Frozen Conflict (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 4)

by Peter Nealen

  A rattling roar of automatic gunfire sounded from the stairs and Redrum threw himself behind a couch, knowing that it wasn’t going to provide much cover, but hoping that it might at least hide him from the shooter enough to avoid getting hit. Bullets thumped into wooden beams and shattered more glass at the front of the house.

  The long burst ended abruptly, and Redrum heard fumbling and cursing in Romanian. The idiot had run his weapon dry and wasn’t familiar enough with it to speed reload effectively. He heaved himself off the floor and leveled his M21.

  Codreanu was on the landing above, trying to yank the magazine out of a new CZ Scorpion subgun, but he was fumbling the magazine release.

  “Hold your fire,” Redrum said, as more rifle muzzles moved to cover the arms dealer. Lowering his own weapon, he walked to the stairs and ran up them two at a time. Codreanu didn’t look up at him, but kept fiddling with the gun, trying to get the mag out.

  With his gun hand still on his M21’s pistol grip, Redrum reached out and grabbed hold of the Scorpion, forcing the muzzle toward the floor. As soon as he did so, Codreanu went still, though he still didn’t look up.

  “We’ve got some things to talk about, old man,” Redrum said. “You’re coming with us.”

  ***

  Flanagan couldn’t see what was going on inside the dacha, but he didn’t need to. He keyed his radio. “Kodiak, Woodsrunner,” he called. “It looks like the competition beat us to the deal.”

  They had brevity codes figured out for most eventualities, but this wasn’t one of them. He couldn’t just say what he needed to in the clear, though. None of the Blackhearts trusted the encryption on those radios in the slightest. So, he was vague enough to hopefully obscure just what he was talking about if anyone was listening in. But the others would understand. At least Brannigan would, he was pretty sure.

  “Roger,” Brannigan’s voice came back, barely audible. Flanagan had the radio turned down as low as he could while still being able to hear it. The last thing he wanted was to get compromised because the radio was squawking. “Who made the winning bid, do you know?”

  “Don’t know the company, but I think we’ve seen them before, down south,” he replied.

  There was a long silence at that. His meaning was plenty clear.

  He couldn’t be sure, of course. But the way those guys moved, and the way they hit the house…it didn’t look like Mafiosi or Russians to him. They moved like Westerners, and unless CAG or DEVGRU had somehow gotten the okay to do a snatch-and-grab inside Transnistria…

  That was doubtful. They hadn’t even talked to Van Zandt about this job, because anyone with any kind of authority or governmental standing was going to throw a fit if they knew about it. The geopolitical situation with the Russians was touchy enough, after a few nasty encounters between US forces and Russian “private contractors” in Syria. There was no way in hell that a covert mission this deep into the Russian sphere of influence was ever going to get okayed by anyone in Washington, or whatever quiet part of Northern Virginia Van Zandt called home.

  And the bad guys on the Tourmaline-Delta platform had moved the same way. Not like gangsters, not like poorly-trained but motivated terrorists. They’d moved like special operators. Just like the six that had gone over the wall and assaulted the house.

  “Acknowledged,” was all Brannigan finally said.

  “If you move fast enough, you might be able to make a good counter-offer,” Flanagan said, even as he signaled Gomez that they had to move. Still staying crouched below the level of most of the vegetation, he started angling toward the road, where the rest of the Blackhearts would be making their approach.

  But the response he got a moment later dashed his hopes. “We’ve got eyes on,” Brannigan sent emotionlessly. “They just sealed the deal and left. We can’t top that.”

  Which, Flanagan was pretty sure, meant that the Blackhearts had already been out of the vans, making their approach on foot. And the bad guys had just left in a vehicle, with their target.

  They were back to square one, in a less-than-friendly country. Even if the opposition, whoever they were, was determined to keep Codreanu alive, the window of time they had to operate in Transnistria had started shrinking as soon as they had arrived. And it was only going to get narrower.

