by Tom Clancy
To his right, the hall jogged off into darkness.
Silence again. Which way?
Voeckler took in a long breath through his nose. Thanks to his brother George, who’d also been a Splinter Cell, he’d learned to study his subjects down to the very last detail. He could tell you the Bear’s favorite drink (Grey Goose vodka) and the kind of music he liked (American alternative), and he could describe in detail the subtle blend of bergamot, jasmine, musk, and oak moss that composed the man’s Siberian Barber No. 3 Russian cologne, the scent of which now indicated that the Bear had turned left, toward the light.
Voeckler shifted forward, holding his Glock tightly in both hands. He activated the pistol’s viridian green laser sight, the beam cutting through dust motes and peeling back the shadows.
He reached the open door, swung right, holding his breath, saw only the shattered window and another streetlight leaning at a fifty-degree angle in the wind.
The Bear was clever all right. He’d assumed he couldn’t win a straight chase against a man nearly half his size, so it was stop and go. Wait, listen, charge.
Yes, he and his people were cunning. No doubt about that. They were a largely Muslim ethnic group that had lived for centuries in the mountainous North Caucasus region. For the past two hundred years, they’d fought against Russian rule. During the Second World War, then–Soviet leader Joseph Stalin believed that the Bear’s forefathers were working with the Nazis. Stalin deported the entire population to Kazakhstan and Siberia. Tens of thousands of Chechens died, and the survivors were allowed to return home only after Stalin’s death. Oppression, misery, and death were the Bear’s heritage.
On the contrary, Voeckler had been raised in the cushy suburbs of central Florida, where he had attended Florida State University and had terrorized the institution’s psychology, political science, and English departments, finally earning his English degree and then going on to flunk out of graduate school in spectacularly underwhelming fashion. His career possibilities had included pizza delivery, apartment maintenance, and camp counselor, while his brother George had joined the Marines and gone on to become a Splinter Cell operative. George had pulled all the strings to get Thomas a shot at becoming an operative, but at the time, becoming a Splinter Cell was George’s dream, not Thomas’s. In the beginning, Thomas knew that the only reason he’d been hired by Third Echelon was that he and George were twins, and having an agent be in more than one place at the same time was a useful ploy. Thomas had gone along for the ride, and for his brother’s sake, he’d tried to behave as professionally as possible, but his heart was never in it.
However, George’s death at the hands of a man named Heinrich Haussler, an agent of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (the German federal intelligence service) changed everything. Haussler had been hired by the Russians to bring in the Snow Maiden, even as George, Thomas, and a Ghost team were charged with the same. George had sacrificed himself to save the team, and losing his brother made Thomas realize that he could be more than his past, that he could live up to his brother’s dream for him, that he could live an extraordinary life and really commit to helping others instead of wallowing in self-pity.
So now he was Thomas Voeckler, Splinter Cell.
Ready to capture this man. Ready to make this happen. The streetlight groaned in the wind. He glanced at it once more—
But then the door swung back toward him.
He dodged to the right, came around, and raised his pistol at the Bear, who drove forward like a linebacker, straight into Voeckler’s chest, knocking him onto the unforgiving floor.
With his head rebounding off the concrete and the wind knocked out of him, Voeckler barely felt the pistol slip from his grip.
He stared up into the man’s eyes, gleaming like a pair of jewels, as gloved fingers slid around his throat and began to cut off his air. Below the man’s eyes lay ruddy, scarred cheeks and a beard like frieze carpet, dense curls wired with gray.
“Who are you?” the big man groaned in Russian.
Voeckler tried to respond against the man’s grip.
Seeing this, the Bear removed one hand and placed his pistol to Voeckler’s head.
“All right, talk to me.”
Voeckler answered him in Russian, “I’m your contact from Baku. Why did you run from me?”
“You’re not from Baku.”
“The guy from Sudan? The one you trusted? He’s dead. They sent me to contact you. I tried, but you ran.”
