Backlash: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

“Have you checked the shoreline?”

  “I have two Marine Patrols working the water. So far, nothing there either.”

  McGee wasn’t quite sure how to process that information. On one hand, it sounded as if Harvath hadn’t crawled off somewhere and was lying in the woods dying. On the other hand, how the hell had he been able to walk out of a situation like this? Either he was in pursuit of the killer, or he himself was the killer, which was absolutely a nonstarter.

  There was, though, a third possibility: that everyone inside the cottage had been killed as part of an operation to snatch Harvath.

  But why kill them? Why be so heavy-handed, so excessive? As the question entered McGee’s mind, he was reminded of the North Korean dictator having his half-brother assassinated in plain sight, in the middle of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Then there were Russia’s high-profile assassinations of former spies living in the UK. The Saudis had been arrogant enough to send a fifteen-man hit team, complete with their own forensic pathologist and a bone saw, through Turkish customs to murder a dissident journalist at their embassy in Istanbul.

  None of the perpetrators had been afraid to operate on foreign soil, and none had chosen to be understated with their methods. Subtlety and the dark arts no longer seemed to go hand in glove. The world was indeed a dangerous place—and getting more so all the time.

  McGee was confident that he had heard and seen enough. He was ready to leave. The sooner he was on the jet, the sooner he could begin relaying instructions back to Langley. Wherever Harvath was, he was going to find him. He only hoped that when he did, Harvath was still alive.

  Looking over to where the FBI Director had been chatting with one of the detectives, he saw both men approaching.

  “Good news,” the detective said. “We finally made contact with the owners of the home across the street. They have a hide-a-key in back and have given us permission to enter and review their security footage.”

  “That is good news,” Tullis replied. “Maybe we just caught a break.”

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  * * *

  MURMANSK OBLAST

  “Hands!” the Spetsnaz soldier shouted in Russian.

  Harvath was cradling the moving blanket, and underneath it, out of view, his pistol. Instead of dropping the blanket, he dropped to the floor, repeatedly pressing the trigger as he did.

  The rounds struck the Russian in the stomach and in the chest. And as he fell, he fired back.

  Harvath rolled as the bullets tore up the fuselage around him. They came dangerously close, but fortunately none found their target.

  When the shooting stopped, Harvath stood up and, keeping his pistol pointed at the soldier, approached.

  The man was in rough shape. Bleeding badly, he had dropped his rifle when he’d hit the ground. Harvath now kicked it away.

  This soldier was the worst of the muscle from New Hampshire. He was the one who had forced everyone, except the Old Man, who was bedridden, onto their knees, in advance of being executed.

  When Lara had reached out to Harvath, this Spetsnaz operative had punched her in the gut. Helpless, his hands cuffed behind his back, Harvath had watched in agony as she doubled over in pain.

  The Russian then grabbed her by the throat and yanked her to her feet, only to body-slam her to the ground. When she tried to get up, he viciously kicked her in the ribs.

  Next to Josef, this was the man Harvath had most wanted to get his hands on—and not in a gentle way.

  He could have just put a bullet in his head, ended it, and walked away. But he didn’t. Harvath wanted revenge.

  Drawing his boot back, he kicked the man in the side harder than he had ever kicked anyone in his life. Then he did it again, and again, and again, knocking the wind out of him and shattering his rib cage. It was only the beginning.

  Kneeling down as the man gasped for air, Harvath wrapped his left hand around the Russian’s throat and began to squeeze, slowly cutting off his oxygen supply.

  A bloody froth appeared at the corners of the soldier’s mouth as he fought to suck in air. Harvath kept applying pressure.

  He dialed it up until the man’s eyes began to bulge and his skin started to turn blue. Once that had happened, he pushed down as hard as he could, crushing the man’s windpipe. But his bloodlust wasn’t satisfied. Not yet.

  Grabbing the man by the hair, he gave in to his rage and pistol-whipped him with the Grach.

  Back and forth he swung the weapon, harder and harder with each blow. He struck him for Lara. He struck him for Lydia. He struck him for Reed Carlton. Even the Navy Corpsman.

  Totally out of control, he went from pistol-whipping to bludgeoning.

  He didn’t stop swinging until he couldn’t lift the pistol anymore. By then, he had beaten the soldier to death.

  With his body trembling, his lungs heaving for air, and every ounce of his strength gone, he collapsed against the wall.

  Rivulets of sweat ran down his face. Part of him wanted to throw up. Another part of him wanted to revive the Russian, just so he could beat him some more.

  Revenge was a bitter medicine. It didn’t cure suffering. It didn’t provide closure. It only hollowed you out further.

  Harvath didn’t care. In his world, you didn’t let wrongs go unanswered—not wrongs like this, and especially not when you had the ability to do something.

  Vengeance was a necessary function of a civilized world, particularly at its margins, in its most remote and wild regions. Evildoers, unwilling to submit to the rule of law, needed to lie awake in their beds at night worried about when justice would eventually come for them. If laws and standards were not worth enforcing, then they certainly couldn’t be worth following.

