“Later,” snapped Kyle, keeping their minds on the job. “Once we are on site, we spend the day in our hides. The Russians are planning a little party right after dark for a visiting general, and when we acquire our targets, we all fire at the same time on a countdown. I call the bird to come get us, we exfiltrate back to the lake and the helo zooms in, we get aboard and are gone.”
“Where do we stage?”
“I’m setting up something out of Lithuania.”
“There are a lot of questions,” said Jeff in a pleading voice. “Are you really thinking this through?”
Swanson clicked off the pointer and studied the table map a little while longer in silence. “We can do it, Jeff, with a little luck.”
“What’s my job?” Anneli wrinkled her brow. “I’m not a sniper.”
“You will have a directional microphone that will allow you to listen and translate everything they say in the camp. That’s a pretty big intelligence edge for our side.”
“When do we go?”
“Two hours. I have to make some final arrangements, but you people go ahead and get ready. I want to be boots-on-ground by sunrise.”
* * *
THE EXCALIBUR HELO, A gleaming white machine with the company’s gold logo, was radioed instructions to stay overnight in Belgium after dropping off the general. That left the helipad empty as the Vagabond pounded hard out of the North Sea and into the Baltic. At 2200 hours the aft deck lights were doused and the yacht nosed into the wind when a large MH-60R Seahawk helicopter, the Sikorsky workhorse of the U.S. Navy, arrived unseen in the blackness. It touched down only long enough for Swanson, the SAS team and Anneli to scramble aboard. The arrival, pickup and departure took only thirty seconds. The yacht peeled away to return to the popular pleasure cruising routes along the shoreline.
The helicopter crew chief slid the door closed and resumed his seat in the rear of the cabin, chewing gum and looking with interest at the four black-clad operators. One was a woman whose figure and face could not be disguised by the flight suit and smeared black and green face paint. All three of the men were strapped up with weapons, including long rifles in protective sheaths, while she wore a square backpack. Swanson was offered a helmet and a microphone, but did not want to communicate. His plan was in motion. The crew had been instructed not to ask questions, just to make the pickup from the Vagabond and fly directly back to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier CVN-73, the USS George Washington, the centerpiece of the Baltic Sea Battle Group.
Anneli had never ridden on a helicopter before, much less one this large and noisy. Her friends rode as if they were on a familiar trolley car. Kyle was silent, running over the plan again and again. Baldwin read a novel on a back-lighted video screen. Gray Perry fell asleep. She could see only night through the small windows on the bulkhead and her entire being was tight with excitement. The helicopter clattered away and they were all enveloped by the dome of gloomy sky overhead and the dark waters beneath.
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
There was a new woman in the staid life of General Ravensdale. She had the green eyes of a jaguar and was as sleek as the jungle cat. Her chestnut hair was as stylish as her clothes. It was all very prim and proper. There was no outward change in his behavior, but everyone just knew because he was seeing her frequently in his off hours, or for lunch at some bistro or for an evening theater performance. The female staff members thought it quite romantic that the aging hero had finally discovered his Guinivere after mourning so long for his late wife. The men thought the general had landed a winner, for she was rich and beautiful and of an appropriate age, a better match for the boss than some sexy little Euro hard-body.
Arial Printas was about ten years younger than the general, the widow of a German industrialist who had left her a fortune, and she lived in a suite at a fine hotel. It was to that hotel that the general drove in his own car after being deposited ashore following the dinner aboard the Vagabond.
Arial met him at the door and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Hello, Frederick,” she said, drawing him inside by the hand and thinking how the NATO deputy supreme allied commander in Europe at times looked like a lost boy. She was barefoot and wore sky-blue silk pajamas beneath a light wrap. “You have something for me?”
Ravensdale stalked across the thick carpet and poured a stiff drink, no ice, at the bar in the long living room. “I hate myself.”
Arial settled into a big chair and tucked her feet beneath her. “Oh, stop the pity. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. It’s unbecoming.”
