by Alex Shaw
‘OK.’ Boyko let a smile split his dirt-stained face. He squeezed Tate’s shoulder and scurried backward out of the rear of the house and into the grassy field beyond. He would join the rest of his men who would now become three two-man fire teams.
Tate looked on like an angel of death; every man visible to him would be dead within the next quarter of an hour. He had the power; he could give the order to abort or he could warn the Russians. Tate did neither, as he counted down the ten minutes and waited. He heard a distant sound, an engine, low and laboured. It sounded like a heavy truck. He searched the road, with his field glasses, in both directions and saw nothing. And then it stopped. The evening became still again, and then it wasn’t …
There was a distinctive whoosh from behind and to the south of him, and then an all but inaudible keening as the first grenade whistled on an arc through the darkening Ukrainian August evening and then finally a thunderous explosion. The APC was hurled upwards and then crashed against the wall of the base, like a plaything thrown by a giant, petulant child. There was a moment of silence before flames engulfed the heavy troop transporter and leached up the walls.
The next RPG landed next to the side wall, ripping a gaping hole in the concrete. Figures ran out of the building into the dying daylight in time to see more grenades turn the remaining two armoured vehicles into expensive pieces of scrap metal. Angry shouts and gunfire now added to the mix as the Spetsnaz tried to resist the surprise attack, returned fire into the field and tried to escape the kill zone, but it was futile as RPGs tore into the concrete walls around them.
Tate continued to observe, knowing the images of the dead and dying would join the show reel of ghouls who haunted him when he slept. He’d seen enough. Unable to bring in his own weapons, Tate had an AK-47 on the floor of the OP next to him. It was simple yet lethal and had been the mainstay of the Russian infantry for generations.
Grabbing the AK, Tate carefully crabbed from the broken window at the front of the house to the collapsed rear wall and the open field. He froze. Movement. In the field, but in the wrong direction. He dropped to the floor. Russians. A group who had not been hit by the attack, had not been in the target building, and had been unsighted by either Tate or Victor Boyko, were now flanking The Shadows’ firing positions.
The realisation struck Tate that he was in danger of being cut off from his group. He was alone in the house, the OP, whilst the three two-man fire teams were in the field behind. And then he saw the Russians were being led by the intelligence officer from Moscow, Maksim Oleniuk. How had he escaped the attack on the base? Tate barely had time to count the twelve men, spaced out, weapons up, advancing on The Shadows. More than enough to launch their own assault and outnumbering The Shadows two to one.
Tate had to react; he had to try to even the odds. His group were low tech, no radios or comms. Mobile phones only and urgent messages sent via WhatsApp. Boyko had boasted to him that with end-to-end encryption, the free service was more secure than the Russians’ own military network. But Tate didn’t carry a phone, in case he was compromised. Tate glanced around the shattered farmhouse, the rubble wall, the caved-in roof and the staircase leading to the first floor. He’d ruled out the first floor as an OP because it was too exposed from the road but from the fields there was half a section of interior wall he could use as a shield.
Tate darted across the open space inside the house to the steps, all the while expecting to be cut down by a Russian round. None came. There were irregular gaps between the steps but soon he was at the top. He knew The Shadows would keep on firing until they had exhausted all of their grenades or came under sustained attack. They would discard all heavy weapons when they retreated in order to exfil faster. He could still hear the shells so he knew they had not bugged out yet and the Russians knew this too.
Tate flattened himself on the bare wooden boards of the first floor. The exterior front wall of the room here had broken away when the roof caved in, leaving a hole that could be seen from the Russian base. Tate looked up, out of the building at the base. He could see no one moving, no one alive. Rising to his haunches he moved to the back of the space, and using the intact part of the interior wall as a shield he peered out.
He had an elevated view of the field and the Russians moving within it. Unseen like tigers in a forest they stealthily traversed the chest-high crops, including old sunflowers that had grown never to be picked. And past the Russians he could see Victor Boyko and his men. Tate switched the fire selector on the Kalashnikov to single shot, made himself as small as he could and looked down the iron sights.
