Kim next started MUTT-TWO, which he drove remotely from its pallet.
“MUTT-TWO is armed with side-by-side, lightweight ASh-12.7 battle rifles. Favored by the Russians for urban combat. I bought the guns and ammunition from an arms dealer in Azerbaijan to make it appear this is a Russian attack.”
Garrett glanced around the clearing, searching for signs that would signal if someone else might have been there.
“Don’t worry,” Kim said. “I’ve had an employee watching this clearing nonstop since the drop.” He turned his computer screen so Garrett could see it and increased its magnification. Kim waved and one of the two figures next to MUTT-TWO could be seen on the screen waving.
“Smile,” he said.
It was dusk, and several bat hawks appeared chasing their dinners. “As you planned, we are about five miles from Gromyko’s compound. The ambush site is about a quarter mile north in the trees.”
“How’s the ground cover?” Garrett asked.
“Yes, we really couldn’t get a good feel for that from satellite imagery, but based on what we have been hiking through, I believe we’ll be okay. There are enough trees and bushes here to hide the MUTTS, but not so much foliage to obstruct their rounds or prevent them from moving. Actually, they’ll be able to move safer than you.”
“You better head back to the Range Rover,” Garrett said. “Just make certain you don’t get lost or bitten by a snake or shot without me there to rescue you.”
Kim said, “While you’re ambushing Gromyko, I’ll be controlling your teammates from the air-conditioned safety of my Range Rover miles away. In this scenario, who is more likely to need rescuing?”
* * *
General Gromyko had prepared his compound for a military assault. The razor wire fencing around it was buttressed with IEDs and monitored by motion detectors. Like all top Russian officials, he had stolen as much money as he could during his military service, and he had put his millions to good use hiring mercenaries and bribing the local warlord. His paid fighters lived in barracks near his main house, where he stayed with Boris Petrov, who had joined him in exile.
Garrett had easily identified the weak link in Gromyko’s defenses. There was only one road leading in and out of his well-patrolled compound. The ambush site that Garrett had chosen was where the one-lane road was edged on both sides by trees and bushes. Plenty of spots to hide.
Nine a.m. at the ambush site and the road remained empty. A half hour later, still no sign of Gromyko. At ten, Garrett began to wonder about the truthfulness of Kim’s paid informant—or had Gromyko simply gotten off to a late start or decided to postpone his trip? Garrett remained hidden in the tree line. He was sweating profusely under his heavy ghillie suit. He’d augmented his camouflage covering made of netting and loose strips of burlap colored to match the leaves, twigs, and ground around him with bits of branches. To pass the time, he watched a parade of ants inches from his face going to and from some food source, the workers returning to their nest with engorged bellies that they would regurgitate to feed those left behind.
At eleven, Kim spoke through Garrett’s earpiece. “Satellite shows caravan leaving compound. Looks like we’re finally a go.”
A ruby-red Toyota Tacoma 4x4 with a heavy machine gun bolted on its truck bed was the first of three vehicles. Next was the Maybach, covered with dust from the unpaved single-lane road, and finally a half-ton troop carrier with what Kim estimated from his satellite viewpoint was at least fifteen armed men.
Kim had positioned his MUTTs some seventy yards apart in the forest that edged the vehicles’ right side. It was important for Garrett, who was concealed on the road’s left side, not to leave his position, which was tagged on Kim’s computer screen, because the MUTTs would be firing across the road in his direction.
“Here we go,” Kim said through Garrett’s earpiece.
The cracking sound of MUTT-ONE’s machine gun caused birds to abandon the trees. Three of its rounds hit the Maybach two inches behind its front wheel. The impact shook the entire car. Three more rounds aimed at those entry holes knocked the sedan slightly sideways, disabling it.
