Backlash: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

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  Jompá and Olá stopped only once to rest the dogs and check their heading. Hearing no sound of helicopters, they lifted the frozen slabs of meat to allow Harvath and Christina a chance to get out of the sleds and stretch their legs.

  It was snowing and the wind was blowing even harder than before. With the rifle slung over his shoulder, Harvath removed the satellite phone from his pocket and dialed Nicholas as he walked.

  They kept the call short. Harvath provided him with an update on their progress and Nicholas confirmed their location via the live satellite footage they were watching in the White House Situation Room.

  Nicholas also let him know that the plane with the team was airborne and that there was no sign of any Russian activity in his immediate area.

  Good news, thought Harvath. For the moment.

  After he and Christina had climbed back into the sleds, Jompá and Olá replaced the slabs, covered everything with reindeer hides, and then mushed their dogs toward the landing zone.

  Harvath’s senses were on fire the entire way. As close as they were to escaping, there were still so many things that could go wrong.

  Some of the most intense battles he’d ever been in were en route to an extraction. They were all-or-nothing scenarios. The bad guys knew it was their last chance to take you out. You knew that if you didn’t succeed, you weren’t going home. Both sides had everything to lose and winning came down to who fought the hardest.

  Even so, you could fight like hell and still lose. Sometimes it was nothing more than a numbers game. That was always the biggest risk when you were fighting on someone else’s territory. Better to get in and out without being seen and without engaging the enemy.

  That was Harvath’s biggest concern right now—getting out without being seen. He’d been able to stay one step ahead almost the entire time he had been in Russia. If he could just continue that streak a little longer, he’d be home free.

  He hadn’t asked to come here. He hadn’t asked for Lara, Lydia, and Reed to be murdered. He hadn’t asked for any of it. All he wanted now, after everything he had been through, was to get across that border. But as he had spent a lifetime learning the hard way, circumstances often seemed to conspire against him.

  As the sled sliced through the snow, he forced himself to relax as he breathed deeply. Stay calm, he repeated in his mind. Almost there.

  But as he said those last two words to himself, he knew that it was a lie. He wasn’t almost there. In fact, he was far from it.

  At the moment that thought entered his mind—as if he had the power to conjure up the worst possible demon to come and torment him even further—he heard something. He heard it over the barking of the dogs and the creaking of the sled. Though it was faint, he knew exactly what it was—a helicopter.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, as the sound of its rotors grew louder.

  He had no doubt that it was Wagner, and within moments, it was hovering almost directly overhead. Jompá and Olá, though, kept going.

  Harvath heard the helicopter change position and hover out in front of them. The pilot was sending the mushers a message: Stop.

  Jompá and Olá had no other option. That’s what they did.

  The frozen slabs of meat should have hidden their presence from any thermal imaging. This had to be about something else. Someone in the village had talked.

  Harvath, though, had expected that. What he hadn’t expected was that the Wagner mercenaries would devote time and resources to scouring the countryside for a couple of Sámis known to be gone at odd hours and for days at a time, hunting and trading with other villages.

  Sinking the snowmobile had been meant to throw them off his trail, but maybe it had ended up leading them right to him.

  He didn’t have time to figure out what had happened. He needed to make a plan to deal with this threat—right here, right now.

  The helicopter was too loud for him to yell back to Christina. It was almost too loud for him to communicate with Jompá. Almost.

  Though Harvath’s Russian was pretty bad, he knew enough to get what he needed in this situation.

  “Shto ty vídish?” he shouted. What do you see?

  “Odin vertolet,” the man shouted back, so that Harvath would be sure to hear him. “Dva verevki.” One helicopter. Two ropes.

  This wasn’t a reconnaissance. It was an interdiction. They were going to have a team rappel, inspect the sleds, and question Jompá and Olá.

  Harvath planted his feet and brought his knees up against the slab of meat. “Skol’ko soldat?” How many soldiers?

  “Chetyre.” Four.

  Two for each sled, Harvath thought to himself.

  He tried, in vain, to listen for the approach of footsteps. But between the roar of the helicopter blades and the dogs barking, it was impossible.

  Suddenly, though, he could hear the helicopter ascend and then move off to the side. It was still close, but not directly in front of them, nor immediately overhead. The mercenaries were obviously concerned about what they were about to face. And having already lost one helo, they didn’t intend to lose another.

  As the Wagner men neared his sled, they began yelling at Jompá in Russian.

  “Dva ostalos,” the Sámi said for Harvath’s benefit. “Dva verno.” Two left. Two right.

  With his face hidden behind the ruff of his anorak, the mercenaries couldn’t see him feeding one last clue to Harvath. It was the last thing he was able to utter before the men were right on top of them.

  Harvath gripped his weapons as an icy calm settled over him. Now that trouble had arrived, he was in his element.

  His challenge was to affix in his mind, without having seen them, where all the players were—the four mercenaries on the ground, the helicopter and its likely snipers, Christina, Jompá, and Olá.

