CHAPTER SIXTY

 

 

 

Payne didn’t want to be accidentally shot by his sniper, so he called in the information about his vehicle. “Just a heads-up. Jarkko and I are headed toward the bridge on a golf cart.”

Archer laughed. “Trying to squeeze in nine before the Russians arrive?”

Payne grinned. “Something like that.”

Over the radio, Jones pretended to be annoyed. “You white dudes are all the same. Treating this world as your personal playground. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“Relax, man. You’re welcome to join us.”

“Yes,” Jarkko added. “We need a good caddy.”

“Screw you,” Jones said with a laugh. “I’m kind of busy at the moment. I’m trying to protect your lives with an act of heroism.”

“By shooting unarmed drones?” Payne asked.

“I actually had something bigger in mind.”

“Us, too,” Payne bragged. “At least, that’s what I’m planning. I think Jarkko needs a nap.”

Jarkko groaned. “Jarkko wanted revenge. Now Jarkko wants drink. Where is clubhouse?”

Archer cleared his throat. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I might need to cancel your plans. The Russians just changed course. They’re turning toward Island Two.”

Payne slammed on the brakes. “Fucking drones! They probably spotted our cart. Where are they headed now?”

“Toward the submarine,” Archer replied.

Jones chimed in. “We have a few men guarding the eastern side of isthmus. They’re half a klick from the sub. I can send them over.”

Payne pushed the accelerator to the floor and turned sharply to his right, much to Jarkko’s chagrin. “I’ll beat them there, but do it anyway. Just in case Jarkko starts to puke.”

 

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The third Russian boat cleared the southern tip of Island 1 and turned north. It headed past the exterior defensive walls that lined the western ridge of the island and the massive cannons that pointed toward a distant enemy that hadn’t crossed the horizon in years.

In the glory days of the fortress, Finnish soldiers would have manned those cannons, and the boat would have been sunk before it even approached the shore. But in this digital age, a consumer drone hovered high above the western flank, making sure that the boat was clear to approach the inlet of the western side of the isthmus between Island 1 and 2.

If Blokhin had been forthright and had shared his earlier blunder with his fellow pilots, they would have known what to look for on their control screens, but since he had chosen to conceal the information in order to protect his own ass, the pilot of the western drone made the same mistake as his team leader.

He guided the boat to a slaughter.

Kaiser’s men hid patiently in the thick trees on the higher ground. They waited until the rigid-hulled inflatable boat was dragged ashore by the Russians, who then turned and headed up the same ridge that Kaiser had climbed earlier.

And then his men opened fire from the trees.

One after another, the henchmen were mowed down in a torrent of copper and lead. As they died, they rolled back down the hill toward the rocky shore where they bled into the inlet like seals in an Inuit village. When the massacre was over, the shallow water had turned red, and six more goons were dead.

 

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During his advance planning, Volkov had studied the southernmost island of Suomenlinna like a chessboard. He realized it was well protected by bastions on three sides, and he knew the fourth side—the isthmus to the north—would undoubtedly be guarded.

And yet, Volkov had sent two boats there anyway.

To achieve victory, he knew he had to sacrifice some pawns.

His goal all along was to draw the attention of Kaiser’s men to the north while he headed to the large quay to the south. In his mind, it was the only suitable place for him to make an entrance, since it had literally been built for royalty.

Known as the King’s Gate, it was the iconic symbol of Suomenlinna and the main entrance to the fortress. Built on the site where the ship carrying King Adolf Frederick of Sweden had been anchored while he inspected the construction of the complex in 1752, the two-story gate was made with rustic masonry and framed with marble stones.

Two decades later, the gate had been transformed into a drawbridge, and wide stairs built from Swedish limestone had led down toward the water. Unfortunately, cannon fire during the Crimean War had destroyed the original quay and many of the steps in the nineteenth century, but the King’s Gate had been refurbished multiple times over the years, most recently for Suomenlinna’s 250th anniversary in 1998.

And the end result was quite impressive.

Particularly when approaching it by sea.

