by Tom Clancy
“Thought I’d be polite.”
“Well, that’s nice of you. I’ll seek political asylum in the United States. I’ll get that in exchange for information.”
“That’s your deal. I can’t make any promises. You come along, you don’t give us any trouble, and I’m okay with it.”
“I’ll vouch for him,” said Halverson, but then she faced him and said, “Are you sure you want to leave your country? You might never come back.”
“I can’t stay here anymore. They’ll find me.”
“As long as you’re sure,” said Halverson. “Now how far to the road?”
“From here? About fifteen minutes,” he said.
Voeckler began typing furiously on his smartphone. “Okay, okay, I’ve pulled off a real long shot here, but I think it’ll all work out.”
“What?” she demanded.
“You’ll see in fifteen minutes. But right now, I have bad news. We need to ditch the truck. Too big a heat source. We hike the rest of the way on foot.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” said Aslan. He pulled over, and they all climbed out. Halverson gathered up the remaining ammo and rifle.
“This way,” said Aslan. But suddenly he froze and shaded his brow from the sun—
Just as a pair of fighter jets soared across the sky, toward the mountain.
Halverson studied them intently. “Interceptors. Not ours. Javelins must’ve instigated them.”
Voeckler cocked a thumb over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
* * *
The hike took nearly an hour, with more air traffic screaming overhead and sending Halverson’s pulse racing.
As they neared the paved highway, visible now through an uneven fence of trees and underbrush, Voeckler paused to fire off several texts on his smartphone, then instructed them to wait. Aslan ventured off toward a few trees to relieve himself. Halverson took the opportunity to speak privately with Voeckler:
“He’s a good guy, really. Born into a terrible situation. We can help him.”
“I don’t care. My job is to get you out. He comes, he comes . . .”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to the city. To the airport. We need to move fast.” Voeckler checked his phone again. “They’re here.”
He started forward toward the trees, and she followed. “You better wait for a minute,” he said.
“I thought these guys were friends.”
“Uh, yeah, let’s be sure.” He took off.
Aslan came up at her shoulder. “What’s happening?”
“His contacts are down on the road. He’s checking them out first . . .”
“Do you trust this man?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“There’s something about him. He’s an operative for your country, but he seems out of place in the job.”
“You get that, too, huh?”
He nodded, then released a loud sigh. “Me, on the other hand, I look and act like a terrorist.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Voeckler appeared ahead, waving them on. They jogged after him, then slowed to descend a rocky foothill toward the road whose paved surface and dotted lines seemed strange after spending so many hours in the dense forest. Off in the embankment idled two white cars with blue stripes and overhead lights, police units to be sure, with Cyrillic insignia painted across their hoods and doors.
“Well, what do you think of this shit?” she asked Aslan. “VIP escort.”
“I think your friend is better connected than I thought.”
Voeckler instructed Halverson to climb into the first car, then ordered Aslan into the second. Halverson hesitated when she heard that.
Aslan shook his head. “No, I stay with her.”
“No, you do what I say—”
“Because you plan to screw me over.”
“No, because if anything goes down, I need you to be the decoy. You help me, I help you. Both cars are going straight to the airport. You come with us, otherwise I’ll leave you here and you can fend for yourself.”
“It’s okay,” Halverson told him. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. Please.”
Aslan thought it over. “Give me the rifle.”
Halverson glanced to Voeckler, who nodded. She handed over the AK.
Aslan gave them both an appraising glance, then said, “Okay, let’s go.”
Once Halverson and Voeckler were in the lead car’s backseat, she glanced over her shoulder in Aslan’s direction. “You were telling the truth, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’ll save his sorry ass because his intel might be valuable. If he’s been working with the Forgotten Army for a long time, then he might have some information on the Ganjin.”
“What did you say?” Halverson asked, remembering the conversation she’d had with Aslan when they’d first met:
“The Ganjin has changed,” he’d said.
“I said there’s a group called the Ganjin,” Voeckler repeated. “We’re not sure who they are, but they’ve linked up with or taken over the Forgotten Army. Marines in Ecuador provided the intel.”
“Aslan mentioned that name once.”
“Good. Then he is worth something.”
Halverson nodded then stole a glimpse at the driver, a young, clean-shaven man in a dark blue police uniform. “Hey, he doesn’t speak English, does he?”
“Of course not, we’re fine.”
“Where the hell did you find these guys?”
“Simple tradecraft. Even a knucklehead like me can set this up. One of the first things you do when operating in a foreign country is pay off a couple of cops—but you’ve got to pick them very carefully, lean on the ones that need the money the most, either the underpaid rookies or the ones nearing retirement. You know, the ones who are cynical and bitter and want to get back at the system for screwing them over for thirty years. You study these guys, then make your move. These particular cops, though, they were a little iffy since they’re not exactly my field operatives but a colleague’s, so I made some big promises. My bosses won’t be happy. The bribes will probably come out of my salary.”
“I’ll pay you back,” she said.
“No worries. You already did.” He checked his smartphone again. “Our jet is already en route to the airport.”
