Sleeping Bear

by Connor Sullivan

  Yermakova grabbed the key around her neck. “Mr. President?”

  “Captain Yermakova, if you wish to keep your life, you will do as I say, understand?”

  “Da, Mr. President. Of course.”

  “Contact me when you are en route to Vladivostok. I will reroute the Spetsnaz to meet you there. They will take Viktor to Moscow. Now, go.”

  The line went dead and Yermakova put the receiver on the table.

  EL-5 was the old code word used by the KGB to trigger complete termination of a mission, asset, or installation that had been compromised. It was a kill switch, a self-destruct sequence.

  Captain Yermakova was the only person in the facility who knew the code and held the key to initiate EL-5.

  “Captain?” Klimentiev said.

  Yermakova held up a hand to silence the lieutenant. She needed to think. Under the guidelines of EL-5, the whole facility was to be destroyed including all personnel.

  It was no secret that Post 866 was an old missile silo that used to house one of the USSR’s biggest ICBMs, an R-9 Desna, which had the capability to reach the United States during the Cold War.

  After the missile was supposedly moved to another location in the early 1970s, the KGB, at the behest of Viktor Sokolov, turned the facility into a sharashka. Upon taking over Post 866 eleven years before, Captain Yermakova was given instructions on how to initiate EL-5 in case of an emergency, as well as the standard operating procedure for her, the director of Post 866, to escape in a reasonable amount of time. She knew once EL-5 was initiated, she had twenty minutes to get out of the facility and as far away from the blast radius as possible.

  “What did the president say, Captain?” Klimentiev asked.

  “Nothing—” Yermakova said, aware that everyone in the control room was watching her. She needed to figure out how she was going to initiate EL-5, detain Sokolov, and get him into a helicopter within twenty minutes, all without causing a panic.

  It is impossible. There were too many variables and too little time. She would have to get creative.

  “Lieutenant Klimentiev, how many men loyal to General Sokolov are currently inside the sharashka?”

  “Fourteen men. Twelve of them Vympels, one assistant, and one helicopter pilot.”

  Yermakova did some quick thinking. She would have her guards rush the white-tiled room to eliminate Sokolov’s Vympels and detain the general. Only when Sokolov was captured, and his men dead, would Yermakova initiate EL-5. But that, too, would be delicate. She needed to make sure her GRU subordinates wouldn’t panic. “Lieutenant Klimentiev, I have been ordered by the president to detain General Sokolov and take him personally back to Vladivostok.”

  Klimentiev’s face flushed, and she heard mumbles from the technicians.

  Yermakova continued, “In order to do that, I will order the guards to the armory. I am going to insist that live rounds be used in this delicate operation. I am also ordering that all GRU personnel be sent to their residences while the operation is in effect. It will be a complete lockdown—the only way I can ensure the safety of GRU personnel.”

  “Even the technicians?”

  “And yourself, Klimentiev.” Yermakova put a hand on the lieutenant’s shoulder. “I am putting you in charge of the safety of all GRU personnel in this facility. I will have our pilots fly General Sokolov and myself to Vladivostok. Once there, I will coordinate to get all personnel evacuated from the post in a timely fashion.” She leaned in and whispered in Klimentiev’s ear, trying to sound as earnest as possible. “We need to make sure our people don’t panic. They will be safe in their residences.”

  Klimentiev shot a worried look at the two dozen GRU technicians below them in the control room. “If the technicians are to leave their stations, who will man the drones? Who will surveil the peninsula in case the Americans plan another infiltration?”

  “Trust me, Lieutenant. My orders come straight from the president. These are his wishes.”

  Still uncertain, Klimentiev nodded. “Da, Captain. I will get everyone secured in their rooms and send the pilots above ground to ready your helicopter.”

  “Spasibo, Lieutenant. Notify me through my earpiece once everyone is safe. Then I will send in the guards to arrest Sokolov.”

  As Klimentiev burst into action, rounding up all the technicians in the room, Yermakova watched them go before gazing at the green door on the west wall of the control room that led to the EL-5 kill switch. With the Vympels out of the way and all GRU personnel locked into their quarters, Yermakova could initiate EL-5 and take Sokolov to the helicopter without anyone trying to stop her.

