The Ghost Pattern (21 page)

“Umm…excuse me?” Lila’s voice got their attention.

“Yes,” Martin replied. “What is it?”

“That man over there,” she said, pointing at a silhouette crouched against the back wall, “is the sack of shit who brought us all here. He’s the pilot.”

Two of Martin’s men went to get him, their faces not promising anything good.

“I want him alive,” Alex called after them. “I need to find out who’s behind this.”

“We’re moving,” Martin’s voice called her to attention.

They continued to inspect the structure and found no one else on the main level.

“Bravo Two, this is Bravo One,” Martin said into his radio, and it crackled to life immediately.

“Bravo One, copy.”

“Bravo Two, we’re going underground.”

“Copy that. On your six, Bravo One.”

They made their way underground, descending through dark, humid, moldy-smelling stairways, and feeling the temperature drop with every step. Then they reached another curved corridor, and started following it, like they had the one above.

Within a few yards, they surprised a Russian taking a leak in a doorway. He opposed no resistance, and relinquished his weapon immediately.

“Where are they?” Martin asked.

The Russian pointed ahead.

“The first door over there, the big one. The big circle.” He spoke in a raspy voice, his accent harsh.

“How many Russians?”

“I–I don’t know.”

One of Martin’s men hit him in the stomach. “Think again, asshole.”

“Three, maybe four.”

“Thanks!” Martin replied, then knocked the Russian unconscious with the butt of his weapon.

They soon found what the Russian had told them about—an access way leading to a large, tall, metallic, double door, covered in rust, and guarded by an armed man who didn’t even see them coming. That Russian went down silently, taken out by a lethal stab in the neck.

Team Bravo Two caught up with them, and Martin gave them the signal to stand fast and silent.

Martin cracked the door open as gently as he could, then peeked inside.

“Fuck,” he muttered, then closed it.

He signaled his people to approach. Alex, Lou, and Blake joined them.

“This is the ingress point to the main silo. There are hundreds of hostages in there, and the Russians are scattered among them, on elevated positions. We risk extensive loss of lives if we go direct. They’ll start shooting, and scythe the hostages down in the crossfire.”

“What do you want to do?” Blake asked, turning pale.

“We might try to draw them out. Or we might get one of the Russians we captured, wake him up, and force him to call them out.”

“I have an idea,” Alex offered. “Some of us can go in, without our gear, wearing plain clothes, and carrying knives. If the Russians are scattered in the crowds, they won’t notice us. Then we take them out, one by one. In the crowd there is inherent cover.”

Martin stood silent for a few seconds, weighing his options. Then he started taking his tactical vest off. The rest of the men followed.

“I need two of you to stay here, and cover our asses in case this goes bad,” Martin said. “You and you,” he pointed at two men. “If this goes south, remember they’ll have to come out at some point. Take them out one by one; don’t risk the hostages’ lives.” He then turned to Alex and added, “You should stay here too, ma’am.”

“In your dreams,” Alex replied dryly.

She’d taken off her vest, and she rubbed her back against the decrepit walls to get her tee shirt to look dirty. Some of the men did the same, even rolled on the floors covered in debris to look the part, then wiped most of the camouflage paint off their faces.

“Blake,” Alex said, “You’re staying behind. You have to.”

“What?” he asked, surprised. “Why? No way I’m staying behind.”

“If Adeline sees you, she’ll react. There’s no way we can control that, and we shouldn’t risk it.”

Blake lowered his head, accepting her argument. Then he lifted his eyes, locking them with hers. “OK. Then you bring her to me, all right?”

“I promise,” she replied, touching his shoulder. “Ready,” she announced.

“Roger that,” Martin replied. “This is a round structure. We enter one by one, and quickly take cover in the crowd. Let’s work it in concentric circles, starting from large to small. We’ll take the smaller circles, where we think the most Russians will be. Lou and Alex, you take the outer circle, closest to the wall. Alex walks west, Lou walks east. Walk slowly, casually, don’t draw attention. Stop, sit, observe. Find your Russian, and plan your moves. Keep chatter to a minimum. Earbuds should do it in there, and cover your mouth when you speak. The laryngophones will capture the quietest whisper. Just mark your man, and wait for my signal.”

“Got it,” Alex confirmed.

They snuck in, one by one. Alex was among the last, and she felt her heart in her throat when she approached the ajar door. She took a deep breath, then stepped through the tight opening.

She took a few quick steps to reach a group of hostages, then stopped, to absorb and process the information she was seeing.

The structure was vast, with a high, dome-vaulted roof that had hatched openings at the center. It was hard to tell what that space had been used for; it resembled a huge arena or a circus of sorts, in a terrible state of decay. The floor was concrete, covered in dirt and debris. The smell of human sweat and waste was pervasive, almost suffocating.