Broader and slower than his men, although still moving with skilled steps, Maksim Oleniuk was an easy target. Tate had had no time to test-fire the weapon, and AKs were generally used for short bursts or spray-and-pray attacks to supress an enemy with volume of fire, not accuracy. It was a weapon that could be thrown around, buried in mud and then immediately used; it was the Tonka Toy of assault rifles. But Tate was not playing. He breathed out slowly and squeezed the trigger. The single 7.62mm round tore towards the Russian officer and blew away the head of a sunflower to his right. Tate swore.
Oleniuk turned, unclear about the direction of the shot, eyes searching for an attacker but at his own eye level, and then he carried on forward. Tate sighted again, acquired Oleniuk’s head and squeezed the trigger … at the very same moment, the Russian stopped dead and turned his face upwards. For the briefest of moments, it may have only been milliseconds, Oleniuk was staring directly at him. The 7.62mm round tore up the distance between the two men and struck just as Oleniuk jerked to one side. The round hit the man’s neck, blood flowed and the intelligence officer dropped to the ground.
Tate wasted no time and acquired a second Russian. This one he hit first time in his upper back, punching the man forward into the crops. He didn’t care if the man was dead or alive. Tate ducked as he started to take incoming fire. A volley of rounds sailed past him but one caught the top of the wall and kicked up a chip of concrete. Tate let out a breath and flicked the selector switch to “burst”. This would allow three rounds to leave the rifle with each pull of the trigger. It was less accurate as the recoil would in effect be trebled but he needed a higher rate of suppressive fire. He moved as far to the right as he could and popped up again. This time he sent a burst at a soldier who was facing Tate’s farmhouse and scanning for targets. The Russian jerked as all three rounds shredded his chest.
The RPGs had stopped and Tate saw The Shadows were exfiltrating from their positions and returning fire to the Russians in the field as they did so. He saw one go down from Russian fire and fall across an empty launch tube. Tate had bought some time, and just hoped it was enough for the rest to get away. But he still needed to escape himself. They had agreed on an ERV – an emergency rendezvous – two clicks past the woods at the next abandoned village, hopefully far enough away that the Russians would have given up any pursuit. Tate sought out one more target but didn’t open fire as the man was moving away with the remaining Russians on a tangent that took them away from his exfil route.
Tate took the steps down, weapon up, to the ground floor. Taking a deep breath, he burst out of the cover of the farmhouse and into the field, looking for targets, looking for trouble and finding it. Rounds whipped past his head and he threw himself down onto the warm Ukrainian earth. He pushed himself backwards with his feet, his back flat to the ground. A Russian soldier burst through the crops immediately above him. Tate sent a burst into his face before the man had time to react. Tate rolled away, got to his feet and traversed the field as quickly as he could.
Once again the sound of mechanical thunder approached, but the T-80 battle tanks were too late. Tate and his comrades slipped away into the Ukrainian night, like shadows.
Chapter 5
Present day
Northport, Maine
The last light of the day made the walls of the house glow like an old sepia postcard. The house was a modest 1930s’ two-bedroom
cottage on Atlantic Highway between the towns of Northport and Belfast. What wasn’t modest, however, was the twenty-acre oceanfront grounds. Mature trees, enough to be considered a private wood, lined the property on three sides affording total privacy for retired general Richard Leavesley and his wife. In high summer it was a verdant idyll and, according to photographs taken by the couple’s daughter and helpfully posted on Facebook, became a myriad of reds and oranges in the autumn and a stark, sharp, Christmas card winter landscape when the snows came.
Akulov much preferred this place over the soulless timber monstrosity designed by the banker from Boston and Piper’s mansion. But the Russian was not in the US to meet interesting people and discuss architecture with them; he was in the US to kill them. The old soldier was the last on his list of targets in Maine.
