ALSO BY STEPHEN TEMPLIN
Trident’s First Gleaming: A Special Operations Group Thriller
SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper (with Howard E. Wasdin)
SEAL Team Six Outcasts (with Howard E. Wasdin)
Easy Day for the Dead: A SEAL Team Six Outcasts Novel (with Howard E. Wasdin)
I Am A SEAL Team Six Warrior (Young Adult version of SEAL Team Six, with Howard E. Wasdin)
From Russia Without Love
A Special Operations Group Thriller
Stephen Templin
From Russia Without Love
This is a work of fiction. Any references to names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Some tactics have been changed to protect operators and their missions.
All Rights Reserved © 2015 by Stephen Templin
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Stephen Templin
www.stephentemplin.com
978-1-4756-0544-0 (ePub)
978-1-4756-0545-7 (Mobi)
Cover design by Nuno Moreira
Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.
– H. JACKSON BROWN, JR.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chris, Hannah, & Sonny will return
Glossary
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Prologue
_______
SUMMER 2015
SEAL Team Six veteran Chris Paladin shot up in his sleeping bag, torn from a nightmare he couldn’t remember. A cool sweat covered his body, and he was cold. Rain rapped on the windowpanes of the rented office in the financial district of London, like fingers ominously beckoning someone to open the windows. Sitting in front of the surveillance monitors, CIA officer Hannah Andrade had the early-morning watch. She turned her head from the live feed to the frozen image of a man who they’d nicknamed “Business Tourist” on the second monitor. The man dressed like a businessman yet hung around the area and peeked about like a tourist. They weren’t entirely sure what he was up to.
Chris shook off the dream and rose to his feet. He nodded a quick hello to Hannah before getting dressed and preparing breakfast—microwave meals courtesy of Tesco, the Walmart of Great Britain. The aroma of bacon, sausage, omelets, hash browns, and baked beans in tomato sauce filled the office, making Chris’s mouth water. And he clearly wasn’t the only one.
Solomon “Sonny” Cohen, their teammate, hopped out of his sleeping bag dressed au naturel with a loud sniff. When Chris first met Sonny, the short, bald man was riding nude on a donkey crossing a Syrian road in the dead of night. By now, Chris should’ve been used to seeing Sonny’s naked backside, but his system still experienced a shock. Hannah didn’t seem to care. She was one of the guys.
“Morning,” Sunny mumbled, changing into his suit pants, shirt, and tie.
Hannah was wearing business slacks, but she too got ready for the new day. With one eye on surveillance, she changed blouses. Chris had seen her change before, and he should’ve been accustomed to seeing her wearing only a brassiere, but in that moment, his usually-cool blood ran hot and wild. Not only was she a super spook with whom he’d worked during the Iraq War, running covert operations across the border into Syria to root out terrorists, but she was stunning when she allowed herself to be. In the Middle East, she appeared Arab, but here in Europe it wasn’t clear what her ethnicity was, and the story of her background changed depending on whom she was talking to.
Sonny stared at her without inhibition, and Chris shot him the evil eye. The man continued to stare.
Now it was Hannah’s turn to glare. “Sonny, have you ever been kicked in the eye by a former MMA middleweight?”
Chris snorted. Few people knew she had competed in Mixed Martial Arts, winning her region, before she joined the Agency, and Sonny was about to find out the hard way.
He seemed to give the question some thought.
“It’s not a trick question,” she said.
“Then, no,” Sonny answered.
She smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes. “Would you like to be?”
Chris, Hannah, and Sonny served together under the Special Operations Group (SOG) and were on yet another mission. As an arm of the Agency’s Special Activities Division (SAD) focused on high threat intelligence and paramilitary operations of which the US could deny any knowledge, it was dangerous, high-stakes, and something Chris could no longer imagine doing full time the way Hannah did. He and Sonny were under special contract, and this was a far cry from Chris’s regular job as an assistant pastor. Sonny worked for the Army’s Delta Force, aka the Unit, which loaned him out to SOG when needed.
“What I’d like to do is eat,” Sonny said, then walked to the TV and turned it on.
“Fair enough,” Chris said just as the microwave beeped. “Breakfast is served.”
The three sat down in a small circle, Hannah taking a spot where she could watch surveillance as they ate. Their surveillance focused on Business Tourist, who seemed connected to the focus of their hunt. “If Business Tourist takes the same route, today,” she said, “Chris, you can handle the first leg of surveillance and follow him along Charles II Street until he reaches the arcade. When he exits the other end of the arcade, I’ll follow. Then, when he arrives at Green Park, I’ll disengage and Sonny will take over, hopefully discovering his final destination.”
“What if he doesn’t take the same route as before?” Chris asked.
“We can take turns following him in the same order—you, me, Sonny—and we’ll just have to improvise.”
