by Scott McEwen
He increased his pace, though only slightly, and over the next twenty minutes, he worked his way to the end of the rhododendron thicket. He shifted his angle of attack to the right, training the AK-105 in the direction he had heard the American’s movement. Then he lay motionless.
Ten minutes passed, and finally there was another sign of movement. Kovalenko caught a glimpse of a tan rucksack through the rhododendron and opened fire on full automatic, emptying the magazine and chopping the rhododendron to salad. He quickly reloaded and then got to his feet and stepped into the undergrowth for a look at the body.
The instant he saw the shredded rucksack, he knew he’d been had. He stood waiting for the lights to go out, feeling Gil standing fewer than thirty feet behind him. His hand closed around the grip of the rifle, fingering the trigger.
“You shouldn’t wait,” he said over his shoulder. “This is no game to play fairly.”
Gil had the TAC-338 shouldered, the crosshairs fixed dead center between the Chechen’s shoulder blades. “I wanted to say it’s been a helluva fight.”
Kovalenko nodded. “I watched you in the Panjshir Valley on satellite two years ago. Dragunov was there as well. You were all any of us talked about for weeks.”
“You were still with the Spetsnaz then?”
“Yes. Now, before we finish this, I want to ask you a question.”
“Ask it.”
“What did you do with the key you found aboard the Palinouros? The key you took from Miller’s body.”
“It’s in my pocket,” Gil said.
Kovalenko chuckled sardonically, shaking his head. “If I were you, I’d wait to find out what that key opened before I gave it to Mr. Pope.”
“Why’s that?”
Kovalenko whipped around with the AK-105, and Gil shot him through both lungs halfway through the spin, exploding his heart and killing him instantly. The Chechen fell over in the rhododendron, and Gil ran to the body, knifing him under the jaw and quickly shaking him out of the ghillie suit. He put on the suit and grabbed up the suppressed AK, moving out toward the camp, hoping that most of the fighting men had joined in the hunt for Yablonsky and his team.
80
THE PENTAGON
General Couture watched Gil disappear from the infrared screen the second he shrugged into the ghillie suit. He snapped his fingers at an aide de camp. “Get the president on the horn, and tell him that Dokka Umarov is dead. He’ll want to inform Putin.”
Then he picked up the phone. Mark Vance, the CEO of Obsidian Optio, was waiting on the line. “Mark, I’m gonna need your helos again. Shannon and six Russian Spetsnaz are headed for the bridge in the Sba Mountain Pass. They’ve got about a hundred Chechen militants hot on their ass, so it’s gonna be shittin’ and gittin’ the whole way.”
“Bill, I’m sorry as hell,” Vance said, sounding very official, “but I can’t send my helos back into Russia. I’ve already got the Russian ambassador to Turkey on my ass. They know we were in there, and they’re hotter than a whore in a peter patch over it.”
“They don’t need to invade Russian airspace this time, Mark. I just need ’em to stand by on the Georgian side of the bridge. Maybe fire a rocket or two across the river if it becomes necessary.”
“Bill, I can’t do that!”
“Yes, you can! We just bagged Dokka Umarov, for Christ’s sake!”
“What? You’re shitting me! That’s confirmed?”
“I’m confirming it!” Couture growled. “And now your precious pipeline is safe again. So get those helos inbound!”
“Okay, but if there’s any international flack over this, the State Department better cover my ass, and I’m not kidding. We’re trying to expand our business into the Russian market.”
Couture rolled his eyes. “Your ass will be covered, Mark. Don’t worry.” He hung up the phone not knowing if it was true or not, and not really caring. Mark Vance was a millionaire many times over. He looked at the White House chief of staff. “We just bagged Dokka fuckin’ Umarov, Glen.”
Brooks chuckled. “I wonder if Moscow will send us a thank-you note.”
The secretary of defense came back into the room. “I was just told that Dokka Umarov is dead. Is that confirmed?”
