Shadow War

by Sean McFate

  If not for Locke, he never would have taken the mission, Miles thought, but somebody had to watch out for the kid. Miles had been Locke’s platoon sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division, starting in 1992. Locke was a butter bar then, a month out of ranger school and one of the few officers in Division who hadn’t received his commission from West Point. He’d gone to liberal Brown University, of all places. He was an opera zealot. He liked to quote some chick named Michelle Foucault and received an honest-to-God letter of reprimand from the CO ordering him to speak English at a sixth-grade level. Fucking Ivy Leaguers.

  Still, the kid had potential, and Miles had wanted to get his claws in before the officer corps lobotomized him. So he took him to the one place they could talk undisturbed, a titty bar on Murchison Road, or “the Murch,” as the men called it.

  “You heard the term ‘fragging’?” Miles asked, as young Locke picked up his Wild Turkey shot, tipped it down his throat, and almost coughed it back up.

  “It means getting sabotaged by your own men,” Locke said, sucking wind.

  Miles ordered another round. “It comes from the Vietnam War,” he said, “when arrogant and stupid lieutenants got troops killed.” The bourbon arrived. They slugged back another round. “So troops would roll a frag grenade into an officer’s tent, and problem solved.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying stop listening to Captain Franks.”

  “But he’s the company commander.”

  “Doesn’t mean you suck his ass,” Miles said. “I’d hate to see you turn into one of those monkeyclowns.” Then he gave Locke the only piece of advice a commander needed to follow every damn day of his life. “Take care of your troops, and they will take care of you.”

  Nice delivery truck, kid, Miles now thought with a laugh. Glad you took my advice.

  Truthfully, though, Miles knew there was no place he would rather be. He’d dropped out of the South Hudson Institute of Technology (aka West Point, aka SHIT) after one semester to become a real soldier, sending his TAC officers into apeshit apoplexy, and he’d soldiered for twenty-four years. CAG, also known as “Delta Force.” JSOC, the task force in Iraq under the legendary Stan McChrystal. Bosnia. Somalia. Afghanistan. Yemen. He knew more about Arabia at this point than he did about America. The only things waiting for him back home were two ex-wives, two kids he didn’t know, and the equipment for his beer brewing operation stashed in a storage locker on the outskirts of Phoenix. The only thing he really wanted, at this point, were Rottweilers and the warm thighs of a woman who didn’t ask where he was going, or why he couldn’t stay. The only thing he cared about were his brothers-in-arms, and most of them were suffering in this truck with him right now.

  “Roadblock,” Jacobsen said in his earpiece.

  Miles sprang out of his bag, his rifle in firing position. There was just enough light coming in through the bullet holes to see Boon, the best damn Thai ex-special forces op in the business, and Charro, El Salvadorean anticorruption death squad motherfucker, kicking out of their fart sacks and hunching over their weapons, too. Charro was a corruption of Charral, meaning “bush” in Spanish, because he had Moses’ burning bush tattooed on his chest. Charro was a devout Catholic; he’d fled San Salvador after shooting up a drug gang that had taken over his sister’s church. He had prayers for mercy tattooed halfway up his neck and all the way down to his boots.

  “Lock and load,” Wildman whispered, as the delivery truck started to slow. Miles didn’t need to see him to know that Wildman was smiling. The man had a darkness in his soul; he’d once sent a goat into the officer’s mess hall out of boredom, not to mention fistfighting several of his British 22 Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) comrades and almost killing a guy outside a gay bar late one night while on leave in Aberdeen. Even when not in the combat zone, Wildman was known to sleep with his SA80 assault rifle for a teddy bear and a block of C-4 for a pillow. The man had a serious relationship with det cord.

  “Four,” Jacobsen said, as the car slowed. “With Kalashnikovs. Two on the driver’s side. One on the passenger. Fourth man at the barrier with a radio.”