Impeccably dressed in a blue suit, Volkov felt like George Washington crossing the Delaware as he made his way toward the fortress, but unlike the courageous American general, Volkov remained seated in the back of his boat, hidden behind his men in case someone opened fire as they drew near.

“Are we clear?” Volkov asked on his comm.

Blokhin monitored his approach from above. As far as he could tell, the southeastern flank was wide open. “All clear, sir. Kaiser’s men are headed toward the submarine.”

“And where is Kaiser?”

“He is hiding in the tunnel to your south.”

 

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Prior to his mission briefing, Jones had asked to see a full inventory list in order to make sure that all of the equipment that he had requested had made it to Helsinki.

While going over their supplies, Jones’s eyes had practically popped out of his head when he had spotted one item in particular. He had instantly asked about its presence on Suomenlinna, and Kaiser had said it had been his job as a supply sergeant to know what the troops might need to complete their duties even before they realized it themselves.

Jones had laughed it off at the time. He didn’t think there was any chance in hell that he would be tempted to remove the item from its crate unless Volkov attempted a hostile insertion with a heavily armored helicopter, but lo and behold, it was the first thing Jones had thought of when the drones had made their appearance.

From personal experience, he knew that it was difficult to control drones in windy conditions without line of sight, so he reasoned that Volkov’s mission control would be located on a boat in the Gulf of Finland where they could keep an eye on things. And since he had accurately predicted that Volkov’s men would be based in Vallisaari, Jones felt there was a damn good chance that the boat would be floating in the water to the east of Suomenlinna.

Hiding in the trees between the isthmus to the north and the King’s Gate to the south, Jones used field binoculars to spot the motorboat just across the channel between the islands. He watched for a moment, just to make sure the men onboard were actually controlling the drones. Once he was certain of their involvement, he reached down and picked up his weapon.

Nicknamed the Vampir, the RPG-29 was a Soviet rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher. Adopted by the Soviet Army in 1989, it was the last RPG to be used by the Soviet military before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Over the years, it had been phased out by more modern rocket-propelled weapons, but it was easy to find on the black market in Eastern Europe. And in spite of its age, it was still incredibly lethal.

Particularly in the hands of an experienced soldier.

Jones placed the tube-style, breech-loading, anti-tank rocket system on his shoulder, and then lined up the boat with the optical sight on top of the launch tube. Underneath was a shoulder brace for proper positioning, along with a pistol-grip trigger mechanism.

Prior to launch, Jones stepped out of the trees and steadied his breath as he studied the movement of the sea. The craft bobbed ever so slightly in the water near the northern tip of Vallisaari. If it had been farther out in the water, it would have been a much more difficult shot, but from this distance, Jones knew that the drones were about to be grounded for good.

 

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Blokhin was focused on Volkov’s boat as it made its way toward the King’s Gate, but out of the corner of his eye, the hacker noticed a bright flash of light. He turned his head to the north and followed the loud roar as the sound drew closer.

Loaded with a TBG-29V thermobaric anti-personnel round, the Vampir had ignited the rocket before the projectile had even left the barrel, sending a massive discharge out of the rear of the weapon—which is why Jones had left the tree line. The missile instantly deployed eight fins as it left the launcher, which stabilized the rocket during its flight toward the boat.

“Fuck me,” Blokhin said in Russian.

A second later, he and his hacker friends were punished for the past several years of their lives, time spent covering up hundreds of murders and thousands of crimes for Volkov and his comrades. And in an ironic twist, the hackers’ deaths would never be reported—just like many of the crimes they had concealed—because the impact of the missile was so catastrophic that there would be no remains left to identify.

 

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Jones felt the shockwave across the channel as the boat erupted in flames and debris. Unlike a conventional condensed explosive, the thermobaric round used the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion, making the blast much more devastating.

Despite the show in front of him, Jones shifted his focus to the air above. He scanned the surrounding sky until his gaze latched onto the eastern drone as it plummeted from the sky and fell harmlessly into the cold water of the Gulf of Finland.

Behind him, the other three drones dropped as well.

Clearing the heavens of aerial surveillance.

And extinguishing Volkov’s main advantage.