Chapter 33: More than a mile; "Find them!"; worth it; He already knew who it would be;
Safe-house, Mid-town, Manhattan, 4 a.m.
Reese sat up, awake, waiting for the last two of his Team to return. They'd staked out Zoe's car, and were under orders to be sure she got home without any trouble – once their mission at the diner had ended. While he waited, Reese searched for more about the Russian sniper rifle he'd seen tonight. There were a few different models on the internet, but the one tonight was the same one he remembered reading about on Army blogs more than 2 years ago.
The same sites that usually trashed the previous model were now warning U.S. soldiers to move off right away if they detected the new rifle. Move off, or risk getting pinned down by teams of Russian snipers who could call in rocket attacks in minutes to finish them off. This was the same tactic Russian special forces snipers had used back then, when Russia did its land grab in Ukraine.
A few sites had some technical specs on the rifle – plus the usual hype about its capabilities. And there was even a picture of a swaggering Russian President visiting the company for a photo op – test-firing the new sniper rifle himself. Of course he did, Reese thought.
He skimmed through the articles and then found one that caught his attention. Russia had secretly issued their elite Spetsnaz snipers a new rifle to use against Ukrainian soldiers fighting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. That part agreed with the blogs he'd read. The snipers worked in three layers, with the ones furthest back from the targets their best marksmen. Since the new rifles were in short supply, the best snipers were the ones who'd been issued the rifles. These new ones were said to be deadly accurate at 2000 yards!
Everyone else used the older model, the Dragunov. That rifle, with its primitive optics and ancient round, maxed out at 800 yards – putting the snipers closer to the Ukrainian soldiers who wanted them dead.
Reese leaned back in his chair. On the table next to his laptop sat a pristine new round, the one he'd pulled from the locker in the floor tonight. The new sniper rifle used this .338 Lapua Magnum round to get those distances – 2000 yards. More than a mile! If there was a Russian here in New York who knew how to handle this rifle, the Team needed to find him, and fast!
Mid-town diner, 6 a.m.
A black BMW swung into the lot behind the diner and stopped. It backed lithely into a spot under the trees, far from where customers were likely to park. A young man hopped out and pulled his leather jacket off the seat. Although it was late December here in New York, this was balmy compared to the weather back home in Moscow. He tossed the jacket over his arm and walked around to the front of the diner.
Already this morning they were busy. People were out doing their last days of shopping and Andrei knew the crowds of customers would be heavy today. He headed for the office in the back hallway, passing by the kitchen. The office door was closed. That was strange, he thought.
When he opened the door, his father was there with Yana, and both of them were watching something on the security monitors. He threw his jacket on his desk and went to join them in front of the monitors. Yana let them run for a minute, and then fast-forwarded. At one point she slowed it to regular speed. Andrei watched, waiting for something to stand out, to look different, but everything seemed normal. He turned to his father.
"What's going on?" he asked him. At first, Vasiliy didn't answer. He seemed to be considering the possibilities. Then, in Russian:
"Maybe we got hacked."
"Who? How?" Andrei said to the two of them.
"The Americans. We think they came here last night, snooping around."
"What did they do?" he asked.
"We're not sure yet. They may have done something to the security cameras. And they may have sent people to check us out."
"Is anything missing?" Andrei pointed to the floor, where the metal locker was. His father shook his head, no.
"The cellphones?" He shook his head again. Vasiliy turned around and clasped his hands behind his back, pacing the floor.
"Find them! Find the Americans!" he shouted. Andrei looked up at his father.
Crimean Peninsula, 2014
Two hours later, the first squad readied, and someone in front smacked his hand on the cab wall separating them. The truck slowed to a crawl then and, pair by pair, the squad jumped off the back of the truck and headed out through the trees toward the fields. It was two hours of walking before they'd get there, and twice that before they'd be watching their targets arrive.
A little further along, the next squad jumped off, and they, too, headed out for their forward position. About twenty minutes later the last group jumped, and they stood together in a ring for a few minutes until they were ready to head out.
The night was dark, moon hidden behind a thick layer of clouds. But no rain expected. The air was nearly still – misty, humid – and mosquitoes swarmed them in the woods. One of the men passed around a small bottle of repellent, but not soon enough to keep the swarm from landing. The squad hustled ahead to get out of the woods.
An open meadow appeared beyond the trees. The squad stopped at the edge, watching for any sign of enemy forces, then headed out, one at a time, through the meadow. For the next hour and a half they walked through more stands of trees, through a shallow, muddy riverbed, choked off higher up where they couldn't see. They skirted a few ramshackle farmhouses along the way, careful to stay downwind from dogs that might alert the farmers. And then they climbed for a little while through another stand of trees until they reached the top of a knoll.
There was a natural break in the trees looking West and this was a perfect place to set up. The sun would rise behind them, and at the right time the light would hide any of their muzzle flashes in the blaze of sunlight. And the same light would help illuminate their targets in the straight run down the hill. The long jarring ride in the truck and the long buggy trek through the countryside was worth it – to end up in such a perfect spot for their mission.
Safe-house, Mid-town Manhattan, 5 a.m.
"Coffee?" Reese offered to the two of them when Joey and Harper got back. They glanced at each other, then shook their heads, no.
"I think we're gonna try to catch some shut-eye," Joey said, and Harper nodded, yawning.
"Everything went OK, then?" Reese asked. Joey nodded, and slid his coat and black knit cap off.
"Safe and sound," he said, hanging the coat in the closet by the door. Harper slid her coat off, too, and Joey handed her a hanger for it, then hung it next to his in the closet. She pulled off her cap and tousled her black hair, then yawned again.
Reese looked at the two of them and told them to get some sleep. He didn't have to say it twice. They headed down the hallway to the bedrooms. It got really quiet then, after they left. Reese looked around him and decided he'd better head in to bed, too. But first, he cleaned up his spot at the table. He idled the laptop and closed the cover down, then he walked his mug over to the sink and washed it out for later. On his way back, he picked up the round on the table and tossed it in the air a few times, before he slipped it into a pocket.
He could tell he wasn't ready for sleep yet. Inside, Reese felt his motor running. He was still too keyed up to sleep, even though he and the rest of them were running on fumes these days. Reese went to the cabinet with the liquor bottles inside, and poured out a generous dose of his favorite whiskey into a glass. The heavy-bottomed glass felt good in his hand, and he took a long sip of the drink.
Reese turned the lights off in the living room, except for one near the door, which he turned down low. Then he turned back to the hallway that lead to the bedrooms. On the right, the door to Shaw's room was open a bit, and he looked in on her. She was curled on her side with the bad shoulder up. And next to her, Root was there, too.
He walked softly in the hallway to the end, and noticed the light on in Harold's room. Reese could see him from the doorway, tipped back in his chair at his desk. He stepped into his room for a moment. Something caught his eye. In his hand, Harold had a photograph. He'd fallen asleep with the picture in his hand. Reese walked in closer to see. He already knew who it would be.
He backed quietly out of Harold's room and walked back down the hallway to the living room. Reese sat down on the couch, next to the one dim light and pulled out his cellphone. He opened Contacts and selected one, then clicked on it. Fifteen minutes later he'd finished his call, and he dropped his cell on the coffee table in front of him. Reese kicked off his shoes and swung his legs up onto the couch, leaning back on the armrest.
Alone in the silence, he sipped whiskey from the heavy-bottomed glass. Within the hour, a message arrived on Harold's laptop, a video message. He slept in his chair, with the photo nestled in the palm of his hand.