  Chapter 13

  The back of the five-ton was crowded, with both hit teams and Codreanu crammed in under the canvas, on uncomfortable bench seats. At least, the shooters were sitting on the bench seats. Codreanu was sitting on the floor, his back to the cab, his hands flex-cuffed behind him. He couldn’t be comfortable, but he hadn’t made a sound in protest since he’d been dragged out of the dacha, over the bodies of several of his henchmen.

  “Hey,” Redrum said, having to raise his voice to be heard over the rumble of the truck and the alarming creaking coming from its undercarriage, “Old man.”

  Codreanu looked up at him, or at least he lifted his head. It was dark under the canvas, with the only light coming from just over the tailgate. Redrum was sure he was little more than a slightly darker silhouette against the canvas top, himself.

  “You know who we are?” he asked, then almost kicked himself. Stupid question. Of course he doesn’t. Nobody’s supposed to know who we are.

  Codreanu didn’t say anything, but he might have shaken his head in the negative.

  “You sold a submarine to some friends of ours, a few months back,” Redrum said. If there had been more light in the back of the truck, he would have seen a flicker of expression cross Codreanu’s face. The light of recognition, followed by a combination of assurance and horror at the fact that his earlier guess had proved true. And finally, resignation. He knew he was probably dead.

  “It’s taken us a little while to find you,” Redrum said, with some genuine admiration. The fat, balding man crammed into the front of the truck bed was canny, there was no denying that. He’d been a hard man to pin down. “But our employers can’t afford to have you running around on your own. You’re a loose end. And the people we work for don’t like loose ends.”

  Knowing a few details about some of the dead bodies left behind in the wake of a few of Codreanu’s business deals in the past, Redrum was sure that the arms dealer could understand that sentiment.

  “The only reason you’re still alive is because my employers consider your network and your contacts to be more valuable than your permanent silence,” Redrum continued. “You understand me?”

  Codreanu might have nodded. Redrum suddenly realized, to his chagrin, that the old man might not even speak English. He’d assumed that he did, but couldn’t remember whether the briefing materials had said. He might have just been jabbering in meaningless nonsense words to Codreanu in the dark, unable to tell that he was just wasting his breath.

  But Codreanu spoke in accented English. “I understand you,” he said heavily. “What I do not think you understand is that while you might have powerful friends, so do I. And some of them will be looking for me.” The faint gray light coming from outside the truck might have glinted off his eyes as he looked up at Redrum. “And they will be keeping an eye on the border crossings.”

  Redrum glanced over at Flint. The other man just spat out the back, over the tailgate, his M21 between his knees, muzzle pointed up at the canvas overhead. “You let us worry about that,” Flint said. “You’re gonna have a lot more personal worries, real soon.” There were a couple of ugly laughs at that.

  “I see,” Codreanu said, his tone indicating that he saw more than Redrum had hoped. Dammit, Flint. “So, the longer I avoid saying anything, the longer I stay alive. If you truly need my contacts, then you don’t dare kill me before I divulge them.”

  Redrum glared daggers at the other team lead, even though he was sure that Flint couldn’t see, and wouldn’t care if he could. But Flint just laughed.

  “That’s why I’m here, you dusty old fart,” he said. He cracked his knuckles, the sound carrying even over the noise of the truck. “I’v
e got a few tricks even you haven’t seen. Trust me, you’ll talk.”

  When the fuck did this become part of the plan? The original brief had been to get in, get Codreanu, and get the hell out. He could disappear into a black site, or more than likely one of the handful of freighters that the client kept on retainer, and interrogated there. Waiting around in Transnistria, especially since they’d just stirred things up with a raging firefight right on the riverbank, wasn’t his idea of a smart move. Especially not just to indulge Flint’s sick enthusiasm for inflicting pain.

  But having that argument out in front of the prisoner was also a bad idea. So, Redrum kept his mouth shut as the truck trundled north, passing out of Hirjau and into the barren, skeletal trees of the woods along the east bank of the Dniester.