“You really think we’ll make it past the checkpoints?”
“There are three between here and the airport. I’ve already got that covered.”
“Thanks. Can I ask you something? You’re a strange man to figure out. You don’t seem like—”
“I know. My brother got me into this. After he died, I promised myself that I’d give it a chance. It’s grown on me, but I’ve heard it before: I just don’t seem like an ops officer. I look like I should be selling tacos.”
“What do I look like?”
“Like an old English teacher who flunked me, but hotter.”
“Really?”
“Sort of. I’m just being polite. If someone would’ve asked me about you two days ago, I would’ve told them you were an angel. That hasn’t changed.”
She fidgeted in her seat. “Whoa, sincere awkward moment.”
He glanced at her and grinned wearily. “I’m not hitting on you. I’m just happy to finally meet you.” He offered his hand.
She took it. “Well, then, yes, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Voeckler.”
He winked. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Mountains near Spetsnaz Headquarters
Fort Levski
Bulgaria
Lex’s breath shortened as he clutched Slava’s arm and whispered, “I appreciate it, big guy, but hold back.”
“Boss, there’s no other way.”
�
��Hey, check it out,” said Borya.
The lead wolf who’d been baring his teeth, only seconds away from attacking the team, suddenly dropped on all fours and laid his head on his paws. The other two lingered behind him for a few seconds, and then they, too, lowered themselves to the snow and just lay there, their heads hanging strangely, their eyes going vacant.
“Whoa. I guess it just took a little longer for these guys,” said Vlad.
“And they just took a year off my life,” Lex said. “Borya, send the drone up to the summit now.”
“Roger that.”
“The rest of you, back off slowly.”
They eased out of the depression, and Lex never took his gaze off the wolves until they were clear.
“Now we can get back to business,” he told his men.
Quickening their pace, they climbed around the back side of the ridge, hoisting themselves up a small ledge, then ascending a deep furrow cut into the earth by last spring’s melting snow. At the top, Vlad neared Lex and said, “We took care of five wolves. What about the other nine hundred and ninety-five? We don’t have anything to spare for them.”
“Sergeant, what do you know about the power of positive thinking?”
Vlad frowned, took a long breath, then finally answered, “All right, boss, I get it. Just trying to keep us honest, like you always say.”
“You ain’t happy unless you’re complaining, right?”
“Yeah. I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to go out doing something stupid.”
“Trust me, bro, I can appreciate that.”
* * *
They hiked for the rest of the day, the grade increasing steadily until in some sections they were sidestepping up the mountain across patches of ice, toeing through pockets of snow, and booting over beds of pine needles. Borya kept the drone thirty meters ahead, having set a series of visual alarms on the remote to warn him should the UAV encounter any targets/obstacles. Slava and Vlad brought up the rear, ever wary of more wolves or abominable snowmen that might pick up their trail. They took note of four more observation posts—tiny nests of concrete draped with camouflage nets, each manned by two Spetsnaz troops whose faces were glued to their tablet computers.
By the time they reached the summit overlooking the blast doors below and the rest of Fort Levski, the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees and snow was beginning to fall. Lex flicked his gaze to the last dregs of sunlight breaking through the clouds, then shifted up on his elbows toward the edge of the cliff. There, he and the rest of the team had taken up positions in the shade of tall pines and hidden beneath their optical camouflage to once more reconnoiter the base.
Staring through his binoculars, Borya began a verbal inventory on all of the heavy artillery, the surface-to-air missile launchers, and the aircraft and armored personnel carriers, while Lex plugged this data into his tablet computer, positions being noted and verified against the most recent set of satellite photographs. Higher had requested up-to-the-minute intel on the base, and they’d get it, but alas, no one could control the weather, which was rapidly taking a turn for the worse, meaning their exfiltration could prove, in a word, interesting.
“Guard towers, Tu-3 Vulture drones, and pretty much everything else looks the same,” said Borya. “They haven’t beefed up security.”
“Good news for us,” added Vlad.
“Let’s get the ropes, anchors, and belays in place,” Lex ordered.
Once they’d established two lines for scaling down the mountainside, Lex gave a hand signal, and they fell back into the darkness of the forest, gathering beneath a pine tree where Lex pulled up a satellite photo of their position and began to create a glowing red overlay using his index finger. He held up his tablet. “Our current position is here.”
“I’m good to go with the micros and camera bypasses,” said Borya. “Just tested the systems. Drone verifies four cameras.”
“Excellent,” said Lex. “My laser cutter team good to go?”
Vlad and Slava nodded. “You give us ninety seconds, we’ll get you in.”
Lex grinned. “Good. Is it time to rock ’n’ roll?”
“Hoo-ah,” they all grunted.
With a curt nod, Lex put Borya on point. They hiked carefully away from the ledge for about fifty meters, toward the perimeter of what Lex’s map indicated was the “motion detection zone.”
