by Brad Thor
He was a barrel-chested fireplug of a man. At five-foot-five, his diminutive stature was only highlighted by how enormous his bodyguards were. Mikhailov had a completely shaved head and a neck as thick as a telephone pole. He was about the same age as Armen, but any similarity between the two men ended there. Whereas Abressian was dressed in a linen shirt and linen trousers, and shod in tasteful Italian loafers, Mikhailov looked every inch the mafioso—silk shirt, silk trousers, and several pieces of gold jewelry.
It was an image the Russian had worked hard to cultivate. Abressian had no doubt that everything the man wore, everything the man said, and everything the man did was very well calculated and considered.
“Thank you for coming, Viktor,” Armen said as he extended his hand. “I apologize for the circumstances.”
Mikhailov’s digits looked like a cluster of sausages, but he had an incredibly strong grip. He shook his head as he clasped hands with Abressian. “What has happened is very bad, Armen. Very bad. I have given you protection and this is how you repay me?”
“As I said over the phone, we need to talk face-to-face. Why don’t you come inside?”
Abressian led the way to his office, where a bottle of vodka sat in an ice bucket on his desk. Mikhailov told his men to wait outside.
“What were you drinking in the snifter outside?” asked the Russian. “B&B?”
Armen nodded.
“Good,” replied the former KGB agent. “That’s what I’ll have, then.”
Abressian poured the man’s drink and handed it to him as he refreshed his own snifter.
“What are we going to do about this situation, Armen?” asked Mikhailov as he took a seat. “Who the hell do you have working for you, Dr. Mengele?”
The Nazi reference took Abressian by surprise. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? You’re up here in this compound doing God knows what while one of your scientists is snatching up my girls and killing them. That’s what I mean.”
“And I want to compensate you for your loss. It’s the right thing to do.”
The Russian shook his head. “After one girl, maybe we could have worked something out. Your professor would have had to have his leg broken along with a couple of ribs, but we could have come to an arrangement. Now, though, four of my girls are gone.”
“We can pay you for the four girls.”
Mikhailov drained the contents of his glass in one swallow and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He set the glass down and looked at Abressian. “This has nothing to do with paying me for the girls, which you will do, by the way. My other girls are afraid. They don’t believe I can protect them, and my competitors see me as weak. Everyone knows those girls are gone and everyone knows who did it. I can’t let that go unanswered, Armen. I like you, but this is business.”
Abressian nodded and took a sip from his snifter. “Then we have a problem.”
Mikhailov hadn’t been expecting that kind of response. “Excuse me?” he said.
“Professor Cahill is integral to my business. I can’t allow anything to happen to him.”
“Maybe you misunderstood me,” replied the Russian. “I’m not giving you a choice. I want Cahill. Now.”
Abressian set down his glass. “That’s too bad. I was hoping that I could help you see the light; that we could come to some sort of an arrangement.”
The ex-KGB man stared at him in disbelief. “Maybe my English is not so good.”
“Your English is fine, Viktor, as is mine. I’m not giving you Cahill. He is too valuable to me.”
“Then we have nothing left to discuss.”
Abressian stood. “I’m sorry we couldn’t come to terms.” He offered his hand, but the Russian refused it.
“I will burn you to the ground,” said Mikhailov as he turned and walked out.
Not if I burn you first, Abressian said to himself.
The Audi spewed gravel across the motor court as the driver spun its tires and sped off out of the gate.
“I take it he didn’t see the light?” asked Sanders as he joined his boss once again on the stairs outside.
“Not yet,” replied Abressian as he lifted his cell phone and pressed the button for his head of security. When the man answered, Armen said, “He’s all yours, Marko.” He then ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket.
Sanders looked at him. “What are you doing, Armen?”
Abressian pointed toward the horizon and said, “Watch.”