Then she looked at the people and shuddered, shocked. They were disheveled and haunted-looking, defeated, hopeless. Most of them stood, walking aimlessly, or talking quietly with one another. Some sat on the floor, or lay on the cold concrete, curled up on their sides, immobile. They were in hell.

Alex snapped out of her shock and focused on her task. She started walking slowly, checking out the people she saw, and looking for an armed Russian she could tackle. There he was, a brute, scars marring his face, arms the size of her thighs. That monster was her target.

She felt her blood chilling, turning to ice cubes. How would she do it? Would she stab him in the back? How much force did she need to apply? Why had she offered to come in here anyway? That’s why they had contracted the Bravos.
Stupid, reckless, idiotic,
she called herself, almost ready to let Martin know she needed someone else to do her job.

Then she laid eyes on a thin, frail Chinese woman, sitting against the wall and holding her baby. Tears ran quietly on her checks, as she caressed and reassured the silent, immobile infant.

Alex felt a wave of rage suffocating her. “Ready,” she whispered in her comm.

“Copy,” Martin replied. “Go on my count. Three, two, one, go.”

She made a move toward her target, her hand clutching the handle of her tactical knife, her arm lowered, hidden behind her back.

The Russian turned, startling her for a split second.

“What do we have here, huh?” he said, staring at her with obscene eyes, and grabbing her chin with his filthy fingers.

“Your worst nightmare,” she growled, then stabbed the man in the chest, plunging her knife to the bolster, throwing all her weight behind the thrust.

The man buckled, his surprised eyes drilling into hers, while his mouth opened, gasping for air. She took a step back, pulling her knife from his chest, and getting ready to strike again. The man fell to the floor in a pool of blood.

“One down,” she said into her comm, then signaled silence to the hostages around her, putting a finger to her lips.

One by one, she heard the team members confirm their kills. Then she heard Martin give the “all clear,” and he addressed the hostages from the entrance.

“Attention, everyone, we’re here to take you home,” Martin said, as incredulous hostages clamored and hurried toward the door. “Please follow our instructions to stay safe. There could still be hostiles in this building.”

No one paid much attention. They hurried to get out, to leave their hell, stepping over each other, screaming, running, just wanting to be free.

“Both teams, we need to contain the situation,” Martin’s voice came to life by radio. “Don’t let them scatter in the forest. We’ll never find them.”

Then Alex heard Blake’s voice, rising over the tumult, calling Adeline’s name.

...60

...Tuesday, May 10, 11:46PM Local Time (UTC+10:00 hours)

...Abandoned ICBM Site

...Near Naikhin, Russia

Alex followed the sound of Blake’s voice, as he called his wife’s name. He stood by the entrance, still on the outside corridor, unable to enter the dome against the flow of rushing people—tumultuous, desperate, frantic to get out.

That was something none of the team had given enough thought to. How would they control 423 passengers and 18 crew members, when they were running for their lives? What could they possibly say to slow them down, to get them to listen to reason? Not that they had their exfil figured out either. She had no idea how to get all those people to safety, from behind enemy lines. She needed a solution—a good one, and fast. One way or another, they were responsible for the lives of almost 450 irrationally frantic people, running, trying to escape.

Running to where, exactly?

There was no way to know what the enemy had coming. Maybe they had reinforcements nearby and some Russian had radioed a call for backup before being taken out. They had to move, get out of there while they still could, or risk a bloodbath.

She walked outside the dome with the flow of people, and soon reached Blake.

“Have you seen her?” Blake asked.

“No, but there are still a couple of hundred people inside,” she replied, standing on her toes, trying to find her among the faces of the running mass.

“Adeline!” Blake called again, his strong voice covering the commotion of the crowd.

Somewhere from inside the dome, a distant voice responded.

“Blake? Blake?”

Alex smiled widely. Yes! There she was, making her way toward Blake, who tried to push against the flowing crowd to get to her sooner.

Finally, he got her in his arms, lifting her up in the air and taking her a few steps to the side, away from the stampeding crowd.

“Oh, baby,” he said, burying his face in her hair.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Adeline said, choked with tears. “You didn’t give up on me, you came for me.”

“Always, baby, always.”

Alex took a few steps to the side, to give them some privacy. That’s when she saw him. A Russian had appeared out of nowhere, and was coming toward them fast. Anger contorted his face, and he bellowed a mix of unintelligible words in Russian. His gun was drawn and pointed at them.

“Blake!” Alex yelled to get his attention, as she pulled out her Walther.

Blake let go of Adeline and turned to see what was going on.

