And in daylight, he thought, always having embraced that aspect of the challenge. He would create his own night with the incendiaries.
The men walked a bit, Romanenko waiting for the next signal from Kharkiv. It came after an hour, another musical progression that indicated that Koval could see the dark, distinctive clouds of smoke on the horizon. Yershov’s armored column was approaching the Russian border with Ukraine and was near or at the point of no return. Even if he left now, he would not be able to reach Sudzha in time to aid in its defense. Romanenko checked radio reports from the city. They corroborated the computer scientist’s information.
He lifted his arm and circled his upraised hand, signaling Tkach and Zinchenko, who had remained near the pit. They retrieved the devices and stored three of them in empty backpacks carried by the brothers Pavel and Mikhail Lomov. They would be responsible for setting the grenades when they reached their destination.
The brothers started ahead so the canisters would be well away from the staging area when the pins were pulled.
The winds had kicked up—fortuitously, Romanenko thought—and the tables were empty, as was most of the field. Tkach took one device to the tables. They would catch and burn easily. Zinchenko took two others to the small woods. The new buds on the trees would take longer to incinerate—but the dead stumps would feed the fire for quite some time, especially with two devices spaced roughly ten meters apart.
And then it was time.
Romanenko joined the others on the northeastern side of the fire zone while Tkach and Zinchenko pulled the pins. They set the canisters down and ran. Ten seconds after being triggered, the grenades erupted with a sound like a balloon popping. An egg-shaped ball of flame rose from each, hovered in the air for a brief, weightless moment, and then rushed outward in all lateral directions.
The team jogged ahead, Romanenko bringing up the rear, looking back as he trudged forward. Ugly black waves rolled outward and billowed upward, driven by the winds, forming a dark scrim with remarkable speed. The tables burned, the dead wood and the healthy trees burned, even the grasses burned as droplets of accelerant fell from the air and set them ablaze. The fire in the picnic area was quickly swept toward a low hill of high grasses. Birds rose from them only to fall from the sky, their bodies afire. Arboreal mammals choked and dropped and burned. Soon the sky itself was tarnished by the fringe of the rising smoke and the deep-orange flame.
When they had put some distance between themselves and the fire, the Ukrainians stopped to change and bury their civilian clothes, putting on black pants, sweaters, and ski masks. They were about to cross over into Russia. Though the woods were patrolled, they were relatively porous and any soldiers who were out here would probably be watching the fire to make sure the wind didn’t change.
The team started out again without urgency—cautiously, Tkach on point watching for the lone Russian UAZ-469s or drones used for sweeps of the frontier.
The admiral had reported that the area around the Russian base was rich with dry grasses and dead trees that had been nicked or felled by bulldozers during construction and left to rot.
Romanenko smiled as he thought of the enormity of that fire.
And not just physically.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Sumy Airport, Ukraine
June 4, 4:08 PM
“We were lucky we landed when we did,” the pilot said to Bankole as the men exited the jet.
“Why is that?” the American asked the veteran Turkish flyer.
“There is a brushfire to the east, blowing smoke this way,” he said. “I may not myself be able to leave quite yet.”
Bankole checked with Op-Center to find out if they knew anything about the situation and to see if Anne had found a motorcycle to rent.
“We just saw the fire less than a kilometer from where the truck is parked,” McCord told him. “As for the bikes—Anne?”
“There’s a Hertz-affiliated annex, but no bikes,” she said.
“We need a Volkswagen,” Volner said.
“Got one!” Moore shouted from the front door of the terminal.
A fellow New Yorker, Private First Class Dick Siegel, had gone out with him. Parked curbside, out of the way of traffic, was a perfectly maintained 1971 red Dnepr with dual leather seats. It obviously belonged to one of the staff members.
“One problem, Sarge,” he said. “It ain’t for rent. And it ain’t yours.”
“We’ll have it back in a half hour,” Moore said. “And there’s no time to discuss it with the owner, who’d never let this baby go.”
Volner came out, followed by Bankole and the others. The international crisis manager had just told the major about the fire and he could see it now, burning in the area where they were headed.
“They set that for cover,” Volner said.
“Sir?” Moore said, half turning.
“Do it, Sergeant,” Volner decided.
It took Moore less than a minute to flip out his pocket knife, find and detach the wires leading to the ignition switch, and put them on his tongue at the same time that he pressed the starter button. The motorcycle growled to life.
“They don’t make ’em like this anymore,” he said.
“Thank God,” Flannery remarked, though he was openly impressed by Moore’s technique.
“Dick, leave your gear, on shotgun,” Moore said, handing his grip to the PFC and slipping on his sunglasses.
“Sergeant?” Volner asked.
“It’ll save time if I have someone drive it back instead of loading it in,” he said.
Siegel nodded. He handed his backpack to Corporal Al Fitzpatrick and boarded, the weapons pack over his shoulder—and Moore took off.
Someone ran out from the terminal, shouting. At a nod from Volner, Flannery took the man aside and quietly explained what had happened—and that he would be paid for the loan of the motorcycle. And any damage, he added, noticing the man’s concern.
The two American soldiers blazed onto the H-07, heading north.