Hannah’s Agency training, experiences, and instincts made her better at mobile surveillance and countersurveillance than Chris or Sonny, so he nodded, happy to let her call the shots on this part of the mission. Sonny chewed on a mouthful of baked beans and grunted.
And so it began.
By 0745 the rain had stopped and the trio was already done eating breakfast, so they prepared to move into their surveillance positions. Business Tourist appeared, wearing the same conservative business suit and taking the same route along Duke of York Street as he had before.
Chris grabbed a light tactical vest, custom-made by the Agency, loaded with eight rifle magazines. One magazine sat vertical along each breast, and below that were three horizontal magazines on each side. The middle of the vest was free of gear, handy when wearing a suit jacket. When worn under a suit jacket, it was indistinguishable from a normal vest.
Sonny and Hannah donned similar vests, and they all watched their mar
k carefully.
Business Tourist continued along St. James Square, passing his target—the headquarters of United Kingdom Petroleum. No sooner had Business Tourist turned on Charles II Street than he slowed down his already leisurely pace and pulled out a phone. He stopped walking and started talking.
“He’s making a call,” Hannah said.
Chris expected Sonny to make some kind of snarky “Captain Obvious” comment, but he only chuckled. “Looks like an invitation to me.”
“It’s time to put our dancing shoes on.” Chris pointed to St. James Square. “I can take my position behind the tree line there.”
Sonny nodded. “You’ll be able to see if Lullaby approaches from Duke of York Street and cover UKP, too. And the trees will give you some cover.”
Lullaby was wanted dead or alive by the US government for executing the White House Chief of Staff’s son-in-law. They had reason to believe Business Tourist here was working with Lullaby to pull off a deadly attack in the heart of London, and the pressure to wrap him up quickly was building minute by minute.
“From the ground it’ll be hard to see what’s coming down Duke of York until they’re right on top of us, though,” Chris said, a little worried. They had to be extra careful.
“I’ll watch the surveillance monitors,” Hannah assured him, “and report any odd movement.”
“And I’ll drive,” Sonny said. “When Hannah reports a suspicious vehicle coming down Duke of York Street, I’ll pull in front of them and block them from entering the Square. I’ll pretend I’m having car trouble, get out, and talk to the driver. I should be able to get a look inside the vehicle that way, to see if anything’s up. If it looks okay, I’ll move and let ’em go. Then I’ll drive back into my spot and wait until Hannah calls me up again—then block and inspect some more.”
The three of them riffed off each other like jazz musicians as they outlined the plan they’d come up with the night before.
“They’ll probably use vans or SUVs,” Hannah said, “So keep an eye out for those in particular.”
“Most likely,” Chris agreed, putting on his wireless throat mic. Each throat mic was mounted on a band, which they concealed under their closed shirt collars. The clandestine microphones would transmit via vibrations in their throats rather than open-air sound. He leaned his head to the side as he inserted his small earpiece next, letting it drop into his ear canal. It was magnetic, so he could retrieve it with a small piece of metal, such as a key.
After a commo check to confirm the three of them could communicate on secure primary and secondary frequencies via their smartphones, he said to Sonny, “What if they recognize you when you stop their vehicle?”
Sonny grinned. “Then I’ll recognize them, too.”
“True,” Chris said as he popped open his suitcase. Hannah was already assembling an HK416 assault rifle, and Sonny had attached the upper receiver of a customized M4 to its lower receiver. Chris pulled out a customized M4, too. The bittersweet fragrance of oil on metal smelled like the good ole times. His match-grade barrel was 10.5 inches long, topped off with an Advanced Armament sound suppressor. His US Optics 1-4x red dot sight enabled a shooter to touch someone up to four hundred meters out. And in Chris’s hands, the weapon could reach out even farther. Hannah’s HK416 was easier to maintain and could take more abuse, but the M4s were lighter and more accurate. Especially since Chris hadn’t been training as much as he used to, he’d take whatever advantage he could get.
He slung his rifle over his shoulder, barrel down, and closed his suit jacket to conceal it. But in spite of the short barrel, it still poked out from under his jacket. He grabbed a copy of The Times and held it down at his side. He pressed his thumb into the paper, causing it to curve lengthwise and bend around the barrel to provide more concealment.
Sonny held a white plastic bag stuffed with something, possibly more plastic bags he could dispose of at a moment’s notice, to cover the barrel extending below his suit jacket.
“See you in a bit,” Chris said to Hannah.
“Don’t wait up for me, honey,” Sonny called over his shoulder as they headed for the door.
Hannah snickered. “See you guys.”
