by Jack Carr
Svetlana made her nightly visit before her departure, tea in hand. This time, however, she carried a cup for herself, which was a first. She set a cup down in front of Grey, who sat at his desk staring intently at both computer screens before him. He looked up at her with exhausted eyes and snapped his laptop shut. There was something different about her tonight.
“I brought you some tea, Oliver.”
“Thank you. I see you have some for yourself. May I offer you a touch?” Grey lifted the vodka bottle from his drawer.
“That would be wonderful, Oliver.”
He poured a finger of the clear liquid into her cup and filled his own to the brim, sipping tentatively to test the temperature.
“Why do you work so hard? What is it that can’t wait until tomorrow?”
“Something very important, something that will make them fear me.”
“Anyone who knows how smart you are should fear you.”
“The Americans think that they are so powerful that they fear no one.”
“Ah, you will show them, Oliver.” She took a long pull from her own cup and set it down, rising from the chair and walking behind the small man. Her scent filled his nostrils as she began to massage his shoulders with her powerful hands, releasing the tension that had built up over the preceding days. Her hands worked their way up the back of his neck and onto his head, where her fingers made tiny circles on his temples. He let his head fall back with a sigh and closed his eyes. Svetlana leaned forward, pushing her ample bosom into contact with his head, and began rubbing his chest. She smiled as she saw the front of his trousers rise.
Grey opened his eyes when she swiveled the desk chair so that he was facing her, his body tensing as she ran her hand to his groin.
“Such a big, strong boy.”
“No, Svetlana, I can’t… I…”
“Shh, Svetlana will take care of everything. You be a good boy.” She pulled open her blouse, exposing her breasts, which Grey immediately began to grope and kiss. She pulled her skirt up and sat on his lap, breathing heavily in his ear as she ground herself into him. He gasped audibly and his body quivered and lurched forward, nearly knocking Svetlana from the chair.
“I’m sorry, I…” He pushed her from his lap, a dark stain visible on the leg of his tailored slacks. Unable to look at her, Grey stood uncomfortably for a moment before hurrying from the room.
Svetlana did not hesitate. She pulled a USB drive from the pocket of her skirt and quickly inserted it into the port on his laptop. She walked to the office door and stole a look down the hallway.
A small LED on the drive flashed red as the device downloaded the contents of the computer’s hard drive. Svetlana walked out to her own desk and shuffled around as she kept an eye toward the restrooms. Picking up her phone, she sent a text message before dropping it back into her purse. When she heard footsteps in the hallway, she returned to Grey’s office and palmed the USB drive. She was straightening his chair when he returned, his eyes averted. She wrapped him in a warm hug, holding his face to her chest.
“Good night, my sweet Oliver.”
She kissed the side of his head and walked from his office.
* * *
That evening, a young man rang the doorbell at her apartment. When she answered, he handed her a bag of carryout food. Inside a wad of paper money, Svetlana passed him the USB drive. Within an hour, the contents of the drive were being exploited by a trusted team of technicians from Directorate I of the SVR, the office of Russian intelligence that specialized in digital forensics and cyber exploitation.
CHAPTER 35
SVR Headquarters, Moscow
BY THE TIME ALEKSANDR Zharkov reached his desk at 8:00 a.m., the report from Saint Petersburg was already in his inbox. His attention was diverted by a mild crisis in Damascus that morning, so he didn’t get a chance to open the document until the afternoon. The cover sheet summarized the raw intelligence and made reference to both the source of the information as well as some of the more relevant documents recovered from the subject’s hard drive.
Svetlana had performed beautifully, just as he’d known she would. The Russian intelligence services were the best in the world when it came to manipulating subjects using sex, and the psychological analysis of Oliver Grey had been spot-on. Aleksandr had pulled in all information on Grey going back to the original paper files, when he was first spotted, assessed, and developed by the Soviet-era GRU before his recruitment by the late Vasili Andrenov. It was always amusing to Aleksandr when he saw state documents marked with stars, hammers, and scythes, the pseudo-religious emblems of communism.
