by Jack Carr
He answered it and listened as Vitya informed him that they would be initiating their ambush in just a few minutes. He’d grown to like the man and was appreciative of the heads-up. There was a decision to make. Should he wait here for Hastings to return? What if the attack raised the alarm and the American military or police came with their helicopters? No, he needed to move in on the target and take him out. It was time.
Dimitry slipped the phone into his pack and pulled it on over his shoulders as he stood. His men didn’t need to be told to do the same and soon they were all patrolling past Hastings’s vehicle, six abreast. Hastings had a head start of several hours but was surely trekking slowly as he stalked whatever prey he was after. Dimitry only hunted men.
It felt good to be moving after so much waiting. His legs felt strong as he climbed the ridge, the rifle light in his hands. Dimitry watched his men with pride. Dressed in surplus American camouflage uniforms and moving with speed and discipline, they could almost pass for soldiers. He called a halt as they approached the first ridge and he crept carefully forward to reconnoiter the next valley. He could see the marks where the legs of Hastings’s tripod had dug into the soil and he raised his binoculars to scan the space below him. Satisfied that the target had gone ahead, he waved his men forward.
* * *
Vitya saw the vehicle move on the screen and quickly dialed Tanya using the burner cell phone that he’d brought along for the occasion. The signal was good on the high ground, and she answered after three rings. They spoke in English.
“Hello?”
“Is Dan there?”
“I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”
“My apologies.” He pressed the “end” button, terminating the call. He whistled, getting his men’s attention quickly. Their chronic boredom quickly became excitement as they moved down into their prepared ambush positions near the road. Vitya and the rest of his four-man assault team were situated on the long side of the L, with the two-man support-by-fire element carefully crossing the road to a position perpendicular to the target vehicle’s route. When he slowed the SUV to make the turn, Vitya would initiate the ambush with the IED. The vehicle would take fully automatic fire from the front and side, with 180 rounds in the first volley alone. No one in an unarmored vehicle would survive it.
Vitya watched the iPad impatiently as the target drove along the ranch roads. Just as it turned onto the highway, Tanya pulled up in her blue 2003 Jetta. She parked the vehicle on the road’s narrow shoulder and, as she’d been instructed, popped the hood. She stood helplessly in front of the vehicle wearing yoga pants and a tight tank top, hands placed on her hips. Assuming that chivalry was not yet dead in this northwestern part of the country, they were counting on their target stopping to assist the attractive motorist in apparent distress.
Vitya watched the red dot accelerate on the asphalt highway and knew from experience that it would be in the kill zone in less than five minutes. He moved the selector switch on his AKM to the Cyrillic marking for “full-auto” and set it down on the bed of pine straw beside him. Pulling the M57 firing device from his pocket, he connected it to the trailing end of the wire that led to the claymore mine’s blasting cap. Only the small wire safety bail stood between the device’s handle and a catastrophic explosion. He looked at each of the men on the assault team and received nervous but ready nods from them. He couldn’t see the camouflaged figures of his second element but was confident that they were in place. Everyone knew their jobs.
Vitya looked at his watch. He needed to give Dimitry a heads-up that the ambush was about to be initiated. Even in the unlikely event that their communications were being monitored, there wouldn’t be enough time for anyone to stop them. He pulled the sat phone from his pouch and pressed the preset key that would place a call to Dimitry’s identical unit. He held the device to his ear as he waited for it to connect to the satellite in orbit. Once the call went through, Dimitry answered almost instantly.
“Yeah.”
“We will initiate in five minutes, be ready.”
“Understood.”
Looking back at the iPad, he saw that the target was two minutes out. He fiddled nervously with the mine’s firing device, shifting it from one hand to the other. He heard the high-pitched whine of a diesel motor climbing the rise and a shot of panic gripped his chest. Reece didn’t drive a diesel. The driver let off the accelerator as the vehicle crested the rise and a blue flatbed F-250 pickup rolled into view. Whoever was driving had seen Tanya and was rolling to a stop in the kill zone. The driver pulled onto the shoulder opposite her Volkswagen and left the truck idling as he stepped down onto the pavement.
A tall mustached man in his fifties and wearing jeans, boots, and a denim jacket approached Tanya, no doubt offering his assistance. They were too far away for Vitya to hear their conversation. Her body language told the story; she dismissed the man with a wave of her hand, no doubt telling him that help was on the way. The man lingered persistently. Whether it was out of a genuine desire to help or because of Tanya’s tank top did not matter to Vitya; he needed this cowboy to get the hell out of the way. His eye moved back to the iPad, where the dot rounded the final bend before it would make its way up to the hill where they waited in ambush. This changed nothing; he would blow the mine and initiate the ambush no matter what.
* * *
Reece gripped the wheel with both hands as he steered up the steep grade ahead, driving slower than normal so as not to alarm his passenger. He let up on the gas pedal and let the Cruiser coast over the rise, spotting two vehicles pulled off the side of the road ahead of him. From a distance, it looked like a female with car trouble and a man who’d stopped to help. It was nice to be back in a place where people actually cared about their fellow citizens.