For several minutes they stood as Armen drew on his cigar and released peaty trails of blue smoke into the air. Just as Sanders was about to ask what they were waiting for and how much longer it was going to be, there was the sound of automatic weapons fire, lots of it, followed by the distinct sound of a rocket-propelled grenade as it sizzled through the air.
Then came the explosion as the RPG slammed into the Russian’s Audi and a billowing fireball lit up the night sky.
Sanders turned to look at his boss, “What just happened?”
“I think Mr. Mikhailov has finally seen the light,” replied Abressian as he raised his snifter and toasted in the direction of the explosion. “No hard feelings, Viktor,” he said. “It’s only business.”
Though Armen was smiling, Sanders couldn’t help but dread the hell they had certainly just unleashed upon themselves.
CHAPTER 43
BELGRADE
Early on, Gretchen Casey had a bad habit of telling Hutton how incredible he was. It probably opened the door for everything else that had followed between them. What she meant to say was that the team of people the Unit had access to was incredible. She learned to be much more careful with her words.
Nevertheless, as she stared at the aircraft sitting on the tarmac of the small airport outside Belgrade, she was tempted to once again credit its appearance, as well as all the gear inside, to how incredible Lieutenant Colonel Robert Hutton was. She was going to have to work on that impulse. It was unhealthy.
Waiting for her and Julie Ericsson were two Icarus Extreme FX 69 parachute rigs. They were compact, highly steerable, and provided for fast flight. The max weight of a jumper loaded down with gear—guns, radio, NVGs, harness, reserve chute, and so on—that the FX 69 could handle was 152 pounds. This meant that few, if any, of the male Delta operators could use them. Many Athena Team members did, and those who did loved them.
Like their fellow team members, they had learned their parachuting skills in the Special Forces HALO program and then picked up their advanced skills in specialized Delta training. On top of that, Gretchen and Julie were recreational jumpers. One of their favorite events was the annual para-ski competition at Snowbird, Utah, where they had to parachute out of an aircraft, hit a target, and then ski the rest of the way down the mountain.
The only real competition Casey and Ericsson ever encountered was each other. Via the military, they trained throughout the year. A good Delta team could land together in a ten-foot circle.
Tonight, though, it wouldn’t be a whole team landing. It would just be Gretchen and Julie. But they’d be landing in a very tight area. In fact, the plan was for them to land on Branko Kojic’s roof.
Alex and Megan pulled the gear meant for their part of the operation off the plane and tucked it into the trunk of the car they had rented. While they didn’t mind jumping, they weren’t as gung-ho about it as their teammates and were happy to leave that part of the assignment to Casey and Ericsson.
Once the women had gone over the plan one last time, they said their good-byes. Cooper and Rhodes drove off, and Casey and Ericsson got down to the business of checking and rechecking every piece of equipment that had been sent for them to use.
They didn’t need to ask where the plane and all the gear had come from. The Strategic Support Branch, also known as SSB, had been established so that clandestine DoD operatives wouldn’t need to depend on the CIA for support.
It was after 11:00 P.M. by the time Megan Rhodes radioed that she
and Alex Cooper were in place outside Kojic’s building. Their responsibility was to provide visual security and coordinate the exfiltration at the end of the assignment. If things went badly, then they were to get their guns into the fight right away.
They would also be providing atmospheric data for the jumpers. Via a Brunton handheld atmospheric data center, they radioed the humidity, heat index, air density, barometric pressure, temperature, wind speed, and wind direction to Casey and Ericsson. Once that was complete they wished them good luck. Ten minutes later, the Let L-410 Turbojet aircraft was in the air.
Belgrade’s elevation was ninety meters, so it had been decided the jump would happen at ten thousand feet AGL, or above ground level. This would give the women plenty of time to fly to Kojic’s building in freefall.
When the pilot gave the warning, they put their helmets on, stood up, and approached the door. After checking each other’s jumpsuits and equipment, Casey opened the door. She checked the wind deflector and then conducted an outside air safety check.
The pilot announced, “One minute.”
