Shadow War

by Sean McFate

  “We tracked him for three damn hours,” Miles laughed.

  “We were a hundred meters away, and he never heard us.”

  “Because he kept bitching out loud about his scrotum, even though he was the only one there!”

  “What a bonehead,” I said, working the chopsticks with practiced ease, a calming ritual I’d been using for almost twenty years. Every outfit has boneheads, even the elite.

  “I’m glad he washed out,” Miles said. “But I feel sorry for his wife. She probably has the clap.”

  Greenlees came over and sat. “We’re just talking about dick infections,” Miles said to him, “but don’t worry, Johnny, it’s nothing you can catch from giving blowjobs.”

  Greenlees chuckled unconvincingly.

  “What did he say?” I said, nodding toward Karpenko.

  The helicopter pilot was the one reminding Miles of Tamanrasset, because he was becoming increasingly unhinged. He was a civilian. My guess was that Maltov had claimed to be hiring him for a corporate flight.

  “He wants extra money,” Greenlees said. “Hazard pay.”

  “What did Karpenko say?”

  “He threw out a number, a good one, but he won’t negotiate.”

  At least he had some spine. Karpenko was too willing to compromise, if you asked me, especially with assholes. Never compromise with assholes.

  “Sirko should just punch him in the face,” I said, thinking of the effective violence of their last encounter, after the pilot had gone gorilla on Greenlee’s eye.

  “Agreed,” Greenlees said.

  But Sirko wasn’t going to do it. Not without word from Karpenko. I could tell the old colonel disagreed with his boss’s generosity, but he’d spent a lifetime following the chain of command, and if this was how the boss wanted it, this was how Sirko would act. It was disappointing. I thought old-school Russian commanders were bolder than that.

  “Mierda,” Charro said. “Two more.”

  Miles and I looked at each other, then pushed our meals away and swung around to the Toughbook screens. We’d gotten lucky. The edge of one of our surveillance feeds showed the industrial building where the local toughs hung out. The club was on the ground floor, front corner. It had probably been a workingman’s club when the factories were flourishing, a place where shift workers gathered to knock off the rust. But the area had fallen into disrepair as the factories closed, and this protomilitia had taken over.

  The club had been quiet, at least for a while, but since 0800 the members had been out in force, harassing passersby and looking for the three missing men. Around ten, they had congregated outside, smoking and arguing. Eventually most of them left, probably to sleep off their drunks. For two hours, almost nothing.

  Then, five minutes ago, a low-end Mercedes had pulled up and two goons in ill-fitting, off-the-rack suits had gotten out. One went inside. One, with an AK-47, stood by the door. The second Mercedes, the one Charro had just spotted, was almost identical to the first.

  “War council,” Miles said.

  “How many?”

  “Five in the front door,” Charro said. “Inside unknown. They’ve been in and out all day. And there’s a back door.”

  I didn’t like it. The muscle had gone home, but chances were, they were simply resting up for tonight.

  “What do you think?” I asked Miles. He knew the calculus: leave them and hope for the best, or knock them out now. If we chose the latter, the next hour was our window of opportunity.

  “It’s a risk either way. When the dead men don’t turn up for afternoon cocktails, they’ll go looking for them. If they find the bodies in the Dumpster”—damn the Škoda and its small trunk, Wildman really hadn’t had a choice—“this place will be crawling with ants. But take them out now, and the Russians may arrive, asking questions.”

  It was a matter of timing. We needed only a few hours without interference, but we needed them early tomorrow morning.

  “Maybe we can distract them . . .” I started, when I caught sight of Boon, who was standing guard on the catwalk, raising his Israeli Tavor-21 assault rifle. Instantly, the FN SCAR was off my shoulder and aimed at the door. By the time we heard the car crunching on the gravel, the entire team was in firing position.

  The sound stopped. Ten seconds later, there was a pounding on the door and shouting in Ukrainian. Karpenko relaxed. It was Maltov. When Charro opened the door, the enforcer walked in like a conquering hero, trailing seven tough-looking Ukrainians. The last of his loyal men.