Couture looked across at the air force liaison. “You got it cued up, Major? Play it for the secretary.”
One of the screens blanked out for a moment. Then they watched as Dokka Umarov threw down his plate and stepped over the log. A second later his head exploded, and the body went down in a heap, falling over onto its back to reveal the obliterated face.
“Christ,” the secretary said. “All that’s left is the goddamn beard! What was Shannon thinking, taking a head shot?”
Couture chuckled. “Well, Mr. Secretary, he was probably thinking he wanted the bastard dead.”
81
HAVANA,
Cuba
Crosswhite and Mariana didn’t have too much trouble climbing over the gate to the finca. He gripped the pistol in his hand as they made their way along the wall around the side of the two-story house. They had studied the satellite photos, and so they knew the general layout as viewed from above. There were bars over the windows, and the drapes were all drawn at ground level. They stopped at the side door, and Crosswhite looked inside. The kitchen was deserted, but the door was made of steel, and the window was equally barred.
“We have to go around back to the patio.”
They moved to the end of the house, and Crosswhite stole a look around the corner at the pool. It wasn’t large, only about twenty feet long and four deep in the shape of a rectangle. The still blue water shimmered in the sun.
“Will he have a gun in there?” Mariana whispered.
“He’s a fool if he doesn’t. Wait here.” Crosswhite stepped around the corner and onto the patio, keeping close to the wall as he made his way toward the door. He stopped at another barred window. The window was open, and the white drapes blew out through the bars with the breeze, suggesting there were more open windows elsewhere in the house.
A man sneezed just inside and then cleared his throat and sniffed, mumbling something unintelligible before clearing his throat again.
Crosswhite stepped in front of the window and pointed the 1911 pistol through the bars.
Peterson looked up from where he sat in a chair reading a book, his feet propped on a leather hassock four feet away from the window.
“You even twitch,” Crosswhite snarled, “and I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out.”
Peterson turned white, staring at the yawning maw of the .45. “How did you get in here?”
“Apparently I pay a helluva lot better than you do.” Crosswhite called for Mariana.
She came around the corner and looked in through the window, her anger and hatred boiling up unexpectedly. “Kill him!”
“Go check the door,” Crosswhite said quietly.
She went to the door. “It’s locked.”
“Look for another way inside.”
She slipped around the front. “Everything’s locked and barred,” she said, coming back around. “It’s like a prison.”
Crosswhite kept his eyes on Peterson. “Check the balcony.”
She stepped back from the house and looked up. “The door to the balcony is open.”
“Find a way up there.”
She glanced around. “There’s no ladder.”
“Find a way, Mariana.”
She went into the brick pool shed, but there was nothing of use in there either. “There’s nothing, Dan.”
Crosswhite stayed relaxed, but he knew that sooner or later, Peterson would make a move, and he’d have to make a decision. Firing the gun would be a risk. The cops outside the gate might get the bright idea of coming into the finca and killing him and Mariana; stealing the rest of the money and mak
ing up whatever story they liked. If the cop behind the wheel wasn’t such a cowardly type, Crosswhite would have half expected them to try it anyhow.
“Look for a key,” he said.
“Where?”
“How the hell do I know? But there has to be one. You don’t risk getting locked out of a fortress like this.” He noted the slightest change in Peterson’s eyes. “There’s a key! Find it.” He grinned at the CIA man. “Make a move, fucker. I dare you!”
Peterson just stared back at him.
Mariana searched the patio high and low, running her fingers along window ledges, turning over the patio chairs, and poking around in the flower garden with a fork from the table. She even looked for a loose tile, but there didn’t seem to be a key.
“Is there a lot of shit in the shed?” Crosswhite asked.