MUTT-TWO’s machine guns sounded next, aimed at the troop carrier, causing the mercenaries aboard it to leap off onto the road. Some took cover behind the vehicle while others lay on the road in the knee-high grass that edged the one lane on both sides, providing twenty yards of clearing between the road and the forest. The fighter manning the U.S. military M2 machine gun on the Toyota’s bed began firing indiscriminately into the trees in the direction of MUTT-TWO. His shots became erratic when the Toyota’s driver suddenly began backing up, running the truck off the road next to the passenger side of the Maybach to shield it from the gunfire coming from the woods.
Kim zeroed in on the machine gunner and fired a burst of rounds from MUTT-ONE, killing him. Kim now concentrated his aim on the engines of the two still mobile trucks to prevent Gromyko from escaping in them. Neither the Toyota nor the troop carrier was armored, so their engines proved easy to destroy. Having disabled both, he unleashed MUTT-TWO’s twin guns at the troop carrier, riddling its cab and puncturing its rear gasoline tank. The mercenaries who had been clustered around it ran, anticipating a probable explosion.
“Stay in the car,” Petrov told Gromyko. He exited from the passenger side into the narrow space created between the Maybach and Toyota truck. Two mercenaries had unloaded crates from the Tacoma, which Petrov opened. Inside one was an assortment of Russian F1 and American MK2 hand grenades, purchased locally. He urged the two fighters nearest him to begin throwing them in the direction of fire. The second crate contained more lethal weaponry—RPO-A Shmel—disposable single-shot Russian-made rocket launchers. He grabbed one of the 93 mm–caliber tubes fitted with an RPO-Z incendiary warhead and fired it into the forest in the direction of MUTT-TWO. Unbeknownst to Petrov, Kim was in the process of moving both MUTTs. The fired warhead exploded, scorching the ground vegetation and downing three trees in a brilliant burst of yellow flames. But MUTT-TWO was untouched.
Petrov ordered his men to stop shooting, and for a moment, it was eerily silent along the road.
Having now been repositioned, MUTT-ONE unleashed a barrage of .50-caliber rounds at the Toyota truck, pockmarking its red exterior and shattering its glass.
A half-dozen mercenaries began running south up the road, abandoning the firefight. Others retreated to the grass on the left side of the road between the vehicles and the tree line where Garrett was hiding. He watched one fighter as he approached, seeking cover within a few feet of him. Garrett held his fire, not wishing to expose himself.
While the mercenaries were shooting into the forest from their hiding spots, Petrov remained upright, as if daring his enemy to kill him. He tossed aside the spent RPO-A Shmel and removed another one, which he shoulder-fired in the direction of MUTT-ONE to his left. Kim was already moving the motorized machine gun. Another thunderous explosion. Another fireball. More underbrush now in flames and trees toppled. More grenades thrown. It seemed impossible that any living being could survive the rocket blast.
Kim returned fire with MUTT-TWO stationed to Petrov’s right, aiming his guns at the pinned-down mercenaries near the abandoned troop carrier. One screamed in pain when wounded. Kim moved his aim toward the Toyota, sweeping it with rifle fire, killing the two fighters throwing grenades from either end of it, along with the Maybach’s driver, who had foolishly left the safety of the luxury sedan to help.
Petrov drew another RPO-A Shmel, this one loaded with a thermobaric warhead, which he fired at MUTT-TWO. The rocket flew wildly to its left, a mishap that accidentally had it striking the location where MUTT-TWO was repositioning itself. A flash on Kim’s computer screen confirmed its demise. With only the heavy machine gun still operational, Kim began pulling MUTT-ONE deeper back into the trees.
Petrov fired yet another rocket, causing a loud explosion and fire near where MUTT-ONE had been. To protect the mechanical killing machine, Kim did not giv
e up its position by returning fire.
Again, Petrov ordered his mercenaries to stop firing and the ambush scene became quiet.
Petrov signaled his fighters to move from their hiding spots across the grass separating them from the forest. They walked gingerly toward the fallen limbs and still-smoking grounds that had been cleared by the rockets.
Petrov and one fighter remained behind to protect Gromyko, who emerged from the Maybach, thinking the assault had ended.
Having drawn back farther into the trees, Kim fired MUTT-ONE at the soldiers pursuing it, causing them to drop onto the forest floor. One of the mercenaries bolted toward the gunfire, heaving a grenade with all his strength.