For this hit he would again use the Blaser. It had worked well thus far and he saw no reason to change his choice of weapon in an attempt to conceal the pattern of kills. The targets were on the list for various reasons but fundamentally, each man had wronged his employer and each was to be eliminated. But none of this mattered much to Akulov – soon the US would not have the capacity to investigate.
Even without the hasty change of schedule, this was the most challenging of his three hits. Not because, like him, the target was former military but for the simple fact that Akulov had a greater risk of exposure. During his initial reconnaissance trip he had parked in the only available place to him, the car park of the Hideaway Diner a five-minute walk directly along the Atlantic Highway. Among the tourists, he’d taken a while to eat and assess the possibilities of using the parking lot again but found the family running the establishment to be too attentive. His long and intensive training meant that he could sound and look American whenever he spoke English. What he could not do, however, was materialise and dematerialise at will.
Again the internet, and America’s reliance on it, came to his aid. He’d run an untraceable “real estate” search on his encrypted phone. A property less than a mile away, on the same stretch of road, was advertised for sale. The listing, including full photography, confirmed that it was masked from the highway by a tree-lined meandering driveway, set back in the trees, and most importantly that it was available immediately. Real estate agency code for “empty”. Akulov paid for his meal, left a tip not because he wanted to – he wasn’t a fan of fatty American fare – but because if he didn’t, he’d be remembered.
Coming to a halt in the turning circle he casually stepped out of his black Tahoe, advanced towards the front door of the vacant house and rang the bell. From within the whitewashed, timber-clad walls came a cheap, electronic chime that was at odds with the not insubstantial price being asked for the property. But apart from the bell, the rustling of the leaves in the breeze and the distant hum of the highway, no other sounds reached his tactically trained ears. Still playing the part of a potential buyer, Akulov walked the perimeter of the house, peering in windows and gently pressing the back door. Finally he placed his left ear against a glass pane and listened. Nothing. No hum of life. He straightened up and using the bottom of his dark blue polo shirt rubbed away any oils or imprint from his ear on the glass. Ears were almost as unique as fingerprints and he was certainly not going to leave any trace he had been here.
Five minutes later, after repositioning the Tahoe so that it faced back up the driveway and was hidden in the lea of the house, he used a set of lock picks on the back door. Once inside he’d scouted the house to confirm that it was empty.
Akulov never failed to prepare but the timescale in which he had to undertake this chain of assassinations was challenging. His preferred approach would have been to watch each target exclusively, establishing a hide – an observation post – and then once the best time had been assessed he’d take the shot. A single shot, any more would risk the origin of the round being identified. That is how he had worked in Grozny, that is how he had worked in eastern Ukraine and that is how most recently he had taken out a leading ISIL commander in Syria. But three targets in three consecutive days had now, on the whim of his employer, become three targets in two days. It was a totally unacceptable and rash request to any operator on the private circuit. But his employer knew he was the best, and so did he. As such he saw it as a challenge to his ability, and he had accepted.
He’d had to create three hides and use them simultaneously. The hides overlooking both targets number one and two had been less problematic. Rolling hills with thick vegetation had afforded the cover and well-used parking lots had camouflaged the SUV. He had come and gone in turn dressed as a hiker and then casually as a tourist – jeans and a dark polo shirt. He had also favoured a dark green, cotton balaclava in place of camo face paint. One moment it was on and the next it was off, as was his thick woodland camo smock. His Blaser remained safely stowed, broken down, in a customised case and compartment in the trunk of the Tahoe, until the final time he needed to use the hide.
Having found a route that took him painfully slowly through woodland and then grounds of the adjoining property, with its own extensive woods and an orchard, Akulov had observed and recorded his target’s schedule. The general and his wife enjoyed having their evening meal at a steel garden set on the sloping lawn. They would then either go inside or remain sitting, drinking, chatting and reading until it was time to watch the summer sunset. It was very romantic, Akulov imagined. Sometime afterwards, the general’s wife would retire inside, leaving her husband to sit in the warm night air. And that was when Akulov would end the old soldier’s campaign.