  Then her mind went to the knockout gas. The facility was constructed so that every room contained vents that could deploy the gas. The only problem was that each of Sokolov’s Vympels carried a gas mask.

  No, she would take more drastic measures. She would kill the Vympels.

  She keyed her earpiece and alerted all the guards to rendezvous at the armory in five minutes. If everything went accordingly, she would have Sokolov in custody in ten minutes, and EL-5 initiated in twenty.

  In a half hour, she would be on a helicopter heading toward Vladivostok and Post 866 would soon be reduced to rubble.

  Toggling through the switchboard in front of her, she brought up the live video feed of the white-tiled room. Sokolov and his men had Robert Gaines hanging from the ceiling and the prisoners of Red Block locked to chairs in front of him.

  She would have the guards leave the prisoners in the torture room—no need for unnecessary bloodshed. They could die just like the rest of the GRU personnel.

  Yermakova walked out of the control room and headed for the armory.

  Chapter 67

  SOMEWHERE OVER PACIFIC OCEAN

  EAST OF KAMCHATKA PENINSULA

  AS THE COMMANDER of Naval Special Warfare Tactical Development and Evaluation Squadron Two, Commander Seamus Cafferty had reached a rank in the SEAL Teams that didn’t necessarily require him to be “boots on the ground.”

  Usually, when reaching the coveted role of squadron commander, a SEAL officer was “freed up” to position himself anywhere on the battlefield in order to focus on the successful execution of a mission.

  More often than not, squadron commanders led their team from a safe distance, instead of breaking down doors and kicking ass.

  Cafferty thought that was bullshit.

  When he’d been handed the command of SEAL Team Six’s Blue Squadron in Virginia Beach three years prior, he’d made it known to both his superiors and his men that he wouldn’t be hanging back.

  Ever.

  The Idaho native believed that in order to lead, you had to be willing to show your men that you were still able to get down and dirty.

  Cafferty looked at his watch from within the UH-70 stealth Black Hawk and keyed his throat mike, alerting his SEALs, “T-minus twenty!”

  He switched from his line-of-sight frequency to SATCOM. “Commander Cafferty to Commander Spear, do you copy?”

  “Good copy, Commander Cafferty.”

  “Any activity on the thermals?” Cafferty was referring to the US spy satellites using their thermal imagery to gaze down on Site X.

  “Affirmative. Thirty seconds ago we picked up two hostiles exiting the main entrance of Site X. They have entered the Kamov Ka-82K stealth helicopter and started its engines.”

  “Copy that,” Cafferty said, then changed back to his line-of-sight frequency to alert his men. This would slightly change things. The SEALs would have to get out of the UH-70s weapons hot. After conferring with Lt. Commander Anderson in the UH-70 next to him, it was confirmed that Anderson and his team would hit the hostiles in the Kamov first, then form a perimeter while Cafferty and his team infiltrated the facility.

  Cafferty then gazed around the UH-70 fuselage that housed his men. They were flying low over the ocean and should be reaching the eastern shores of the Kamchatka Peninsula in roughly five minutes. These supersecret, high-speed stealth helicopters could
reach speeds of up to 220 miles per hour undetected by even the most sophisticated of radars.

  A third and fourth UH-70 would take off from the carrier in minutes just in case the first two teams ran into trouble and needed an extraction.

  Cafferty tried shutting his eyes and visualizing the upcoming mission. He’d had the CIA’s schematics of the old missile silo already committed to memory—a gift he possessed that had helped him more times than he could count during his time in the SEALs. But one thing nagged at him, one aspect of the mission that he hadn’t told anyone about.

  During their briefing at JBER, Commander Spear had informed the SEALs that one of their own was possibly in the facility, a former SEAL named Paul Brady. Eighteen minutes ago, right before the president had given the green light, they’d gotten confirmation that Paul Brady had been spotted inside the Russian installation.

  Seamus Cafferty knew Paul Brady.

