“Commander Cafferty, this is JSOC, over.”
“Copy, Commander Spear, go ahead.”
Spear’s voice caught static then normalized. “We’ve got a situation, Commander.” Spear updated Cafferty of the twenty-minute detonation sequence at Site X.
Cafferty looked down at his watch; they were now seven minutes from their destination. “We have twenty minutes until detonation, Command. I say we stay on mission, over.”
Cafferty could see his men through his NODs looking at him from the dark fuselage of the helicopter. He knew the Night Stalker pilots were also hearing his transmission as well as the pilots and Lt. Commander Anderson in the UH-70 next to him.
These types of thing always happen, he thought to himself. Things change, nothing goes as planned. Luckily for Cafferty and his men, this is what they trained for. With seven minutes more of flying time, they’d have less than thirteen minutes to secure the hostages and get the hell out of Dodge.
“Copy that, Commander,” said Spear over the comms. “You are still a go.”
Cafferty switched the frequency over to his team and updated his men on the detonation sequence. Cafferty put a twenty-minute countdown on his watch and took a deep breath, doing the math in his head.
Alpha team was composed of eight men including himself. Eight men that would go down the hatch and into the facility.
“Six minutes until landing,” the Night Stalker pilot alerted him.
Commander Seamus Cafferty wasn’t blind to the fact that this change in circumstances had severely hindered their chances of success. That getting all the hostages into the choppers in time was highly unlikely. There were simply too many intangibles. Too many blind variables.
But dammit, Paul Brady is down there.
Americans are down there.
He looked over his SEALs. The seven men staring back at him were the best in the world. Professionals fully cognizant of the dangers that came with the job.
“Five minutes,” the Night Stalker pilot relayed.
It was time to go to work.
Chapter 73
POST 866
CONTROL ROOM
“EL-5 INITSIIROVAN. SHESTNADTSAT’ minut do detonatsii.”
Sixteen minutes until detonation.
Cassie heard the woman’s voice in Russian again as she was led up a set of narrow stairs. Two guards supported her by the elbows as she climbed. She could hear the rest of the guards marching above her and wondered if her father or sister had gained consciousness yet.
Soon, Cassie made it to a landing and a door was held open for her. The guards helped her forward as they stepped into the familiar large, circular room Cassie’d taken Artur through by knifepoint during her escape attempt.
The circular room had been busy the last time Cassie had been in it. Now, it sat deserted. Cassie looked across the room and saw another guard holding a door open for them.
Staggering forward, Cassie relied on the strength of the guards.
Her mind was too depleted to think clearly; she needed all the energy she could muster just to get one foot in front of the other.
After crossing the circular room, she was helped into a hallway and led to another open door.
Stepping inside, Cassie couldn’t help but gasp.
The room looked like a NASA mission control center. Different levels of workstations descended down into the room, all facing a massive wall littered with LED screens.
“Here, sit down,” a voice said to her right, and Cassie saw Artur put a chair in front of her. “We won’t be here long.”
Cassie sat. Dozens of the black-clad guards stood at attention along the back wall. At her feet, Emily and her father were unconscious on the floor next to a bound and gagged General Sokolov.
“I knew you would help us!” Cassie heard Marko say. The Ukrainian was standing next to Brady, both of their eyes glued to Artur, who grabbed Captain Yermakova.
Yermakova swayed on her feet and looked like she had contracted a serious bout of food poisoning.
“EL-5 initsiirovan. Pyatnadtsat’ minut do detonatsii.”
Fifteen minutes until detonation.
Artur said to Yermakova: “Order the guards to leave their weapons here and secure themselves in Red Block.”
Yermakova turned, almost trancelike and repeated Artur’s words with a slur to her speech.
Cassie watched the imbecilic guards drop their weapons and file out of the room.
“How did you—” Brady started, but Artur cut him off, motioning to Marko.
“Captain Yermakova has two of her helicopter pilots in a Kamov Ka-82K stealth helicopter on top of the facility. If they refuse to fly us, would you be able to fly that chopper?”
“I can fly anything.”
“Good.”
“She’s helping us too?” asked Brady, looking at Yermakova.
“She is under the spell of Devil’s Breath.”
“You took my advice,” marveled Marko.
Artur crouched down to inspect Cassie’s unconscious father and sister. “I don’t have any more of my drugs. They will have to be carried out before the detonation.”
“Detonation?” asked Brady.
“The facility will self-destruct. We have fifteen minutes.”
“Where are we going?” Cassie asked, weakly.
Artur didn’t reply because a hoarse coughing took over the room.
Cassie saw Artur’s face turn sour. The scientist stepped over Cassie’s father and sister and stood over Sokolov. For the first time, Cassie noticed Artur was holding a pistol in his hand.
“EL-5 initsiirovan. Chetyrnadtsat’ minut do detonatsii.”
Fourteen minutes.
Artur stood over the general, and for a long moment, he didn’t say anything. The old general’s face was covered in blood. His emaciated features—his sunken cheeks, arthritic gnarled fingers, and liver-spotted nose made him look like a corpse. Artur calmly cut Sokolov’s zip ties and turned the old man so he was lying fully on his back.
