Dead Fall, page 15
“Palianytsia,” he said as she walked away.
“Palianytsia!” she replied with a wave and another laugh.
Steering Harvath in the other direction, the Sergeant gave him the rundown of what they needed to accomplish and the time within which they had to do it.
“First, you get your uniform and other personal items from the quartermaster. Next, we will get you an ID. Then, finally, we will make a stop at the armory. You already have a rifle and a sidearm, so those won’t be necessary. But if you wish to pick up extra ammunition, magazines, and some grenades, you can do so then.”
“What about Javelins?”
The Sergeant chuckled. “Everybody wants Javelins. Nobody wants to go through the training.”
“I’m trained on Javelins.”
The Sergeant looked at Harvath’s paperwork, which was clipped to his clipboard. “I don’t see any certification here.”
“Trust me.”
“I trust God. Anyone else must make the request through their company commander.”
“Did you happen to see in my paperwork that I’m with Special Services Group?”
“Yes,” the man replied. “Which means your request will get fulfilled faster than most. I’m guessing one week. Two weeks tops.”
“Terrific,” Harvath replied, shaking his head. He was disappointed but not surprised by the bureaucracy. There wasn’t a military on the planet that didn’t suffer from some form of it. “What about the rest of the gear and equipment I requested?”
The Sergeant began looking through the paperwork once more, but Harvath stopped. He already knew that there was nothing there. “I’ll take it up with my team. Where are they?”
“At the front.”
“When will they get here?”
“They’re not coming to you. You’re going to them. There’s a transport departing in half an hour. If you move quickly enough, you can get a meal in you before you leave.”
“They were supposed to already be here waiting for me.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” the man stated. “Fighters were needed at the front. This is a war. We don’t have the luxury of allowing people to sit around.”
Harvath was transitioning from disappointment in the bureaucracy to being actively pissed off. His team was supposed to have been pulled from the line and returned to the base to do mission prep.
“Listen,” he said to the Ukrainian soldier, “I have my orders and they don’t include me going to the front just to collect my guys and bring them back here.”
“You aren’t coming back here,” the man responded. “According to your orders, you’re headed to a village called Kolodyazne. Once you rendezvous with your men, you’re more than halfway there. It would be a waste of time to come all the way back.”
“Then we compromise. Give me the gear my men requisitioned, and a vehicle, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
The harried Sergeant was growing frustrated as well. “Captain, there is no gear other than what I have offered you. If there was, it would have had to go through me. I apologize. I don’t know what you were told.”
Typical SNAFU, Harvath thought to himself. Situation normal, all fucked up. It wasn’t, however, this particular soldier’s fault. “How about just a vehicle, then?”
“The only vehicle leaving this base for the front departs in less than thirty minutes. If you want to get to your men today, you need to be on it.”
Zira, whose cell phone was sitting with her ID back at her apartment in Kharkiv, had already driven off the base. There was no way of letting her know that he needed her to return so that he could “borrow” her Land Cruiser.
Even if he had the Sergeant radio the soldiers at the earlier checkpoint, it would take her more than a half hour to get there. And what if she took a different route? By the time they had figured out that Zira couldn’t be recalled, the transport to the front would have already left. Harvath needed to make a decision.
“One final question,” he said. “How am I supposed to get my team from the front to Kolodyazne?”
The Supply Sergeant smiled and replied wryly, “As you pointed out, you’re with Special Services Group. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
CHAPTER 15
Of all the forward operating bases Harvath could have launched from, he ended up at one that housed some of the oldest armored personnel carriers, or APCs for short, he had ever seen.
The M113 waiting to take him, along with a group of infantrymen and supplies, up to the front looked like it had rolled on its treads straight out of the Vietnam War. It was equipped with a .50-caliber Browning M2 heavy machine gun known as a “Ma Deuce,” which wasn’t as desirable as an autocannon, but was a fine enough weapon.
For some reason, though, the gun shields—meant to protect the operator of the .50-cal—had been removed. Maybe they had been cannibalized for use on another vehicle. Maybe they had been stripped on a prior operation where every ounce of weight had been critical. There was no telling, although he would have been willing to bet that, somewhere, it involved more bureaucracy.
All Harvath knew was that whoever was standing in that hatch, running that gun, was going to be doing so with more exposure to enemy fire than should have been necessary. But as a former U.S. Secretary of Defense once said, “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish you had at a later time.” That included equipment. Some armor was better than none.
He waited for the supplies to be loaded and then walked up the rear ramp into the belly of the vehicle and took a seat. He was joined by a group of eight soldiers and their party was rounded out by two crew members—a driver and the commander, who also served as the gunner—who would be transporting them.
Within seconds, the hydraulic ramp had been raised, the turbocharged Detroit Diesel engine had roared to life, and they were moving.
The vehicle had a range of three hundred miles thanks to its twin armored fuel tanks, and could reach a top speed of forty miles per hour. It had been a long time since Harvath had ridden in one of these and he didn’t miss it. Even though this APC was probably from the 1980s or early 1990s, the U.S. military had developed a lot of other vehicles that were safer and much more comfortable.
