by Jack Carr
“You are far enough back in the room where it will be hard for anyone approaching to see you. Cover this sector here,” Liz said, indicating an area of the backyard beyond the guest room patio.
“Where will you be?” Katie asked.
“With only two of us, we won’t be able to cover all the angles, so I’ll be mobile. If you see anyone, take your shots. I’ll come to support if I hear you fire,” Liz responded before disappearing into an adjacent room.
Katie had survived two ambushes and a kidnapping since Reece had come into her life. And now she was fighting for her life. At least this time she had a vote. She had a rifle.
* * *
Oleg moved through the trees. Had they seen him? He hoped his comrades’ full-auto barrage had distracted the upstairs shooter long enough for him to get out of the line of fire and approach the house from the back or side. He was going to get inside. He wouldn’t be a Shestyorka for long.
* * *
It didn’t happen the way she had thought. One second Katie was running through the possible scenarios in her head and the next second a skinny man in a black leather jacket holding what she recognized as an AK-47 was sprinting across the garden.
She tried to call for Liz, but her mouth was dry and wouldn’t make a sound.
When he hit the patio, he came to a stop by a pillar that helped support a second-story back deck.
Katie watched him peer cautiously around the support, then creep to the glass door that led to the back guest room. He was less than thirty feet away.
“Liz,” she tried again, not knowing if any sound escaped her lips. She was certain that even through the glass the thin man could hear the beating of her heart.
Take the weapon off safe, Katie, she told herself.
She was sure the man outside heard the almost inaudible click of the safety moving to the “fire” position.
Less than ten minutes had passed but she still struggled to remember what Caroline had told her: put the stock in your shoulder, aim this red dot at whoever tries to come across the back garden, and shoot them until they go down.
Katie pulled the stock into her shoulder. Her eye found the red dot of the optic.
Where did he go?
Her eyes traveled back to the pillar.
He was kneeling, part of his body concealed by the round support. The AK was pointed directly at her. Before she could press the trigger, the glass door exploded.
CHAPTER 46
CRESTING A RISE, THEY could hear shooting. Jonathan pinned the accelerator to the floor.
“We are coming in on the X,” he called out. “No time for anything fancy. They could already be in the house.”
Tactically, Reece wanted to take the high ground and flank, but this was an in-extremis situation. Katie and the others could already be dead or dying.
It was time to kill.
A blue F-250 sat at an awkward angle in front of the house, three of its four doors open. Two men here behind nearby trees, firing sporadically at the home. They were completely unaware of the approaching vehicles to their rear. Jonathan slammed Reece’s Land Cruiser to a stop and bailed out, sprinting forward with his FAL at the ready. Knowing that vehicles quickly turned into bullet sponges in combat, Reece opened the passenger door and instinctively took up a solid position at the base of a large rock. Raife skidded his Defender to a stop behind them, and, armed with his truck rifle, a SIG SG 553 carbine, raced after his father.
Reece found a target, dropping him with a solid head shot. Jonathan fired as he moved, ten rounds from the FAL tearing through a man at the base of a tree. Raife had reached the truck within seconds, clearing it and putting rounds into a man in the backseat and another in the driver’s seat.
The three sprinted toward the house. Reece’s head swiveled up and around to take in the surrounding area, looking at positions on the high ground.
Stacking on the front door, the three prepared to make entry. Visions of Reece’s wife and daughter riddled with bullets dying in a pool of blood on the floor of their home flashed through his thoughts. Jonathan’s voice brought Reece back to the present.
“Caroline!” the former Selous Scout yelled. “Annika!”
“We’re here, Dad!” his daughter called back.
“Three coming in!” Jonathan shouted.
Zulu charged through the breach and went straight for Annika, taking up a protective position at her left side.
“You okay, baby girl?” Jonathan asked, kneeling next to her.
“I’m fine, Dad. Mom is upstairs with Thorn. Katie and Liz are down the hall in the guest bedroom. I just heard shooting down there.”
Reece sprinted down the hall without waiting for more.
“Katie? Katie?”
Nothing.
“Katie!”
“I’m here, James,” Katie said.
She sat on the bed. Liz was next to her. Glass was strewn across the back entry where the door had once been.
“Are you okay? Stand up,” he said, pulling her to her feet and looking her up and down for injuries. “You’re not hit, are you?”
“No. I’m okay.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Liz interjected sarcastically. “I’m just fine.”
“Sorry, Liz. Is everyone else okay?”
“I think so. Well, not this guy,” she said pointing her rifle toward a man on the patio.
There was no need for a security round as half his head was missing.
“Liz?”
“He almost got the drop on us. Katie here did a fabulous job.”
“Did you…?” Reece asked.
“No,” Katie answered. “As I brought my rifle up, he fired and the whole room seemed to explode. I fell back into the bathroom. I guess he was a bad shot, or I was lucky. Maybe both. Next thing I know Liz is standing over me.”
“It was just like Iraq, Reece. It’s been a while but my self-preservation instincts are still strong.”
“Thank you, Liz.”