  I started to say something. It was ridiculous for Maltov to drive up unannounced, even if he was the one who had suggested this facility. What if he had been followed? What if someone else had been here? His lack of opsec was staggering.

  But Sirko beat me to it. He was on Maltov in a second, yelling in his face, and I didn’t need a translator to know that he was up his ass about professionalism.

  Maltov didn’t care. He brushed Sirko off with a wave of the hand and went directly to Karpenko, who gave him a hug. They hadn’t seen each other since before the assault, I realized. Until this moment, Karpenko might have thought he was dead. And I hadn’t even given the Ukrainian a second thought.

  Sirko started to say something else, but Karpenko turned away, his arm on Maltov’s shoulder. Maltov was his guy. It was Maltov and his men, I was sure, who had saved Karpenko from the palace coup three days before my arrival in Poltava. Maybe Maltov had always been the inside man; maybe that moment had thrust him there. Either way, Sirko was out. Maltov was Karpenko’s man now.

  “Double the watch,” I snapped to Jacobsen, since we’d still been compromised by the enforcer’s stupidity. No sense taking our operational security for granted. But there was a positive side here, too, because I could always use extra muscle, and because Maltov had proven adept at sourcing supplies from locals, and he knew Kramatorsk . . .

  I turned to Miles with a smile, thinking of the club. “Third option,” I said.

  CHAPTER 32

  They passed into a town, Alie driving in the rear, following two sedans and a minivan that comprised the official vehicles of the Donbas Battalion patrol. The town was scattered houses, then apartment blocks and small businesses, and finally, a one-story building next to a park.

  “We’re here,” said Shwetz, the teacher, taking a deep calming breath.

  He jumped out of the car and started toward the building, as twelve men jumped out of the other cars, their weapons drawn. Several stopped behind a planter, a few against the front wall of the building, while three rushed to the door and burst through. Alie could hear yelling from inside, and then gunfire, and then all the militiamen began to converge, swiftly, as if they were being sucked through the front door.

  Alie followed the teacher, figuring it was safer that way. Inside the small building, it was a scrum of bodies. Men were swinging guns, and screaming, and one man was down on the floor holding a wad of bloody paper to his face. A police officer was rushed by, two militiamen holding his arms behind his back, his face covered with blood. Two policemen were on the floor, their hands on their heads. Two more were cornered in a front room, where a man without a hood was yelling in their faces, spittle flying, the militiaman with the cell phone camera close enough to capture the veins bulging as he barked. One of the two policemen was nodding absently. The other was staring out the window.

  Alie grabbed the teacher, who was on the edge of a scrum. “What’s he saying?”

  “That they are prostitutes,” the teacher translated. “That Ukrainian citizens have been paying them with taxes. That they are not getting what they paid for because the police have gone over to the separatists. That he is an unhappy customer.”

  A complicated message, Alie thought, as more men surged into the room holding policemen, knocking her against the wall. She could see a dozen fresh bullet holes in the ceiling. Intentional? Or was someone about to get accidently shot in the face?

  She saw Hargrove in the crowd, recognizable under the hood, as
two policemen were knocked aggressively to their knees. The cell phone cameraman caught the triumph, then switched to another corner. There were eight policemen in the front room now, their hands behind their heads. They were not resisting. They had experienced this kind of harassment before, Alie figured, probably from the other side.

  The mission leader stepped forward, berating and lecturing along with the civilian, whose voice was starting to crack. The militiamen nodded along. The policemen had their heads down, avoiding eye contact.

  “They are shamed,” Shwetz said.

  They are waiting it out, Alie thought.

  The speech seemed interminable, but eventually the men started to chant. “Putin is a motherfucker,” the teacher translated with a smile.

  The leader chose two policemen, and the militia moved into the street, shoving the policemen before them with their AK-47s. Hargrove made eye contact with her as he passed, but Alie couldn’t tell what he was thinking. At this point, after the disappointments of the last twelve hours, his brain might be totally fried.

  “Where are they going?”

