Chapter 35: All that remains; pick them off; that kind of skill
Please note: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...
Crimean Peninsula, late summer, 2014
Transport trucks pulled in first. She saw Resistance soldiers drop off the back and take up positions ahead of the arriving brass. On their hilltop, Yana and the three sniper squads watched the soldiers fan out around the farmland below them. A thin white mist left over from the night had settled in the valley and through their scopes they could see soldier bodies moving in it as if suspended, legless.
More and more arrived in the pre-dawn hour, unaware of snipers watching. The early ones gathered indoors to sit and share refreshments with old friends; and as the sky lightened in the east, the squads could see a thin trail of smoke rising from the farmhouse chimney.
More came, emptying into the house, while more soldiers joined the ranks in the mist outside. High above, Spetsnaz third row lay on their bellies – inside tunnels made of tall arching yellow grass. Their rifles sat on tripods pointed downhill, carefully hidden at the ends of the grass tunnels. Grass smudged the stark black lines of the rifles, so easy to spot otherwise, and hid the clean round lines of scopes and barrels. Everything straight or artificial like that, anything that could reflect light and give them away, they camouflaged in grass or green netting. Patiently, the rifles waited on their tripods for final adjustments – wind and distance – as sunrise began on their hill. Inside the tunnels, the heat began to rise with the sun.
As each group arrived at the farmhouse, Yana had scanned through her scope for any visual of Lamb. So far, he was a no-show. She laid out prone on the ground in green camo, pushed up on her elbows at her rifle. Sweat beaded on her arms and legs, making her skin itch. It rolled in little rivers from her brow, over the angled bone of her cheek to drip, silently, to the grass below. In the heat, insects buzzed and crawled within swatting distance, but she laid on her belly, motionless.
Behind her, the sun climbed above her shoulder now, in full view of the farmhouse below. It burned through the mist, drenching the farmhouse with white morning light. Soldiers there, sighting up the hill toward the snipers, squinted at the brilliant sunbeams funneled down the hill.
A green jeep rolled in then – way at the back of the pack and uniformed men got out. Yana leaned into her scope again to see them. Guards saluted the men and in moments the farmhouse door opened, emptying the place. Yana scanned for Lamb as dust swirled with all the motion. Uniforms swarmed the yard and Yana kept her eye on the men approaching from the rear. And then, through her scope, she caught sight of him walking in. He had a smile on his face – someone he knew.
Yana made her last adjustments, prepared to fire.
Through her scope she saw her smiling target, shaking hands. She moved her focus to her breath then and watched him through the scope. Yana inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again – then made the exhale take longer this time. Three seconds. Four seconds. Five seconds longer. She kept her diaphragm relaxed for the full exhale; her finger shifted into place.
And she took the shot.
In her scope, Lamb wobbled for a second, surprise on his face, and then she saw the light wink out in his eyes. He disappeared in the crowd. So much motion in the yard – at first they didn't know that something was wrong – until bodies started to fall. Some could hear the fwut sound of a round penetrating flesh nearby; others the snap! sound of a round in transit.
Men began running then, shooting, shouting, falling. But up on the hilltop third row heard virtually nothing. Some ran for cover in the farmhouse, while others hid where they could. Another minute later, rockets began to land. Bodies flew, the ground shook, and the corral poles toppled. Trucks shuddered in the background and exploded in flames.
Then the farmhouse blew – a huge yellow-orange fireball that rose above the frame, roiling and blackening as it rose. The ground rumbled. Flaming wood and splintered beams showered down from the air. All but one wall caved in, and black smoke rose from the burning ruin. Nothing inside would survive the flames.
In a little while, all was quiet on the hill, except for the pop of live rounds going off inside. Bodies lay everywhere in the yard; trucks smoldered. Timbers crackled in the flames and the one standing wall began to lean first, then collapsed in flames and showers of sparks to the ground.
All that remains is lost, Yana thought, pushing the grass aside and standing.
From the sides, Russian soldiers advanced. A few bursts from automatic rifle fire could be heard echoing up the hill. Their cleanup crew had arrived. From them the squad would get the final body count. Yana knew she'd gotten her Lamb.
All that remains, she thought, is the trip back home. And a meeting with the Russian President.
She'd earned a medal, national acclaim. And after a little rest, there was new work for her. They were sending her to her next mission.
In America.
Mid-town Manhattan, underground location, late December, 2016
In a cavernous space chiseled from rock a hundred years ago, a few dozen men and women worked at desks crowded with monitors and equipment. Wiring dangled in bundles, tied and hung from the rock ceiling, interspersed with panels of lights above them. Down here, they all wore their uniforms, black tops and bottoms, pockets on the outer thigh of each leg, and the rolled black hat, everything except the patch on the side of the shoulder. For this mission, they stripped the patch.
"We think we found the time when the cut-over happened," Gregor said, in Russian. He looked up at her, but she seemed distracted.
"Yana?" She looked over and he went on, showing her the little variance in the recording that was his best estimate of when the hack in the security system at the diner had occurred. Somewhere around 2:15 or 2:30 in the morning.
"And that correlates with this," he said, clicking on an image that opened on his screen: a picture of a man and a woman embracing in front of the diner.
"These two arrived just before the variance in the recording," he said. Yana stared at the grainy photo. They meant nothing to her. She'd never seen either one before, but the two knew something – Yana was sure of it. Find them and find the elusive American she'd been sent to acquire.
They'd nearly had him in their grip the other night. But, in the chase, help had come in time and he'd escaped with the wounded agent. No matter. Yana smiled to herself. Americans were soft. Shooting to wound one of them was much more effective than shooting to kill. The rest of the team would drag their wounded along with them. That would slow them down at the very least. And sometimes, they would make a mistake, reveal themselves. Easy then to pick them off one by one.
