KHARKIV OBLAST
With Harvath’s help, the Ukrainians back at the school were victorious, defeating the last of the Russians who had been attacking their position.
In the immediate aftermath, they topped up their ammo and assessed their situation. The news about Oleh’s death hit hard. He had been well-liked among his comrades. He was one of the youngest in their group, and they had seen it as their duty to watch over him. They understood that there had been nothing that Harvath could do. They didn’t blame him. More to the point, they appreciated that Harvath had finished the sniper off on Oleh’s behalf. A small team prepared to retrieve Oleh’s body.
The bulk of the soldiers carried out the task of sweeping the village, searching for any Russian soldiers who might still be alive.
They found an old barn where the Russians had set up camp. There were a few supplies there, enough to hold them over until they could be reinforced, which wasn’t going to happen until the day after tomorrow at the earliest.
“What do you mean ‘reinforced’?” Harvath asked.
“Our orders are to hold the bridge,” replied Givi, their APC driver, who had managed to raise superiors via his field radio.
“Not to get these men to the front?”
Givi pointed at all the dead Russian soldiers in the street and said, “This is the front now.”
While not happy with the change of plans, Harvath understood the situation. It was the nature of war. Bridges were valuable. If any others in the area had fallen under enemy control or had been destroyed, this bridge might be the only one left connecting the Ukrainians with the larger battlefield. They couldn’t let the Russians have it. But that left Harvath with a problem.
“I can’t wait for your reinforcements to get here,” he said. “How do I get to my men? It needs to be tonight.”
Givi thought for a minute. “Obviously, our APC is not available because you blew it up.”
Harvath held up his hand to stop the man. “Technically, it was the Russians.”
“Technically, you are correct.”
“So, what are my other options?”
“There are two Russian vehicles inside the barn.”
“Tell me one is a tank,” said Harvath.
“No. There are no tanks. Only a cargo truck and a small, off-road utility vehicle.”
“I’ll take it.”
“You can’t take it,” said Givi. “I need both here. But I will make you a deal.”
“What is it?”
“Since you are Special Services Group, I assume you have experience blowing things up.”
Harvath nodded. “I’ve blown up a few things over my career.”
“Any bridges?”
“One or two. Why?”
“Then you know what you’re doing. None of us have that kind of experience.”
“I don’t understand,” said Harvath. “You’re supposed to protect this bridge, not blow it up.”
“Exactly. We’re going to need to use it. And as I said when we first arrived, I need to make sure that it hasn’t been rigged. If we can find a boat and get some flashlights, would you be willing to go underneath and check it out?”
Harvath wasn’t crazy about yet another delay. Glancing at his watch, he tried to estimate how much time this new task would take.
“If you do this,” the Ukrainian added, “I will personally drive you to your men. What do you think? Do we have a deal?”
“For Oleh,” said Harvath, sticking out his hand.
“For Oleh,” Givi replied, shaking it.
The Ukrainians found an old, aluminum fishing boat, painted puke green, from a bombed-out garage at the edge of the village that somehow had escaped damage. In the fading light, it looked seaworthy, but Harvath couldn’t be positive until he got it in the water.
Accompanying him was one of the larger soldiers, whose job was to man the oars and keep the boat steady against the river’s current.
They unfastened the soft top of the off-road utility vehicle—a jeep-like, Soviet-era UAZ-469, laid the boat across the back, and drove it down to the water, upstream from the bridge.
Once satisfied that it would stay afloat, Harvath and his oarsman shoved off.
Despite being in a hurry, Harvath forced himself to slow down and take his time. He, after all, was going to be one of the first people to cross this bridge. It was in his literal best interest to make sure it was safe.
Coming to that conclusion, however, was a colossal pain in the ass. The amount of wiring that ran beneath the structure was mind-boggling. There were years’ worth of electrical lines, telephone lines, and what looked like an old telegraph cable. What there wasn’t, were explosives.
After having worked his way across the river and back, Harvath was confident that the bridge was safe.
Dragging the boat ashore, he discovered that they had another problem to deal with.
“We can’t find any paint,” said Givi.
“For what?”
“The UAZ. When we capture Russian vehicles, we repaint them—at least partially, so people know they belong to the good guys.”
“Don’t you have a Ukrainian flag or something we can drape over the hood?”
“We did,” said Givi, mimicking the explosion of the APC, then adding, “But not anymore.”
“Not my fault,” Harvath reminded him.
“I know. The Russians did it. And they’re continuing to be an additional part of our problem.”
“In what way?”