“Look at me,” Artur said, in English.
The general let out a cough that sounded like a bullhorn, but his eyes eventually settled on the scientist.
“You still don’t recognize me, do you, General?” Artur asked, his voice calm.
Cassie watched as the general’s eyes flickered from Artur’s face, to the gun in his hand, then back to his face.
“Nyet.”
“Let me jog your memory, no?” Artur pulled out a stack of envelopes from his lab coat and dropped them on the general’s chest.
“What are these?” Sokolov wheezed.
“Look at them.”
Sokolov’s eyes focused on one of the envelopes, then his eyes grew wide. “You’re—”
“The son of Pyotr and Natalia Yakonov. Brother to Klara and Alvetina.”
Cassie felt like the air had been sucked out of the control room. Even in her state, she remembered the names her father had mentioned in the white-tiled room. His old asset and the family he swore to protect—the family murdered by Sokolov and his son.
Sokolov didn’t move.
“For thirty years, I believed my father died in an accident at his lab. For thirty years, I have kept up a fake correspondence with my mother and sisters. For thirty years I have kept the hope alive that I would see them again. That I could be free of the state’s sharashkas. But you slaughtered them. You forced me to live in this horrible existence.”
Sokolov grunted in disgust. “I didn’t force you to live this existence. Your traitorous father did that. He killed your sisters and mother as soon as he opened his mouth to the Americans.”
Artur raised the pistol and aimed it at Sokolov’s head.
Sokolov smiled. “Do it! Shoot me and get it over with. The sooner I get to see my son—”
The gun shook in Artur’s hand, and Cassie could see the white of Artur’s finger tightening around the trigger.
“Wait!” Cassie said. “Don’t kill him like this.”
Sokolov hacked out a cough. “You don’t have what it takes to put a bullet in me.”
Artur looked to Cassie. “What do you suggest?”
“You asked Marko if he could fly that helicopter”—she pointed to the screen showing the Kamov Ka-82K on top of the mountain—“which means you have a plan to get us out of here?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“East. There is an American chain of islands nearly five hundred kilometers east of us. We will give ourselves over to the Americans once they spot us on radar.”
“EL-5 initsiirovan. Trinadtsa’ minut do detonatsii.”
Thirteen minutes until detonation.
“Take him with us, then. Let the bastard pay for his crimes. Give him to the American government.”
Artur returned his gaze back to the general, who now looked worried at Cassie’s proposition, then Artur lowered the pistol.
“EL-5 initsiirovan. Dvenadtsat’ minut do detonatsii.”
Twelve minutes.
“We need to hurry,” Marko said, grabbing an AK-15 left over by the guards. Brady grabbed one, too.
“What are we going to do with her?” Brady asked, looking at Yermakova.
“She dies with this place,” Artur said.
“Fine,” Brady said. “And what about them?” He pointed to Emily and Cassie’s father.
Cassie was getting to her feet, and only half listening to Marko, Brady, and Artur discuss how Emily and her father were going to be carried to the elevator and onto the helicopter when she saw something on the main monitor in the front of the room that made her breath catch. “I think we might have a problem.”
The men turned their heads to her and she pointed at the monitor showing the night-vision drone feed depicting the top of the facility.
All eyes turned to the screen, which was now showing two helicopters that had appeared out of nowhere. The choppers circled the top of the facility, then bright tracer rounds shot out from one of the helicopters and peppered the cockpit where Yermakova’s pilots warmed up the Kamov Ka-82K.
Within seconds, the Kamov and its pilots were obliterated, and both invading helicopters had landed on top of the mountain. Dozens of armed figures spilled out of the choppers, half of them forming a perimeter on the mountaintop, the other half storming through the emergency hatch and into the facility.
“Russians?” asked Marko in disbelief.
Artur shot a panicked look at Yermakova. “The president sent reinforcements?”
Yermakova shook her head. “No. He recalled them back to Vladivostok.”
Artur swung on Sokolov. “Your men?”
Sokolov just laughed.
Artur turned back to the surveillance feed. “I don’t understand how they could have gotten by the drones—”
Another monitor next to the main screen flashed awake and showed eight heavily armed men descending the emergency stairwell.
“What are we going to do?” Marko asked.
Artur said, “We don’t have a choice. We have to fight back.” Turning to Captain Yermakova, he ordered: “Gas that stairwell and have the drones fire down on those men!”
Chapter 74
WHITE HOUSE
SITUATION ROOM
THOUGH THE PEOPLE in the Situation Room could not see the happenings in Post 866 due to Robert being unconscious, they could sure hear what was going on.
“Did I hear that correctly?” asked President McClintock. “They’re going to use a drone to fire down on our men? Commander Spear, did you copy that?”
“Loud and clear, Mr. President. I have already alerted the SEALs of the threat.”
“And you aren’t pulling them out?” asked Fray.
Spear replied, “That’s not how they operate, sir. Those SEALs have a mission to carry out. They have men to support and hostages to save. An impending threat on their lives doesn’t change things.”
“Well, surely we could do something!” growled DNI Nagle.
