Ghosts of War (39 page)

U
nited States Air Force Captain Devon Tatum recognized the landmarks, and knew he had about five minutes before he reached the exit to Lask. Five minutes to figure a way out of the death spiral he was caught in.

He'd found a radiator leak kit in the Shell station, and had managed to stretch the stop to an hour and a half because the kit required not only a completely cool engine, but also thirty minutes to solidify. During that wait, he'd thought about what these men had planned, and knew it wasn't simply picture-taking. It made no sense.

If you wanted to know the location of the hangars, why not use Google Earth? If you wanted a bird's-eye perspective of what was on the ground, why use him for access when they could have simply tortured the information out of him? As the commander of base security, he had a hell of a lot more information than a simple circuit with a camera could reveal, and yet the men hadn't asked a single question. In fact, they seemed unprepared to do so.

They wanted base access for something else. And he had to find a way to stop it.

He considered just driving the car at high speed into the fourteen-foot noise reduction barriers that blanketed the expressway, as he knew he was a dead man anyway, but found he couldn't sacrifice his wife.

And then the true fear came home: If they were going to kill him, she might already be dead.

The thought brought a bolt of rage. He tried to contain it, but the
man called Kirill noticed and said, “Don't get any thoughts. This is easy. One lap, and you're on your way.”

Devon knew that was a fucking lie. If he let this killer on the post, more men than just him would die. He prayed to God for an answer, and was given one.

He heard the distinctive ringtone of his phone, the song “Wild Thing” by The Troggs filling the car. Kirill pulled the phone from his front pocket, looked at the screen, then held it out for Devon to see.

He didn't recognize the number, but said, “It's my command. If I don't answer, they'll just keep calling. Better if I did so, since we're about to enter the gate.”

Kirill handed him the phone, saying, “I'm listening. You say anything suspicious, and your wife is dead.”

Devon took it, hitting the green button at the bottom, and said, “Hello?”

And heard his world flipped upside down. “Captain Tatum, my name is Pike Logan, and I work for the United States government. I need you to pretend that this is an official call, and I need you to just listen. I know who is sitting next to you. Do not say anything to alert him. Okay?”

Devon said nothing. The man on the phone said, “You can answer the damn question with a yes or no.”

He said, “Yes.”

“Good. First, your wife is alive and fine. She's with my team. The men who held her are dead. Do not, under any circumstances, ask to speak to her.”

He felt a bolt of adrenaline at the news and fought hard not to show anything. Robotically, he said, “Okay.”

“Good. You're doing good. The man in the seat has a dirty bomb in your car. He's planning to set it off inside the American perimeter of the Lask airbase. Confirm you understand.”

“Yes. I got it.”

“Say something about the flux capacitor, like you're talking about work.”

“What?”

“Say something related to work. Make it sound like you're talking about your job.”

Devon glanced at Kirill and said, “Yes, I have the oil for the flux capacitor. I can bring it tomorrow.”

“Jesus, man, I didn't mean actually say ‘flux capacitor.' Listen, I don't want you to try to do anything. We don't know if this guy is a suicide bomber or what. He might have a detonator on his body. Under no circumstances are you to try to stop him. Do you understand?”

Confused, Devon answered, “Yes. I understand,” but thought,
If not me, who?

“Good. Listen, you go to the airbase just like he expects. When you get to the American perimeter, you'll be met by a guy you don't recognize. I need you to show him your ID card upside down. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I can do that.”

“How far out are you? You can answer that, but do it in a normal way.”

“Sure, that'll only take about five minutes. It's easy.”

“Okay, got it. Remember, don't show any surprise at a man on the gate you don't know. His name is Brett Thorpe. Roll up and say a greeting. He'll do the rest.”

“Okay. Talk to you soon.”

“Good answer. Because you will. Hang in there. It's almost over.”

He ended the call and said, “Some bullshit from work, but I can deal with it tomorrow.” He handed the phone back and said, “I will be able to do that, right?”

His suspicions belied because of the question, Kirill said, “Yeah, sure. One lap, and you're back to your normal life.”

They exited the expressway, Devon fighting to control the adrenaline racing through his body. They reached the street that dead-ended into the base, and went down the pitted asphalt to the main gate. He rolled up to the outer perimeter, seeing the same Polish man he'd seen when he left earlier, fearing that he'd be stopped and questioned about his passenger. Wondering if he was about to feel a fireball. The man didn't even ask him to roll down the window, waving him through.

He exhaled and Kirill said, “Good. Very good. Keep it like that, and you'll be home with your wife soon.”

They rolled down the flight line, and Kirill made no attempt to retrieve his “camera” from the back. Devon realized everything the man on the phone had said was true. He saw the temporary American inner perimeter ahead, and felt the spike of adrenaline again.

This is it.

He slowed, seeing a short African American man he didn't recognize, wearing a uniform that didn't fit. He prayed that Kirill wouldn't notice. He rolled down his window, struggling to remember the last name of the man, but couldn't. He spit out, “Hey, Sergeant Brett. Just running in for something I forgot.”

Devon held out his CAC card, upside down.

The man called Brett leaned in as if to study the card and said, “Hey, how's the wife?”

