hell have you been, imbecile?”
“They cut our line,” Lom slurred, his mouth bloody and grotesque. “We were running to catch up.”
Umarov took a quick head count of Lom’s men, relieved to see twenty fresh fighters. “Get your men to the front of the line.”
Lom went forward with his group, and Umarov saw the positive effect it had on the rest of his men.
“At least the fool is still good for something,” he told himself. “Forward now!” he hissed at his men. “Allah has provided!”
“As He will undoubtedly continue to do,” said a deep voice from behind.
Umarov turned to see Kovalenko standing beside a tree in his ghillie suit, cradling the ORSIS T-5000 in his arms.
“So the Wolf lives,” Umarov said. “I thought they might have killed you.”
Kovalenko stepped forward. “They’re trying to draw me into the valley. Their plan is to catch me in a cross fire. But they’re both wounded, and they have to be wearing down after all they’ve been through.”
Umarov smirked. “You wouldn’t know it from the way they continue to fight.”
“That’s because they’re the best the Russians and the Americans have to offer. You can stop trying to catch them now. Maneuver them instead. Let them reach the valley, where we can use your men to flush them out. Once they’re forced to expose themselves, I’ll finish the job.”
“I can’t afford to waste my men like that.” Umarov shook his head. “Not for two soldiers. I’m tempted to let them escape.”
Kovalenko put a hand Umarov’s shoulder. “That is what you cannot afford to do, old friend.”
Umarov stared into Kovalenko’s green eyes. “And why not?”
“Because this American will keep coming after us. We threaten their pipeline, remember?”
“Hitting the pipeline is a broken dream now.”
“No it’s not. Our friends in Moscow have begun to see the light, and if we can remove Dragunov and the American, it will demonstrate our resolve. Even Putin would like to see the pipeline destroyed—particularly since the Americans have chosen to oppose him in Ukraine. And though he could never be a direct party to it, he could choose to fight the pipeline’s destruction with one hand behind his back—and he could do so without criticism because the pipeline is not his to protect.”
“You’re saying Moscow is . . . What are
you saying, Sasha?”
Kovalenko grinned, opening his hand to the morning sky. “I’m saying, where are the Russian helicopters?”
63
THE PENTAGON
“There, right there!” General Couture pointed urgently at the screen, which now showed the battleground in living color by the light of day. “That’s the ghost! The guy in the ghillie suit we can barely make out!”
“Gotta be Kovalenko,” Brooks said, watching the camouflaged image moving stealthily along through the bare forest.
“Well, he’s hell and gone from the bridge crossing, isn’t he?” Couture grumbled, getting out of his chair. “ ‘Russian intelligence.’ Now, there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.”
The president was at the back of the room, talking on the phone with Secretary of State Sapp, who was at the Georgian ambassador’s house trying to arrange for air support from the Georgian army. From the sounds of the conversation, Sapp wasn’t making a great deal of headway.
On the other screen, Gil and Kovalenko were approaching the edge of the forest at the opening to the valley.
“God in heaven, where are they going?” wondered the aging secretary of defense. “It’s a no-man’s-land.”
“I’m guessing Shannon’s going to try to set up a hide,” Brooks said. “All he needs is a few hundred yards of clear killing ground, and he’ll pick those Chechens off to the last man.”
Couture stepped up to the screen, tapping Kovalenko’s image. “Not if this son of a bitch has anything to say about it.”
“I can’t argue with that, Bill. I think we’re about to see a real-life sniper duel.”
Couture turned to the air force liaison. “Major, get a tight shot of the rifle this man is carrying, and do a screen capture. Then run it past G2—see if they can’t figure out what that damn thing is.” “G2” was military slang for intelligence.
The president put down the phone and returned to his chair. “The Georgian ambassador is still trying to get his government on board, but it’s not looking good. Has Pope called back?”