“Yeah.” She went back to the shed and stepped inside, pulling the chain to turn on the light. The little building was crammed with pool chemicals and old bags of flower fertilizer left over from the previous owner. There was broken patio furniture, stacks of spare tile left from when the pool was put in years earlier, and various jars containing odds and ends. On one of the shelves was an old metal tobacco can. She took it down and pried off the lid. It was full of nuts and bolts, but she pushed her finger around in it and couldn’t believe her eyes when she found a shiny new key at the bottom.
“I’ll be damned.”
She went back to Crosswhite, whispering into his ear that she’d found the key.
Crosswhite noted the increasing concern on Peterson’s face. “I’m going to give you the gun,” he told her, speaking deeply to cover the sound of him engaging the slide lock to safe the weapon. “If he makes a move, you shoot his ass. Is that clear?”
Mariana hesitated.
“I said, Is that clear?”
“Yes!”
“Put the key in my back pocket.” She did as he said. “Now stand next to me and take the weapon without moving it off target.”
They switched hands carefully, and Crosswhite stood behind her for a moment, helping her to steady the weapon. “I’m going in.”
He went to the door, and as he was putting the key into the lock, Peterson made his move.
Mariana pulled the trigger, but the weapon didn’t fire. Crosswhite swung the door open and ran inside, tackling Peterson on the tile as he was diving for the table where the .38 revolver sat in the open. He slugged the CIA man in the stomach and then hit him in the throat.
Mariana came running in with the pistol. “I tried to shoot him—I swear to God!”
He stood up and put the .38 in his back pocket. Then he took the .45 and tucked it away beneath his shirt. “Don’t worry,” he said, touching her shoulder. “You did perfect. I knew he’d make a move as soon as one of us started to open the door, so I put the safety on.”
Peterson started to choke and rolled to his side, holding his throat.
“I’d like to say you’ll be fine,” Crosswhite said, hauling him up by the hair, “but that isn’t true.” He slugged him in the stomach again and shoved him across the room. “Now I’m gonna tell you a story about a Mexican girl, you piece of shit.” He slammed Peterson down into a chair and took the folding knife from his pocket. “Her name was Sarahi, and she was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen . . .”
Five minutes later, Crosswhite and Mariana stepped out through the gate to the finca and walked across the street to where the cops still sat in the car. Crosswhite looked around and handed the cop the rest of their money wrapped in a dish towel.
“We arrived too late,” he said, “but I’m a man of my word, so I’m paying you anyhow.”
The cops looked at each other. “What are you talking about?”
“He committed suicide,” Crosswhite said. “Cut his own carotid artery. It’s an ugly scene in there.”
“I told you, no blood!” the driver hissed.
“And I just gave you another ten thousand dollars apiece!” Crosswhite hissed back, startling the cop. “The crime scene is perfect—so you make it work!”
They walked off down the street and got into Ernesto’s car, driving straight to the airport.
Mariana bought a ticket, and Crosswhite walked her to the security checkpoint. “How soon will you follow after me?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Not before Pope is up and around again. I’ve got the sat phone, so I’ll keep in touch. When you get to Mexico City, don’t leave the airport. Get on the first available flight to the US—any city!”
She smiled. “Yes, sir.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“I think so,” she said, feeling suddenly lonely. “I wish you were coming with me.”
He shook his head. “I’m not your type, Mariana.”
She put her arms around his neck. “Thank you for—for everything.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for.”
He watched her go through the security checkpoint, waved to her a last time, and went back to the car.
An hour later, Paolina opened the door to him, and the smile that spread across her face was like no smile anyone had ever smiled at him before.
“You know that I’m not a saint,” he said.
She reached up to touch his face, looking deeply into his eyes. “Every saint has a past, Daniel . . . and every sinner has a future.”
82
THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS
Gil stalked boldly into the camp, his face concealed by the hood of the ghillie suit, gripping the suppressed AK-105. One of the women pointed and said, “Kovalenko!”
He stopped and knelt at the body of Dokka Umarov, using the knife to cut off one of the thumbs. He stuck the digit into a pocket and kept moving, leaving the women gaping after him.
