Miguel, Pavel, and the Major pored over maps and adjusted the battle plan at the front of Alan Sabel’s jet. We were on our way to a tiny target area in the Baltic. Watson slumped in the back, unloved. I never told anyone why he was unloved; they just picked up on my vibe and ignored him.
Alan Sabel sat across the aisle from me. He’d spent the first two hours of flight yelling at anyone he could get on the phone. How did the Russians force her down? How could NATO let that happen? Where was the US Air Force? Why? How? When? Who? He spent the next two hours of the flight yelling at everyone in the Sabel empire. How did they know she was coming? Who told them which jet she took? How could the pilots let themselves be taken? Who is responsible, damn it? The Major took the brunt of his anger.
Always the alpha-executive, giving orders and demanding actions, he eventually slumped in defeat. Then he was lost in his guilt-ridden thoughts about how he managed to get Ms. Sabel’s parents killed over two decades ago. He stared at the photograph Strangelove had sent him of her bruised and beaten body.
The Major worked around his demands to assemble a team. Alan Sabel refused to let anyone from the other Sabel offices undertake saving his daughter. Even though the Oslo, Stockholm, and Warsaw offices were closer—he had to be there. He wanted only the best, most trusted operatives—Miguel, the Major, and me—on the team.
I was lost in my own problems. Sylvia’s face wouldn’t leave me. When I told her the Russians were holding Ms. Sabel for ransom, I expected her to wish me well. A hero’s sendoff. But her negative reaction took me by surprise. She was afraid of falling in love with the kind of man who might come home in a casket. It spoke volumes about why I wasn’t married and never would be until I left this death-defying job. No mother would want to wait for the father of her children to come home in a coffin. The soldier’s wife is a terrible job held only by saints.
Our brief, but unconsummated, flirtation had been in utter denial of our careers. She assumed I was a well-paid lackey to a billionaire, fetching lost sunglasses and tongue-lashing servants as needed. Instead, I was off to invade a lonely corner of Russia, fighting a nuclear power with no tangible support from the USA. A suicide mission.
I had no idea what she did for a living.
Mercury tapped me on the shoulder. Did it occur to you, my brutha, that a girl who wears a tight, red dress before lunch and willingly flees the Iberian Peninsula, might not be Mother Teresa? Or maybe she does a different kind of social work—
I said, Can we focus on Ms. Sabel for a moment?
No need to get salty, bro. You got my 4-1-1: Pavel’s legit; Watson walks point; and Strangelove is outside his mandate, so he can’t command the resources he needs until Popov calls him back.
I asked, Where is Popov?
Surgery. You did a number on him, dawg. He’s having another leg reconstruction. When he comes out of the ether, he’ll be coming for you. And he won’t be Mr. Happy.
Mr. Sabel held his phone across the aisle and pointed at the picture of Ms. Sabel crucified. “We can’t let this guy live. You hear me?”
She was splayed out like a pinned insect. The wall behind her was smooth, gray cement. Beneath her, the same. In the picture’s corner, a high, short window painted black.
I grabbed the phone out of his hand and deleted the picture. “He’s trying to get inside your head. You’re letting him. Sit tight. We’ve got this.”
Mercury said, You damn well better have this, young blood. You mess this up, we’re through. The Dii Concentes is unanimous on this one. You can’t build a shrine big enough to make up for losing Pia-Caesar-Sabel.
I said, I’d kill myself if I lost her.
Suicide? None of this do-it-yourself bullshit, homie. Anything short of success and we’ll have Strangelove peel your skin with a letter opener. With those things, only the pointy-end is sharp enough—
I said, Yeah, I get it.
Miguel and the Major trooped back to the cargo hold and opened the door. Pavel joined them. Watson and Emily were the only ones without parachute experience. Pavel had been in the KSO—Russian special ops—and knew how to jump. Miguel would tandem with Watson, I would carry Emily. We suited up with Sabel Liquid Armor, helmets, visors, parachutes, and emergency life vests.
Miguel leaned close to me. “Tell me again why I’m trusting my life to a Russian who tried to kill me?”
“Mercury vouched for him.”
He gave me a long, solemn look.
I looked at Pavel. His face was white, his forehead clammy. If Mercury pulled a “just kidding” on this one, my next stop would be to sign up at the nearest synagogue.
Alan trudged into our cramped space. “Where’s my gear?”
I waited for the Major to speak up. She turned away. I faced him. “You’re not coming.”
“The hell I’m not. I own this outfit—”
“You’re not qualified. You’d be a huge liability. Your presence would jeopardize the mission. Not a discussion. Sir.”