  He was about to engage in an incredibly dangerous gamble, but there was no alternative. It was kill or be taken prisoner, and he had already made it quite clear where he stood on that proposition. He was going to kill whoever got in his way, and he would keep killing until he had escaped. He was going home and nobody was going to stop him.

  Though the clouds had dampened its first rays, the sun had begun to rise. To his left and to his right, Harvath was able to see beneath the edges of the reindeer hides covering the sled.

  He could make out two pairs of legs. Both were wearing the same winter whites as all the other Wagner thugs.

  Once he had both his weapons in place, he said a quick prayer, exhaled, and pressed the triggers.

  CHAPTER 67

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  Using his legs to upend the frozen slab and the reindeer skins, he let them fall to the ground as he came out shooting.

  He put two more rounds into the injured men on either side of his sled, killing them both, and then quickly rolled to his left to engage the men behind him before they could get to Christina.

  As he did, the snipers in the helicopter let loose with a withering barrage of fire. Jompá, who had crouched down behind the sled for cover, fell bleeding into the snow.

  Harvath kept his attention on Olá’s sled and the two men there. One of them had his weapon pointed right at him. Harvath fired before the man could get off a shot, double-tapping the mercenary in the chest and putting an additional round underneath his chin and up into his brain.

  Before the man had even hit the ground, Harvath had his colleague in his sights and was already lighting him up.

  He ripped a zipper of lead from the man’s left rear buttock, up through his ribcage, and into the back of his head, splattering brain, blood, bone, and bits of helmet everywhere.

  All the while, the snipers continued to fire, unable to get an accurate fix on him. Curtains of snow obstructed their view, as powerful gusts of wind buffeted the helo.

  Rolling back behind the sled, Harvath ejected his magazine, slammed home a fresh one, and dragged Jompá closer, hoping to save him. There was n
othing Harvath could do for him, though. The man was dead.

  Popping up from behind the sled, and using the oblong slab of moose on the other side for concealment, he went full auto and emptied his magazine into the cockpit of the helicopter, before disappearing back down again.

  Doing another magazine change, he scanned his surroundings. They were out in the open, which was an absolute death sentence when dealing with a helicopter. They needed to get to the trees.

  He called out to Christina and Olá, but neither of them replied. He prayed it was only because they couldn’t hear him.

  Rising into a crouch, he popped up once more and began firing as he ran back to the second sled.

  Sliding in next to it like a baseball player stealing home, he ejected the magazine from his AK-15 and rocked in another.

  “Christina!” he yelled over the sound of the helicopter as it swung around in an attempt to provide its snipers with a better angle. “Christina!”

  Peeking behind the sled, he saw Olá lying facedown in the snow, bleeding. Harvath didn’t need to roll him over to know that, like his brother, he was also dead. The snipers had taken both of them out.

  “I can’t get out,” Christina shouted. “The slab won’t move. It’s stuck.”

  Lifting up the reindeer hide, he peered underneath and saw the problem. The edge was jammed between two of the bed’s supports.

  “I’m going to lift it. When I do, roll toward me as fast as you can. Okay?”

  Christina nodded.

  “On three,” yelled Harvath, as he planted his boots and leaned into the slab. “One. Two. Three!”

  It was incredibly heavy, just like the one he had hidden under. He was only able to raise it a few inches, but it was enough for Christina to get out, pulling her rifle behind her.

  Before she could even thank him, she saw Olá. She tried to go to him, but Harvath stopped her.

  “They’re both dead,” he said. “We need to get to the trees.”

  “How?”

  “You go first and I’ll cover you. Ready?”

  Christina nodded and once again, Harvath counted to three and yelled for her to run.

  As she took off, he popped up from behind the sled and began firing, successfully putting several rounds into the side of the helo, forcing it to swing away from them.

  Once he saw that she was safe, he pointed at the helicopter and instructed her to start shooting. The moment she did, he ran back to Jompá’s sled. He needed his rucksack.

  Sliding again to safety, he reached inside and pulled it out. Now, all he had to do was make it to the trees.

  The helicopter, though, had shifted into a new position, one that was going to make it very difficult for Christina to engage from her position.

  He was getting ready to jump up and fire at it himself when she stepped out from behind the trees and began shooting.

  It was an incredibly courageous move, and one that he didn’t waste. Hopping to his feet, he ran faster than he could ever remember having run in his life.

  He got to her just as her weapon ran dry and together they bolted into the trees as the snipers began to return fire.

  The bullets tore off pieces of bark and sent snow flying all around them. Up ahead, Harvath could see a small rock outcropping. He pointed at it and shouted for her to keep running. “No matter what, don’t stop!”

  She did as he ordered and didn’t notice until she got there that he had stopped to return fire on the helicopter.

  It seemed like a suicide mission to her. Hovering above the trees, the snipers rained down bullets, slicing through the branches and coming very close to hitting, and likely even killing him.

  Harvath, though, was equally dangerous to the helicopter. He not only found his target, but also put no fewer than two rounds through its belly.

