by Sean McFate
I liked him immediately, at least as a client. There was nothing worse than working with a pompous strongman. They had too many ideas, and too much faith in brutality. A man like Karpenko, I suspected, would leave the important work to the professionals. That was probably how he had gotten to the top in the first place.
“Mr. Locke,” Karpenko said in a Kensington accent—London School of Economics, perhaps? Hadn’t someone mentioned he was an economist by trade? He took the large leather chair; Greenlees took the only other seat in the room. I didn’t mind. I preferred to stand. Sirko was standing behind Karpenko, in a protective position. Maltov was standing by the door, a power move, judging by Sirko’s sour expression.
“Mr. Karpenko,” I said, with proper respect.
“We’ve been waiting. How was the trip?”
“Long.”
“You came from America.” He picked up a bottle of translucent brown liquor and poured three glasses. He was checking my connections.
“From Washington, DC,” I said, taking a glass.
“You met with Mr. Winters then? He filled you in on the situation?”
“I’m fully up to speed,” I lied.
He raised his glass in a toast, “Bud’mo!” he said, and I wondered as I knocked back the translucent liquor how he knew Brad Winters by name, since nobody knew Brad Winters by name. But this was a BNR. Winters had named me to Karpenko. Maybe the oligarch was a friend. Or someone with a shared interest, which was as close to a friend as a man like Winters ever had.
“He says you are the best,” Karpenko said, watching my reaction to the burning liquid.
“He said the same about you.”
Beside me, Greenlees sputtered, then coughed. The liquor really did burn. “Lovely,” he muttered, putting down his glass.
Karpenko poured another round. “Horilka,” he said. “Homemade herb-infused vodka. A Ukrainian specialty. You won’t get anything like it in America.”
That’s for sure, I thought, as we downed another glass. Greenlees drank in silence this time.
“So what is your plan?” Karpenko asked.
I glanced at Sirko, then Maltov, who were eyeing each other.
“Don’t worry,” Karpenko said. “I trust these men with my children’s lives.”
It wasn’t an idle phrase. That was exactly what Karpenko was doing.
“I’ll exit your family by plane,” I said. “Tomorrow night. The plane will come in low, no lights, undetectable by radar . . .”
“Yes, yes,” Karpenko interrupted, “I know. But where will it land?”
The question threw me. Had Winters told him the plan already? When? And how?
“We don’t have the landing coordinates set. We’ll scout the location tomorrow . . .”
Karpenko said something in Ukrainian.
“It’s the best way,” I said, cutting any objections short. “I have locations in mind based on a map recon and GIS satellite imagery, but I won’t commit until I’ve seen them in person. The plane’s landing zone doesn’t have to be set until twenty minutes prior to arrival. If the Russians tip their hand, we want to have a backup plan.”
This wasn’t true. Once we launched the plane from Romania we were committed. It was a one-shot deal. But American military prowess was a power tool. Clients usually believed anything I told them. Enemies usually believed anything they heard.
“Besides,” I said, gambling based on the rumor of betrayal and the cell phones in the fish tank, “the longer we wait to commit, the less chance of a security breach.”
Karpenko snapped to Colonel Sirko in Ukrainian. “No one has left the compound since they arrived,” Greenlees translated. “No one is allowed to leave now.”
“Smart,” I said. “But that’s why Greenlees and I have to scout the landing strips. We need to know what is going on out there. And I need eyes on the landing zone.”
Karpenko stared at me quietly, as if waiting for something to sink in. I’d seen that look before, from men accustomed to power, but I never knew what they were thinking. Trusting their gut, I guess. Or seeing if I could be intimidated. It seemed like kindergarten to me.
“Take Maltov,” Karpenko said, and I saw a wince cross Sirko’s face. He didn’t trust Maltov, and he wanted me to know it. Or maybe he just didn’t like him. The enforcer and the security chief never liked each other.
“Perfect,” I said. “I need your best man. And a car. And a driver.”
Karpenko snapped in Ukrainian.
“Maltov has a driver,” Greenlees said.