  Miles trusted the men with him in the back of the truck. They were outcasts, unfit for ordinary life, but they had found a home in the team, and they’d saved each other’s asses so many times they’d stopped keeping count. But he didn’t know Jacobsen, the driver, or Reynolds, his partner in the cab. He had needed a Russia-Ukrainian speaker on four hours’ notice, and Jacobsen’s two-man team was the best qualified available. And Jacobsen, the more experienced of the pair, fit the bill: an ex-Green Beret from Tenth Group, U.S. Army Special Forces, based out of Panzer Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, meaning he’d been trained by the U.S. government in guerilla warfare against Russia. Plus he was qualified, meaning he’d been through six weeks of Apollo’s training at the Ranch, just like the rest of them.

  “Shit,” Reynolds whispered into his headset, “they’re nervous.” Miles grimaced. Nerves were bad. Nerves meant amateurs, and amateurs did stupid things.

  “Ahov,” Jacobsen said, hailing a man Miles would never see, and Miles couldn’t help but think ¿Donde esta?, the only foreign phrase he knew. The men were speaking rapid Ukrainian now, two voices back and forth. It seemed friendly enough.

  Then the light went out of one of the bullet holes, and the tension increased with the darkness. One of the Ukrainians had put his finger over the hole, or maybe his eye, trying to see in. He shouted to his comrade.

  It got so quiet, for so long, Miles could hear someone breathing, and knew it as Wildman, gearing up for a fight. The metal sides of the delivery van would never stop a bullet. If the Ukrainians got trigger-happy, the team was sitting ducks. And those ducks were sitting on a truckload of missiles, ammunition, and grenades. Wildman would be out the cargo doors before that happened, Miles knew. It was only a matter of a minute, at most, before he was firing, with orders or without.

  A second hole went black, and Miles rocked onto his heels. The men were shouting now, back and forth with each other and Jacobsen, and Miles slowed his breathing, his finger resting a few inches from the trigger. They could shred the Ukrainians right through the walls, and be gone within seconds . . .

  “Wait, wait,” someone yelled in English. It was Reynolds, and it was a message for Miles. Reynolds knew the team could only sit in the dark so long. Thirty seconds, Miles thought, as the men outside grew quiet. I’ll give you twenty-five seconds, and then I’m opening up.

  And when Miles started firing, the rest of the team would start firing, too. And it would all be over then, one way or the other.

  CHAPTER 24

  Maltov pushed open the door and trudged into the club. It was crowded, especially for a Thursday lunch, but he hardly noticed. These people were insects, bouncing aside as he shouldered his way toward the bar. In the distance, a woman was onstage, under a bright light, dancing. He didn’t turn to look. He didn’t feel the halfhearted grip on his shoulder. He didn’t care about any of these people. He was here for his nephew Pavlo, who his sister would never be able to bury, nothing more.

  He saw the man in a corner beyond the bar and tilted that direction, not changing his speed. He slipped his knife into his palm, shouldered the last few people out of the way, and slid into the booth.

  “Ivanych,” he said, landing an elbow as he came in.

  Belenko’s bullheaded mercenary turned. “Grigory,” Ivan said, without expression, like he was just taking whatever the world offered, without caring one way or the other. The piece of shit. “Let me buy you a drink.”

  “I don’t think so. I had a rough one last night.”

  “So did I. That’s why I drink today.” Beer bottles covered the table, along with cigarette butts and ashes. The two woman across from them looked as strung out as the woman onstage.

  “You brought Chechens,” Maltov said.

  The big man shrugged. “Not by choice.”

  “You brought a fucking armored personnel car
rier.”

  “You drove a truck into it.”

  “My friend died in that explosion,” Maltov snapped, leaning in.

  Ivan stared at him halfheartedly. “That’s what you get for having friends.”

  Maltov felt himself tense. They were only a few inches apart now, and he could taste the man’s hot breath. One thrust, and this conversation would be over.

  Ivan laughed. “Do you want to compare body counts? Or do you want to compare allies? You were not exactly alone, were you, my friend?”

  Maltov eased back, realizing only then how coiled he had been. The knife he had been pressing in Ivan’s side slid out farther than he expected.

  “It’s over, Grisha,” Ivan said. He was smiling now. The moment had pulled him out of his stupor. “We are men for hire. Let it go.”