Borya was already on the problem, launching the team’s micro UAVs. The palm-sized Hummingbird 3-A advanced prototypes were small and light enough not to trip the motion detectors emplaced by Spetsnaz security forces, and even if they did, signal officers would dismiss the trigger as a bird or some other natural occurrence. The UAVs would fly to the camera positions and, using a specialized infrared radiation source of the necessary spectrum, they would blind the motion sensors so the team could move in. While in theory their optical camouflage ponchos with heat-dampening technology should be enough to fool those motion trackers, Lex wasn’t taking any chances.
Borya checked his tablet. “Should be neutralized in five, four, three, two . . . we’re clear, sir. Good to go.”
They jogged forward, coming up behind the first of the four camera stations built directly into a broad oak. The Spetsnaz had done a fine job disguising their security measures, but when you had something to protect, it was pretty damned clear that recon points would be in place, and it had taken the signals and intel folks back home only a few hours to locate all four positions based on their wireless signals.
Tricking the cameras in place was a rudimentary job for Borya, one he could probably do while simultaneously playing video games and eating a B.M.T. from Subway. He was able to hack into each camera’s transmission and replace it with a digital loop replete with natural forest sounds since the signal also included an audio surveillance track. His finger danced over the tablet’s screen, then he faced Lex and said, “Clear for entry.”
“Vlad? Slava? You’re up,” Lex ordered.
The two men took off running.
Borya shifted up beside Lex and hunkered down. “So far, so good. By the numbers.”
“Don’t jinx it.”
“Did you call higher to verify?”
“I’m waiting till the last minute.”
“Sometimes operational security can get you killed.”
Lex grinned. “I’m a gambling man.”
The microphone and attached boom mike clipped to Lex’s ear gave a short vibration, followed by Slava’s voice: “Deep Raider Actual, I’m on the first one. Vlad’s on the second. Start the clock.”
“Roger that. Do it right.”
Slava took great pride in how quickly he could manipulate his laser cutter, but the grating they had to cut through was particularly thick.
“Weather’s not getting any better,” Borya remarked, his helmet now covered in snow.
“I hear that.” Lex glanced up at the sky. “Platform should be in range by now.”
“Sir, can I be honest with you?” Borya asked.
Lex winced. “Can I get back to you in twenty-four hours?”
Borya frowned. “At the risk of sounding like Vlad, I’m, uh, shall we say, concerned.”
“When we got this mission, part of me was asking, hey, have you completed your bucket list yet? You know what I’m saying?”
“These ops are scary and fun—all at the same time. But this one’s just, aw, man, I don’t know.”
“Relax. I want you worried.”
“Sir?”
“Sometimes we get too complacent, right?”
“Right, sir.”
Slava and Vlad came running back. “They were all out of Diet Coke, so I got you root beer instead,” the former gasped. “And by the way, eighty-seven seconds.”
“Outstanding. Sensors blocked, cameras bypassed, grating compromised,” Lex said. “Time: seventeen forty
-one hours. We’re early.” He took a deep breath. “Get the canisters ready. It’s time to drop some quarters into this slot machine and pull the lever. You guys feeling lucky?”
They all grinned and slipped off their packs. Meanwhile, Lex called back to higher: “This is Deep Raider Actual. We’re in position and ready to initiate phase one, over.”
“Roger that,” came the comm operator’s voice. “Fleet QRF and Standoff Ops Command indicate slight weather delay. Request you remain in position until we’re clear to go.”
“Understood. Please remind them we’ve only got about a thirty-minute window on the platform, over.”
“Will do.”
“Deep Raider Actual, standing by, out.” Lex shook his head at the others. “Hurry up and wait.”
Each of his men now gripped a pair of aerosol canisters filled with Kolokol-7, an incapacitating agent derived from the prior Kolokol-1 synthetic opioid and in part a derivative of fentanyl.
Getting into the complex and multileveled facility and battling their way past the guards and biometric security systems all the way down to the interrogation and confinement level had seemed well-nigh impossible. Lex had played out that scenario a hundred different times—
And then an idea had struck him: If they couldn’t break into the place, maybe they could flush everyone out like ants—or at least as many as they could. He’d begun researching the facility’s ventilation system, its defenses against airborne containments, and tried to learn what he could about hazmat inventories. Since this was an underground headquarters in what the Russians had deemed friendly territory, the odds were against every officer being fully equipped with personal hazmat gear. Sure, some masks would be available, but it was safe to assume there wouldn’t be enough for everyone—and not everyone would get to a mask in time.
Here, well above the HQ entrance, were two air shafts that fed fresh air into the underground complex. A pair of three-ton pumps sucked the air down the meter-wide conduits running from the cliff top through the headquarters’ center, where the pumps redirected airflow to feeder vents radiating spokelike to the office and living spaces surrounding the central pumping station. The base’s engineers had recognized this vulnerability and had camouflaged the shafts within the trees, as well as protecting them with heavy grating and with electronic surveillance monitored by their people on the command-and-control level. Moreover, they’d anticipated enemies trying to gain entrance from above and had placed more protective grating within each shaft, staggering them every twenty meters or so, meaning it would take a few days of absolutely silent cutting for the team to use the air shafts to gain entrance into the headquarters. Too slow, too many risks of being caught.