They hustled to the staircase. Better not to experience close encounters with nosey business office renters in the confines of an elevator, or walk into a close-quarters ambush. They exited the building and strolled toward the road surrounding a lush, emerald-green park called St. James Square. The buildings around the square were mostly of Georgian architecture—named after the four Kings George—minimalist and symmetrical with paneled doors topped with rectangular windows centered in front and adorned with ornate crowns, pilasters, and moldings.
Cars, motorbikes, and people were already pouring into the square as Sonny went to fetch the car. Chris crossed the street and entered the park, quickly spotting Business Tourist, who didn’t seem to notice Chris or his movement. As he ventured north in the park, the UKP building blocked Business Tourist from sight. Chris stopped at a spot where he had a good view of Duke of York Street and the St. James Square entrance to UKP, and waited.
Although passersby seemed uninterested in their surroundings and the trees partially obscured their view of him, he felt conspicuous at this early hour of the morning, standing alone on the wet grass in the park. He needed a cover story. Maybe he was waiting to meet a friend. It wasn’t an ideal cover, but it would have to do. It was believable enough, anyway. Rather than ponder the details of what he might say if someone asked him what he was doing, though, he needed to focus on the impending attack. The rest he could do on the fly.
He watched in silence for a few minutes, and then Sonny pulled the car around and parked next to the curb, just before reaching Duke of York Street.
Within minutes, Hannah’s voice sounded through Chris’s earpiece. “Two dark Range Rovers on Duke of York heading your way.”
Chris patted his suit jacket to make sure it was unbuttoned. He’d likely need to quickly swing out his rifle and make bang-bang. He’d already spotted the Range Rovers, too.
“They’re behind a MINI Cooper, Sunshine,” she said, using Sonny’s call sign. “Let the MINI Cooper pass before blocking the road.”
“Roger,” Sonny said.
The MINI Cooper rolled into St. James Square and turned left. Sonny moved in behind it and stopped, blocking the Range Rovers before they reached the square. The lead Range Rover honked, and Chris’s heart pounded so loud it seemed the whole of London could hear. He wiped his perspiring hands on his pant leg.
Sonny stepped out of his vehicle and approached the driver’s side of the first Range Rover. “My engine stalled,” he said. “Can you give me a push?”
The throat mic didn’t pick up the voice of the driver, but Chris could tell by the man’s angry gestures that he wasn’t going to get out and push.
“Then I’ll ask the guy behind you,” Sonny went on. He left the first vehicle and walked to the driver’s side of the second Range Rover.
The first Range Rover was blocking Chris’s view, so he couldn’t see the occupants in the second vehicle, but he heard Sonny go through the same spiel. This time, though, Chris couldn’t see or hear the driver’s reaction. A horn blasted from behind the second Range Rover.
“You don’t even know my mother,” Sonny said. He turned and headed back to his vehicle. “Range Rovers clear,” he whispered. He got in his car and started the engine.
“Okay, let them pass,” Hannah said.
Sonny backed up and parked by the curb again, standing by as the Range Rovers disappeared, and vehicles and pedestrians flowed steadily from Duke of York to St. James.
Chris was both afraid and unafraid standing there in the damp morning. The people who say they aren’t afraid are liars or idiots. But sometimes, when civilians asked him about it, he’d say the opposite, claim not to be afraid at all. Contradicting answers to the same question seemed perfectly logical to Chris until Reverend Luther finally asked him about
it. How can you be afraid and unafraid at the same time?
After thinking on it, Chris realized that fear was a double-edged sword. One side of the sword was debilitative fear, causing the wielder to flee when he should stay, freeze when he should act, or panic when he should be keeping his head. The other side of the sword was facilitative fear, steadying his nerves, empowering his body and mind, and tightening his focus to a ruthless efficiency. While the debilitative side of the sword wounded the wielder, the facilitative side wounded the enemy. The key was to employ the sword of fear against the enemy rather than oneself. From that first day of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, Chris had learned how to wield fear to parry, cut, and thrust, facilitating his enemy’s slaughter. In his combat experience, when men became complacent and put the weapon of fear away, they risked certain death.
The possibility of letting Hannah and Sonny down, of a mistake on his part resulting in great harm to them, caused Chris the most fear. He pressed his arm against the hard metal of his rifle under his jacket to reassure himself. Then he touched the chest of his suit jacket until he felt the hardness of the ammo magazines attached to his vest. As a SEAL veteran, he understood the value of training, experience, preparation, equipment, and skill. But as a pastor, he knew these could only take a person so far. He said a quick, silent prayer to God asking Him if He might watch over them all—Hannah, Sonny, the civilians in the financial district, and Chris himself. Prayer gave him no crystal ball as to what the outcome would be, but it was an opportunity to align himself with a greater good. After he said Amen, an inner peace swept over him. Whatever was about to happen was going to happen.
From Russia Without Love Page 1