He reached the far side of the encampment and was approached by six men who had been left behind to look after things. One of them asked where he’d been in a language that Gil did not understand. He gunned them all down at point-blank range, dumping the magazine and reloading the weapon as he slipped back into the forest like a wraith.
He picked up the pace, moving into the Spetsnaz kill zone where the claymores had wreaked their devastation. There were Chechens everywhere tending the wounded. Cries of agony filled the forest. He spotted Mukhammad conferring with his officers and kept going.
One of the officers spotted him. “Kovalenko!”
Mukhammad turned his head. “Sasha! Come here!”
Gil kept going, his fist closed around the ready-grenade.
“Sasha!”
One of the men started after him, but Mukhammad called him back, telling him to let Kovalenko join the chase if he wanted to.
Gil fell in on the trail of the Chechens who were in pursuit of Yablonsky and his men. The terrain grew increasingly rugged, covered with rocks and strewn with impenetrable thickets of rhododendron that forced everyone to skirt around them. He could tell from the way the ground was torn up that at least fifty men were in on the chase and moving fast.
A thousand meters into the track, he ran into four Chechens who had given up the chase and turned back. One of them had broken his leg in the rocks, and the others were helping him return to camp. They smiled at him in his leshy suit, and he sprayed them with suppressed fire. Then Gil stripped their bodies of grenades and whatever ammo would fit his AK-105 before moving on.
He heard firing in the distance and increased his pace. His bad foot was killing him, but the lead element had made contact with Yablonsky, and time was running out.
COLONEL YABLONSKY FIRED a 40 mm grenade to drive the Zapad men undercover and fell back, helping the man with the shattered shoulder blade who had since been shot through both legs. He could tell from the overly aggressive manner in which the lead element was maneuvering against them that they were Spetsnaz trained, and he cursed them for the
traitors they were.
The badly wounded man was firing a pistol because he was no longer in any condition to wield a rifle. “Leave me, Colonel. I’m slowing you down.”
Yablonsky propped him against a tree. “You’re sure, Maxim?”
“I’ll never make it. Leave me a grenade, and I’ll make it count.”
Yablonsky pulled the pin on a grenade and put it into the younger man’s hand. Then he patted him on the face and dashed off to catch up with the other four Spetsnaz men.
Maxim crawled forward on his good arm, gripping the grenade. When the Chechens broke cover, he released the safety lever and counted to two before biffing the grenade in their direction. It detonated on impact and blew three of them off their feet. The others overran him and stabbed him with bayonets before moving on.
Yablonsky heard the blast and rallied his men to make a brief stand. They were running out of 40 mm grenades, but they had to keep the enemy back on its heels as much as possible. They fired a volley, and the last of the Chechen Spetsnaz were blown away by the barrage, giving them a much-needed respite.
“LET’S NOT STOP to watch the birds fuck,” Yablonsky said. “The rest are not far behind.”
Gil caught up to the tail end of the pursuers. He could hear them crashing through the forest ahead of him, calling out to one another to keep themselves organized. The 40 mm barrage echoed through the trees, and everyone picked up the pace.
He switched the AK-105 to semiauto and shot a straggler in the back, stepping on his head as he dashed over him. He shouldered the rifle and shot another man through the back of the skull.
A Chechen to his left heard the hiss of the rifle and jerked to a stop. “Kovalenko? Is that you?”
Gil shot him through the face and kept moving. He picked off a dozen men in this same manner, shooting them silently from behind, sometimes at ranges of up to forty yards, but a group of seven Chechens got wise to him and stopped to form a rear guard, thinking that one of the Spetsnaz men had slipped through the net and gotten into their rear.
Gil crouched motionless in the rhododendron, looking straight across a small glade at the men waiting in ambush. He was tempted to stand up and pretend to be Kovalenko, but it would only take one of them to call his bluff, so he remained motionless, losing time to the mission as he waited them out.