With a deep frown, the Bear drew back and removed the pistol from Voeckler’s head. “Why did you shadow me? You know the protocol. Didn’t they contact you about the train crash over the gorge?”
“They did. But I had to be sure, first.”
“Why didn’t you just call me by name? I wouldn’t have run.”
“I didn’t know that. And they didn’t tell me your name. They only gave me the address.”
“Fools.”
Seeing that his ploy had worked, Voeckler was done with this conversation. He wrenched himself forward, driving the heel of his palm into the man’s nose while reaching out with the other hand to seize the Bear’s pistol.
Voeckler ignored the fact that he’d failed Third Echelon’s training program three times.
He ignored the fact that hand-to-hand combat was arguably his weakest skill.
And he ignored the fact that while he’d regained the element of surprise, the Bear’s grip on the pistol seemed unbreakable.
The gun went off, a round blasting into the ruptured ceiling, as Voeckler went for the gun with both hands now, driving a knee into the Bear’s groin.
They screamed nearly in unison, the Bear trying to gain control of his weapon, latching his free hand around one of Voeckler’s wrists and tugging it back and away.
Another round shattered glass behind them, and the gunfire was sure to draw the locals, hard-faced laborers who knew the Bear, had accepted his many gifts, and would, at the very least, defend him if not join his group.
Voeckler tore one hand free from the man’s grip and punched him in the face three times, targeting each eye, then his nose again—
Just as the Bear turned the gun around, now inches away from getting a clean shot at Voeckler’s head.
He wouldn’t die like this, no. His brother, who was looking down on them, knew what he’d do to finish this fight, and Voeckler strained to hear his brother’s words.
The Bear emitted a groan that sounded like it came from the very pit of his belly. Suddenly, he broke free—
Leveled his weapon on Voeckler, who knocked the man’s arm away at the same time he fired.
In the next breath, Voeckler spotted his own pistol—
And so did the Bear.
Voeckler lunged for the weapon—but he faked the move, drawing quickly back as the Bear kept falling forward. Now Voeckler’s brother, George, would have been proud. Voeckler exploited the misdirection to both wrench free the Bear’s gun and deliver a roundhouse to the man’s jaw.
The barrel-chested thug fell backward, onto his rump. He lay there for a moment, sprawled out, wheezing. He cursed at Voeckler and said, “You’re an American, aren’t you?”
Voeckler kept the man’s weapon trained on him, even as he picked up his own pistol, then shifted forward. “I want the GPS coordinates of your warehouse in the mountains.”
“You’ll get shit, Yankee spy.”
The smartphone in Voeckler’s pocket vibrated again.
“All right, big boy, time to get up. You’re coming with me.”
“Not tonight.”
A man shouted somewhere outside the building. Two more shouts reverberated off the cracked windows.
“Maybe ten men,” said the Bear, glancing off toward the hallway. “Maybe more. And you’re going to take me prisoner?” He smiled, his teeth stained with blood.
“The
coordinates. Now. You’ve got three seconds. Don’t assume I have a conscience—because I don’t.”
“You Americans are weak, full of guilt and dicked around by politicians.”
“You’re out of time,” said Voeckler.
The Bear smiled and shrugged.
“Then fuck you.” Voeckler fired point-blank into the Bear’s head.
A second later, Voeckler was out the door, sprinting down the hallway, as the Bear’s associates came bursting into the building.
He reached the apartment’s front door, banged it open, then hightailed across the street toward a towering pile of rubble that had once been another tenement, now a snow-capped jigsaw puzzle of concrete. He hustled toward the alley on the right, then hunkered down in the shadows to catch his breath. He checked his phone:
TERMINATE OP.
DOWNED JSF PILOT NEAR DARIAL GORGE.
FIND AND EVACUATE. MORE INTEL TO COME.
MOVE OUT.