“As we saw, our intelligence about this area was not as fresh as it should be. We don’t know if there are more Russians between us and the battlefield.”
“Which means,” said Harvath, “driving a Russian vehicle could be a good thing.”
“Or a very bad thing. As the reports of what happened here circulate, everyone’s going to be on edge. It’s getting dark. And nighttime is the worst. You’re tired and your mind starts playing tricks. You begin to see and hear Russians everywhere. We could be mistaken for the enemy.”
“Which, with us rolling around in one of their vehicles, could also happen in broad daylight,” said Harvath. “What’s Plan B?”
Givi, again, thought for a moment and then said, “In the Kherson region, our soldiers have been painting a white cross on their vehicles. But we don’t have any white paint, either.”
“I’ll handle the paint,” Harvath replied. “You radio forward and let them know we’re coming. Tell them the type of vehicle we are driving and that ours will have white crosses on the hood and doors. Make sure that they know any patrols or checkpoints need to let us pass.”
As Givi got on his radio, Harvath hopped in the UAZ and drove it back to the school.
In the past, there had been some small, tradecraft-style elements he had used to identify his vehicles—things like a ballcap or a certain colored folder on the dash, a chem light behind the grille, or a special LED in the corner of the windshield. But those had been civilian vehicles and they hadn’t been in a war zone. He wanted something as unmistakable as possible.
Back at the school, it took him several minutes to track down everything he was looking for. There was neither an art classroom nor an art supplies cabinet. While he had held out hope that there might be some children’s paint lying around, it was only a slim hope. Finding some, especially under these circumstances, would have been like hitting the lottery.
On the other hand, there was one item that was in good supply—chalk. Gathering up every piece he could find, he placed them in a plastic bag and pulverized them with the butt of his pistol, creating a fine dust.
In a bucket, he mixed what appeared to be some sort of talcum powder with water and glue. Then he added the chalk and adjusted the mix of ingredients as he stirred and came to the consistency he wanted.
While he allowed it to rest, he searched out something he could use to apply the paint to the vehicle. He found an old sponge in the school’s bathroom. It would have to do.
After painting the symbol on the hood, doors, and canvas roof of the vehicle, he drove over to the barn to meet up with Givi.
There was one additional item he wanted. By the time he got there, the Ukrainian soldier already had it waiting.
“That’s it?” Harvath asked, looking at the aged device sitting on a table.
“Be grateful,” Givi replied. “Most Russian units don’t have any night-vision capability at all.”
To help them avoid enemy detection, Harvath wanted to do as much of the drive as they could with the lights off. The only way that would be possible was with night vision.
“How are you going to hold that device, steer the vehicle, and shift gears?”
“You’re going to shift for me,” said Givi.
“And on your way back?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
Harvath didn’t like it, but Givi was a soldier. He knew the risks.
After confirming a handful of important points on the map, they loaded their gear into the UAZ.
“Good job on the crosses,” the Ukrainian said, admiring Harvath’s work. “Where’d you find the paint?”
“I didn’t find it. I made it.”
“You made paint?”
Harvath nodded. “After demolition, the most important instruction at Special Services Group is art class. You should see my sculptures.”
Givi laughed and they headed out.
Driving across the bridge, neither man said a word until they got to the other side. Then it was Harvath who broke the silence. “Like I said, totally safe.”
“I never doubted it,” Givi responded, peering through his night-vision device. “Third gear, please.”
Harvath helped shift and soon enough they had left the bridge and the village behind. They were in the open countryside. As the road straightened out, Givi asked Harvath to shift into fourth, the UAZ’s highest gear. Once that was complete, his assistance would not be needed for a while.
Using the red beam feature on his flashlight, Harvath followed along on a map Givi had taken off one of the dead Russians. Only the bridge had been marked. Other than that, there was no useful Russian intelligence on it.
During daylight hours, the drive would have taken about a half hour. Driving under low-light conditions, however, especially once they got into the windy portions in the hills, meant the trip would take almost an hour. Harvath had slung his rifle in front of him, at the ready.
Givi didn’t mind small talk and so Harvath engaged the man. He had a wife and three kids back home in western Ukraine. He was a truck driver by profession. The day the Russians invaded, he enlisted.
He had requested to be placed as close to the front as possible. The soldiers going toe-to-toe with the Russians were the ones he wanted to support. He had never been in a dismounted firefight until this afternoon. It was the first time he had ever fired his personal weapon in combat.
“How did it feel?” Harvath asked him.
The Ukrainian answered honestly, “Terrifying.”
“It gets easier.”