Thirty seconds later came the warning, “Thirty seconds.”
Casey looked outside once more to make sure everything was clear for their jump. She then leaned back inside the aircraft and flashed Ericsson the thumbs-up. When Ericsson returned the signal, Casey counted to ten and they exited the aircraft together.
The temperature was cold as they raced through the night sky at over 120 miles per hour. Flying in formation, they stayed together until they reached their “open” altitude of two thousand feet.
At that point, Casey waved Ericsson off and they separated. Once a safe distance apart, they deployed their chutes. Gretchen led the way down toward the building with Julie tracking a safe distance behind.
As they descended, Megan continued to feed atmospheric data over the radio.
Using a windsock on a nearby building to help compute her glide angle, Casey placed herself about three hundred feet upwind from the building and corkscrewed down.
Watching as her teammate neared the seventeen-story rooftop, Ericsson did a half-brake of her chute, slowed her descent, and allowed Casey a clear approach.
Despite what the sock said, the wind was tricky and Gretchen hit the roof hard. Even with knees bent, it was a rough landing, but she didn’t have time to think about it. She had to collapse her chute before the wind caught it and dragged her over the edge of the building. She also needed to get out of the way because Julie would be coming in right behind her.
Casey gathered up her chute and looked up just in time to see Ericsson coming in to land. There was just one problem. The wind had moved her off-target. She was going to overshoot the roof.
She watched as Julie tried hard to correct, but that only made it worse. “Abort! Abort!” she said over the radio. Ericsson either didn’t hear, or didn’t want to hear.
When she landed, she landed hard, harder than Casey. She also missed the center of the roof completely and came down at the very edge of the roof. With momentum driving her forward, there was no place for her to go but right over the edge. And as her chute collapsed in a skydiver’s nightmare, that’s exactly what happened.
CHAPTER 44
Gretchen Casey’s breath caught in her throat as she watched it all unfold.
Before she realized what she was doing, she ran for the edge of the roof. As Julie Ericsson’s parachute was about to disappear, she leaped for it and missed.
Gretchen scrambled to the edge, half-expecting to hear the sound of Julie hitting the ground, but instead she heard something else: the sound of parachute silk being torn. Ericsson’s chute had gotten hung up on a window-washing anchor. Casey could now not only hear, but see the material rapidly giving way. Reaching down, she grabbed two fistfuls of silk and pulled with all her might.
Every muscle fiber in her body felt as if it was being torn, just like the parachute itself. Gretchen ignored the searing pain and pulled even harder as the adrenaline surged through her body.
Leaning backward, she ground her teeth and fought to pull Julie back. “Come on, damn it!” she called out. “Come on!”
Casey summoned everything she had. She went to that dark place inside where she hid the very last burst of speed she had ever used in a race. This was her sister hanging there. A woman she not only loved but was responsible for. She wasn’t going to allow her to die.
With one last surge of effort she felt the chute move toward her. She pulled again and it moved again. Hand over hand, inch by painfully slow inch she pulled until she saw the top of Julie’s helmet.
Clawing her way down the rigging, Casey reached out for Julie’s harness, and planting her feet, pulled her the rest of the way up onto the roof.
She collapsed and lay next to her, panting. Her lungs were on fire, as was the rest of her. It took several minutes for the feeling to return to her fingers.
It was Julie who spoke first. “I think I misjudged that one, just a little bit.”
Casey couldn’t help herself. It hurt to laugh, but she did anyway, until it turned into a hacking cough, her body still desperate for air.
They continued to lie on the roof for several minutes more until Casey had fully caught her breath.
“Is everyone okay?” Rhodes asked over the radio. “What happened?”
“We’re okay,” coughed Casey. “Just give us a minute.”
“That’s all you’ve got,” chimed in Cooper. “They’re about to do the first handoff. You need to be at the access door behind you in ninety seconds.”