SEVENTEEN
Mi-8AMTSh Gunship
En Route to Balkan Mountains
Bulgaria
Lex and his men had jammed to capacity their load-out bags and had transported their weary butts out to the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush CVN-77, operating in the Mediterranean Sea. From there, they’d boarded an attack helicopter with its camouflage pattern fuselage and Russian Federation insignia. Despite its appearance, the chopper was owned and operated by the JSF and armed with Shturm-V anti-tank guided missiles, eighty-millimeter unguided rockets, PKT machine guns, and twin-barreled twenty-three-millimeter automatic cannons. The rocket pods on either side of the gunship could deliver a devastating barrage of firepower that would buckle the knees and crush the spirits of dismounts on the ground.
The team was dressed like Spetsnaz airborne troops in unmarked black utilities and chest plates. They each fielded an HGU 55/P ballistic helmet, MBU 12 oxygen mask, tactical goggles, Aerox VIII O2 regulator, Twin 53 bailout bottle assemblies, flight suits and gloves, and high-altitude altimeters. The MC-5 parachute rig was a bulky addition but tended to come in handy if they chose to actually survive their High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) jump.
Once on the ground, they’d strip off their jump gear and don their regular helmets. As an added precaution, they were being flown in by Russian American pilots. Lex had quipped that if the fuel for the chopper could’ve been bought in Russia, the brass would’ve done so.
Despite those measures, a few of their weapons might betray their true identities. Given the nature of the mission (one-way, suicidal, pick your adjective), Lex had requested from General Mitchell some more “creative” choices. The old Ghost leader had procured the usual Spetsnaz Izhmash AN-99 assault rifles, but he’d also come through with some sleek ordnance manufactured using Metal Storm technology that involved having rounds stacked inside a barrel and electronically fired in any number, sequence, and rate for markedly improved lethality. The L12-7 heat-seeking grenades shaped like small missiles were a prerequisite for a mission like this, as were their SAVs: situational awareness visors hidden within their Spetsnaz helmets and linked to their comm systems. The SAVs were a “down-and-dirty” version of the Cross-Coms used by Ghost Recon teams and were linked to tiny cameras mounted on their weapons and helmets.
Make no mistake, they had all the tools they needed. Now it was just a question of execution.
Lex sat across from his men, their faces partially hidden behind their masks, only their eyes visible through their clear goggles.
Borya had a tablet computer in his hand, one glove removed so he could work the touch screen. Lex knew he was going over the schematics of the Spetsnaz headquarters and layout of the army base. That was just like him. Anyone could squeeze a trigger. Borya would tell you why it was being squeezed, describe the political and historical purposes behind such an engagement, and calculate one of at least three opportune moments when said trigger should be operated and how that kill contributed to the overall battle. He did this not to justify his actions or somehow make himself feel better. He truly enjoyed the statistics of warfare on both the strategic and tactical levels.
Vlad sat beside Borya. The shorter man’s eyes were closed, but he wasn’t sleeping. He didn’t call himself a Buddhist, but he was a huge proponent of meditating before every mission, much to the chagrin of Slava, who thought it was pointless and hardly as beneficial as hydrating and carbing up to keep your head clear and your hands ready to snap necks.
Consequently, while his colleague was lost in thought, Slava had his free ear filled with an earbud and was no doubt listening to his “electro-thrash” metal that sounded to Lex like chainsaws and barking dogs. The lumberjack of a man tapped his boot and slowly nodded.
Like the millions of combatants who’d come before them, from the ancient battle of Sumer and Elam to the current confrontation between the superpowers, everyone dealt with prefight jitters in his own way, and for his part, Lex liked to misdirect his thoughts and had decided to turn the chopper ride into a second debrief of the mission in Ecuador.
He keyed his microphone. “Hey, guys, if you’ll listen up, I’ve got some intel to share.”
“We’re getting a raise?” asked Slava.
Lex chuckled. “I thought you did this for the glory.”