Then she saw the Russian pull the trigger. She fired her weapon, just as Blake stepped in front of Adeline, covering her with his own body. Alex’s bullet tore through the Russian’s shoulder, but didn’t stop him.

She heard Adeline shriek, but kept her focus on the Russian, and fired her weapon twice more, in rapid sequence. One bullet got him in the head, the other in the throat. He fell forward, hit the concrete, and didn’t budge.

Alex rushed to the fallen Russian and took his gun. Then she looked behind her, and her heart sank.

Blake was down, holding the left side of his abdomen with both his hands, while blood oozed from his wound, in small rivulets flowing between his fingers. Adeline held his head in her lap, sobbing hard.

They needed help. Their situation was turning into a disaster, fast.

She pressed the transmit button on her radio and called. “Bravo One, Bravo Two, this is Alpha, do you copy?”

“Bravo One, copy,” Martin responded.

“Bravo Two, copy.” That was Lou’s voice.

“Bravo One, Bravo Two, follow my lead. Bravo One, I have a man down, gunshot to the abdomen. I need evac with a gurney, and get one of the doctors ready.”

The radio crackled a little in her ear, then Martin’s voice confirmed, “Copy. On our way.”

She remained silent for a few seconds, thinking hard. What could they do?

“Alpha, you still there?” Lou’s worried voice came through the radio waves.

“Copy, Lima, still here. Lima, these folks got here by trucks. Load them in the trucks; check them off the flight manifest, one by one. Make sure we don’t leave anyone behind. Verify we have all the dead confirmed by at least two witnesses. Put one or two Bravos in each truck, and get ready to leave.”

The radio crackled for a little while before Lou’s voice kicked in, hesitantly.

“Copy, Alpha. Exfil?”

“We’ll figure it out. I’ll hang back until evac takes over here, then we have some cleanup left in the lab. Five terrorists are in there, waiting to get our attention.”

“Alpha, Bravo One,” Martin’s voice crackled to life. “Lab cleanup executed.”

“Copy, Bravo One. Any intel extracted before cleanup complete?”

“Negative, Alpha,” Martin’s voice replied after a short hesitation.

Damn it!

“Copy, Bravo One, Alpha out,” she replied, feeling a sense of weariness. How was she ever going to find V, if no one got any intel from the enemy? Yet she understood Martin’s call. With nearly 450 desperate civilians in tow, they couldn’t deal with prisoner transport and interrogation. By all laws, the Russians were terrorists, caught in an act of terror. They deserved to die. She looked at Blake, shivering, lying in a pool of blood, and felt a lump in her throat, a wave of suffocating anger. Yes, they did deserve to die. Screw the intel; she’d find another way.

She kneeled next to Blake and Adeline, feeling tears coming to her eyes, not knowing what to say.

“You’ll be all right, you’ll see,” she whispered. “You’re tough. You drive people crazy with how tough you are. You’ll be fine.” She touched Adeline’s arm and added, reassuringly, “He’ll be fine. We have doctors here, good ones, the best.”

Dr. Gary Davis followed behind two men carrying a gurney, running toward them.

“See? Help is here,” Alex said, then stood up to make room for the doctor and the gurney.

Dr. Davis kneeled and checked the wound briefly, then instructed the men.

“Let’s load him up, gently. We need to stop by the lab. I have what I need to stabilize him in there. I’ll pack us some first-aid kits too.”

She walked briskly behind them, but then headed out of the dome, while they went to the lab. Outside, the trucks were pulled in front of the silo’s entrance, and pure chaos ruled. Bravo teams tried to mark people off the manifests as they loaded them in the trucks, but it wasn’t working all that well. People were desperate to secure a place on the trucks, and were boarding the trucks as fast as they could, paying little or no attention to the Bravo teams giving instructions.

Then it suddenly got worse.

Two trucks filled with armed Russians approached fast on the road coming from the mountain, not giving them much time to react.

She yelled into her comm, “Take cover!”

Then she fired her Tavor, sending a few shots in the air, to get everyone’s attention. People ran shrieking, some toward the field, most of them toward the forest. Those who had already climbed inside the trucks didn’t dare get off and run for cover, but the trucks were not going to shield them against bullets. It was going to turn into a massacre.

“All Bravo teams,” she yelled into her radio, pressing the laryngophone against her throat, “Russians cannot get to the trucks, no matter what. Copy?”

“This is Bravo One, copy,” Martin’s voice responded.

“Copy,” Lou’s reply came in next.