Upon their reexamination of Grey’s records, the SVR’s psychoanalytical team had come up with a secondary diagnosis, one that went deeper than the obvious father issues. As a result of his father’s absence and eventual abandonment, his mother had overcompensated and inadvertently created an unhealthy relationship with her son. He was unable to connect with women his own age or younger because, deep down, he still hungered for a mother. Svetlana had been successful in earning Grey’s trust and bringing his repressed gerontophilia to the surface.
Aleksandr had placed Svetlana, one of his most experienced assets, into his father’s business more than a decade ago and she had consistently provided him with accurate, timely, and relevant updates on the activities of his father and brothers ever since. He double-clicked on a PowerPoint file titled “Montana OPORD” and began scanning the pages. He quickly realized that the operation in question had already been put into motion.
He scrolled to the profile on the targets. He recognized the name of Lieutenant Commander James Reece, U.S.N. (Ret.), immediately, thanks to the widespread media coverage of his attack on a ring of conspirators responsible for the deaths of his family and SEALs under his command. The SVR had actually tried to locate Reece after his disappearance in an attempt to recruit him and offer him the chance to defect but had been unsuccessful in tracking him down. Aleksandr also knew that Reece was suspected in the death of former Russian intelligence official Vasili Andrenov, though nothing had been proven. It was obvious from the intelligence package that his father’s new asset had organized a bratva hit team to kill James Reece either in retaliation for the Andrenov assassination or before Reece could mount an offensive of his own against Grey.
The second target was more of a mystery. Raife Hastings, also a retired SEAL officer, was a resident of western Montana. The African-born Hastings owned an outfitting business and had made a name for himself as a builder of fine custom hunting rifles. Hastings was apparently married to the daughter of a billionaire oil and gas man who’d previously served in the U.S. Congress.
Could it be him?
Aleksandr, ever the hunter, was an avid reader of outdoor magazines published around the globe. He had become mildly obsessed with a columnist who wrote occasionally under the pseudonym of “S. Rainsford,” a nod to the protagonist of Richard Connell’s 1924 short story, “The Most Dangerous Game.” The columns were the author’s firsthand accounts of his solo Montana backcountry hunts, told in brilliant detail. Unlike most of the glorified advertising that passed as outdoor journalism these days, whoever “Rainsford” was, he was a hunter.
Aleksandr pulled up the background check via Russian intelligence channels he’d requested a few months back. They had failed to identify an “S. Rainsford” but had compiled a list of twenty-four possibles. Rifle maker and hunting outfitter Raife Hastings was on that list.
Aleksandr leaned back in his chair and tilted his head toward the ceiling.
S. Rainsford, now he would be a formidable adversary. Adding his friend, James Reece, to the draw would be the hunt of a lifetime.
Aleksandr had once managed to attract a famous hunter from the States to hunt brown bear with him on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Despite the way he was portrayed in his articles and television series, the man was actually hopeless without a guide. When Aleksandr turned the tables and made him the prey, he wept and begged before becoming
desperately lost. His ineptitude and lack of spirit took almost all of the pleasure out of the hunt; Aleksandr had seen better woodsmanship from Moscow prostitutes than he had from the overweight American.
Rainsford and Lieutenant Commander Reece would be fighters.
Finally, a challenge.
Aleksandr made his decision. He pulled an aging paper Rolodex from his desk drawer and searched for a number that he hadn’t dialed in ages.
CHAPTER 36
Kumba Ranch, Flathead Valley, Montana
THE SUN WOULD RISE at 6:55 a.m. Raife had been awake since 4:00 a.m. He turned off his alarm so as not to disturb his pregnant wife and slipped out of bed. He sipped black coffee as he dressed in a light wool shirt and pants, pulled on a knit stocking cap, and laced his buffalo hide Courteney boots. Everything he wore was designed for maximum mobility and stealth.