  Pretty well, actually. They’d been on the same boat team for most of BUD/S and had even served together for six years in SEAL Team Two. Paul Brady was a stand-up guy, a hell of a friend, and had been a damn good SEAL.

  Unfortunately, they’d lost touch over the years when Cafferty entered SEAL Team Six and Brady had stayed with Team Two. Last Cafferty heard, Brady had gotten out of the Teams and lived with his family in San Diego.

  He couldn’t believe his ears when Spear confirmed that Brady was one of the Americans inside.

  Cafferty thought of what Brady would say when his team infiltrated the old Soviet silo.

  Knowing Brady, he’d just crack his signature wiseass smile and ask what had taken them so long.

  Chapter 68

  POST 866

  TORTURE ROOM

  GALE GAZED DOWN at the knife in Sokolov’s hand as the old general waved it in front of him.

  “I was telling your daughters a story before you arrived. I was telling them who you really are, what you really are, but I feel like it would be better hearing it from you, not me.” The general snapped his fingers and a Vympel operator took the leather gag from Gale’s mouth.

  Gale sputtered and took in his daughters. “Are you two okay?”

  Both girls looked to be in shock.

  Gale didn’t have time to really take in the other two men in the chairs because Emily asked him, “You were in the CIA. You murdered all those people?”

  “I was doing my job, Emily. The people I killed were bad men. They had their hands in murdering women and children.”

  “You lied to us,” Cassie said, evenly. “You lied to us about everything. Mom didn’t die in a car accident—”

  Sokolov let out a loud laugh. “A car accident? That’s what you told them?” He walked up to Emily and stooped down so his face was in front of hers. “You don’t remember me? You don’t remember that night in Paris?”

  Emily shook her head.

  “I killed your bitch of a mother. I killed her in that fancy apartment. I remember you quite well—”

  “Stop it!” Gale demanded.

  “Or what?” Sokolov countered.

  Gale took in the room. He counted twelve Vympels and another Russian who was preoccupied with a tablet. Standing next to a long metal table filled with torture equipment was a frightened-looking man in a white lab coat. Gale briefly locked eyes with the man and felt a vague sense of familiarity come over him. Before he had any more time to think, the general pointed at his daughters and went on.

  “Your father and I have a very complicated history. Tell them, Robert.”

  Gale tensed his muscles, trying to alleviate the searing agony in his shoulders and then snarled at the general.

  “You don’t want to talk?” Sokolov taunted him. “Maybe I can inspire you.” He brought the curved blade to Emily’s little finger and pressed down with all his weight.

  Emily screamed as the finger rolled off the chair’s armrest and fell to the floor.

  Gale went berserk—thrashing and kicking.

  “Tell them, Robert! Admit what you did!”

  Emily’s screams caught in her throat and her head lolled, as she almost passed out from the pain.

  “ADMIT IT!” the Russian thundered.

  “I will, just don’t hurt my girls!” Gale said, his eyes plastered on Emily’s bloody hand. He knew the SEALs were on their way. He needed to stretch out every moment he could and try to control the situation to keep his girls alive; so he decided to talk. “He’s right. I was an assassin. I wasn’t born James Gale. I was born Robert Gaines. I was stationed in Moscow in the eighties on an assignment to find the Soviet sharashka known as Post 866. This sharashka.”

  “Go on.”

  “It was rumored that this place housed American prisoners. The Soviets were rumored to have performed grotesque medical experiments on Americans for decades under the command of this man, and his son, Evgeny Sokolov. For years I tried to find this place, until one day, I met a man, a scientist—who had worked here. He offered to give me the location of Post 866 in exchange for helping his family defect to the West, but—”

  “But?”

  Gale explained that the scientist was discovered by the KGB and brutally murdered by Evgeny Sokolov. Gale tried to get the scientist’s family out of Moscow, but the KGB had already snatched them up. Gale owed it to the scientist to do everything in his power to save the family—so he went after Evgeny Sokolov. He captured him days later in Finland and made a deal with the KGB. Gale would hand over Evgeny Sokolov in exchange for the scientist’s family. The swap was set up and Gale moved his own daughters and wife out of Moscow to Paris, hoping to keep them safe from any reprisals from the KGB. At the swap, the CIA let Evgeny go, only to have the scientist’s family executed during the exchange by the KGB. “They killed the young girls first, then the mother. Simultaneously, this man came after you,” Gale said, looking at Sokolov. “This man killed your mother—and he almost killed the two of you, but our men were able to scare him off. I told you your mother died in a car crash to protect you.”