“I am nothing; a traitor.”
Arial made a show of yawning and pretending boredom. “We are not going through another of your emotional scenes, Frederick. You stamped your ticket many years ago with your fling with little Lorette. We rescued you from the Stasi and have left you alone for decades. In a few more weeks, we will disappear again and you will go back to whatever you want to do.”
“You people will always come back.”
“Probably not.” Her voice was smooth and disinterested. “Frederick, you are important to us right now only because of your job. I doubt that we could find much use for you after you retire unless you are foolish enough to go into politics. Now, why did you awaken me?”
The general took another full glass and sat on the dark maroon sofa. “NATO is planning a military response for the MiG attack in Finland,” he said. “Snipers are going to attack a fire base in Kaliningrad and kill a senior officer there.”
Arial spread her palms and rolled her eyes. “Is that all? When? Who?”
Ravensdale stared at the Russian intelligence operative. “The place is called FSB Artillery Camp 8351 and is located at the point where Kaliningrad meets Lithuania and Poland. I do not know the name of the target, and I do not know when, except that it will happen in no more than a few days. The information is just too fresh for all of the details. My guess is they will come in from Poland and egress the same way.”
“Frederick, my darling, this is nothing. Certainly it is not worth putting our private and personal contact at risk. One dead officer in Kaliningrad? Who cares?”
The general drank off half the glass, furious with himself for giving up an operation involving four people with whom he had just dined, and stung by her rebuke and rejection of the information. “You interpret it any way you wish, Arial. I see this raid as a strong reprisal, and therefore it is both militarily and politically important. Your superiors will want to stop it.”
She smirked, barely lifting the curved eyebrows. “Oh, very well. I will pass it along first thing tomorrow. But I warn you, Frederick. Stick to what we instruct you to do, and let these little matters go. We are not interested in every little scrap of soldier stuff that passes across your fancy desk. You are to help Ivan Strakov and legitimize his information.”
Ravensdale finished his drink and left the woman sitting there. He did have something better, but wanted to keep it as an ace that he could play later. The girl at dinner, Anneli, had mentioned the name “Calico,” and had asked Swanson if she would be angry about them leaving. Swanson had silenced her. So Calico was a woman, and a code name, probably CIA. The general would set his NATO intel dogs sniffing around to pin down that identification by claiming she might be an allied spy who was feeding information to Moscow.
21
AN HOUR LATER, THE crew chief touched Kyle on the shoulder and held up two fingers: two minutes. Baldwin put away his book; Perry detected the movement, awoke and got ready without saying a word. Baldwin tapped a gloved finger on Anneli’s knee and gave her a thumbs-up sign of encouragement just as the bottom seemed to fall out of her world. The helo dumped power, bucked into a descent, nosed up and settled to the deck of the aircraft carrier as easily as an elevator. The chief pulled the door open, pointed outside and threw them all a quick salute.
A carrier never sleeps while at sea, so the time of day means little, and a helicopter coming aboard was a routine piece of business. Anneli was almost overwhelm
ed by the smell of fuel and oil, the rumble of machinery and the activity of crew members in vests of various colors who rushed about in choreographed chaos. The wind came across the deck from a sea that was surging near gale force.
A young woman officer collected them, tugging a gold-braided blue baseball cap over her brown hair, the gold leaf of a naval lieutenant commander glinting on her jacket collar. “Which one is Bounty Hunter?” she asked in a loud voice that could barely be heard over the wild wind and the shipboard noise. When Kyle acknowledged his code name, she said, “Follow me.” She led them across the wide deck to where a long silver aircraft was tied down by cables of braided steel, with its big wings folded back against its sides like a big butterfly at rest.
The turboprop Grumman C-2A Greyhound was a carrier onboard delivery plane, better known by its initials: COD. The rear hatch was open and the officer led them into the passenger bay where pairs of empty blue seats awaited in twos. She saluted and left without another word, not knowing the mission or the names, but having done her assigned job.