One of the biggest things he disliked about the M113 was the lack of exterior visibility. He would have much preferred to be traveling in an MRAP or an armored Humvee. At least then he’d be able to see what was going on outside.
But since there was nothing he could do about it, he leaned back and tried to enjoy the ride.
Everything began to slow down—his thoughts, his breathing, his heart rate, even his perception of time itself. It was an enforced calm before the storm.
A lot of energy, as well as a lot of adrenaline, could be used up in anticipation of arriving at a battle. A little bit of fear was natural, even healthy, helping to sharpen your edge. If, however, you allowed it to eat you up and deplete your reserves, it was like showing up to combat with only half your ammunition.
Looking at the soldiers who were traveling with him, he saw a range of ages—from teenagers all the way to men in their fifties. None of them looked like this was their first trip to the front. They weren’t engaged in nervous chatter or cracking crude jokes. Each of them was every inch the professional soldier. Even the youngest among them had a seasoned, competent air. That said, they also looked tired. Really tired.
Ukraine had stunned the world with its ability to combat Russia’s invasion and push Moscow’s forces back. But as determined as the Ukrainians were to defend their homeland, war exacted a steep and heavy toll. You could see it on the faces of every man in the APC.
They had experienced the horrors of combat firsthand and were returning to the front, not because they wanted to—no sane person, given the choice, wanted war—but because it was a necessary requirement for them to secure freedom for themselves, their families, and the future generations of their country.
Yet again, Harvath couldn’t help but wonder how different things would have been had the West simply stood up to Peshkov when he had first sliced off a piece of Ukraine just under a decade ago. But it hadn’t.
There was nothing as provocative as weakness. Inaction was action. Autocrats, strongmen, and dictators could all smell weakness from miles away. It was an aphrodisiac to them; an open invitation to come and take what they wanted, a promise that there would be no consequences for their actions. Only when civilized nations drew a bright line and followed through with heavy consequences for crossing that line could those dictators, autocrats, and strongmen be kept in check.
The opportunity to administer an ounce of prevention in Ukraine had been ignored. Now the inevitable, bloody, costly cure was being delivered.
Harvath hoped that the world would pay attention this time, and lock the suffering and the carnage into their memory banks, but he had his doubts. He was constantly astounded by how many people either forgot history or chose to willfully ignore it.
Pay now or pay later. It was one of life’s most frequent propositions. Far too many chose to kick the can and pay later. Perhaps they were hoping someone else would pick up the bill and pay for them. But regardless of who paid, doing so later always came at a greater cost. The butchery happening across Ukraine was a perfect example.
Harvath worked on pushing the thought from his mind. He had a job to do. That needed to remain his focus.
He held little hope that Anna Royko was still alive. By all accounts, the men who had attacked the orphanage were evil personified. Had Nicholas not had photos to back up what had happened there, it would have been incredibly difficult to believe.
Difficult, but not impossible.
The world was full of incredibly malign individuals. Rarely, however, did you see them banded together in such a grotesque confederation.
The parallels between the Wagner Group’s Ravens and the Nazi Dirlewanger Brigade still struck him as uncanny. It was as if the SS unit had been brought back to life some eighty years later.
Man’s inhumanity to man was a tale as old as time, but the Ravens were taking it to the next level.
The updated intelligence that the GUR man with the briefcase had shared was the stuff of nightmares. It had also provided a possible lead. That was why Harvath and his new team were going to Kolodyazne first.
The danger of the assignment—both in relation to the men they were hunting and how they would be operating within the shadow of the front lines—had not been lost on him. They weren’t looking for a needle in a haystack; they were looking for a live hand grenade under a mountain of rusty razor blades surrounded by a sea of molten lava.
If there was one thing he knew, it was that as bad as things had started, this mission could get exponentially worse. Even the best-planned operations were subject to Murphy’s Law. And there were few places Murphy liked more to come out and play than an active war zone. It was his playground and the combatants his playthings.
Feeling his heart rate climbing, Harvath admonished himself for allowing his thoughts to get away from him. He closed his eyes and worked on his breathing. There was nothing he could do until he arrived at the front. He had to make the best of it. He was going to be stuck inside this tin can for the next two hours.
Aside from some intermittent radio traffic and the occasional communication between the driver and the gunner, the ride was long and boring. A few of the soldiers chatted quietly. Some slept. Others listened to music or played cards. One read a book.
If Harvath could have had anything, in addition to all of the burned-up equipment he had lost, he would have loved to have had a book. He’d always been a big reader, especially on deployments. Books helped take his mind off things and pass the time.
In Belarus, he had read a great thriller called Wolf Trap by an author named Connor Sullivan. He would have loved to have picked up another, but the Ukraine operation had gone into motion so quickly, he hadn’t had the time.
Listening to the treads of the APC rumbling over the road, he tried to keep his mind in a quiet, meditative state. The only thing that pulled him out of it was when the driver abruptly slowed or changed course to avoid something in their path. Russian land mines, like Russian sabotage of the Ukrainian rail lines, were a constant threat. All in all, their journey had been uneventful.