“It’s in God’s hands now,” replied Spear.
Carter could hear the strain in Spear’s voice and understood that emotionally Spear would have loved to pull his men out of harm’s way. But she also understood the mentality that was hammered into each and every SEAL’s psyche from the moment they entered BUD/S—the group before the individual. Bravo team leaving Alpha team down in the facility would be the biggest sin a SEAL could make. They’d rather die supporting their teammates than leave them high and dry.
Carter had heard stories of individual SEALs jumping on live grenades to save their brothers in combat. She hoped to God she wouldn’t have to witness such a sacrifice firsthand.
* * *
POST 866
CONTROL ROOM
The voice over the facility’s intercom alerted the group in the control room that EL-5 would be initiated in eleven minutes.
Cassie watched the feed from the control room as it showed the armed men charging down the emergency stairwell.
Artur spoke rapid Russian to Captain Yermakova as she began punching keys at the main control station, readying the drone and gas attack on the incoming assailants when Brady screamed: “STOP!!”
Cassie, Artur, Yermakova, and Marko all looked at the former SEAL.
“Those men aren’t Russian!” Brady said.
“What are you saying?” asked Artur.
“Those helicopters—those are UH helicopters—classified stealth choppers used by United States Special Forces. Those men”—Brady said, pointing at the screens, a wicked smile spreading on his face—“are Americans.”
“How do you know?” asked Marko.
“Zoom in on the figures coming down the stairwell.”
Artur directed Yermakova to zoom in on the men coming down the stairs.
“See, there!” Brady cried. “Eight-man SEAL Team. Their weapons, all variants of the HK 416. Their getups—all SEAL issued. That’s an elite team, a DEVGRU assault team.”
“What are you saying?” asked a confused Artur.
“They’re here to save us,” Cassie said. She had been standing over her unconscious father and sister, looking down at them one last time—accepting the fact that she only had minutes left on this earth. “They’re here to save us.”
“We need to meet them at the bottom of the stairs,” said Brady. “We can take the elevator to the surface with them, right?”
Artur blinked twice, then nodded slowly.
“Leave all the weapons here,” Brady ordered, “take off whatever clothing you can. Show them that you are unarmed. They will treat us like a threat until they can confirm we are not one.” He pointed down to Cassie’s unconscious father, sister, and Sokolov. “Help me carry them. We need to hurry.”
* * *
POST 866
EMERGENCY STAIRWELL
Cafferty led his men down the winding staircase. He’d counted nearly thirty revolutions and his legs were starting to get heavy.
A woman’s voice spoke something in Russian every minute they’d been in the facility.
Probably the countdown sequence, Cafferty thought, looking at his watch, which told him they had eight minutes until detonation.
Through the pulsating alarm, and the red flashing lights, Cafferty gazed down through the grated steps and could finally see an end to the staircase ten twists below.
At the bottom of the staircase was a landing and a red door.
His explosives point man primed and double-primed the door in less than fifteen seconds, and they’d formed a stack behind the breacher and readied themselves for the explosion, which came three seconds later.
The massive red door blew off its hinges. Cafferty and his men burst into a hallway that led to a large circular room where they expected to meet face-to-face with hostiles.
What he hadn’t expected was a half-dozen disheveled figures lying on the floor.
Cafferty and his me
n quickly secured the room before he flipped up his NODs onto his bump helmet.
Two of the figures seemed to be unconscious—one was Robert Gaines, the other was a young woman.
“What the fuck took you so long?” a familiar voice said to Cafferty’s right.
Though he looked like he’d gone through a meat grinder, Paul Brady’s smile lit up the room.
“You think I’d miss this?” Cafferty said, offering a hand and helping Brady to his feet. “This everyone?”
“Yes, sir,” Brady replied. “All hostiles are either dispatched or locked away and this piece of shit is coming with us.” Brady motioned down to a cadaverous-looking man at his feet who wore a blood-soaked green military uniform. Cafferty at once recognized General Sokolov from his briefing.
“Copy that, but we got about six minutes to get everyone up those stairs and out of the blast radius—”
“I got a better idea,” Brady said, turning to a tall skinny man with glasses. “Artur, have Yermakova get that elevator open.”
In accented English, the tall skinny man asked one of Cafferty’s SEALs for the tablet he’d taken off a sickly looking woman with bushy hair.
The SEAL handed her the tablet and she clicked away.
Moments later, the massive elevator door to their right opened.
Brady took the tablet from the woman and told the SEALs to zip-tie her and leave her in the facility. Cafferty did the honors, and when everyone was inside the elevator, Cafferty looked around, his eyes landing on Paul Brady and the woman standing next to him. He’d seen her picture in his briefing.
Cassandra Gale.
As the elevator began to rise, he took in the state of the rest of the hostages. In all the years that Seamus Cafferty had been on the SEAL Teams, he’d been personally involved in dozens of hostage rescue missions. From Somalia to Pakistan, he’d seen hostages tortured and starved, beaten and malnourished.
The hostages before him were no different.
He just couldn’t believe he was witnessing this in modern-day Russia.
Chapter 75
Sleeping Bear Page 37