“I don’t know that I want it to. Shooting other human beings, even Russians, should always be difficult. It shouldn’t be like a video game. You should have to think about what you’re doing. You should have to weigh every life you take.”
It was a deep, rather philosophical statement, especially coming from a truck driver who admitted to having dropped out of school before the seventh grade. But while traits like morality, dignity, and integrity could be incubated in a classroom, they weren’t dependent upon how many years you spent in one. Life offered plenty of experiences through which a person could develop their character. Harvath could only imagine how much Givi, as an over-the-road trucker, had seen.
They continued to make small talk until they reached the hills. At that point, the Ukrainian needed to fully focus. Not only were the roads tricky, but the occasional remains of ruined military vehicles were a reminder that they were getting ever closer to the front. Harvath kept his weapon tight to his chest.
Fifteen minutes into the hills, he saw a flash of light up ahead. “What was that?”
Givi brought the UAZ to a stop and peered through the night-vision device. “Looks like a checkpoint.”
“Ukrainian?”
“I can’t tell.”
Using his red light to illuminate the map, Harvath pointed at it and said, “This is where we are. According to what we were told, there isn’t a checkpoint until here, in ten klicks.”
“It could be Russians. They have been known to set up fake checkpoints. Sometimes it’s to interdict troops or supplies. Other times to collect intelligence. Sometimes both.”
“Call it in. Let’s see if we can verify what’s going on.”
Givi picked up his radio and tried to reach the element expecting them up at the front. No matter how many times he tried, nor how he angled the radio’s antenna out the window, all he could hear was static.
“Bad terrain,” he said. “I can’t get a clear signal. What do you want to do?”
Explaining his plan, Harvath traced the road in front of them with his finger and picked the spot he wanted to be dropped. Givi nodded and got the UAZ moving.
Four minutes later, the two vehicles blocking the road ahead of him flipped on their high beams and a pair of soldiers ordered him to stop and exit his vehicle without his weapon. The Ukrainian did as he was ordered.
When the soldiers got close enough, the first thing he noticed was that they were wearing the same uniform he was. While one kept him covered, the other went to investigate his UAZ. Holding his hand up against the glare of the headlights, he could make out at least four other figures, all holding rifles, spaced a good distance apart from each other.
“Who else are you traveling with?” the soldier asked.
“No one else,” Givi replied. “This is a medical transport. I am going to pick up wounded men from the front.”
The soldier searching the UAZ touched one of the freshly painted crosses and held up his gloved hand to show his colleague the paint that had come off.
“Where did this vehicle come from?” the soldier continued.
Givi shrugged and replied, “Russia?”
“Where did you get it?”
“We found it.”
“Found it where?”
“About fifty kilometers back. Near the spot where our APC broke down. What’s the problem?” asked the Ukrainian, who then raised his voice as if he was getting frustrated. “No one told you I was coming?”
“Calm down,” the soldier said.
“Calm down? There are wounded men at the front. Men who need to be evacuated. Every second we waste is a second off their lives. Fucking shit.”
From his position in the trees behind the checkpoint, Harvath had heard the conversation, but hadn’t been able to understand it. At least not until Givi had used the code words at the end—Suka blyat. These were not Ukrainians. They were Russians and the checkpoint was bogus.
Slinging his rifle over his back, Harvath drew his knife and crept toward the nearest soldier.
Approaching him from behind, he covered the man’s mouth with his left hand and used his right to press his blade against his throat. Then, very quietly, he whispered in the man’s ear the phrase that Zira had taught him: “Say palianytsia.”
Partially uncovering the man’s mouth, he listened, but instead of saying the passphrase in Ukrainian, the man began to babble in Russian. Harvath sliced his throat and dropped him to the ground.
With the soldiers focused on what was happening in the headlights of their vehicles, they paid no attention to other threats that might be lurking in the dark.
Harvath’s task for now was to eliminate the rest of the Russians without letting any harm come to Givi.
If he’d had a suppressed .22 pistol with subsonic ammunition, he might have risked putting bullets in the three remaining soldiers behind the checkpoint vehicles. The two Russians with Givi probably wouldn’t have heard a thing. But as it was, even his suppressed Galil made a distinct crack when fired. The moment that Russians heard it, it would have been like a starting pistol going off. The race for cover, and maybe even to put a bullet in Givi, would have been on. Harvath would have to stick with his knife.
The sloppiness of the Russian soldiers was another testament to the poorly trained fodder that Peshkov was feeding into the maw of the war.
Harvath grabbed the next soldier from behind and plunged his blade into the notch at the base of the man’s skull, the foramen magnum, and twisted his knife like a corkscrew, severing his spinal cord and, with a slap to the pommel of the blade, turning out his lights for good.