* * *
Passing through an abandoned, battle-scarred village about a half hour from the front, Harvath was rocked awake by the sound of gunfire. It was soon joined by the M113’s driver yelling something in Ukrainian.
Shaking off the fog of the trancelike state he had been in, he instantly realized what had happened. He didn’t need for the driver to yell his command again. Harvath was closest, which meant that he needed to be the one to act.
As bullets pinged off the steel skin of the APC, he reached up, pulled the dead gunner out of the hatch, and took his place.
When the driver shouted a new order in Ukrainian, Harvath yelled back for him to speak English or Russian.
“The church!” the driver yelled in English, speeding forward. “Shoot the church!”
Harvath swung the Browning M2 heavy machine gun hard left and opened up on the bell tower.
The .50-caliber rounds thundered out of the Ma Deuce and punched hole after hole in the structure.
Every fifth round was a tracer, and Harvath used them to fine-tune his fire. He tore the wooden tower to shreds and even rang the bell, twice.
He then paused his shooting, his thumbs ready to reengage the trigger, waiting for some sort of response, but there was no return fire. Either he had taken him out or the sniper had fled.
Nearing the edge of the village, Harvath could see a bridge up ahead over a small river. The driver brought the APC to a halt and seemed to be weighing what to do next.
Harvath took advantage of the pause to call for more ammo. As the men below scrambled to grab him a can, he scanned the town for additional threats. Where there was one sniper, there were likely more hostile actors. Whether it was a squad, or an entire platoon, was unknowable. They were close enough to the front that it could be anything.
Reloading the .50-cal, Harvath charged the weapon and called out to the driver, “We can’t sit out in the open like this all day. We need to get moving.”
“I know,” the Ukrainian shouted back. “I am not sure about the bridge. It could be rigged.”
Harvath gave it a quick glance. There was no way to be certain. Not without getting underneath and thoroughly checking it out, section by section. The man was right to be uneasy. Harvath was growing uneasy as well.
The sniper, or more likely one of his comrades, could be waiting for the APC to roll across before blowing whatever explosives they had hidden beneath.
Harvath assumed that the driver knew his route and that not only had he made this run before, but there had been no recent reports of enemy activity in the area.
“Forget the bridge,” said Harvath. “We’ll take a different route.”
The driver was about to respond, when he detected motion near the edge of one of the buildings. As a Russian soldier stepped into the open and the driver saw what he was carrying, he yelled, “RPG!”
Harvath swung the machine gun and began firing before he had even gotten a full sight picture. In so doing, he tore a racing stripe down the side of the building before sawing the Russian in half, just as the soldier managed to launch his weapon.
The rocket ripped through the air and sizzled right past them, missing the APC by less than two feet.
Harvath didn’t want to see what might be coming next. Thankfully, he didn’t need to tell the driver to get them to cover. The man was already moving.
He pulled down a narrow side street and stopped. Staying on the .50-cal, Harvath yelled down below for the rest of the soldiers to grab what they needed and to dismount.
Making a run for the bridge was totally out of the question. Even if it was safe to cross and hadn’t been rigged with explosives, the Russians were armed with RPGs. The APC couldn’t outrun those. What’s more, Harvath knew damn well that they had just gotten very lucky. The next Russian to materialize with an RPG wasn’t going to miss. Which meant that being anywhere near the APC right now was a bad idea.
They needed to find a good, defensible position and get their arms around what they were dealing with. How many Russian soldiers were out there? What kind of weapons and equipment did they have? And, if necessary, how quickly could the Ukrainians get reinforcements to them?
The first thing that they needed to settle was who was in charge. As the only officer, Harvath didn’t plan on holding a vote. These soldiers were under his command.
Giving a rapid series of orders, he then dropped down into the APC to grab his gear. The supplies they were being forced to leave behind, particularly the rockets, grenades, and ammunition, turned his stomach. It was destined for the men at the front. He would be damned if he was going to let the Russians have any of it. But by the same token, he thought it might make pretty good bait.
Working as quickly as he could, he manufactured a very guerrilla-style, down-and-dirty set of booby traps. Exiting the rear of the APC, he made sure the driver saw what he had done, just in case he didn’t make it back and someone else needed to disable them.
Loaded down with gear, not knowing what kind of a fight they had just driven into, Harvath directed the soldiers toward one of the nearest concrete buildings—the village school.
In addition, he wanted a sniper of their own on a roof nearby and one of the Ukrainian soldiers immediately volunteered.
After agreeing on the best location, the man performed a quick radio check and then took off as two of his colleagues covered him.
That left positioning the remaining soldiers inside the school so that they didn’t provide any weak spots that the enemy might exploit.
From a weapons standpoint, all of the men were outfitted with rifles as well as sidearms and a few grenades each. Harvath’s biggest hope had been to find a tripod for the .50-cal somewhere in the APC. Unfortunately, he hadn’t seen one and neither had the driver. They would have to do without the heavy machine gun.