  ***

  Gomez and Flanagan surged out of the trees, dashing through the shadows between two darkened houses and into the open side door of the UAZ van. The boxy vehicle rocked as they hit it, and then Childress was pulling the door shut.

  “Let’s go,” Flanagan snapped. His voice sounded funny in his own ears; the cold had partially numbed his face and he was mumbling a little. “Does the other vehicle have eyes on?”

  But Santelli was shaking his head. “By the time we got back to the vics and moved up to the gate, they were already gone,” he said. “But we’re pretty sure they were heading north. There are only so many places they can go before they run out of Transnistrian territory.”

  “Still,” Hancock said, his voice uncharacteristically low and flat, “that’s a lot of territory for eleven men to search.”

  “Maybe we can get back in touch with that Gogol cat,” Childress suggested. “Sure, he’s a scumbag,” he said, as four sets of skeptical eyes turned toward him, “but he might have some idea of where some other Westerners might be hiding out. He might even tell us, for the right price.”

  “It’s his price I’m worried about,” Hancock said grimly, his eyes front, as Santelli started driving north along the M4 highway, back toward Codreanu’s dacha. “We don’t exactly have bottomless funding for this job.”

  Nobody suggested asking Dalca for more. Dalca’s contact in-country had already left them high and dry.

  “The plan right now is to head out into the country, find a nice, wooded spot where we can hide out for a bit, and plan,” Santelli said. “We know what their vehicle looks like; it’s an old ZIL five-ton.”

  “Why do I sense some long days and nights of recon ahead?” Flanagan muttered.

  “We’ll probably still contact Gogol,” Hancock said grudgingly. “But we’re going to double- and triple-check his info with on-the-ground recon. We’re not getting double-crossed.”

  Flanagan hoped that that wasn’t just bravado.

  ***

  Ignatiev sat in a UAZ-469, trying to ignore the chill, but with the utility truck’s meager heater running full blast. He’d endured far worse cold during Spetsnaz training, but his time in Syria had pretty much put his cold-weather tolerance in the past. He was used to heat, and he got chilled a lot faster, these days.

  Getting old. He dismissed the thought. He’d survived. A lot of men couldn’t say that much, particularly not among the “volunteers” who had gone into Syria. He still counted himself fortunate that he’d been up by Idlib when things had really gone bad down by Deir Al Zour. Leave the lamentations about age to the Americans. Too many Russians have fallen for that Western worship of youth as it is. Old men are survivors.

  He had his A-545 between his knees and his chest rig on under his coat, but he didn’t expect he’d need the weapon at the moment. The dacha was swarming with Transnistrian troops, along with more than a few Russian peacekeepers. The attackers had almost certainly long since fled.

  He couldn’t see much from where he was, but he could picture it. There had been a lot of gunfire around that dacha for several minutes. He’d been in a lot of firefights, especially in Syria. He knew what the aftermath looked like.

  What is this going to mean for my mission? The answer was pretty self-evident. This kind of killing, right on the Dniester, could only mean a heightening of tensions with the Moldovans. This was better than the killing of a random idiot teenager running a checkpoint. This was a firefight. He could probably spin this into the provocation that Moscow wanted all by itself. Western forces from Moldova launched an organized attack across the Dniester. Clearly, they are planning to reopen the war, and attempt to bring our ethnic Russian brothers and sisters forcibly into their so-called “European” state. We need to send more peacekeepers to protect our people.

  But there could be more to it than that. The Westerners could be the key to really solidify this operation. Because direct Western intervention, particularly American intervention, in a Russian affair…yes, that could go over well with Moscow. Especially if I can get a trophy to embarrass the Americans with their presence here. They’ve ignored Transnistria so far, preferring to play games with the black-asses in the Mideast. At least, that’s what they’ve told the world.

  He nodded to himself. He’d been sent to engineer an incident, and a bigger one had been handed to him. This could alter the entire balance of power, and give Moscow a PsyOps win far in excess of what he’d been sent to accomplish.