  “To victory,” Shwetz said gleefully, heading out the door.

  The street was quiet. There was no one on the block except a few militiamen swinging their AK-47s and the knot of men leading the policemen toward the park. It was a few hours after noon, and the sun was shining. Three trees were in bloom. The police station had felt claustrophobic, but out here, the operation was a stroll. A block away, a small crowd of people on foot and bicycles had stopped to watch.

  Really? Alie thought when she saw the Ukrainian flag.

  The flagpole was in the middle of the park, but the cord was too high. It must have been cut by the militia that raised the Donetsk Republic flag, Alie thought. After a few leaps, the Donbas men stopped and stared. They signaled for an older man, who was wearing an antique World War II infantry helmet, and tried to lift him. No good. Finally, someone ran back to the police station for a table. It took a moment to get it straight. Then the old man—now the symbolic everyman of the group—climbed on top and hauled down the Donetsk Republic flag. Another man tore it off the cord, stepped on the corner, and ripped it in half, or tried to—flags are hard to tear. When three men couldn’t do it, they stomped on it, kicked it into the street, and lit it on fire as the man with the cell phone tried to direct them for his propaganda piece. The fire also failed to take. The spectators at the intersection started to fidget.

  The cameraman turned to the park. The new flag was on the cord, but the leader wanted to make sure the ceremony was filmed. The man in the antique helmet gave a thumbs-up, then started to raise the flag. The Donbas militiamen began to sing the Ukrainian national anthem, while the cameraman zoomed in on the limp flag as it inched its way bravely toward the top.

  And then something cracked, loud enough for Alie to hear it from half a block away, where she’d stopped outside the police station. Even from that distance, she could see the old man totter. A leg had snapped off the table, but the men were holding him steady now, the group precariously balanced.

  The singing started again. The flag started to move. And then another crack, and this time the whole group went down in a heap.

  It’s gunfire, Alie realized, as a third bullet struck the table. The old man was lying on the ground, his crazy helmet beside him, the other three men crawling and tumbling backward to get out of range.

  They’re beaten, Alie thought.

  But then a man stepped forward from the body of the militia, walking in the direction of the hidden gunman. There was one more shot, but it banged off the flagpole with a resounding gong. The spectators scattered, and Alie saw a man with a deer rifle slide out from behind a parked car and start to run.

  The militiaman pointed, waved for his colleagues to join him, and started to run. Behind him, the militia poured out of hiding, following him into the breach. It was the sands of Iwo Jima, on some unnamed Ukrainian square.

  The lead runner fired. It was a tinny shot, because he wasn’t carrying a Kalashnikov. He was carrying a pistol.

  Oh Christ, Alie thought. It was Hargrove.

  CHAPTER 33

  Maltov stepped up to the door of the club at precisely 1700 hours. It had taken him more than three hours to assemble the equipment the American needed, but he had done it gladly, thinking through each request, so that he would understand how the pieces fit. He was even the one to suggest the garbage truck—a stroke of genius, the American had to admit.

  “Davaite pohkovorymo,” he said calmly, as two guards leveled their AK-47s. Let’s talk.

  Inside, the club was dank. There was one room with a hallway, clearly leading to a back door, and two windows: one in the front to the left of the door, one on the right wall looking out on a side street. A few lightbulbs hung overhead, throwing a feeble light. Three men sat at a table in the center of the room. One was Vadim, a local tough Maltov had known since childhood. The second was the Russian who had arrived ten minutes ago in the bulletproof Mercedes. The third was simply in the way. Behind them, three bodyguards had their guns drawn. There were cigarettes and glasses scattered on the table.

  “Da?” the Russian said.

  Maltov continued to look around. Bar in the back left corner with a man behind it. A pool table blocking access to the side window. Empty right front corner.

  “Chto ty khochesh?” the man continued in Russian. He turned to Vadim and said, again in Russian, the prick: “Is this your man?”