Now, under the watchful eye of still another crew chief, the group buckled into over-the-shoulder harnesses before it dawned upon Anneli that they were all facing backward, toward the rear hatch that was already being sealed shut. They were the only passengers. The flight crew had completed the preflight checks before they arrived. The wings folded out, the GW deck people performed their tasks flawlessly and the COD trundled into launch position and hooked to a catapult. The carrier was making twenty knots straight into a ten-knot wind, for a combined speed of almost thirty-five miles per hour that maximized the air flow to help the plane get more lift off the deck.
“Hold tight,” Swanson said to her, reaching over to place his hand on hers as the twin engines went from a comfortable whine to a howling roar, and the aircraft vibrated like a juice mixer. “This is going to be a kick.”
An enormous jerk threw them against the straps as the steam catapult hurled the plane straight and hard off the bow, and they accelerated from standing still to better than 160 miles per hour in two gut-churning seconds. Kyle gave Anneli a single absentminded pat. “That’s all there is to it,” he said when it was done, then settled into his seat. Anneli fought to remain as quiet as everyone else and tried not to throw up.
Kyle mentally ticked off another point on his checklist and looked at his watch. It was just after 0100. So far, so good. This aircrew also knew the destination, but not the reason for the trip, or the identities of the passengers. The awkward COD climbed higher and moved onto a westerly course toward a small airbase located southeast of Riga, in Latvia, near the town of Lielvārde. The pilot jacked the speed up, as fast as the old bucket could safely fly.
The transfer routine was repeated when the COD touched down in Latvia, deposited its passengers, made a quick visit to the refueling barn and then took off back for the carrier. The quartet of special operators was on NATO turf now, which gave Swanson confidence that the secrecy level was holding. They swapped into a fast little Gulfstream passenger jet that was the property of the Central Intelligence Agency. The plane wore no markings and was painted in a flat black. It had flown in earlier to provide for the next leg of the trip. They were soon back in the sky, this time for the quicker jump down to Lithuania. There was no crew chief this time, just a couple of CIA pilots in their front cabin, and rations were stored in a small galley. Swanson bit into a turkey and cheese sandwich, still thinking about the timetable. They were racing the dawn, and everyone felt the tension, which built by the mile. He had no options at this point: either his hasty plan worked, or it didn’t. Step by step. Brick by brick. Outrun the rumor mill, gossips and informants.
Darkness was still as thick as ink when the Gulfstream sliced down and made an easy landing on a narrow military airstrip. It rolled to a halt at a hangar that sat off by itself some distance from the tower. Armed guards were alert along the perimeter. Inside the hangar was still another helicopter, a unique, angular bird that was one of only a handful of its type in existence. One more ride, Swanson told his team. Not long now. They climbed aboard the stealth helicopter.
Thirty minutes later, Major Juozas Valteris heard a big presence pass overhead as he stood on an armored car near the Kaliningrad border, but the sound was much softer than he had expected. He was the only member of the Iron Wolf Mechanized Battalion who had been briefed in advance about what was happening, and he had the men on alert, but with their fingers away from their triggers, under a firm order not to fire. The soldiers looked up when they heard muffled thuds in the sky, but saw nothing. Whatever it was had come and gone so low and fast that it was invisible.
The stealth UH-60 helicopter was flown by an American crew from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), the highly trained Nightstalkers, and it almost skimmed the big lake as it flew across the water. The aircraft, although rare, was a distant and customized cousin of the old Sikorsky on which Swanson, Anneli and the SAS snipers had begun their trip hours earlier.
This new crew chief also eventually held up two fingers for the two-minute warning, and then prepared to throw out long coils of heavy rope that were attached inside the cabin. Swanson and Baldwin watched the looming ground before them through night-vision scopes, and Anneli held her arms wide while Gray Perry, the strongest member of the group, snapped on four heavy D-rings to secure her harness to his own. The helicopter flared to a stop and the ropes went out.