“I’m on it,” said Ericsson as she pushed herself up to her feet. Gathering up her chute and clutching it to her chest, she crossed the roof to the access door, where she removed a lockpick gun from her bag.
“Forty-five seconds,” said Cooper.
“What about the closed-circuit cameras?” she asked.
“Already taken care of,” replied Rhodes.
“Twenty seconds,” said Cooper.
Ericsson slipped the tension wrench into the door and then positioned the lockpick gun.
“Ten seconds.”
Ericsson applied tension to the wrench and began clicking the trigger. She felt the lock give.
“Now,” said Cooper.
Julie pulled back the door and held it open for Casey, who was crossing the roof toward her.
“You’ve got three minutes until the elevator gets there,” said Rhodes. “I suggest you ladies get it in gear.”
“Roger that,” replied Casey as she stepped into the stairwell and Ericsson gently closed the door behind them.
They stripped out of their harnesses, removed their helmets, and stored everything in a small electrical closet.
Drawing the suppressed Glock 19s they’d been issued, they took a deep breath and headed down the stairs.
One level below the roof, they paused and radioed Rhodes.
“The elevator will be there in fifteen seconds,” she said.
Casey kept her ear pressed up against the stairwell door until she heard the chime in the hallway announcing the elevator’s arrival. “I’m opening the door,” she stated.
Rhodes, who was monitoring the true security camera feeds, as opposed to the falsified loop that the building’s guard staff were watching, said, “The hallway is all clear.”
Gretchen opened the door slowly and peeked out. Seeing that it was in fact all clear, she signaled Ericsson and the two of them stepped across the hall and into the elevator.
There were no buttons inside. “We’re in,” said Casey.
“Roger that,” replied Rhodes, who activated the elevator.
As it began to descend, Ericsson looked at her teammate and simply said, “Thanks, Gretch.”
Casey gave her a smile and nodded. “That could have been a lot of paperwork for me.”
Ericsson grinned. “Then I’m glad it worked out the way it did.”
“Me too.”
“Eighth floor,” said Rhodes as the elevator slo
wed to a stop. “Golf clubs, pool supplies, ladies’ lingerie.”
Casey was just about to ask her if she could silence the chime, when the doors opened and the noise was conspicuously absent. “I should have silenced it for you upstairs,” said Rhodes. “My bad. Hallway all clear. Go get him.”
“Go to sterile comms,” replied Casey as she stepped off the elevator, her pistol up and ready. Immediately, the entire team fell silent. They would communicate via a language of predetermined clicks.
There were three apartments per floor. Branko Kojic’s was at the end of the hall.
“Are you able to do this?” Casey asked. “After what happened on the roof, if you’re not up for it, I understand. We can switch.”
“I’m good,” said Ericsson as she handed Gretchen her gun, took off her boots, and then unzipped and removed her jumpsuit. She was wearing black lace panties and a matching bra.
Running her fingers through her hair, she asked. “How do I look?”
Casey, who was no slouch in the looks department, couldn’t hold a candle to Ericsson’s body. “If I was a guy and you turned up on my doorstep looking like that,” said Casey. “I’d be buying whatever it was you were selling.”
Ericsson rolled her eyes. “Let’s just hope he’s not gay.”
Gretchen smiled as she stepped out of the way. “As long as he opens the door, that’s all we care about.”
Once Casey stepped off to the side with her boots and jumpsuit, Ericsson adjusted her lingerie, making sure her panties rode high on her hips and her bra put everything on perfect display. Then she rang Kojic’s doorbell and stood back just far enough to give him an eyeful.
CHAPTER 45
Branko Kojic answered the door in a short, black silk bathrobe embroidered with a dragon. He had a potbelly, a hairy gray chest, and a receding hairline. The sound of a soccer game came from a TV somewhere inside his unit.
Julie Ericsson didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Do you speak English?” she asked, glancing nervously over her shoulder and then back at him. “I’m visiting and I got locked out. I can’t go downstairs like this. Can I use your phone?”