“How many men do you have?” Karpenko asked, looking me in the eyes, something he’d either learned in business school or during a basement torture session. I was guessing business school.
“Just one. How many do you have?”
Karpenko didn’t answer.
“Forty,” Maltov said, and I wondered how much English he knew. More than Sirko, that was obvious.
“Good. We’ll need them tomorrow night.”
Maltov nodded.
“What about cars?”
“Fourteen.”
“Trucks?”
He looked confused. Greenlees translated.
“Six,” Sirko said, butting in.
“What about all-terrain vehicles?”
“What about guns?” Karpenko interrupted. “What about . . . SEALs?” He gestured at Greenlees, then me, then said something in Ukrainian that made the older man drop his eyes. “Do you know how many men Belenko has?”
“More than us,” I said, because that was obvious from Karpenko’s tone.
“So what are we going to do about it?”
“Stay calm,” I said. “And trust each other. Winters sent me for a reason.”
Karpenko rose, turned calmly, and said something to Sirko in Ukrainian. Then he turned, looked at me, and walked out of the room.
Typical. Rich men always had unrealistic expectations.
Sirko motioned for us to follow. He took us down a dark back hallway perfect for servants and assassinations. At the end, we entered the servant’s kitchen. On a small wooden table were two loaves of brown bread, a bowl of lard, and some cured bacon.
“Eat,” the colonel said, turning on his heel.
I was so famished, I fell into the bread, tearing off a huge corner chunk, slathering it with lard, and shoving it into my mouth before I realized I didn’t have anything to wash it down.
“What did Karpenko say?” I asked, when I’d finally choked down the crust.
Greenlees looked glum. He hadn’t touched his food. “He said he should never have trusted Winters.”
“He’s right.”
“Because I’m old, and you’re out of shape, and you don’t even speak Ukrainian.”
I started to laugh, then tore off another hunk of bread. “Don’t worry,” I said as I reached for the lard. “I’m definitely not out of shape.”
CHAPTER 8
Sirko returned a half hour later, no doubt after a rocky chat with Karpenko. It wouldn’t have been his idea to hire Apollo, but he had clearly given his assent, and that was all Karpenko needed to blame him for any problems. Like the cavalry arriving and consisting of a retiree and a guy in a suit.
Fortunately, he had an unmarked bottle of liquor, which turned out to be vodka, so I pushed the last heel of bread aside.
“98th Guards?” I asked, noticing the tattoo on his forearm when he gave me a glass. It was a blue shield featuring a yellow arm, clad in chain mail, holding a sword.
Sirko nodded. The 98th were Soviet paratroopers, but Sirko was pushing sixty, so of course Ukraine had been part of the Soviet Union when Sirko was coming up.
“I’m airborne, too,” I said, pounding my right fist on my chest, where I had worn my jumpmaster wings while in uniform.
Sirko smiled and thumped his chest. It was the universal brotherhood of military airborne: paratroopers, rangers, Russian Spetsnaz. Beyond the tough training was the shared suffering, topped off by secret initiation rituals like “
Blood Wings” and “Prop Blast.” The U.S. Army put a stop to them in the 1990s after CNN caught Canadian paratroopers pounding jump wing pins straight into new member’s chests—thus “blood wings”—but to old dogs like Sirko and me, the rituals would never die.
“Airborne,” he said, lifting his glass.
We drank.
“Were you in Bosnia?” I asked. The colonel didn’t answer. I doubted he understood. “I was in Srebrenica, summer of 1995.”
The images came back to me: the beautiful valleys of northeastern Bosnia, the two Serbian “Red Berets” we captured on the road, the terrible beating we gave them, the first time I’d shattered teeth. It wasn’t right, but I was raw and eager, and we were hunting Scorpions, a vicious Russo-Serbian militia that referred to Bosnians as cockroaches. Yugoslavia had shattered into ethnic violence, and the Scorpions, among others on the Serbia side, had elevated that disagreement into ethnic cleansing. Even the Red Berets were more afraid of their allies than they were of us, thus the missing teeth, but they finally gave up a location: Srebrenica. It was only forty clicks away. I radioed in the intel, and requested a change of mission to Srebrenica.