  Ivan was right. He was being unprofessional. There was the work, and there was the rest of your life. Your enemy in one might be your ally in the other, so you kept them separate. No malice. No revenge. Maltov had lived by that code since walking away from the iron works and into the world of men like Ivan. It was ingrained in him. It had to be, to keep the wolves from tearing each other apart. But he could feel it slipping away, maybe under the Russian military advance, maybe under the dirty squalor of that hooker’s smile. Strong things on the surface, he thought, could be rotten underneath.

  “Where did the Chechens come from?”

  Ivan shook his head. “Chechnya, urod.” Idiot.

  “Why?”

  “Because they were paid.”

  “For what?”

  “Karpenko. There’s a bounty.”

  “How much?”

  Ivan shrugged. “A half million euros, I hear, although we were offered fifty thousand, as a finder’s fee.”

  Maltov hesitated. A half million euros? That was nothing to men like Karpenko, and Belenko, and Putin, who was no doubt behind the bounty, but big money to a man of fortune. Five hundred thousand was enough to drink and tell stories on for the rest of your life.

  “Who offered you the fifty thousand?”

  Ivan smiled. “Why are you so interested, Grigory? Are you planning to turn on your boss?”

  Maltov didn’t answer.

  “Oh, that’s right, your boss has run away.”

  Maltov frowned. “Kostyantyn Karpenko would never run. Never. Unlike your traitorous boss Belenko.”

  Ivan smiled with all his teeth. He reached for his glass and drank half his beer in a long swallow. His hand was huge. Whatever had been pulling him down, he seemed out from under it now.

  “It’s a job, Grisha. For God’s sake, don’t take it so seriously. If you can’t enjoy yourself—” he looked at the two women, one of whom smiled back “—what is the point?”

  Maltov thought of the first job he and Ivan had done together. Ivan had shot a woman in the head—the reason was never clear—and then gone into a bar and sat down, blood on his shirt, and drank four beers. He had left a few-thousand-ruble tip. Generous, but in Russian currency, not the Ukrainian hryvnia.

  “He calls himself volk,” Ivan said. “Chelovek-volk. The Wolfman. What an asshole, right?” Ivan was laughing at him now, or maybe not at him, maybe just laughing. To Ivan, this was just another violent encounter in a violent life.

  A month ago, it might have been the same to me, Maltov thought. He couldn’t see himself drinking with Ivan, not here, not anymore.

  “I’ve heard of him,” Maltov said. “He’s Russian.”

  “We’re all Russian,” Ivan said. “At least a little bit.”

  Maltov felt the passion flowing back. “No, Ivanych. We’re Ukrainian. We’re fighting Russia.”

  Ivan didn’t notice the change in his companion’s demeanor. “We’re fighting death, Grigorivich,” he said. “And poverty. And boredom. The rest . . .” The woman across the booth bared her teeth, and Maltov could feel legs at work under the table. “. . . let God sort it out.”

  Maltov pulled away and closed his knife. There was blood on the booth, but Ivan didn’t seem to notice. It didn’t matter. One way or another, the man was dead already. He was eaten up, Maltov could see, with disease.

  “Good-bye Grigory Maltovovich,” Ivan said, as Maltov eased out of the booth. “Say hello to the americains for me.”

  He watched Maltov disappear into the crowd, then turned back to his companions. He had a woman under his arm, whispering to her, by the time the Wolf’s shadow fell over his table.

  “Do you feel better now, Chelovek-volk? I told you he would come.”

  The Wolf didn’t say anything. What did he ever have to say to a man like Ivan? He threw a thousand euros on the table, the agreed-upon price for information.

  “Karpenko is still here,” Ivan said, tapping the table.

  “You are sure?”

  “Almost. Follow that man, as I promised, and you will find out.”

  The Wolf threw another hundred euros on the table.

  “What about the girl?” Ivan said, still tapping.

  The Wolf rubbed the necklace in his pocket, his souvenir. He could feel his hand throbbing, but that was how it always felt, when his heart was beating this hard. He threw down another hundred euros.