They had already started shooting. Most Bravos took positions around the front of the building, taking cover behind tree trunks or big rocks. Alex crouched behind a large tree trunk, her Tavor in position to fire, waiting for the Russians to come close enough. She saw Lou running toward the incoming Russian trucks, behind the tree line, holding a grenade in his hand. As soon as the first truck drove by, he threw it in the back of the truck. Seconds later, it blew up, sending smoldering pieces everywhere.

The second truck stopped and dozens of Russians climbed down, scattering toward the building and shooting their AK47s on automatic fire. Despite the total chaos, Alex remembered Lou’s training in the firing range. “Slow is fast when you fire your weapon,” he had said. “Pick your man and take him out. One bullet is all it takes.”

She aimed her Tavor at one of the first Russians, and squeezed the trigger. The man fell on his back, firing his Kalashnikov as he fell, sending a stream of bullets in the air. She aimed toward a second Russian, and her bullet hit him in the leg. She fired again, and took him out. A third one started shooting in her direction, providing cover for the rest of the Russians, but one of the Bravos killed him within a second.

She saw another Russian approach, and aimed carefully, then squeezed the trigger. She missed. Cussing under her breath, she fired again and the second time she didn’t miss. Focused on the targets in front of her, she completely missed the Russian who approached from her left side, hiding behind trees as he drew near.

She heard footsteps really close and froze, adrenaline shooting up her spine, her heart pumping hard and fast. She turned and saw a Russian holding his weapon trained on her chest, only a few feet away. She didn’t get the chance to decide what to do. Lou crept up on the Russian and stabbed him in the ear with one swift blow.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“Anytime,” Lou replied and disappeared behind the trees, looking for another target.

She resumed her position, searching for another Russian to kill. She didn’t see any; slowly, carefully, she headed closer to the silo, using every tree as cover.

Then she heard the “all clear” message come in by comm.

She looked up at the sky and frowned. Still cloudy, but toward the west she could see a few stars. The sky was clearing, which meant the enemy could have satellite eyes on them soon.

She found Lou.

“Where’s Sam?” she shouted, trying to cover the commotion.

“In the first truck. A doctor is with him.”

“Let’s go,” she said, and climbed in the back of the truck.

The truck’s canopy, moist and smelly, didn’t do much for comfort. The earlier rain had soaked it and water was dripping here and there. Sam lay on a gurney toward the front of the truck, near the cabin, and a tall, distinguished-looking man she vaguely remembered from before sat by his side.

“How is he?”

“He needs a hospital,” the man replied with a thick German accent. “He’s bleeding internally. I’ve done all I could here, but that’s not enough. He needs surgery.” The man averted his eyes and lowered his voice. “It’s urgent; he won’t last much longer.”

Oh, no! Where? Where could they go? Sam would know.

“Sam?” she called gently, reaching out and holding his hand. “You in there, somewhere?” she tried to joke, but felt her eyes well up with tears.

“Yes, I’m here,” he whispered faintly.

“Sam, I need your help. We’re going to head out to the coast in these trucks. We have the maps and everything. Where would I take you to a hospital?”

He gave a long sigh, then closed his eyes.

“You wouldn’t, kiddo. The Russians would kill all these people. Not worth it. This is the end of the line for me.”

“Sam!” she protested. “Not an option, you hear me? Think of something, please!”

She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Sam. No…there had to be a way.

“If we make it to the coast,” Lou intervened, “we might have a chance. There’s an American base on Hokkaido, near Wakkanai. There’s a Wasp-class ship there we could call in for help. It could come and get us.”

“Confirmed, I’ve seen the Wasp,” Martin added. “The USS
Okinawa
.”

“What’s a Wasp?” Alex whispered, trying to contain her sobs.

“It’s an amphibious assault ship,” Lou said, “Wasp class. It’s big, and it has helos, six or eight Super Stallions at least. It’s almost like an aircraft carrier for helos and a lot of Marine Corps Expeditionary forces. They could evac all these people in one move. They’d also have surgeons on board.”

She felt a surge of hope swell her chest.

“What does it take to call them? How do you get a military warship rerouted here, near the Russian shore?”

Martin and Lou looked at each other, and Lou pursed his lips before speaking.

“You mean, in Russian territorial waters? We’d need—”

“A presidential order,” Sam whispered. “It’s technically an act of war against Russia.”

“Shit…” she muttered, thinking hard. “Well, what the hell, I’ll give it a shot,” she decided. “Got nothing more to lose at this point. Time to pray is now, people.”

She grabbed her sat phone and retrieved a number from the phone’s memory. She almost smiled seeing how puzzled Lou and Martin glanced at her. Even Sam had opened his eyes, watching her press the buttons to make her call. She winked in his direction, then put the phone on speaker.

Someone picked up at the other end of the line immediately.

“Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, how may I direct your call?”