  Now he just had to have a Western provocateur in hand to give to the Kremlin.

  ***

  Santelli caught up with the first UAZ van only a few minutes later, and the two vehicles forged north through Hirjau and the tiny village of Saratei together. It was late, the road was dark, and there wasn’t much traffic, but they were going to have to go to ground soon. Getting caught out by Transnistrian cops wasn’t going to go well. As far as they’d been able to ascertain, most of the greediest extortionists in police uniforms were down south, closer to Tiraspol, prowling for tourists to shake down. Ribnitza seemed to be one of the more professional areas. But getting pulled over with the kind of hardware they had in those two vans was going to be bad. Especially after what had just happened down by the river.

  They still pulled off and slow-rolled through Saratei itself, looking for the ZIL truck. They saw several vehicles that might have been it, but on closer inspection were either the wrong make, or clearly the wrong vehicle. One was up on blocks, without any wheels.

  Shortly after Saratei, the lead van pulled over to the side of the road, under a gnarled, overhanging tree, bare of leaves and laden with snow. The vehicle stopped, and the lights went out. Hancock motioned for Santelli to kill their own van, and opened the door. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  He swung out into the snow, wishing that he had better cold weather clothing than the civilian clothes he’d come in. His trousers had mostly dried out in the blast of warmish air coming from the UAZ’s heater, though he wasn’t entirely sure the accompanying exhaust fumes had quite been worth it.

  Keeping his AKM under his arm, trying to disguise its silhouette to anyone who might by chance be observing them, he slogged through the white toward the lead van. The snow wasn’t deep, but footing was treacherous.

  Brannigan opened the door as he approached and beckoned him over. The Colonel had the map spread out over his knees, his own AKM thrust between his leg and the center console. He was using a small red-lens flashlight to study the map, and Hancock dug his own out. He knew that not all of the Blackhearts had thought to pack such a thing, but Hancock was a firm believer in being prepared, and a flashlight was something he never went anywhere without.

  “We’re about here,” Brannigan said softly, without preamble, pointing to a spot on the map just north of Saratei with a pen. There didn’t appear to be anyone nearby, and the snow muffled sounds anyway, but they were all in the habit of being cautious, especially in a situation like this. “We should have about five hours of darkness left. I doubt that our competition’s going to be eager to stay out longer than necessary; especially after that dustup, they’re going to want to go to ground fast.”

  Hancock nodded. “It’s what I�
��d do,” he said.

  “I say we take advantage of the darkness we’ve got left,” Brannigan said. “We’ll divide and conquer; I’ll take the north, to Belochi, and you take the east, to Molochisul Mare. Drive in, take a look around, see if you can spot that ZIL, and if so, call on the radio. If not, move to the rally point, here.” He pointed to an empty spot on the map, that should be in the woods, near the fields lying between the two towns. “If you do find it, pick a rally point close by and be ready to talk us in.” He studied the map a little. “If we find it in Belochi, we’ll rally up here.” He pointed to what looked like it should be a wooded hill just to the northeast of the village.”

  “And if neither of us find shit?” Hancock asked.

  “Then we move back to the first rally point, see if we can’t hunker down for the day, and plan an extensive zone recon for tomorrow night,” Brannigan answered. “Two-man teams, to cover as much territory as possible.”

  “That’s still a lot of territory, boss,” Hancock said. “Too much for even five two-man teams to cover in a single night.”

  Brannigan sighed, running a hand over his mustache. “I know. Which is why if we come up empty on the target sites I’ve picked, I’m going to chance calling the number Gogol gave us.”

  There was a pause as the words seemed to hang in the icy air. Hancock had known that it was an option, but he didn’t like it. “You think he’ll give us accurate info, when we’re not close by to put a gun to his head?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Brannigan replied. “At the very least, he might be able to narrow down our zones. Worst-case scenario, he tries to ambush us, and our recon teams spot it in time. That’s why we’re going to play this slow and careful.”