With the prospect of running into a grizzly bear a real one, Raife slipped his inherited 1911 handgun into the leather holster behind his right hip. He remembered his dad’s joke about .45-caliber pistols and giant predators. “Why do you file off the front sight of your 1911 when going into bear country?” his father had asked. “So it doesn’t hurt as much when the grizzly shoves it up your ass.”
Raife had never found it very funny.
It was only a ten-minute drive from his home. He made the trip with just his parking lights on so as not to spook game or ruin his night vision. He donned his pack, picked up his recurve bow and quiver, and stood silently in the darkness to acclimate himself to the sounds of the predawn morning and confirm the speed and direction of the light breeze. The morning was cool but there was no frost. Satisfied, he began the hike toward his glassing spot. He wanted to be in position to observe the buck well before the first rays of light illuminated the valley.
With practiced efficiency, he climbed the steep grade, the simple tire soles of his boots legendary for quiet stalking. At forty, Raife was in the best shape of his life and, given the field in which he’d spent the early part of adulthood, that was saying something. The sky was just starting to lighten to the east, the nighttime display of stars washed away by the first rays of sunlight. He set himself up for a long morning of glassing, arranging his tripod and spotting scope before pulling an apple from his pack. He took a bite as he swung the powerful scope toward the buck’s lair, its coated German lenses gathering every bit of ambient light.
The buck should have been out feeding on the mountainside at this point in the relative safety of the darkness, but there was no sign of him. He pulled up his binoculars and began to scan, trading magnification for the wider field of view. Nothing.
The slight change in temperature would not be enough to move the animal from his summer range, so that wasn’t it. It wouldn’t be the first time that he’d watched an animal for weeks, only for it to disappear the moment that the hunting season opened. Prey species seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to the hunt. Raife thought about his conversation with Reece the previous evening and took an extra moment to survey the high ground behind him before turning his attention back to the scope. As the sky turned from gray to pink, it became increasingly obvious that the buck had left his hide. Something had spooked him. Wolves, maybe? It was conceivable. A poacher? Not out of the realm of possibility. Raife needed to adapt. The wind was still light but steady and the thermals wouldn’t be much of a factor this early in the day. It was time to move. The son of Rhodesia packed his spotting scope and picked up his bow before setting out quietly down the draw.
Raife’s tracking mentor had been a master. Melusi was a member of the Matabele tribe, a Bantu offshoot of the powerful Zulus. The Matabele people were defeated in battle by the Dutch Afrikaners and were effectively banished to what is now Zimbabwe. Like all great African trackers, Melusi spent his childhood tending the herd, responsible for protecting the family’s cattle, sheep, and goats from neighboring tribes or predatory animals. With no fences to contain their herds, Melusi and his peers would spend their days tracking each wandering animal by its spoor. It was a tremendous responsibility to place upon a child but Melusi had a nearly supernatural gift for reading the ground and quickly took to his job.
Melusi had taught Raife to read sign from a young age, in much the same way he was taught by his own elders. One of Melusi’s favorite tricks was to take Raife to a salt lick, where animals of various species would gather to consume the valuable mineral. Melusi would squat in silence, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette while Raife pointed out each individual animal’s tracks. He would nod as Raife called out each name in English, Shona, and Ndebele. By age six, Raife could tell a waterbuck track from that of a kudu and, before he was eight, he could tell the age of a track to within a few hours. He was able to read animal spoor in the wilderness the way an urbanite used street signs. Raife’s tracking skills had brought more than a few Taliban and Iraqi insurgents to an untimely end, and had earned him the respect of the hunting guides with whom he worked.