“That and the great food,” Slava answered.
“Nice. Well, this isn’t about more money or better food. It’s about Nestes.”
“He’s alive?” asked Slava.
“He’s not alive, you Cossack,” said Vlad.
“They get something on the chip?” Borya asked.
“The lab took DNA from the arm and matched it to José Nestes, who you remember was our guy Carlos’s brother and the leader of the Forgotten Army before he was killed in the U.K. Interpol found and processed his body, so we had that DNA to work with.”
“Got any better surprises, boss?” asked Slava. “Whose arm could we have found?”
“I know, but you always need to confirm these things.” Lex consulted his own tablet computer and reviewed the reports. “The arm did have a surgically implanted microchip and a flat microbattery rechargeable through the skin. So the lab fired up the battery and monitored the immediate area for any form of RF energy.”
“They find any?” asked Borya.
“Hell, yeah they did. They picked up some RF bursts and identified the IP address of the transmitter along with the address of the recipient encoded in the transmission.”
“Somebody had Nestes on a leash,” concluded Slava.
“Exactly,” said Lex. “So after decryption, the lab determined the chip was transmitting GPS tracking data to a known Russian military satellite node.”
“So this Ganjin thing you were talking about is a Russian group?” asked Vlad. “No big surprise there. They’ve been exploiting the Green Brigade and these Forgotten Army guys since the beginning of the war.”
“Yes, they have,” said Lex. “And it gets better. A lab report that just came in a few hours ago indicates that they’ve found extra pathways etched into the chip, making space to install additional hidden program routines.”
“I’ve read about that,” said Borya. “Harks back to electronics being shipped into one country with chips that already contain spyware so the sellers can eavesdrop on the buyers.”
“You could make that comparison,” said Lex. “So anyway, they’ve IDed several computer routing addresses to known international submarine cable gateways: the South American-1 gateway in Punta Carnero, Ecuador, and its sister gateway in Fortaleza, Brazil.”
“So Nestes was talking to submarine commanders?” asked Slava. “What the hell is that about?”
“I didn’t get that part either until I read up on it,” Lex admitted. “But check it out: Over ninety percent of the world’s computer communications travel at the speed of light, along fiber-optic cables running through our oceans.�
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“I thought it was all wireless,” said Borya.
“Me, too,” answered Lex. “But it’s not. So it turns out that Fortaleza in Brazil is a strategic gateway with many paths into the United States and continuing paths into Europe.”
“Oh, I get it now,” said Slava. “They can track the transmissions along the cables back to their origination or destination.”
“That’s exactly right,” Lex told him, then once again read from his report. “The lab’s identified the South Atlantic Express gateway connecting Fortaleza with Cape Town, South Africa, via the mid-Atlantic gateway in Jamestown, the port capital of the U.K.-owned South Atlantic island of St. Helena. I’ve sent you all copies of this doc so you can see the cable map they’ve created.”
“So what’re they getting at?” asked Borya.
“Report says that these specific gateways form an obvious communication pathway seemingly terminating in South Africa. However, the purpose and significance of these clandestine piggyback communication addresses has yet to be determined.”
“Don’t you hate when they do that?” Vlad asked. “They tease you with some significant findings—that turn out to be inconclusive.”
“Actually, I think we can draw some useful conclusions from all of this: If this chip design was in Nestes’s arm, there might be more in other operatives, and if they’re all following the same fiber-optic lines of communication—”
“Then maybe we can locate their signals and track every single one of them,” said Borya. “Use their own comms against them.”
“That’s the plan. The NSA’s supercomputers are already monitoring all traffic along the South American and South Atlantic digital highway using the word Ganjin as its primary search key.”
“Boss, you’re telling us all this because we’ll be back on mission, right?” asked Vlad.
“I think so—”
“Which means you don’t believe we’re going to die horrible and grisly deaths when we get to Fort Levski,” Vlad added.