  Maltov placed his hands in his pockets and the three guards raised their guns (they already had rounds chambered, the muscle always had rounds chambered), even though he’d been searched for weapons outside. Two more men came from the back hallway, rubbing their noses and pointing their guns like amateurs. That would be all of them.

  “I am Maltov,” he said in Ukrainian. “Vadim knows me, and he knows my reputation. I am from Kramatorsk.”

  Vadim nodded. They had been a few years apart in school, and they had run in similar circles ever since, sometimes as enemies, sometimes as friends. Maltov hadn’t seen him in almost a decade, but he wasn’t worried about Vadim. The man was small. He always had been. This filthy club must have been his, because it was about his speed.

  “I hear your boss went down,” Vadim said. It was almost a sneer. After years of watching his old acquaintance rise, Vadim thought he had the upper hand.

  “I have a new boss. He sent me to apologize.”

  The Russian looked up with interest. He was young. Too young to be somebody. His guards were young, too. Even if they were connected in Moscow, they were nothing more than thugs on the make.

  “We mean you no harm,” Maltov said. “We have a long-term interest in this city, and a long-term interest in your friendship. The three men last night, that was an accident.”

  Let them think what they want: drugs, arms, as long as it was lucrative.

  “Are they dead?” Vadim asked.

  “How much?” the Russian said.

  “I am authorized to give you five thousand euros.”

  The Russian snorted. “Not enough.”

  “Per man.”

  Vadim tried to hide his smile. He would sell out for too little. The small-timers always did.

  The Russian sneered. “Why should we settle?”

  Why should you get a piece? Maltov thought. You just got here.

  “This country is at war,” the Russian continued. “That’s an opportunity. If you have operations here, cut us in. We can protect you from the separatists.”

  It was what the Americans wanted. They had sent him to cut a deal that would buy them one day of peace. That was all. But Maltov had a longer interest in Kramatorsk. And he still wanted revenge for Pavlo.

  “I won’t cut you in,” Maltov said. “And I won’t give you the money. The payment is off the table. I deal with Ukrainians, not pig fuckers.”

  “Maltov . . .” Vadim said, always a coward. “Be reasonable. We don’t want trouble.”

  B
ut I do, Maltov thought.

  “I will be back in three hours,” he said. “If the Russian mercenary is gone, I will give you ten thousand euros, as a peace offering. If he’s not . . .” Maltov shrugged. “I apologize again, this time in advance.”

  He turned and walked out. Behind him, he could hear the Russian laughing. Outside were the three Mercedes and two guards. He scratched his pen, then pushed down on his lapel to switch the microphone on. Too bad the Americans didn’t hear what was said inside, he chuckled to himself.

  “Eight,” he whispered, without lowering his head or changing his stride. “Two on the door. Target is young. Black hair. Black tracksuit. Table inside the door.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Hargrove sat down on the curb. Collapsed onto it, really, his muscles already starting to seize up. He could feel his blood pounding in his head. He needed water, but he didn’t have any, so he stared at the street beneath his feet, sucking wind.

  How far had he chased the man? Maybe half a mile. Not far.

  But it wasn’t the distance that exhausted him. He could run half a mile in his sleep. It was the firefight. The zigzagging and sprinting. The tension. The excitement.

  He hadn’t expected that. The compulsion to keep going. The excitement, once the enemy turned their backs. How many had there been? Maybe five. Six. He had only seen them in glimpses, hiding behind cars, running up the street. Militiamen without uniforms but heavily armed. Like his men. Like these men, the Donbas Battalion, the ones who followed him.

  “Good work, guys,” he said. “Great work.”

  Eight militiamen had joined him on the corner, but none responded.

  “They don’t speak English,” someone said finally.

  It was the interpreter. The man from the car. He was a teacher, right? He had a baby . . . a baby girl, was it? It didn’t matter. Whatever his life had been, it didn’t matter here. They were strangers, heaving on a corner with their guns in their hands. Because of the hoods, he had never seen most of their faces. But they were his brothers. Blood brothers, Hargrove thought. First blood. His first firefight. He hadn’t hit anybody, but nobody on his side had been hit. Had they?