He took the next soldier out by coming over the top of the man’s right shoulder, plunging his blade through the base of his neck, and executing a flick of his wrist that sliced fully through the man’s throat, severing both his arteries. Lowering him to the ground, Harvath left him to silently bleed out in the road while he stalked his final Russian soldier.
This man was a challenge. He seemed nervous. He was pacing—two feet forward, two feet back. Making him an even more difficult target was the fact that he kept changing his orientation. One moment he was watching the interrogation taking place in the headlights, the next he was looking off into the woods on his side of the road. Getting the drop on this Russian pinball might not be possible. There was, however, something else Harvath could try, but his timing would have to be perfect. Givi’s life depended on it.
The best way to kill three birds was to have more than one stone. In Harvath’s case, the best way was to have plenty of stones and a frag grenade.
Staying out of sight, he leaned against one of the checkpoint vehicles and prepared his rifle. Normally, a shot like this, out in the middle of nowhere without a night-vision scope, would be next to impossible. But thanks to the Russians having left their high beams on, he liked his odds.
Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out a frag. Peering behind the vehicle, he saw the nervous Russian soldier still pacing nearby—two feet forward, two feet back; facing the interrogation, turning to look off into the woods.
Resetting himself, Harvath steadied his breathing. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that once the pin was out of the grenade, the sooner you got it away from you, the better. He was about to violate that lesson—big-time.
To be clear, pulling the pin didn’t initiate the fuse inside the grenade. The pin was merely a safety device. Releasing the lever—the concave handle on the side of the grenade—that had been previously held in place by the pin was what got the party started. Its biggest drawback, though, was its unpredictability.
Once the lever had been released, the time to detonation could be anywhere from two to six seconds. That was why there had been so many movie and TV scenes depicting a grenade landing in a foxhole, only to have soldiers pick it up and throw it back at an enemy position, where it then detonated. That was what could happen if you had a slow burner.
If you had a fast burner and let go of the lever without immediately tossing it, you could lose your hand, your arm, half your body, or even your life. The bottom line was that it was a crapshoot; totally uncertain. There was only one way to find out.
He pulled the pin, released the lever, and counted. One. Two. Three. Then he lobbed the grenade through the air at the pacing Russian.
The device made a perfect arc and detonated just as it was about to hit the ground in front of him, killing him instantly.
Before the other two Russians could figure out what had happened, Harvath was on his rifle, pressing his trigger.
He took out the soldier who was interrogating Givi first. The round went right through the man’s right eye. The second soldier, the one who had been examining the UAZ, was harder to hit because the moment the grenade had detonated, he dove for cover behind the vehicle.
Harvath hammered the UAZ with rounds of 7.62 from his Galil, allowing Givi a chance to escape.
The Ukrainian ran toward him and didn’t stop running until he was behind the checkpoint vehicle next to him.
Picking up an AK-47 from one of the dead Russians, Givi then took over laying down withering cover fire on the UAZ. As he did, Harvath pulled the last two fragmentation grenades from his pouch, pulled their pins, and sent them hurtling in the direction of the last Russian soldier.
The added distance meant that Harvath didn’t have to worry about how long they would take to detonate. And while he was no Tom Brady, the throws were pretty damn good.
One of the frags landed right behind the vehicle, and the other landed atop the soft canvas roof. Both detonated at the same moment, shredding the Russian with shrapnel and taking him out of the fight.
It was also the final nail in the coffin for the UAZ, which had already taken heavy damage from their rifle rounds.
As it burned, Givi said to Harvath, “That’s the second vehicle of mine you have destroyed.”
“In all fairness,” Harvath replied, inserting a fresh magazine into his Galil, “I think the Russians should get the blame for this one, too.”
The Ukrainian took a step back and looked at the two checkpoint vehicles. One was a Polish armored personnel carrier known as an AMZ Dzik, capable of carrying eight people. The other was a Ukrainian light armored vehicle known as a Novator. It was based on the Ford F-550 chassis and could carry five. Both had been clearly marked as Ukrainian military.
There was no telling where the Russians had gotten them, but as the men inspected the vehicles, it was obvious that they had seen heavy fighting. The dried blood inside and outside both left little to the imagination as to what had become of their crews.
Needing a similar vehicle to replace his ruined APC, Givi opted for the Dzik, while Harvath took the Novator. They divided the supplies, including the extra jerry cans of diesel fuel the Russians had been carrying, and then fired up their rides and headed for the front.
Finally, Harvath would be linking up with his team. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.