On cue, his iPhone came alive with the various indicators of the modern age as he entered the service area. Ordinarily he would sneak a look at his phone to see whether there were any messages from Katie but, with her by his side, there was no reason. She had a real job and was far more accustomed to living in a connected world and, despite enjoying a well-needed respite from life’s distractions, she fished her phone from her purse when she heard it come alive. Reece was taken by surprise when the phone actually began to ring through the vehicle’s hands-free Bluetooth system, “Private Number” showing up on the LCD screen on the dash. Reece pressed the screen to decline the call, not interested in talking to anyone who wasn’t currently riding with him.
The phone rang again and that sixth sense he’d been trying to ignore all morning forced him to answer it. He pressed the green icon to answer the call.
“Hello.”
“Reece, it’s Vic, where are you?” Despite their history, receiving a personal call from the head of the CIA’s Special Activities Division wasn’t exactly routine. Reece leaned slightly forward in his seat.
“I’m in Montana, heading into town. What’s happening?”
“No time to explain; there’s a Russian mafia plan to hit you and Raife Hastings. It’s happening today!”
Reece looked at the cars parked beside the road and considered the sharp curve ahead. He slammed on the brakes, sending Katie forward until her progress was arrested by the seat belt. The jolt slung her phone out of her hand and it crashed into the floorboard at her feet.
“Get down!” Reece yelled, pushing her head down below the dashboard. He put the Cruiser in reverse and the powerful engine revved as the tires spun, finally catching as the SUV lurched to the rear. Smoke billowed from the off-road tires as Reece executed a textbook J-turn, sliding the vehicle from reverse to forward in a fraction of the time it would take to make a three-point turn. The rear window of the Cruiser exploded in a shower of tempered glass as a burst of 7.62mm rounds from a member of the support element raked the back of the vehicle. Reece pushed his foot to the floor and took advantage of all 430 horses as he sped away from the kill zone.
“Are you okay?” he asked, looking at Katie for an
y sign of injury.
“What?”
“Are you hit?”
“No. I don’t think so. What was that?”
“You just survived your first ambush.”
“My first?” she asked, thinking back to the time that a taxi driver had opened fire on the two of them on a Los Angeles sidewalk.
“Good point. Your second.”
“Reece, you okay?” It was Vic’s voice coming through the speakers.
“Yes, sir.”
“You with Raife?”
“No. I’m with Katie.”
“Roger th…” The phone lost signal as they drove down the hill at almost 100 miles per hour.
“Katie, I need you to reach behind the seat. There’s a rifle mounted to the back of it. Grab it and put it next to me.”
Katie unbuckled and turned around, returning with the rifle that Raife had put in the truck for his friend, just in case. Reece knew it was loaded but took his right hand off the steering wheel to perform a quick press check. He slid it to where he could access it quickly and, without looking, turned the knob on the left side of the scope to illuminate the reticle.
He reached for the radio mic hanging on the dash and pressed the talk button.
“Reece for Raife, over.” Static. “Raife, Raife come in, over.” Nothing. “Reece to Kumba base, over. Reece to anyone on this channel, this is an emergency, over.”
No response. Raife was too far from the main road to hear the gunfire and they were too far from the ranch to be in radio range. It would take them a few minutes until they were inside the repeater network that allowed the ranch staff to maintain contact while on the property. Reece pushed the Cruiser to the maximum speed that its low gear ratio would allow, the knobby tires propelling them back toward Kumba.
CHAPTER 38
Saint Petersburg, Russia
GREY STARED EXCITEDLY AT the screen of his desktop, watching the signal from the Iridium GPS indicator steer toward the ambush site. It wouldn’t be long now. Svetlana had made an excuse not to stay late, which suited him just fine. He couldn’t stomach the embarrassment of his recent performance and pushed his sexual attraction for her to the back of his mind.
He felt a tinge of jealousy for the men who would send Reece to his grave, men who had no grievance with the SEAL commander. To Grey it was personal, while to these men, who would get to see the action up close, it was a professional job.
The dot made its way to the highway, and Grey shifted nervously. He crossed and uncrossed his legs and wrung his sweaty palms. The dot finally began to climb the hill. He rose to his feet, pushed his chair backward, and leaned forward with his hands on the desk. The dot moved to the top of the terrain feature and began to slow; then it stopped. He willed the dot forward, first silently and now vocally.
“Go, go! Move forward! Keep going!” The dot began to move backward, first slowly and then more rapidly away from the well-laid ambush. “No, no!”
Grey snatched the phone from its cradle on his desk and dialed the number from the Post-it note on the side of his monitor. It took forever to connect and then rang several times before there was an exasperated answer in English, with a thick Russian accent.
“What?”
“What happened?” Grey shouted.
“I don’t know! Some cowboy stopped to help right in the kill zone. Then the target stopped and took off.”
“Did you fire?”
“Not until he drove away.”
“Shit!”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Call the other team and tell them to execute. Move to the ranch house. Kill the primary target. Wait, just kill everyone!” he yelled into the receiver.
“We don’t have a vehicle. The girl drove away and isn’t answering her phone.”
“Shit!” Grey slammed the phone, ending the call.