“James, I was so worried about you,” Katie said. He could feel her body shake as they embraced.
“Come on. Let’s go check on the others.”
Annika was in a chair at the kitchen table, and Jonathan was coming down the stairs with his wife as Reece, Katie, and Liz entered the main room.
“Where’s Thorn?” Reece asked immediately.
“He’s upstairs keeping an eye on things, just in case. We’re not sure that was all of them.”
“Reece, you’re hurt!” Katie exclaimed as they emerged into the lighter portion of the home and she spotted the bloody tear on the back of his jeans.
“It’s just a scratch, I think.”
“Let me look.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
Reece took a seat and pulled up his right pant leg. He jumped as she touched the wound, which had been effectively cauterized by the heat of the bullet. The round had just grazed the back of his calf, leaving a half-diameter channel as it plowed its way across the flesh.
“See, I told you it was fine.”
“I’ll dress it anyway.”
“Let me get you what you’ll need, dear,” Caroline said, exiting the room.
Reece laid his own carbine on the table next to Caroline’s bolt gun and prepared to endure Katie’s medical treatment.
“Who were they?” Katie asked, her journalistic mind already working to understand the events that had unfolded.
Reece looked at the others around the table.
“Not sure. We think Russian.”
“Russian?”
Caroline returned and handed Katie a plastic tub loaded with first aid supplies.
She pulled her chair close to Reece’s and propped his leg up on hers before dabbing the wound with a Betadine-soaked gauze pad.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“My dad was a doctor, remember?”
“Does that mean ‘yes’?”
“Don’t worry, I also watched a couple
of episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.”
She used her finger to coat the wound in ointment before covering it with a pad and wrapping the entire calf with several loops of gauze.
“There. Done.”
“Not bad,” Reece admitted.
Caroline nodded approvingly.
“All right, lads,” Jonathan said. “The authorities will be here soon. We need to talk. Why are Russian mobsters attacking us in Montana?”
Reece looked at Raife and then back to Jonathan, and then to Katie, Caroline, and Annika.
“I’m sorry, sir. It’s my fault. I think they were after me. I should have known better than to come here and put you all at risk. I should have known they’d find me.”
“None of that, lad,” the weathered old man snapped. “We are all still aboveground. That was nothing compared to what the terrs and Mugabe’s thugs did in Rhodesia. I’m just getting warmed up. Will they be back?”
“If I stay, they might, but let’s also not make any assumptions until I talk to the Agency. They might be able to shed some light on all this.” He looked to Raife. “Remember, there were two hit teams. One was after Raife, so unless they didn’t know which one of us was which, let’s not count out Raife being a target as well. It could mean someone knows you were with me in Switzerland.”
Raife looked at Annika, whose concern was more than apparent.
“Also,” Reece continued, “please check in with your other daughters. Have them go someplace safe.”
“It’s safe here now,” Jonathan remarked.
“Had they hit us at night with NODs, lasers, and a more capable force, stand-off weapons, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. We got lucky and we were prepared for this type of an attack. A more professional unit could have taken us; all of us.” Reece looked around the room as the severity of the situation sank in.
“I’ll call the girls now,” Caroline said, moving to a landline next to the couch.
Reece leaned across the table, his eyes intently moving between the father and son.
“There’s only one person who can tell us what’s going on and right now he’s dying in the back of my truck.”
“Give me ten minutes with him,” Jonathan stated. “We’ll see how tough he is once I wrap him in tires and start burning them.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t do that,” Reece said. “LE has got to be inbound, so we are on the clock. If they get their hands on him and he lawyers up, we’ll never get what we need.”
“What do you suggest?” the elder man asked Reece.
“Liz, how far is it to Thorn’s most remote cabin?”
“About an hour in the Albatross, why?”
“Okay. Liz and I will take Stalin out there to the cabin,” Reece said, indicating the Russian bound in the Land Cruiser. “You two get ready to meet the sheriff. Even local LE is going to put together that there is more going on here than meets the eye. I’ll call my contact at the CIA and see if he can throw up some veil of national security to stall things. In the meantime, I’ve got work to do.”
“Reece, are you sure you want to do this?” Raife asked.
Reece looked around the room. Instead of seeing Katie, Annika, Liz, and Caroline, he saw the ghosts of his dead wife and daughter.
“I think I know who’s behind this. He might be after us both for taking out Andrenov in Switzerland, but I think it’s about something even more personal. I need to know where he is. Our one link may already be bleeding out in my truck, so we need to move. I’ll be back when it’s done. Oh, Jonathan,” Reece said. “Do you have any more of those homegrown ghost peppers?”
CHAPTER 47
INFANTRY BATTLES ARE UNCOMMON in Flathead County, Montana, despite an extremely high rate of gun ownership. Because of this, the law enforcement response was predictably substantial. Every available deputy made their way either to the ranch or the scene of the attempted roadside ambush.