“Jonelle!” He stared at the back of the Major’s head. He was the only one who used her first name.
“He’s right.” She kept her back to him. “If you come, Pia isn’t the only one who would die tonight.”
“What are you saying?”
The Major turned and grabbed his arms with tears in her eyes. “You have to come to grips with reality: she’s already dead.”
“You can’t believe that.”
“If you start with false hope, you can only fail.”
Miguel and I glanced at each other. She was lying, but we could guess why. Strangelove would keep Ms. Sabel alive until Alan showed up. Then he would kill her in front of him to get what he wanted. Just like Bridgette Jallet. That’s why Alan couldn’t come with us. We were setting him up for a second chance. If we failed, he could try again.
Alan stormed away, raging in loud profanities.
The jet had been dropping and slowing. We screwed in our earbuds and put on our helmets. The pilot put the jet in a tight, slow circle a few hundred feet over the Baltic. A Gulfstream is the opposite of an ideal jump plane, but our pilot was a master craftsman and held it a touch above stall speed. On his signal, we opened the cargo hold and rolled out into the darkness.
With Mercury’s guidance, Emily and I landed like a seagull on the waiting stealth-Zodiac. The others floundered in the surf until they were picked up by the other three craft waiting in the dark. The six agents from the Sabel Stockholm office brought a good deal of firepower. When we were all aboard, they fired up the assault boats and we flew across the frigid black waters toward the Pregolya River in Kaliningrad.
We covered most of the distance on gas power, then switched to electric when we neared Russian patrol areas. It took a long time to get there because we valued stealth over speed. We beached on the river banks just below the building Belenov had identified as Strangelove’s.
Pavel swore there were too many guards, regulations, and logs for Strangelove to conduct a covert operation inside the building. But next to it stood a stout brick structure that once housed a coal generator in the days when Kaliningrad was the part of Prussia called Königsberg. It was the most likely site for his trap.
The street was quiet, a business district buttoned up for the night. We deployed our team. Three Swedes with silent drones would monitor our perimeter; the other three joined my team as we crept from the river bank.
The generator building was an empty warehouse with a warren of rooms and chambers in various states of decay. Pavel suggested we start with the ground floor offices. A few boarded-up windows leaked faint light from inside. We formed up, ready for the assault.
Mercury said, Where you going, homie? There’s a coal chute covered in weeds on the other side. Strangelove has no idea it’s even there.
“Hold up.” I waited until the team gave me the WTF? look. “I’ve got a better idea. This was a coal-fired plant. It has to have a coal chute.”
I took off for the far side and whacked through waist-high plant life, heading to the spot where my deadbeat god said it would be. The team looked impressed. Miguel saluted his appreciation for my divine intervention.
We sent Watson down first. As expected, he wasn’t happy about being my mine-canary. He used his initial report to complain—once again—about having a Sabel Dart gun instead of a real weapon. I saw no reason to tell him they weren’t even darts, just blanks.
I let him rant, then came after him. Once I arrived down the lengthy spillway, I gut-punched him. As he doubled over in pain, I whispered, “Mission-critical chatter only.”
The ruse with Watson was completely unnecessary, but it felt good.
The coal room was at least two levels below ground. Sabel Visors gave me an infrared look in the pitch black. The brick walls were coated with ancient coal dust. Otherwise, the chamber was barren. The team dropped down, assembled, and we took two stairs on opposite sides of the giant room.
The next floor up had one large empty space and several smaller rooms. One of the rooms held Tania and Dhanpal. Both were drugged and tied to iron pipes.
Dhanpal is a former SEAL. They’re a short, wiry, indestructible breed. He once ran a 100-mile race on a bet and came in third. His condition in that dark generator station was unrecognizable. His head lolled when I whispered to him. He knew it was me and wanted to respond but couldn’t. Tania was in the same state. We got them to their feet and sent them staggering back to the boats with Emily.
Mercury floated down from the ceiling. Six on the roof, bro. They still think you’re coming in from above. Four on the ground floor, hiding in offices. Bad news, though. I can’t find Pia-Caesar-Sabel.
I said, Why not? Do they have a better god on their side?
Whoa now. Mercury leaned back like I’d slapped him. No need to get nasty up in here. They got no gods. They’re holding back, waiting to see Alan-Caesar-Sabel in the flesh.
He didn’t come with us.
Dude. Do you think he’s the kind of guy who sits around waiting for you to bring his daughter home? He’s on his way.
I shuddered at the thought. Mr. Sabel was the kind of guy who would rent a helicopter and fly into the hornet’s nest on the roof. But I didn’t know what I could do about it.