While Gregor was working on the security download from the diner, she was looking through the dash camera footage from the chase the other night. Perhaps she could find something of use in that.
Both of the SUV's were in pursuit of the white van on the street. It had turned right at a corner, accelerating away from them. When their vehicles swung around the same corner, the van started swinging back and forth to block them from coming alongside. Her team was firing out the windows at the van, which lurched away to one side. And at that precise moment something struck their car in front, slamming into the engine. The hood flew up, and smoke poured into the cabin, forcing the driver off the chase. Yana played and re-played the video, looking for any hint of where the van had gone to escape them, but nothing more on this one.
She switched to the other car's footage and fast-forwarded to the point where the first car had been hit. Now this one took over the chase, accelerating up behind the van, and her Team shooting at it. The van took evasive action, and pulled away to one side again. Yana could see the moment of impact, something penetrating through the engine again, forcing them to end the chase. Smoke filled the cabin and doors could be heard opening, the men coughing and choking in the background.
She backed up the video and ran it more slowly, then again. The video was angled in such a way that she could just see the white van further down the road, pulling to the left as though it had reached a destination. Hard to tell with all the smoke. They'd have to enhance the video to check it closer. If they could identify a location, they might have a place to start their search.
Safe-house, Manhattan, late December, 2016
"Miss Shaw, you're up!," Harold whispered. He'd come through the hallway to the kitchen for a cup of tea, and found her there, struggling with the coffee urn.
"Allow me, Miss Shaw," he said, and she scowled. "Better not to re-injure the arm, perhaps?" he offered, gently.
She backed away from the counter and Harold finished what she'd started. Somehow, she'd managed to brew the full urn of coffee on her own, but drawing it off into the giant mug with only one arm was the problem. Harold deftly filled the mug, holding it down off the edge of the counter with one hand, while pulling back on the urn handle with the other. He noticed that Miss Shaw was wearing a sling on the injured arm now, and that would certainly limit the range of the arm, he expected.
Harold walked the coffee and Miss Shaw back to the kitchen table, and sat the mug down in front of her. Then he went back to start the kettle for his tea. Before he returned he asked her if she wanted anything to go with her coffee, but she shook her head and concentrated on the hard-won coffee first. Something about it reminded Harold of Mr. Reese, and he smiled.
In a little while his water was ready, and he poured it over the top of loose Sencha tea in the metal sieve. Shortly, the scent of the wet leaves rose up to him sitting there, and he closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling. Shaw watched him go through his process for his cup of tea while she sipped her coffee.
She'd caught up with herself now, and felt she'd reached equilibrium with her coffee intake and needs. Her head felt normal, even if her body didn't. She recognized her thinking pattern as her own, and that gave her back some sense of normalcy. Shaw watched Harold pour the light green tea into his teacup, and cover the pot with something like a small quilt for it. Then he leaned back and raised his cup up to her:
"To your good health, Miss Shaw," he said, and took a sip. "We're all happy you seem to be on the mend."
Shaw stared at him. Harold was used to this by now and didn't wait for her to reply.
"How are you feeling this morning?"
"Hit by a truck," she said, and she saw him grimace. Oh, that's right. Harold always took it personally, as though it was his fault when something happened to one of them. In truth, there weren't too many places where a person with her particular skill set would fit in. Story of her life. This one was better than most, in her experience. She changed the subject, instead.
"So, what happened at the diner last night, Finch?"
"Mr. Reese and the Team gained entry into the diner and were able to find evidence we were seeking, Miss Shaw. In an office used by the Russian owners, a father and son named Vasiliy and Andrei Petrov, the Team found a Russian sniper rifle and our cellphones."
"The ones that were hacked in the van when you came for us," she said. He nodded.
"Miss Rose was able to apply a marker to the phones before she hid them. The marker and the phones showed up in the diner office, along with this rifle that Mr. Reese says is the latest upgrade. It is twice as powerful as the older model, accurate at 2,000 yards," he said, concern on his face.
"I don't need to tell you what kind of a threat someone with that kind of weapon and those skills could be. As soon as the Team has had a little time to catch up on some sleep, we need to find him." He stopped for a moment, in thought, and sipped his tea.
Something about what Finch said was tapping on her brain, trying to get her attention. She went over it again. Diner. Marker. Cellphones. Sniper rifle. Russians. Sniper. Russians –
She looked up at Finch. "Russians, Harold!" She had a sense of urgency in her face.
"I didn't remember until just now. The men in black at the diner – their uniforms were Russian – Spetsnaz, Finch."
"Are you certain?" he asked, reaching across the table to the laptop Reese had used during the night. He pulled it to him and fired it up, tapping madly on the keyboard. Shaw watched his face as he searched the pages in front of him.
Minutes later, he shook his head. "There seems to be no record of either Vasiliy or Andrei serving in any Russian security capacity, Miss Shaw." She thought for a moment.
"Maybe they just bought the rifle – or stole it," she said. Shaw tried to recall if she recognized any other details about the men in black. They wore the uniform of Spetsnaz, but without the insignia on the left shoulder. Not unusual for them. When they didn't want to advertise who they were, they removed them. Russia could deny involvement that way. And if the men were captured, the Russians would deny they were active-duty soldiers. They sold out their own men.
She started to think about the sniper then. If this was a real sniper with the latest and greatest weapon, then why wasn't she dead? Her shoulder started to hurt again, and she adjusted the sling a little closer to her body.
"So, the one who owns the rifle is not a real sniper? And that's why I'm still alive?" They both realized there was another possibility, something much more sinister for all of them.
"Miss Shaw, perhaps the idea was not to kill you at all – but to wound you. And that kind of skill – is worrisome," he finished quietly.