* * *
The buck’s sign was everywhere, thanks to the many weeks he’d spent sleeping, eating, urinating, and defecating in the immediate area. Raife made increasingly widening circles, searching for a track that led away from the site. He found it on the uphill side of the bedding spot, near the rockslide that made up the ridgeline. He saw the deep impressions of the buck’s hooves as he hopped in the manner unique to an alarmed mule deer. Something had spooked him. Raife hadn’t seen any wolf or grizzly sign in the area, nor had he heard any wolves howling recently. No one other than family or friends had permission to be on the property, so he shouldn’t have been startled by another hunter. Raife took a seat and glassed the surrounding terrain, looking for any sign of what might have spooked the deer. After nearly thirty minutes of searching, he picked up his bow and began to follow the trail.
Even a good tracker would have lost him in the rocks but Raife’s skills had long since progressed beyond simply “good.” He went to his hands and knees and was able to make out the disturbed lichen on the rocks. Once over the knife edge of the ridgeline, the animal’s path took it through the thick summer grasses, where his trail was more visible to the trained eye. It was difficult to tell how long the tracks had been there, but he estimated that they were at least a few hours old; the stems of grass were beginning to return to their natural position after being folded downward by the buck’s passing.
Raife stood back up. He was on the stalk.
CHAPTER 37
Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia
VIC RODRIGUEZ DIALED REECE’S number for the fifth time and, as usual, it went straight to voice mail. He’d received an emergency call that morning from Craig Flynn, a retired CIA officer who had previously served as the Moscow station chief. Flynn had been contacted by a senior official in the Russian SVR named Aleksandr Zharkov, whom he had known from his Moscow posting but had not heard from in years. Director Zharkov claimed to have come across information on a Russian mafia operation under way in Montana to kill James Reece and Raife Hastings. Due to the time-sensitive nature of the intelligence, he said there was not time to go through official channels. Because of Flynn’s history with Director Zharkov, he assessed the information to be credible.
Flynn had worked with Reece’s father in an operation to extract a doctor from Czechoslovakia during the Cold War, so he instantly recognized the name James Reece. Though now retired, Flynn still had close connections at Langley, including the director of the Special Activities Division.
Changing tactics, Vic hit the intercom button on his phone, “Valerie, connect me to the Flathead County Sheriff’s Department in Montana.”
* * *
Reece showered and made the necessary preparations to keep his promise to take Katie into town. The plan was to have a late breakfast, walk around a bit, and decide whether to stay in town for lunch or get something for the road and head over to Glacier National Park. Clouds had moved in overnight. Fall seemed to be kicking at the door. They each carried a
mug of Black Rifle’s finest coffee as they left the cabin and climbed into Reece’s Land Cruiser. Katie was even trying hers spruced up the way Reece took his, with local honey and a bit of cream. She found it endlessly amusing that the tough commando liked his coffee a bit on the sweet side. Making the turn onto the paved highway, Reece thought back to his conversation with Thorn a couple of weeks ago and with Raife the previous evening. It just might be time to start a new chapter, one that did not involve U.S. intelligence covert action programs. It might be time to start a new life with Katie.
* * *
For Dimitry and his team, watching Raife Hastings move into and out of his daily glassing spot had become routine. At any point, they could have initiated the ambush but, until word came from Vitya, all they could do was observe.
Today was different. He’d arrived far earlier than normal, the men watched as he readied his gear by the light of his headlamp before leaving the vehicle. Then, instead of looking through his scope for a few minutes and returning to his truck, Hastings packed his gear and moved into the valley that he’d so painstakingly observed under the team’s watchful eye. Dimitry also noticed that he carried a different weapon today: an ancient-looking bow with a small quiver of arrows. One man with a bow against six with rifles. He had watched his share of American western films on television to know how those odds had worked out for the Indians.
Dimitry stared at the sat phone, willing it to ring. He didn’t know where the target was going but, sooner or later, he would return to his Land Rover. When he did, they would be waiting. The sun rose, and the valley was soon bathed in an orange glow. He thought of the gray walls of his prison cell back home, the screaming, the blood. The phone vibrated.