It landed a few feet from MUTT-ONE’s track plates. It exploded, destroying the tread, grounding the machine.
Kim waited as the mercenaries slowly edged forward. Waited until they were near enough to see that they had been fighting hardware. Having never seen such a machine, they grouped around it. Their leader raised his two-way radio to report to Petrov.
Kim pushed a detonate switch and MUTT-ONE exploded into pieces of deadly shrapnel.
The blast drowned out the suppressed double tap from Garrett’s newly acquired SIG Sauer. He had fired after emerging from the forest and making his way across the grassy area behind the vehicles so that he was now less than fifteen steps from the Maybach’s driver’s side. His shots had hit their target—the mercenary who’d stayed behind with Petrov to protect Gromyko. He’d been standing at the front of the Toyota watching the woods when he was fatally wounded.
Petrov suddenly realized the retreating machine-gun fire and blast had been designed to draw his fighters away from the Maybach. He cursed for not paying attention to the woods behind him. His rear flank.
The broad-shouldered Russian tossed aside the spent rocket launcher and shoved Gromyko down toward the ground in the gap between the Maybach and the Toyota. He drew his Makarov pistol and turned to face Garrett, who was approaching from the vehicle’s driver’s side.
Garrett had removed his head covering. His head appeared out of proportion to the expansive ghillie suit that padded his frame. He could only see Petrov’s head above the Maybach as the Russian glared at him across the luxury sedan’s roof. Garrett’s target was much smaller than what Petrov could see. The Russian raised his pistol to fire across the Maybach at the same moment that Garrett aimed his SIG Sauer. Only ten feet separated them. Garrett had once seen a lieutenant empty the clip in his semi-automatic pistol at a Taliban fighter who was shooting back at him in close quarters. Both missed. Hitting a paper target was different from firing at a man trying to kill you. But Garrett and Petrov were not inexperienced marksmen subject to panic. Neither flinched. Petrov’s slug grazed the fringe on the right shoulder of Garrett’s ghillie suit near his neck. Garrett’s SIG Sauer struck the Russian in the center of his nose. He dropped.
Garrett hurried around the Maybach’s trunk. Gromyko was crouched near the car’s front tire, holding his PSM pistol.
When Gromyko had exited the car’s backseat, he had left the passenger door open. Garrett ducked behind it as Gromyko began shooting. PSMs were generally loaded with rounds designed to penetrate Kevlar vests, but they were no match for the Maybach’s armored door and bullet-resistant glass. Gromyko kept shooting until his gun was empty.
Garrett stepped from behind the passenger door and peered down at the general, who was still kneeling next to the front tire and clutching his useless weapon.
“I’m unarmed. I surrender,” Gromyko cried. He dropped his pistol. “You can arrest me now.” He held out his wrists.
In that moment, Garrett thought about Valerie Mayberry. He saw her sitting in a wheelchair, staring out at the gardens. He placed his SIG Sauer semi-auto on the top of the Maybach’s roof.
“What did you tell me at the laboratory when you poisoned Yakov Pavel?” he asked rhetorically. “That Russian saying, ‘He is brave when fighting against sheep, and when fighting against a brave man, he’s a sheep himself’?”
From a slit inside his ghillie suit, Garrett withdrew his tactical knife. Using a blade made killing much more intimate than a bullet, much more personal.
And that was exactly what Garrett wanted.
A Partial Listing of Murders and Other Mysterious Deaths During the Putin Era
As this novel was going to press, General Colonel Igor Korobov, the Russian mastermind behind the 2018 Novichok poisonings in Salisbury, England, died under mysterious circumstances after being personally reprimanded by President Putin. According to press reports, Korobov emerged shaken and in sudden “ill health” after being admonished for mishandling the attempted murders of former Russian military officer and double agent for British intelligence Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal. As in this novel, the Kremlin deals harshly in real life when those overseeing clandestine murder plots fail.