“That old truck—you can do the same, yeah, Siegel?” Moore asked, shouting to be heard over the engine.
“Who’re you telling how to hotwire?”
“A kid from Staten Island,” Moore shouted back. “How the hell do I know what you did out there?”
“Same as in Brooklyn, only to date hotter women.”
Moore let that pass as he wove through the slowing traffic as sirens sounded from behind and ahead.
“You’re not comin’ back, are ya?” Siegel yelled.
Moore shook his head. “You see how greasy that smoke is, low in the air?”
“Yeah.”
“The major noticed it, too,” Moore yelled. “That’s military grade. Our target was creating a diversion. He’ll have all eyes west while he heads east.”
“You gonna track him?”
“The name’s Moore, not Daniel Boone,” the sergeant replied. “I got another idea.”
Siegel grunted. “This’ll leave a lotta unhappy people back curbside.”
“They’ll be unhappier if I sit on my ass,” Moore said. “It’ll open the door to a lotta war if we don’t find these guys.”
They reached the abandoned truck in less than twenty minutes, spotting it from the highway and speeding into the parking lot before the authorities had been able to weave through the traffic and close the exits. Siegel hopped off and lashed the grip to his abandoned seat. Then he climbed into the truck.
“You gonna wait while I—?” Siegel began, but Moore cut him off.
“Nothing I can do if you can’t start her,” the sergeant said, flipping the younger man a friendly salute then turning the bike in a tight circle so it was facing back onto the highway. He paused to pull out his handkerchief and tied it around his mouth and nose before roaring off.
Traffic was nearly at a standstill as wipers struggled to sweep the oily soot from windshields and the smoke itself impaired visibility. Moore kept low, continued to duck and weave, and r
ode on the shoulder wherever possible. He knew from the maps where the Russian checkpoint was, knew how to recognize if not read the warning signs, and intended to take the last exit before reaching them.
It came up after less than half a mile; incongruously, it led to a shopping area just on the Russian side. To the southeast was a field with a large wooded area about another half mile away. According to the GPS in his Op-Center-issued worldwide smartphone, every move he made after leaving the highway was in Russia.
He skidded to a stop at the bottom of the off ramp and walked the motorcycle back toward H-07, still in Ukraine. The highway was ground level and he crouched there, beside the bike. He killed the engine so that he could watch and listen.
There were two missed calls from Mike Volner. Moore pulled the handkerchief away and phoned him back.
“Where are you?” Volner asked. It was a question, not a criticism. Moore was glad the major was on board.
“I’m off the highway at the border, just southwest of a shopping area,” Moore said, breaking out his binoculars and looking east. “Must’ve gotten great black-market deals before the invasion.”
“I see it,” Volner replied. “We’ll be there as soon as Siegel arrives. What does it look like there?”
“You’ve got a lot of thick woods,” Moore said, “and I—I also see what looks like the base on the other side of a deforested area in the distance. Smoke isn’t blowing this way and I can see most of the field, though the sun’s at my back and the lights getting a little long here and there’ll be deep shadows pretty soon.”
“What can’t you see?”
“Whatever is presently in one of the first of the large wooded areas—grids R1 and 2 on the map,” he said after checking the display. “Next area, couple miles, is R3.”
“That’s the base, or at least the start of the fence,” Volner said.
“Hold on,” Moore said, peering southeast through the glasses. “Shit, I see ’em. I see someone.”
“Where?”
“Ahead of me about a half click on the south side of the R2 woods, about to enter Russian territory,” Moore said. “I just saw the tail end of a group—three guys, moving through an open patch. No uniforms, all black. Oh, and, Major? I do believe they have incendiaries, or, at least, they did.”
“I recognized the smoke,” Volner said.
“Which means they may be planning to light up the base.”
“I figured the same thing,” Volner said. “Can you track them safely?”
“Yeah, but it occurs to me that when you guys arrive the Ukrainians are not going to be happy to see someone driving their own vehicle up their asses,” Moore said.
“I’m counting on it,” Volner replied. “I want to adapt the standard hostage-negotiation drill: get Flannery to engage in some urgent diplomacy and…”
Moore didn’t hear the rest as a helicopter passed low overhead. He ducked behind the bike, out of sight, and snapped a picture of the red-and-white Mi-8. He sent it to Volner.
“Sergeant?” Volner said. “What was that?”
“Chopper just went overhead. Just shot you the image.”
There was silence, then muted conversation at the other end.
“Flannery says it’s the Interior Ministry, Anti-Terrorism Division,” Volner said. “They must be looking for the arsonists.”
There was another silence as Moore watched the helicopter poke and nose along the treetops. The shadows were large below. He couldn’t see anything there. He was sure the soldiers had gone as low to the ground as possible.
The helicopter made a hard turn before the border and headed east, looking for Russians who might have crossed over.
“Chopper’s peeling off, but those guys—I see them again, and they’re booking now. Sir?”
“Yes?”
“I think the time table just got accelerated. I’m going to try and keep up.”