  Whether those rounds penetrated into the cabin and took out any of the mercenaries on board, he couldn’t be sure. What he did know was that he had burned through precious ammo, but once again had succeeded in beating the helicopter back and forcing it to break contact.

  As the helo temporarily disengaged, Harvath rushed for the outcropping.

  “We’re not going to have long,” he said, as he changed magazines and tried to catch his breath.

  “They can’t get to us here, can they?” Christina asked.

  “Not with the helicopter. They’ll come in on foot. At least one group from uphill, so they can shoot down on us. Another will come in on one of our flanks.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to fight,” he replied, pulling the few magazines he had left from his rucksack and handing one to her.

  “But I don’t know how,” she insisted, and for the first time, he saw the fear written across her face.

  He stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “Listen to me,” he said. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Do you understand?”

  She believed him and, slowly, she nodded.

  Turning his attention back to his preparations, he pulled the satellite phone from his coat pocket, extended the antenna, and powered it up.

  He waited for several moments, but the device failed to acquire a signal. There was too much tree cover. He had no way of giving Nicholas an update on their situation.

  As he powered the device off and returned it to his pocket, he heard the helicopter stop and hover up the slope from where they were. The pilots must have found a big enough break in the trees, through which men could rappel.

  After inspecting and reloading Christina’s rifle, he handed it back to her. “Get ready,” he said. “They’re coming.”

  CHAPTER 68

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  I don’t care what’s going on down there,” Haney said, his face a steely, don’t-fuck-with-me mask. “You land this plane right now.”

  When Pavel refused to comply, Staelin, who was sitting right behind him, pulled out his H&K pistol and pressed the barrel right up against the back of the bush pilot’s head.

  During his initial flyover to check for obstructions on the ice, they had passed over the top of the Wagner helicopter and had seen shots being fired. It had frightened Pavel enough that he was now trying to abort the landing.

  But as Haney and Staelin were making perfectly clear, despite the language barrier, they weren’t aborting anything.

  Resigning himself to what he was being forced to do, the pilot swung the plane around, decreased its airspeed, and prepared to land.

  The Pilatus touched down with only a light skip of its skis on the snow. It was one of the best landings any of them had ever experienced. Pavel might have been a terrible alcoholic, but he was a terrific pilot.

  When he tried to pull back on the throttle to slow down, Haney put his hand over Pavel’s and pushed it forward, forcing him to speed up.

  With his free hand, Haney pointed at the very end of the ice. Bullets be damned, that’s where they were headed. He wanted the team dropped off as close to Harvath as possible. The bush pilot did the only thing he could do—he obeyed.

  When they were almost at the shore, Haney allowed Pavel to finally slow the aircraft down. He even allowed him to turn it around, so that it was ready for takeoff when they returned.

  As the team raced to unload their gear, Haney gave the Russian a final warning. Whether the man could understand his English or not didn’t matter. He could understand his tone.

  “Don’t you fucking go anywhere,” he ordered, poking his finger into the man’s chest. “Remember, we know where you live.”

  The look on the bush pilot’s face made it clear that the message had been received. Reaching over, he killed the plane’s engine and held his hands up in mock surrender.

  Hopping onto the ice, Haney slung his large pack, clicked into his ski bindings, and hailed the tactical operations center of the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg in North Carolina as they raced toward the woods.

  To limit the number of cooks i
n the kitchen, JSOC had been assigned to coordinate this phase of Harvath’s rescue.

  Haney engaged in a very quick back-and-forth. He let them know that they had landed safely and were inbound to Harvath. JSOC let Haney know what Harvath’s last position was and what kind of force was arrayed against him.

  Everyone else on The Carlton Group team was listening to the report over their headsets. There was no need for Haney to repeat any of it.

  On point, Sloane Ashby had a wrist-top computer strapped to the outside of the left sleeve of her winter whites. The technology had gotten to the point where she didn’t need to peel off her gloves and punch in Harvath’s location. It was being done for her by JSOC via satellite. Her job was to lead her team to him.

  It was a good piece of technology to have, especially as the snow continued to fall and visibility worsened. The only downside to it, though, was the very real possibility of losing the link due to heavy cloud cover.

  Knowing that Harvath was under fire, they all pushed themselves at top speed to get to him.

  The plan had been for the dog sleds to transport him and the woman to the forest at the edge of the frozen lake. Once the plane had landed, the team would jump out, link up with them in the woods, and escort them back to the aircraft. They would then fly back to Pavel’s and disappear across the border. That was the best-case scenario.

  The list of worst-case scenarios was endless. It included everything from Harvath and the woman being injured and needing to be carried, to Harvath being recaptured and the team needed to go inland to break him out and bring him back. The one thing they had all agreed on was that they were absolutely not leaving Russia without him.

  Up at the front of their column, Sloane continued setting a blistering pace. But then something happened.

  From somewhere out in front of them, they began to hear gunfire. And all at once, they took an impossibly hard pace and kicked it up. Way up.

  CHAPTER 69