Miguel handed out Sabel Darts-on-a-stick, handheld darts for silent operation. I moved the team into position below the stairs leading to the ground floor.
Pushing Watson in front, we entered the main gallery. It was a large empty space. On one side were two doors, slightly ajar; opposite were four doors, slightly ajar. They could take down waves of assault teams from their positions, each man taking a turn should the first man fail.
I slammed a dart into Watson’s butt and kicked him forward. He crashed face-first on the oak floor with a satisfying thud.
It was not the noise expected in the Russian playbook. They were waiting for the definitive signs of special-ops soldiers: nearly-silent footfalls rushing to a point, then stopping. After a specified interval without danger, a second soldier would advance. The sounds would softly repeat until our entire squad was exposed in the central space. Only then would the Russians launch their counterattack. Once we engaged with the first soldier, the second and third would join in a crossfire. The fourth man would stay in reserve. Conceivably, a Russian squad could take out an invading platoon.
But none of that happened because the noise they heard was a loud bump. No scurrying boots. No pause before the next invader joined the first. Which presented a problem for the Russians. They had to investigate. It could be a vagrant or a raccoon or an enemy. Someone had to find out.
He opened his door just enough to poke his head around. He had standard night vision goggles, the kind that needs a hint of light to operate. There wasn’t any. Turning on his flashlight for a split-second was his first and last mistake. I darted him.
The Sabel Dart is interchangeable with a regular 9mm bullet but, because the dart is twice the length of a standard projectile, there is far less gunpowder in the body. It makes a subtle bang, one entirely unfamiliar to a soldier. Which raised the curiosity factor exponentially for those waiting for a scouting report. Which brought out the second soldier across the way. It was a silent game of death. The first one to make a mistake would die. I darted the second soldier.
But I missed.
And that’s when the firefight erupted.
Russian number two fired blindly in the direction of my muzzle flash. My standard procedure being fire, move, fire, move—his bullets hit the wall.
I ducked into the storeroom of the first man I darted as Miguel came out of the stairwell firing on full-auto. One of our Stockholm boys came out of the other stairwell and joined in. I fired my H&K MP5SD through the plaster wall into the storeroom next to mine and heard a Russian die.
Three seconds later, the Major called a cease-fire and inspected the damage. Three of the four Russians were bleeding out. One was sleeping off the dart. Watson was out cold but, unfortunately, unhurt.
Our automatic weapons were sound-suppressed, making only a spitting noise. The Russians were less interested in subtlety, firing long and loud. The ambush team on the roof heard the staccato pops and read them like a telegraph. We heard their boots pounding down the old wooden stairs.
Our Swedes ran to positions below the staircases. Pavel, still wearing his Russian-issued gear, including his Russian infrared ID beacon, strode into the center. He gave his former teammates the all clear signal. They let down their guard—and lost the battle. Four of the six went down in a heap. The last two dropped their weapons and put up their hands.
I hate when they surrender. Because then you have to take care of them. You’re supposed to remember the Geneva Convention. Make them comfortable. Cut them a slice of cake.
“Larsson reporting.” The voice of our west side Swedish observer cut into my comm link. “Car coming. Five kilometers out. Single occupant. Driving fast toward your location.”
It was the third report from our perimeter observers. We could operate until Russian reinforcements came, so Larsson and Norfeldt were critical to our operations.
Pavel sauntered up to one of our POWs and berated him in Russian. It was pretty easy to understand his issues. It happens in every army from time to time. When an officer sends men on a mission ill-prepared and undermanned, as Pavel had been on Bornholm, he will face hell from the survivors. The young Russian’s defection was easy to appreciate. He was getting back at his superiors for losing his brothers-in-arms to Miguel and me.
Miguel let Pavel rant for a minute, then stabbed the officer with a dart. He did the same for the other prisoner. No Geneva rules about putting your captives to sleep. Saves on cake.
“Let’s search the building,” the Major ordered.
“She’s not here.” I stopped everyone in their tracks. “This building is all brick. She was in a concrete room with a half-window up high. Khrushchev-era concrete, smooth and ultra-gray.”
Pavel looked at me with a blank expression. His English was weak but he understood and began nodding and gesturing. In a thick Slavic accent, he said, “Da, podval, kladovka. Ehm, basement in Informatsionny Tsentr.”
We looked at each other. We were seven soldiers who knew what that meant. Strangelove had played us. Did he know we were relying on Pavel? Was Pavel in on it? Had they expected us to follow secret GPS locators to find Tania and Dhanpal? It didn’t matter. Ms. Sabel was in the heavily fortified building next door. They were waiting for us.
With grim determination, we shouldered our weapons and filed out.