Volner told him he was not to engage, but Moore couldn’t hear over the roar of the engine.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Op-Center Headquarters, Fort Belvoir North,
Springfield, Virginia
June 4, 9:30 AM
Everyone was on deck in the large conference room located down the hall from Williams’s office. There was an uncommon tension in the room; this mission creep had an even less pleasant feeling than the operation that had cost Hector Rodriguez his life. Unlike that situation, it was a successful sortie that had ended with an accident.
On this one, everyone had their eyes open—figuratively, at least.
It had been a sleepless night for many of them, and most of that had consisted of the most tedious kind of intelligence work: waiting for people to get back to them. Anne and McCord had taken the brunt of that; Williams had been able to nap on the couch in his office, others at their desks.
They were watching the live feed from the field, having been patched in by Volner after Moore and Siegel took off. They could hear Volner and the squad, but their own conversation was muted. The only member on the call was Paul Bankole.
“It doesn’t sound like the government helicopter saw them,” Bankole said.
“I wish they had. Then it’d be their problem.”
“What’s your recommendation?” Williams asked him.
“My gut says stand down, this is a bad political situation and a damned risky military proposition,” he replied. “My brain says that if we’ve got a shot at stopping these guys we take it. Which is what we’re doing until someone here or there pulls the plug. And you’ve got, I would say, about five, ten minutes before we head out.”
“Understood,” Williams said.
“We have to notify both governments,” Dawson said.
“Notify them about what, exactly?” McCord asked. “The sources that got us here will be compromised if we say too much. And they’ll want corroboration about any evidence regarding the Ukrainian squad. What do we have, exactly?”
“We have a team in harm’s way,” Anne said. “I hate to be the bad oracle here, Chase, but we have Sergeant Moore in pursuit and likely to make contact, in Russia, before the others can get to him. And apart from Flannery talking to them—if he even gets that chance—we still don’t know what Mike is supposed to do when the team gets there.” She looked at Williams. “This started out as recon in Crimea, then recon north of Crimea, and now they’re racing to intercept—patriots, terrorists, whatever you want to call them.”
“That’s the problem, Anne,” Wright said. “We don’t know what to call them. We don’t even know, for sure, that they’re rogue.”
“Jim’s got a point,” Matt Berry said. “The president’s on the same page here: this is equal parts confusion and ignorance. Hell, the government there can’t agree on whether or not to embrace Captain Klimovich, for God’s sake, and he’s got a tank column fifty strong less than a mile from the Russian border!”
“Kiev can’t endorse the Fox because there’s a Russian column less than a mile from the Ukrainian border,” McCord said. “He’s literally a loose cannon, one of two who are presently in the field.”
“And Kiev—at least officially—still only knows about one of those,” Berry said.
“But they’re almost certainly coordinated,” McCord said. “Think about it. Klimovich is a distraction for Russia and the media. The fire is a distraction for local resources. Everyone is looking somewhere other than where an actual attack will probably occur.”
“We think,” Wright said. “We guess.”
“Goddamn politics,” Dawson said. “Here’s the one thing we do know. Mike and his team are the only ones who can stop those guys, the actual attack squad, without causing massive retaliation and slaughter from one side or the other.”
“If someone crosses the border,” Anne said.
“We just heard Sergeant Moore say they were racing toward it,” McCord said.
“But Moore doesn’t know for sure whether they’re Ukrainian troops, as we suspect, or possibly even Russian mer
cs or Special Ops who are returning home, which is what the NSA has suggested,” Berry said.
“Forgive me if I navel-gaze, but my concern isn’t any of that,” Wright said. “If Moscow and Kiev want war, they can have it—if not here and now, then somewhere else, some other time. My worry is that we may do something inadvertent, or something we cannot avoid, an act that triggers one side or the other to act. I say we support Paul’s gut and abort. This is not our fight.”
“And there may well be a fight,” Anne said. “With casualties. For what? Because two other nations have a grievance that doesn’t affect us directly? Those combatants aren’t just going to stop because we say so, because we have a diplomat.”
Williams looked over at the signed photo of MacArthur. “A doctor who sees someone injured in the street, a cop who’s off duty—there are moral responsibilities that transcend doctrine. We keep going,” he decided. “I’m going to talk to Minister Timoshenko.”
“And tell him what?” Anne asked.
“That we believe Captain Klimovich is there to do exactly what he’s done, pull the heavy guns from Sudzha.”
“Which means you’ll have to tell him about the paramilitaries out there,” McCord said.
“Correct.”
“But the Russian troops at Sudzha may not be able to stop them in time, or at all,” McCord went on. “The Ukrainians have drilled for this. They’ve got a game plan and—and if the Russians come running out, and they get hit with the incendiaries? Putin will crush the border. It will be Crimea north.”
“Which leaves our team,” Dawson said.
“Yeah, I know,” Williams said. “Brian? Put the call through to the Kremlin—we’ll need their translator. Paul?”
“I’m here, Chase.”
“Thanks for your patience. We’ve got to try this, we’ve at least got to be there to stop the Ukranians. Hopefully, I can get Timoshenko to sit tight.”
“I understand,” he said. “So does the ambassador.”
Tom Clancy's Op-Center--Dark Zone Page 24