  The Russians wanted to enjoy the peace and prosperity of a civilized world, without the encumbrances of following any of its laws. They wanted their sovereign territory respected, their system of government respected, their ability for self-determination respected, and on and on.

  What they didn’t want was to be forced to play by the same rules as everyone else. They fomented revolutions, invaded and annexed other sovereign nations, violated international agreements, murdered journalists, murdered dissidents, and strove to subvert democratic elections and other democratic processes throughout the Western world.

  If the Russians were allowed to sit at the global table without adhering to any international norms, why would the totalitarian regimes of the Middle East, Africa, or Asia bother to comply? It was much easier to amass wealth and hold on to power by subverting rather than by respecting the rule of law.

  But bad behavior, be it by an Osama bin Laden, a Saddam Hussein, or a Muammar Gaddafi, couldn’t simply be wished away. There was no moral equivalence among systems of government, their leaders, or cultures. Any society that did not respect human rights or the rule of law could not consider itself the equal of those that did. Cancer was cancer. Only by tackling it head-on could you hope to beat it.

  And in a sense, that had always been Harvath’s job—going after cancer. When everything else failed, he was called in to kill it, by any means necessary.

  Sometimes he was given a strict set of rules by which to operate. Other times, things were so bad that his superiors agreed to look the other way, as long as he got the job done. And he always got the job done, just as he would get this job done.

  With his strength returning, he reached down and unsheathed the man’s knife. Then, leaning forward, he grabbed him by the hair and began slicing.

  When rescuers eventually showed up, Harvath wanted it to be clear what had happened here. The Russians were not only superstitious but also congenital gossips. The tale would make its way through their military and intelligence services. By the time it was done being told, he would be credited not only with killing some of their most elite operators but with bringing down the plane as well. If nothing else, they would think twice about ever coming for an American like him again.

  After swapping
out the magazine in his pistol, he checked the man’s wrist. This was the asshole who, on top of everything else, had also stolen his watch.

  Sure enough, there it was—his Bell & Ross Diver. Removing it, Harvath put it in his pocket and finished patting down the dead soldier, helping himself to anything of value, including his rifle. Gathering up the blanket, he then returned to the loadmaster.

  Though he hadn’t been gone long, he found the man worse than when he had left him.

  In his hand, the loadmaster held a tattered picture of his family. Even if Harvath had found something to use as a lever, he wasn’t going to make it. All he could do at this point was make him comfortable.

  Draping the blanket over him, he stoked the fire and sat down next to him. It was bad enough he was going to die; he shouldn’t have to die alone. His to-do list could wait.

  As he listened to the wind howling outside, he kept one hand on his pistol, one hand on his flashlight, and both eyes on the ruptures in the fuselage. There was one last passenger still unaccounted for: the one in charge of the operation, the man who had given everyone else their orders, the most important passenger of all: Josef.

  As he sat there, all the horrific images from New Hampshire began to flood back into his mind, but he didn’t have the energy for them. His focus needed to be on staying alive. The biggest part of that strategy depended on information.

  Reaching over to the loadmaster, he gently put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said to him in Russian, and he meant it.

  The man opened his eyes halfway and looked at him. “Spasiba,” he responded. Thank you. He knew the prisoner had done all he could for him.

  “Where are we?” Harvath asked in Russian.

  In response, the loadmaster simply shrugged. He had no idea.

  Harvath held out his hand and pantomimed an airplane taking off. Pointing at the imaginary ground beneath it, he asked “Where? What city?”

  “Murmansk,” the man mumbled. Fortunately, it was loud enough for Harvath to understand.

  Pointing his pretend airplane down, he repeated his question. “Where? What city?”

  “Loukhi.”

  Harvath had a basic grasp of Russian geography, but didn’t know Loukhi.

  He repeated the name to make sure he was pronouncing it correctly. The loadmaster nodded in response.

  Resetting his airplane, Harvath pantomimed taking off and then crashing. Once again, he asked the same question. “Where? What city?”

  The Russian shrugged, his eyes shutting.

  Harvath gently squeezed his shoulder to get his attention. “Where?” he repeated. “What city?”

  “Ja ne znaju,” the loadmaster replied, struggling to open his eyes. I don’t know.

  “Direction?” Harvath asked, pantomiming the plane taking off and landing. “Murmansk to Loukhi. Which direction?”

  “Yug,” the man whispered. South.

  Pantomiming the plane’s takeoff to its crash, he bracketed the distance with his fingers and said, “Distance. How many?”

  The man’s eyes had closed again.

  Harvath was losing him. “Time,” he stated. “How many?”

  There was no response.

  Applying pressure to his shoulder, Harvath tried to rouse him once more, but without any luck. He tapped him lightly on the cheek. Nothing. The loadmaster had lost consciousness.

  Opening each of the man’s eyelids, Harvath used his flashlight to test his pupils. Neither constricted. His brain was shutting down.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Harvath lied. “Don’t fight it. Just relax.”

  He had no idea if the man could hear him, much less understand what he was saying. It didn’t matter. Harvath kept talking, watching as the Russian’s breaths became shallower and farther apart. He didn’t have much longer.

  Unable to do anything but await the inevitable, Harvath’s mind turned to a checklist of things he needed to accomplish in order to survive.