  “Then tell them what you did!” Sokolov roared.

  “After your mother died, I went after Evgeny. It was a sanctioned operation. I tracked down every KGB agent associated with the kill order on the scientist’s family and your mother. I killed them all, and eventually caught Evgeny.” Gale described that he had received intelligence that Viktor was at his dacha in the Khimki Forest outside of Moscow. Gale took Evgeny and marched him through the snowy forest for most of the night until they got to the dacha. There, Gale killed Viktor’s security, tied Viktor up, and brought him outside, binding him to a chair in the freezing cold and made him watch as his son died of hypothermia at his feet.

  “You let him die like an animal!”

  Gale roared back, “He died from the cold! Your son murdered Dr. Pyotr Yakonov and his family like animals! His daughters were ten and twelve!”

  “They were traitors. Vermin!”

  “They were innocents!”

  Sokolov rushed forward and pressed the curved blade to Gale’s throat in fury.

  “They had names,” Gale sputtered. “Natalia Yakonov, Klara Yakonov, Alvetina—”

  A commotion sounded to Gale’s right, as the man in the white lab coat suddenly lost his balance and put out a hand to catch himself on the metal table.

  “Artur, what the hell is wrong with you?” Sokolov spat.

  The man tried to regain his composure, but it looked like he had lost control of his legs. When the man didn’t reply, Sokolov pointed at his soldiers. “If he doesn’t have the stomach for this, get him out of here.”

  Two Vympels grabbed Artur by the arms and threw him into the hall, shutting the door behind them.

  Sokolov rounded again on Gale. “Tell them what happened next.”

  Gale recalled that fateful night. “Somehow, the KGB caught wind that I was at the general’s dacha. They came for me in helicopters. Chased me through the forest with men and dogs. I was able to get to a river. I was shot through the hip and fell into the water
. Somehow I survived and was able to make it to the extraction. From there, I made it back to Washington. I had the CIA give us all new identities—new lives in Montana. I never wanted you girls to know what happened… what I was.”

  A long silence followed, then Sokolov spoke, “For three decades I’ve grieved for my only son. For three decades I’ve lived with the pain of seeing him die in front of me, bloody and helpless.”

  “The world is a better place without Evgeny Sokolov in it,” Gale said. “I would do it all over again if I had the chance. My only regret is leaving you alive.”

  Sokolov smiled. “And yet, here we are: full circle. A father is about to watch helplessly as his children are murdered in front of him.” Sokolov walked over to the metal table and snatched a meat cleaver, walking back over to Cassie. “I’m going to chop them up slowly. Bit by bit. And you are going to watch, Gaines. I am going to cut them up into little pieces—then you will be taken to Moscow to spend the rest of your days dying of old age in a cell too low for you to stand and too small for you to stretch out. You will spend every second of the rest of your life thinking about this night and how you could do nothing to stop it.”

  Sokolov grabbed Cassie’s little finger and raised the meat cleaver in the air.

  Gale watched helplessly as the sharp metal flashed through the air and landed on his daughter’s finger with a sickening thud.

  Chapter 69

  POST 866

  ARTUR’S LABORATORY

  ARTUR STUMBLED DOWN the hallway outside the white-tiled room and made it to the stairwell that would take him to the floor that housed his laboratory.

  Body trembling, he willed his legs to move up the staircase until he reached the desired landing. Moving down the hallway, he rounded a corner and was met with a circus of black-clad guards, all armed with AK-15s huddled outside the armory surrounding Captain Yermakova, whose deep voice shouted out commands.

  If it wasn’t for the ringing in Artur’s ears, the pounding of his heart, and the all-around despondency of his mind—he would have heard Yermakova order the guards downstairs to the white-tiled room.