Stunned, Devon stuttered, “She . . . she's good.”

He said, “I know.”

He jammed a pistol past him, slamming it right up against Kirill's head, then pulled the trigger.

S
o they really have him?” Putin asked.

The head of the FSB, Ilya Kozlov, glanced around the table, not meeting the eyes of the men sitting, and said, “Yes, sir. They most definitely have him.”

It was Kozlov's first time visiting the Black Sea Estate, and he was clearly awed not only by the grandeur of the structure, but also by the power of the men around the table.

“Can we get to him?”

“Not anytime soon. He is under incredible security, an outer ring of Austrian special police, and an inner ring of United States FBI. Maybe when they move him, but short of blowing up the building, there is no way to currently effect any lethal operations against Simon.”

Putin took that in, then said, “And our team in Warsaw? What of them?”

Kozlov shuffled from foot to foot, then said, “Dead, sir. They were found in a tenement house by Polish police. Gunshot wounds.”

“The Americans again?”

“We don't know. Odds are it was Simon, sending a team to rescue the man we were going to interrogate.”

“What about the Cesium the Colonel was trying to sell?”

“It has disappeared, along with the man named Mikhail.”

Putin slowly nodded, then said, “You may leave.”

Putin waited until he'd closed the door to the ornate dining room before returning to the men around the table. Powerful oligarchs, not
politicians, they were the true heart of the Russian machine, and had been privy to the attempts to annex Belarus.

Alex Romanov, a thin, white-haired man sitting to Putin's right, toyed with his cane and said, “Perhaps we should take the offer.”

“Then we lose Belarus. We lose everything we were attempting to gain.”

“We go to war, and we will lose much more than that.”

Putin knew the men around the room were growing skittish at the rattling of sabers. They had stood with him on the machinations with Belarus, but had become alarmed at how it had spiraled out of control. They had interests that went far beyond politics, and feared the financial repercussions of a war.

They could not tell him what to do, of course, but he held no illusions as to their power, and neither did his personal staff. Before flying here from Moscow, his most trusted aide had said one thing:
Beware the Ides of March.
Putin may be the emperor, but like Caesar, it didn't make him invincible.

Putin said, “What if Simon begins talking? How can we guarantee he won't raise the truth at a later date?”

A younger man with a scar on his cheek, seated farther down, said, “Each day that passes makes him less believable. The president of the United States said he would announce Simon's sole culpability. If Simon says something at a later date, it will look like a desperate man attempting anything to save himself. It will mean the United States is in on the conspiracy.” He smiled, showing yellow teeth. “And who would believe that?”

Romanov said, “Don't forget, he's charged in the death of President Warren. It's not inconceivable that we will get the opportunity to take care of him. Remember what happened to Lee Harvey Oswald? The Americans have no love for assassins.”

That thought made Putin smile. In truth, part of his reticence was purely to punish Simon. No man on earth had ever dared to cause him
so much trouble. Maybe patience would allow that punishment to occur.

He went around the room, seeing the concurrence on each man's face.

He said, “So be it.”

—

Private First Class Joe Meglan was one of the last to board the MC-130, having been tasked with the final scrub of the perimeter. He drove around it in an RSOV, looking on with a small bit of nostalgia, because at one point, he was sure they were going to war and that he would die inside the hole he'd dug.

They'd had the radio reports coming in every ten minutes, and had known that if the Russians wanted to take their airfield, they would do so. Unlike some of the press reporting coming out of America, he understood that they were but a trip wire for commitment of United States forces, and resented the people who screamed at the president to “show strength.”

Show strength, my ass. You pick up a gun and get your ass over here.

It was the difference between involvement and commitment, like ham and eggs. The chicken was involved, but the pig was committed.

One thing was for sure, he'd never make fun of the FBI again. Who would have thought this whole crisis would be precipitated by some crazy Russian with a grudge against President Putin? It was surreal, but he'd listened to President Hannister announce the arrest, and the tireless work from the FBI that had made it happen.

He would now come home a hero for his actions, but those guys were the ones who deserved the praise. If they hadn't broken open the case and tracked that nutjob down, there was a good chance he'd be coming home in a box.

He remembered the relief they'd all felt when President Putin
agreed with President Hannister's statement, following up with a press conference of his own. Of course, he'd demanded the extradition of the instigator to his judicial system, but—as he was implicated in the death of a United States president—nobody saw that happening anytime soon.

When the Russian armor began to roll back to the border, they'd spent the last three days bringing in vehicles to extract the 82nd paratroopers from the Air Force One crash site. And now, it was time for him to go home.

He swung back to the tarmac, telling his squad leader he'd seen nothing of note. The squad leader replied, “Let's go. First in, last out.”

They loaded the vehicle, cinching it down in the aircraft, then he'd buckled into the webbing of the MC-130, his squad leader next to him. He said, “If this wasn't combat, what was it?”

His squad leader considered for a moment, then said, “Just the new world order.”

The bird lifted off, and Joe said, “So no combat infantryman's badge?”

His squad leader laughed and said, “Don't worry. I'm sure we'll be catching our original deployment to Afghanistan.”