Putin Critics
Mikhail Lesin: Found dead in her Washington, D.C., hotel room in November 2015.
Alexander Litvinenko: Former KGB agent poisoned drinking tea laced with deadly polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006.
Anna Politkovskaya: Crusading journalist and author of Putin’s Russia, in which she accused Putin of turning his country into a police state, shot point-blank in an elevator outside her apartment.
Natalia Estemirova: Journalist who uncovered human rights abuses by Russia in Chechnya, was abducted from her home, shot in head.
Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova: Human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov represented Putin critics, and was murdered by gunmen outside the Kremlin. Journalist Baburova, walking with him, was fatally shot when she tried to help him.
Boris Nemtsov: Former deputy prime minister of Russia under Boris Yeltsin who accused Putin of accepting bribes from oligarchs, was shot four times walking home from a restaurant.
Boris Berezovsky: Russian oligarch who fled to Britain after a bitter dispute with Putin. Was unfortunate victim of a suspicious death at home in March 2013 after threatening to “bring Putin down.”
Paul Klebnikov: Chief editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine who had exposed corruption of Putin’s friends, was murdered during a drive-by shooting.
Sergei Yushenkov: Russian politician who founded a political party critical of Putin, was fatally shot in his face.
Yuri Petrovich Shchekochikhin: Writer and liberal lawmaker in the Russian parliament, Shchekochikhin died in July 2003 from a mysterious illness a few days before his scheduled departure to meet with FBI investigators. His medical documents have been “classified” by the Russian authorities.
Journalists and Writers
2000
February 1—Vladimir Yatsina, Homicide
February 10—Ludmila Zamana, Homicide
March 9—Artyom Borovik, Homicide
April 17—Oleg Polukeyev, Homicide
May 17—Boris Gashev, Homicide
July 16—Igor Domnikov, Homicide
July 26—Sergei Novikov, Homicide
September 21—Iskander Khatloni, Homicide
October 3—Sergei Ivanov, Homicide
October 18—Georgy Garibyan, Homicide
October 20—Oleg Goryansky, Homicide
October 21—Raif Ablyashev, Homicide
November 20—Pavel Asaulchenko, Homicide
November 23—Adam Tepsurkayev, Homicide
November 28—Nikolai Karmanov, Homicide
2001
February 1—Eduard Burmagin, Homicide
February 24—Leonid Grigoryev, Homicide
March 8—Andrei Pivovarov, Homicide
March 31—Oleg Dolgantsev, Homicide
May 17—Vladimir Kirsanov, Homicide
September 11—Andrei Sheiko, Homicide
September 19—Eduard Markevich, Homicide
November 5—Elina Voronova, Homicide
November 16—Oleg Vedenin, Homicide
November 21—Alexander Babaikin, Homicide
December 1—Boris Mityurev, Homicide
2002
January 18—Svetlana Makarenko, Homicide
March 4—Konstantin Pogodin, Homicide
March 8—Natalya Skryl, Homicide
March 31—Valery Batuyev, Homicide
April 1—Sergei Kalinovsky, Homicide
April 4—Vitaly Sakhn-Vald, Homicide
April 25—Leonid Shevchenko, Homicide
April 29—Valery Ivanov, Homicide
May 20—Alexander Plotnikov, Homicide
June 6—Pavel Morozov, Homicide
June 25—Oleg Sedinko, Homicide
July 20—Nikolai Razmolodin, Homicide
July 21—Maria Lisichkina Homicide
July 27—Sergei Zhabin, Homicide
August 18—Nikolai Vasiliev, Homicide
August 25—Paavo Voutilainen, Homicide
September 20—Igor Salikov, Homicide
October 2—Yelena Popova, Homicide
October 19—Leonid Plotnikov Homicide
December 21—Dmitry Shalayev, Homicide
2003
January 7—Vladimir Sukhomlin, Homicide by police
January 11—Yury Tishkov, Homicide
February 21—Sergei Verbitsky, Homicide
April 18—Dmitry Shvets, Homicide
July 3—Yury Shchekochikhin, Homicide
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