The response from military special ops command was instant and clear.
“Negative, Falcon 2-0. Charlie Mike.” Meaning continue mission. “Drina Valley is UN safe area and no-go zone.”
I locked eyes with Miles, my noncomm. “Your call, Captain,” he said.
I made the call. I followed orders. We stayed away from the valley. The next day, the thunder started to the east, the unmistakable sound of artillery, but headquarters refused our requests to investigate. For the next five days, I ignored the thunder and Charlie Mike’d like a good soldier, sticking to our original mission, my men angry and mutinous, until I finally said, “Fuck it. We’re going in.”
I will never forget the town of Srebrenica: the smell of smoke and corpses; the burned houses; the destroyed Dutch troop carrier smoldering in the road. It was desolate, even in the center of town, but there were women in the wreckage, traumatized and starving, just as the Serbians intended.
We walked in double-wedge formation with Miles on point, nobody saying a word. On the north end of the town, the destruction was thicker. We saw the back wall of an old zinc factory, covered with blood. The ground was soaked in it, a long line of individual pools. We stayed off the road. Three hundred meters farther, we came to a fresh mound of dirt. Culver, one of the young buck sergeants on my team, started digging. Within seconds, a hand was sticking out. A child’s hand.
Culver stopped. He looked up at me. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t need to. I could see it. Fuck you, Captain.
Later, Miles put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s my fault. I’m the NCO. I should have told you to fuck that order.”
But it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t all right. Eight thousand Bosnians were executed in and around Srebrenica, mostly men and boys, but for me, it only took one. I lasted another four years, but that was the end of my army career. Every time someone asked me why I’d gone merc, I thought of that dead boy, and HQ insisting I stay the course, and how I could have saved him . . . if only I’d had the freedom or the nerve.
“Srebrenica,” Sirko said slowly, pronouncing each syllable. He didn’t understand English, but any military man in the Eastern bloc understood that word. “Srebrenica. Bosnia. Dah. I was there.”
He said something in Ukrainian, and I looked to Greenlees.
“He says that’s when he left.”
I remembered the calm on the boy’s face when we dug him out. There was a bullet hole in his forehead with powder burns around the entry. Barrel on bone. How much worse would it have felt, I wondered, if I had been on the same side as those butchers?
I raised my vodka glass for another round. Sirko poured. We drank in silence, each of us lost in our thoughts, until Sirko put down his glass and spoke.
“He asked if you have a plan,” Greenlees translated.
“A thin one,” I said. “Mostly assumptions.”
Sirko nodded. “That’s what he figured,” Greenlees said, as Sirko pulled out a worn tactical map case with a faded Soviet star on the front and slapped it on the table. Inside were old Soviet army maps of the Poltava area, complete with an acetate overlay showing military graphics and enemy units. In the side pockets were an orienteer’s compass, a map protractor, a small maglite with a red lens for night vision, a few markers for the acetate overlay, and two chem lights. A true soldier’s kit.
I pulled out my tablet computer and, while Sirko watched, punched up some GIS satellite maps with movable three-dimensional overlays of the same location: population density, satellite imagery, topography, and militia movements, courtesy of the gerbils. My tablet was security encrypted, ruggedized for field deployment, and completely sterile. I would never use it for writing, and it contained no identifying information. It was simply a traveling reference library. It had its own solar panel and could locate a GPS satellite, but it wasn’t Bluetooth or Wi-Fi enabled, and it would never connect to the Internet or a cell phone tower. There was no such thing as cybersafety. I had often tracked prey by remotely locating a smartphone. The only way to stay secure was to stay off the grid: Sirko and I represented two means of doing just that.
“Now,” I said, as the maps opened. “Where the hell are we?”
Sirko pointed to a blank spot three kilometers from any road, in the middle of the countryside. He had set up this safe house three years ago, he told us with pride. Hired the old couple in the false farmhouse that fronted the main road. Built the fence and laid in a power supply. Even Karpenko didn’t know about it. That caution had probably saved Sirko’s job, maybe even his life, when the assassins hit Karpenko’s mansion a few days ago. Security chiefs don’t usually survive security breaches.