The entire family was seated at the kitchen table along with the Hastingses’ attorney, Brad Cahill, when the authorities arrived at the house. Cahill was a former Army Ranger and U.S. attorney for the Montana District and was a close friend of both the Hastings and Thornton families. Cahill’s trademark white Stetson sat on the table but, at his suggestion, the rifles were tastefully relocated. A regional SWAT team from the FBI field office in Salt Lake City arrived shortly after the deputies in a pair of Bureau helicopters, having been alerted by a call from Vic Rodriguez of a possible ambush in progress. Within hours, the ranch was crawling with armed agents, and a mobile command center was set up near the main house. With everyone they came to fight already dead, the SWAT team took on a force protection role while the Evidence Response Team went to work.
Vic had spoken to the on-scene supervisor while inbound, citing a slew of legislation passed in the wake of 9/11, so the investigators were sensitive to a national security angle. Having an attorney and a respected and wealthy family on scene didn’t hurt, either. Vic’s phone calls prompted the decision not to alert the media. The last thing that anyone wanted was a bunch of conspiracy theorists from either end of the political spectrum camped out in front of the ranch’s gates.
One by one, each of the participants gave statements to the investigators, with Cahill ensuring that both the questions and responses were appropriate. One member of the ensemble was conspicuously missing: the quiet bearded man who had been staying on the ranch for the past month. Crime scene technicians were scattered across the ridges and valley floor, marking, photographing, and cataloging every piece of tangible physical evidence.
It was nearly six when a black Tahoe pulled up to the ridge. Jonathan and Raife Hastings watched as a man in tan cargo pants, hiking boots, and a dark fleece jacket emerged, shaking hands with the lead investigator, who pointed him toward the main house.
Vic Rodriguez was a Miami native and the son of Cuban exiles. After college, he had served as an Army Special Forces officer before being recruited by the Agency, where, in the midst of the War on Terror, he achieved a well-earned spot at the top of the CIA’s paramilitary food chain. He was the rare Washington animal who was respected by those both above and below him in the chain of command. It was Vic who had seen the potential in Reece and arranged for him to be recruited into Ground Branch in exchange for a pardon of his past transgressions.
Vic was in his late forties with closely cropped graying hair and blue eyes that belied his Castilian heritage. He spoke in broadcast neutral English, yet he could flip to his parents’ native tongue midsentence.
Jonathan and Raife met him at the door.
“Mr. Rodriguez, welcome to our home. It’s not usually this shot up.”
“Mr. Hastings,” Vic said warmly. “And you must be Raife,” the Agency man said, extending his hand.
Raife hesitated, then took the outstretched hand. After his experience with a CIA asset in Iraq that had caused his unseasonal departure from the SEAL Teams, he was not a fan of intelligence officers.
“Can we get you anything?” Jonathan, ever the host, inquired. “Beer, wine, liquor?”
“No, thank you, I’m fine. Is there a private place we can talk?” The question was clearly directed at Raife.
The father and son exchanged words in Afrikaans.
“Use my office upstairs,” Jonathan offered. “I’m here, if I can be of service.”
The pair ascended the stairs and took seats in an office off the master bedroom. The walls were adorned with pictures from the Bush War days, and the shelves were packed with books from and about the old country. A monstrous Cape buffalo shoulder mount extended from one corner, and a full-body leopard mount was situated on the limb of a tree on the opposite wall.
“Mr. Hastings,” Vic began.
“Call me Raife.”
“Raife, as you know, we’ve cited national security concerns up to this point to keep a lid on this, but that won’t hold up for long. I need to talk to Reece, and I need to talk to him now.”
Raife looked the shorter man in th
e eye and nodded.
“Reece told me you were one of the good ones. He wants to talk to you, too.”
Raife reached across the desk and handed Vic a phone number on scratch paper.
“Dial it from the landline here. It’s to a sat phone.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s not far, but he needs a little time. He’ll explain.”
Vic took the paper.
“Are all members of your family accounted for?”
“Everyone but my sister Hanna. She’s in Romania. If you could have someone from the embassy check in on her and bring her in, my family would be grateful.”
“That will be my first call,” Vic said, standing to switch places with Raife so he could use the phone. “You and your family did good work today.”
“We’ve had some practice.”
True to his word, Vic called Langley. The desk officer immediately contacted the chief of station in Romania. Within the hour, two embassy vehicles were on their way to the town of Moldavia.
He then dialed the number Raife had given him.
“Vic?”
“Well, Reece, looks like your days of peace and quiet have come to a screeching halt.”
“Someone had other plans. Your phone call saved our lives.”
“I can’t lose you before I even officially bring you on board.”
“Yeah, I guess I’ll have a harder time saying no next time you ask me to do something.”
“I’m going to do that now. Where are you?”
“Close. There was something I had to do before law enforcement arrived.”
“Please tell me you don’t have a live suspect in custody.”
“If I did have someone, they wouldn’t be a suspect, they’d be an enemy combatant. I’ll share what I can, when I can. In the meantime, I need you to hold off the FBI until I figure this out.”
“A dead Russian hit team on one of the most respected ranching outfits in the state won’t stay secret for long.”