* * *
A few valleys away, Raife knelt at the track in the sand, its crisp outline indicating its extreme freshness. The droppings in front of it were still glistening with moisture. The deer’s gait had changed to a relaxed meander as he’d increased the distance between himself and whatever had startled him from his lair. With a flick of his wrist, Raife shook a cotton infant sock, sending a small white puff of the talcum powder inside into the air. The light breeze blew the powder back and slightly to his left, indicating he still had the wind in his favor.
He moved into a prone position and slid his body forward so that he could see into the open valley below him. It was one of the largest meadows on Kumba, a grassy bowl hundreds of yards across that was intersected by small creeks and a few scattered trunks from ancient toppled pines that were bleached nearly white by their exposure to the sun’s rays. Slowly he pulled the strap of his binoculars, bringing them within reach. He painstakingly searched the valley through the 10x lenses, systematically searching each quadrant of ground before moving his focus to the next. Ten minutes into the exercise, he saw it. The flick of an ear. The buck had bedded behind one of the fallen pines, its body concealed by the trunk and its massive antlers blending in perfectly with the single remaining branch that jutted skyward from the tree. But for that tiny movement, Raife never would have seen him.
Finding the deer was the first step; now he had to make a plan to work himself within range. He traced a muddy creek bed backward from near the buck’s position and figured that it would give him just enough terrain to crawl beneath the deer’s line of sight. If he could make his way to the creek without being spotted and could crawl the length of it without being heard, and if the wind didn’t shift to blow his stalk, he might have a shot. He rolled to one side and shrugged off his pack, taking only his bow and quiver and what little was strapped to his body. He unclipped the Motorola two-way radio from his belt and laid it on top of the pack before backing over the ledge and out of sight of the valley below. He walked bent at the waist and to the left to put him in position to move down the ridge behind the buck; it gave him the wind’s full advantage and made it less likely that the deer would spot his movement in its peripheral vision.
Melusi would be proud.
CHAPTER 39
REECE TOOK HIS FOOT off the accelerator as they approached the ranch entrance, and steered the Cruiser through the steel gate that was visible from the road. The truck rumbled over the welded pipes of the cattle gap, and he punched the gas. He picked up the radio mic and made his third attempt at contact.
“Reece for Raife, over.” It would make sense that Raife would have his radio turned down, assuming that he was still hunting. “Reece to Kumba base, over.” He waited a few seconds before repeating the call. “Reece to Kumba base, over.”
“Kumba base here, go ahead, Reece.” It was the voice of Caroline Hastings.
“Kumba base, we have an emergency. Terrs on Kumba, over. I repeat, terrs on Kumba.” He used the old Rhodesian vernacular for “terrorist,” which was a term that, as a veteran of the Bush War’s home front, Caroline was more than familiar with.
“Roger, Reece. We will lock down here, over.”
“Is Utilivu with you? Over.” Reece asked, using the Shona nickname for Raife in case they were being monitored. There was a long pause.
“Negative, Reece, over.”
“Roger that. I’m bringing my friend to you for safekeeping, over.”
“Roger.”
Reece drove at the absolute limits of his and the vehicle’s abilities. As he skidded the Toyota to a stop next to the main house, he saw Jonathan, Liz, Thorn, Caroline, and Annika rush to meet him. Jonathan was carrying what looked like his old wartime FAL rifle at a high port, its crude green and brown “baby shit” camouflage paint job still evident after nearly three decades. He wore his daily work attire of boots, jeans, and a western shirt but with a faded nylon chest rig strapped across his chest. His face was alert, and his eyes were bright. He was in his element. Thorn had his bolt action deer rifle in hand.
Caroline carried a classic Brno model 602 in one hand, its muzzle
pointed skyward with her elbow locked into her hip. She stood beside Annika protectively, a stoic look on her face indicating that this wasn’t the first time that she’d protected the family’s home from armed men with bad intentions. She rushed to open the door for Katie and wrapped her with her free arm as she climbed from the SUV.
“Reece, what’s happened?” Jonathan asked.
“Not sure, sir. Katie and I received a call from the CIA on our way into town. They missed us, but not by much. The information we received says this is Russian mafia and they are here for me and for Raife. I am so sorry, I…”
“Never mind that now, son,” Jonathan said, taking command. “It sounds like they’re just after the boys, but you never know. Caroline, it’s just like the old days. You know what to do. Thorn, Liz, you stay here. There are ARs in the gun safe and a stack of loaded magazines next to them. Grab them and keep ’em close in case those bastards get in the house. Annika, Katie, get in the vault and arm yourselves, but only lock yourselves in as a last resort in case these terrs try to burn you out. We’ll be back, as soon as we get Raife.”
All nodded in unison, and Caroline led the other women quickly toward the house.
“Hop in,” Reece said. The older man nodded and opened the back door of the Cruiser. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.
“Zulu, come!” On cue, the family hound came bounding around the corner of the house and jumped into the SUV without hesitation. Jonathan took a seat, the muzzle of his rifle resting between his feet. As soon as he slammed the passenger door, Reece hit the gas, spitting gravel as the Cruiser fishtailed down the driveway.