  Yes, he felt better, thanks for asking. But only for now.

  He wouldn’t really feel better until Karpenko was in Moscow, and all his accomplices were dead.

  CHAPTER 25

  “Any trouble?” I asked, when Miles stepped out of the back of the truck.

  He had parked out of sight and sent a buddy team, Boon and Charro, to scout the area and facilitate the linkup. Once operation security was established, his driver, an American merc I’d never met, had pulled the truck into the building and through to the back corner, as far from the helicopter as possible. In case of attack, we didn’t want to lose both transports to one grenade.

  “Roadblock,” Miles said. “About twenty kilometers southwest.”

  That would explain the delay. “Pay them off?”

  “Didn’t work.”

  “Take them out?”

  “Almost. At the last second, Reynolds swapped some NYPD badges and a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue for passage.”

  “Risky,” I said, checking out the merc Miles was nodding toward, although stupid was the more accurate word. Reynolds was young, probably late twenties, with a skintight buzzcut and monster arms full of tattoos.

  “They were teenagers,” Reynolds said with a shrug as he humped a chest of tag, track, and locate equipment from the truck. “Just scared recruits. I thought something rare and personal might keep them alive.” I knew where he was coming from; I’d done the same many times in Africa, mostly with old airborne patches. “Besides,” Reynolds continued, “they were pro-Ukrainian. On our side.”

  I glanced at Miles. It was one thing to kill; that was often the safest path. It was another to risk your life, and the lives of your team, on nonviolent options. Other commanders might complain about opsec, risk matrixes, blah, blah, but in my opinion Apollo Outcomes, and my missions, could always use a man with that kind of restraint.

  “Welcome to the team,” I said, extending a hand.

  And that was it for small talk. These were my guys, closer than family, and Miles was my best friend, but we weren’t the type for sentiments or hugs. This was a deadly business, and the team was already at it, unloading the gear they’d brought with them from Africa: three boxes of grenades, flash and smoke and incendiary; ammunition crates; several blocks of C-4 and four meters of det cord; blasting caps; white phosphorous, or “Willy P,” that could create thick smoke screens or burn through bone and metal, depending on your need; night-vision goggles and flares; a case of freeze-dried provisions; a water filter; and six flats of bottled water, Kirkland brand.

  “In arms reach,” Miles instructed, as Reynolds and the older new guy, Jacobsen, carried four M90 grenade launchers, which were cheap, abundant, and wickedly effective against armored personal carriers.

  “Back corner,” Miles
said, as Boon and Charro lifted out a couple of the SA-18 antiaircraft missiles we’d picked up in Libya. Miles had brought himself some toys.

  “I could only slip out two,” Miles said, smiling, “but it will be enough.”

  “More than enough,” I said, “considering that we’re assaulting a natural gas facility holding a hundred trillion tons of explosive gas.”

  It was a slight exaggeration, but Miles smiled even more. “We’ll make sure the helos crash into potato fields,” he said.

  Wildman had set an old door on two grenade cases, and Boon was positioning two standard-issue Panasonic Toughbook laptops on the “desk.” Add the portable generator and an 8 × 11 metal micro-antenna to connect to a satellite, and from there to Apollo’s secure mainframe, and we’d be wired and untraceable on a simple system any half-competent Boy Scout troop could rig in an hour. The fancy stuff was the company’s proprietary software, like the encryption codes and hyperaccurate three-dimensional maps of Kramatorsk. Many national militaries used Google Earth to plan missions; Apollo Outcomes had a private worldwide grid. The technology was worth millions, which was why a paper-thin layer of C-4 was hidden between the computer components and their hard-shell case. Airport security would never notice it, but insert a pin in the sides of these computers, and all that proprietary coding would be incinerated in an instant, with only the barest hint of visible smoke.

  “Up and running,” Boon said, as the maps flipped on the screen.

  I looked at Karpenko, who was casually smoking another Dunhill, and Sirko, who was trying not to look impressed. It was either the technology, or the fact that my team had done more work in five minutes than he had done in five hours. Of course, none of the others layabouts had offered him any help