“What happened in Poltava?” I asked.
Sirko grimaced. “Bad partners,” Greenlees translated. “But they are dead.”
I waited for Sirko to say more.
“He told Karpenko to run after the first night here,” Greenlees continued. “Before the enemy could regroup. But Karpenko wouldn’t go. He wanted to wait for you.”
Not for me, for Winters. At this point, apparently, the oligarch trusted his American friend more than his most trusted security man.
The colonel pushed the map forward, pointing to the Poltava airport. Change the subject, the motion said. Let’s talk about the future, not the past. So I did, and for the next two hours, Greenlees earned his money translating between us.
By then, I was exhausted, the last sixty hours finally catching up to me. Or maybe it was the buzzing lights, and the linoleum kitchen, and the dead fly that had somehow burrowed into the lard.
“What should I know about Maltov?” I asked, folding up my tablet. I was reluctant to cut Sirko loose; he was a kindred soul.
But the old colonel smiled, or maybe he grimaced once again. “Maltov is . . . krysha,” he said. “Only krysha. Ho hrabr.”
“Krysha means ‘muscle,’” Greenlees translated, knocking back a vodka nightcap. “Maltov is only muscle. But he is brave.”
Greenlees looked at me, wondering at the deeper meaning. Maltov clearly saved his ass during the assassination attempt, I wanted to explain, but Greenlees looked tired beyond caring, and I felt guilty as I watched the old man shuffle behind Sirko toward one of the outbuildings. The exhaustion was coming over me, though, and my sympathy felt fuzzy and weak. It was dusk, and frogs were calling from the trees, and my mind slipped into the pastoral beauty of “At Night,” a song from Delius’s Florida Suite. The music took me out of Ukraine and back to my childhood home, where I used to sit at my window at five years old and listen to the frogs. That was before the divorce. Before my sister went to live with another family, and I talked my way into Saint Thomas Choir School, a boarding school in Manhattan for musical savants. That was back when I would listen to Beethoven and the frogs, and wonder what it was like to live free
, on your own. I knew exactly what it was like now, and it wasn’t anything like I had dreamed it would be.
“Oh hell,” I said, when I saw the bunks.
Greenlees threw his bag on the bottom. “Too old to climb,” he said.
It wasn’t even midnight, but I dry-brushed my teeth, jammed the door with a chair, and closed my eyes. This was a plum assignment, I reminded myself. Winters was watching. Six years in the bush, and he’d called me back. I needed to keep quiet and figure it out, to come up with a plan for tomorrow, but instead of focusing on the operation, my mind kept drifting back to my first run in an An-12 cargo plane, more than ten years before.
I was bootstrapping a planeload of weapons from Bulgaria to Liberia with six pilots who were drinking homemade Slivovitz, chain-smoking Caro cigarettes on ammo crates full of RPGs, and using a car GPS suctioned to the windshield to navigate the Sahara. We stopped for fuel at an unmarked Algerian military base deep in the desert, and a caravan of camels delayed our departure as they meandered across the runway. We were leaking so much hydraulic fluid by then that I figured we were going to crash, and at least three times we almost did. It was one hell of a ride.
For some reason, it made me think of Alie.
But that wasn’t right. Alie and I hadn’t crashed and burned, like my parents. We hadn’t even bootstrapped to a destination. I’d just gotten out in the middle of the journey and walked away.
CHAPTER 9
Chad Hargrove checked himself in the reflection of the china cabinet’s glass doors and straightened the tablecloth—classy touch, he thought—one last time. He had been out for drinks with the chauffeur of a second-term Kiev city council member, and his half-finished cable for Langley was still on the table.
The doorbell rang again.
Leave it, he thought. He liked the idea of looking busy.
“Allison,” Hargrove said with a smile, opening the door to his spacious duplex on the ten-acre U.S. diplomatic compound in Kiev. If he lived in Washington, DC, on his junior CIA salary, he’d be marooned out by Dulles in a cramped one-bedroom. In the field, everyone lived like kings.