* * *
THE FOUR MADE THEIR way through the forest on soft feet. Baldwin, on point, moved like a bug with his enhanced night-vision goggles painting the way. Kyle was next so he could control the operation, and watched both flanks. Anneli was right behind, concentrating on stepping precisely where Swanson had stepped and not saying a word. Corporal Perry was Tail-End Charlie, guarding the rear. They avoided the matted path that had been worn into the forest floor over the years by the passage of many Russian soldiers and vehicles visiting the beach. The trees offered protection and safety.
The slope up from the lake was gradual, and the ascent was no problem for the physically fit men, but Anneli felt the burn in her thighs and lungs, and was breathing harder. Instead of being afraid, she was fascinated by the strange world and the three snipers who were moving so slowly and smoothly through it. They disturbed as little dirt and as few leaves as possible, and even the nocturnal animals gave them space without panic, somehow understanding that these new beings in the habitat were not threats to them. This was a different sort of predator, after some other species.
The snipers smelled the smoke before they saw the orange glow of a cigarette being enjoyed by a sentry at an outpost shack beside the trail. They stopped and watched for a minute, logging away the information that it was just one man, and the position would have to be dealt with on the way out. They could do nothing immediately because the man probably was due for relief within a few hours and any new sentry finding the corpse would raise an alarm. Baldwin led them deeper into the woods and they bypassed the guard without being noticed.
Onward they moved, taking one careful step at a time and keeping their weapons ready beneath old growth trees that blocked the stars and held the moisture in a mist of damp, chill air. Baldwin suddenly went to one knee and raised a fist, bringing everyone to a halt. Having become accustomed to the night and the wooded labyrinth, they felt the presence of other humans. For a full minute, they remained silent and still, then Baldwin whispered into the small microphone on the radio that linked the team members, and while the others went flat, he snaked away in a low crawl and disappeared into the muck.
He told them a few minutes later that they were there: They had reached the final firing position.
* * *
BY THE TIME THE new sun began to brighten the sky at their backs, the snipers had built a pair of hides among the thick bushes and tangled roots at the crest of a ridge overlooking Rooster Cap Nowak. Many years ago, when the camp was first built, bulldozers had pushed the forest back, but the
need for total vigilance had been slight during decades of no wars in this tiny part of Russia that was not even in Russia, and the woodland vines had marched back in their own time.
Hide sites had been easy to find in the remarkably thick undergrowth, and they had used entrenching tools to dig in from below and behind the old foliage, and swept away their tracks. The resulting spaces were like the burrows of large animals. Through openings between the leaves and branches, each had a clear view of the artillery base, although they remained invisible to any naked eye from below. Before settling in, they took turns cautiously emptying their bladders in the undergrowth and covering the scent with dirt, and then began the long and arduous day of waiting and watching, lasering ranges and sketching the target area. Waiting. Waiting.
The camp guards stirred to life with a morning formation at 0630 in a small central square and ran the Russian flag up a pole. Around the open area were a number of buildings that were standard for any such site—supply sheds, barracks, garages and mess halls. The nearby roads had been closed at midnight, and the first shift of soldiers carrying AK-47s opened the yellow barrier gates to serve the few early-bird trucks waiting to be checked through. The snipers estimated that about seventy-five men were in the camp, all going about routine duties and indicating no unusual level of alertness. “Just another day in paradise,” Sergeant Baldwin quipped over the radio net as he studied faces through his scope.
Swanson examined the firepower at the camp’s three strongpoints—all of them .50-caliber machine guns mounted behind sandbag parapets and interlocking the road junction, not facing the surrounding area as they should. The crews were running normal checks, cleaning and loading the weapons. Each guard post also had a protected pit holding a 120mm mortar, real man-eaters that could reach up to sixteen miles with an explosive charge that had a kill radius of some seventy yards. Now he knew which monsters would be chasing them back to Lake Vištytis.
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