  In the SEALs, he had undergone extensive SERE training. SERE was an acronym for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. If you were caught behind enemy lines, the goal was to keep you alive and help you get to safety. If Harvath hoped to survive and get back home, he was going to have to remember every single thing he had ever been taught in SERE school. And even then, there were no guarantees.

  At the moment, his primary focus was survival. Having eliminated the immediate human threats, his most pressing environmental threat was the cold.

  Even with the fire, the temperature inside the cabin was continuing to drop. He needed to find a way to seal it off from the outside.

  Using his flashlight, he did a quick scan of his surroundings, but nothing presented itself. Heavy tarps or plastic sheeting of some sort were what the situation called for. But unless some were hiding in one of the remaining lockers he hadn’t opened in the tail, he was screwed.

  He could stack wreckage until his strength gave out, but it would never act as an effective barrier. Like water flooding a leaky boat, the cold would exploit every single opening until it overwhelmed him. He had to come up with a better plan.

  Looking down at the loadmaster, he watched him exhale, and then waited for him to take another breath. It never came. He had expired. And with him, so had any moral responsibilities Harvath had left.

  Taking the blanket from the man, Harvath wrapped it around himself and got busy trying to survive.

  CHAPTER 9

  * * *

  * * *

  It turned out that the solution to his most critical problem had been staring Harvath right in the face. He didn’t need to seal the cabin off from the cold. He only needed to seal himself off from it. The cargo container that had crushed the loadmaster’s legs would provide the perfect shelter.

  Opening the doors, he discovered it was filled with mining equipment. Like most everything else he had come across on the plane, it was totally useless. He dragged pieces out until there was enough room for him to comfortably fit inside.

  Tearing loose insulation from the walls of the cabin, he packed as much into the container as possible, creating a nest.

  Next, he moved the fire closer to the opening and propped up a couple of sheets of metal behind it to help direct the heat toward him.

  As the icy wind blasted the exterior of the aircraft, he conducted one last sweep for supplies. The entire time, though, he kept one hand on his weapon. There was that one final passenger, the man in charge of the operation, whom he assumed to be an intelligence officer—likely Russian military intelligence, also known as the GRU—still unaccounted for.

  Searching the loadmaster and the dead Spetsnaz operative next to him as he had done to the one in the back, he pocketed anything of value that he found—cash, watches, jewelry, and even a couple of condoms.

  There was no galley area, but he did find a coffee station. The pot must have gone missing in the crash, so he opened the condoms. Using them as bladders, he filled them with as much of the water as he could and tied them off at the top. Like the missing pot, there wasn’t any coffee either. There was, though, a tin with some loose tea, which he took, along with a metal canteen cup.

  The most significant discovery came in the final locker. It was just wide enough for the loadmaster to have hung his winter parka. There was a knit cap and a pair of gloves in one of the sleeves.

  As Harvath hurriedly put them on, he looked down and saw a gray sling pack. Pulling it out, he realized that it was a Russian Air Force survival or “ditch” kit. Underneath was a portable emergency locator transmitter—ELT for short.

  Carrying everything back to the cargo container, he piled it all neatly inside. Now, there was only one more thing he had to do.

  With several lengths of wire he had scrounged, he rigged random pieces of debris and laid a series of trip wires. If anyone else was still alive and was thinking about coming for him, he wanted as much notice as possible. Once that task was complete, he returned to his improvised shelter and
the warmth of the fire.

  Despite the hat, gloves, and new parka he had just donned, his body was still trembling with cold. He needed to get something warm into his system.

  Filling his metal cup with water, he set it as close to the fire as he could and then turned his attention to the ELT.

  The first thing he noticed was that it was pretty old. It probably didn’t even operate on the current frequency for distress signals. Based on the tag taped to the side, it hadn’t been serviced in a long time. The battery was almost certainly dead.

  The best thing about it was that it was a portable, manually activated unit. That meant the chances of there being an additional ELT, automatically activated by the crash and currently broadcasting their exact location to COSPAS—the Russian Space System for the Search of Vessels in Distress—were next to zero. Despite how unreliable their technology was, the Russians weren’t into redundancy. Any rescue team was going to have to find the crash site the old-fashioned way—they were going to have to hunt for it. Just to be safe, he broke off the ELT’s antenna and set the equipment aside.

  Next, he checked out the contents of the ditch kit. Inside was a flare gun case, as well as four olive drab, vacuum-sealed pouches covered in Cyrillic writing. His ability to read Russian was almost as bad as his ability to speak it. At best, he could make out only the most basic words.

  From what he could understand, the two largest pouches were individual food rations called Individualnovo Ratsiona Pitanee, or IRPs for short. They were the Russian military’s version of American MREs—meals ready-to-eat.

  These were Cold Climate/Mountain Operation versions, which were calorie-dense, and meant to see a soldier through an entire twenty-four-hour period.

  Harvath couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. It had been at least three days.

  All he wanted to do was rip open the packaging, but he had been trained better than that. In a survival situation, every item you came in contact with could be potentially life-saving or life-threatening. Nothing should ever be taken for granted.