A day earlier than planned and with the dappled light of the high-summer evening starting to fade, Akulov lay among the trees watching. Having switched his smock for a ghillie suit, a coverall adorned with loose strips of burlap chosen to match the hues of the foliage in the surrounding wood, and customised by interlacing long grasses, leaves and stems from the area into the garment’s loose-weave fabric, he was invisible. As close to invisible, that was, as a human can be if they are immobile. Certainly he would stick out like the red star atop the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower if looked at with an infrared scope, but he took the chance that a retired general, enjoying a pleasant evening in his own garden, would not happen to have one by his side. And even so Akulov would take his chances that he could get his shot in first before the target raised the alarm.
Akulov watched the general’s wife, a handsome woman whose auburn hair seemed a shade too vivid to be natural, touch her husband on the shoulder before she sauntered back to the house. His target was alone. It was time to complete this part of his mission and move on. Again he would not kill the partner. The woman had willingly married a soldier and had known that at any time during his deployment her husband could be snatched away from her. He was a target and it was not up to him to decide when he ceased to be so. No. That decision had been made by the man’s enemies. And one such enemy had ordered Akulov to end the man’s life.
Akulov steadied his breathing and let his finger take first pressure on the Blaser’s trigger. He started to squeeze but then a faint sound stopped him. His finger froze. A bark. A dog. Somewhere. Remaining immobile, senses on full alert, he listened. It barked again. He analysed the tone, the pitch. He cast his mind back. The house that lay between his target’s property and the empty house, where he’d hid the Tahoe, was animal-free. No pet dogs, no children. As far as he could tell adults only. He heard the bark again, but now it was less audible, fainter, further away. Meanwhile Akulov’s target, retired general Richard Leavesley, was still in his chair, still facing the ocean, still alive. And then he wasn’t.
Akulov exhaled, squeezed the sturdy metal trigger, the .338 Lapua Magnum round entered Leavesley’s left temple and exited through the right taking with it most of the retired general’s brain, skull and face. The body was hurled sideways by the impact and the chair fell. The retort of the shot, lessened by the bulbous suppressor and deadened by the surrounding thick foliage, nevertheless flared as a firework in Akul
ov’s ears. The Russian term for a firework display was a “salute” and this had been his salute to the target, the retired soldier had died a soldier’s death.
Akulov did not move for several minutes. His eyes scanned the scene ahead, and his ears hunted for sounds of approaching feet. The dead general’s wife had seemingly not heard the shot that had ended her husband’s life. Akulov slowly crawled backwards far enough until he found the ejected shell case, which had landed just past his right elbow. Palming this he continued to crawl until he was behind a large tree and only then risked rolling over onto his back and sitting up. He pocketed the shell case, slowly got to his feet and holding the long rifle casually across his body stealthily retraced his route back to the safety of his SUV.
He reached the border of the first neighbouring property and paused before pulling away the loose boards in the all-but-hidden green-painted wooden fence marking the boundary. He listened. No sounds. The boards came away easily, affixed by nails that were now wobbling in holes purposely made too big. Akulov stepped over through the fence and replaced the boards. He crouched. His exfiltration route took him through more trees until he was forced to squeeze in the narrow gap between a garage and an exterior wall and then cross the second fence into the woodland that reached up to the property line of the empty house.
On his haunches he edged forward and then he froze, immobile, made of stone. The dog barked again. And it was nearer. Much nearer. He could hear movement up ahead in the garden, and muffled voices and then an excited bark. Akulov swung the ungainly rifle up as quickly as he could, both the length of the barrel and the suppressor slowing its travel. The foliage in front of him quivered as a dark, round object flew towards him. Grenade! a voice inside his head yelled … but that made no sense here. The object hit him in the chest and he realised it was a dark coloured rubber ball. And then the foliage exploded and the large, panting face of a golden retriever appeared.