Betrayal Page 5

  While Cash and Carbon set up the gear, DJ directed the others to fan out and form a perimeter. It was wasted breath. This wasn’t their first rodeo. They were already in motion, slipping through the trees like wraiths.

  __________

  Latricia Harringer, aka Bounder, paused against a mossy trunk and looked around. There was a thin, but well-worn path before her. Following it left would take her back to the Sea of Japan. She could still hear the waves beating into the shore in the distance. There was a small town nearby. Perhaps this was a trail used by the locals for accessing the beach? She peered first left, her night vision goggles rendering the world in grainy green. There was nothing. To the right revealed two figures, also wearing night-vision goggles. Both were dressed in military fatigues. Both carried Russian AK rifles. Though, oddly, one of them had a second slung over his shoulder. They seemed shocked to see her. The soldiers were rooted in place, unsure of what to do. They were young. They had likely never seen combat. For a quiet second, she almost felt sorry for them.

  While taking the lives of the ones involved in the exchange of the drive was encouraged, it had been impressed on them to avoid killing anyone else unless absolutely necessary. Including the Russian military. But what else could she do? If they escaped, every Russian with a gun would be combing these hills. The mission would be compromised. Worse, their weapons were not suppressed like hers. If they even got off a single shot this op would be over before it even got started.

  She was well trained, expending great amounts of ammunition. Even easier, her targets weren’t moving, standing completely still like two silhouettes at the practice range back at the farm. They were twenty-five meters away. What she did next didn’t even require much thought. She snapped the gun up and fired two quick rounds. The .300 Blackout was meant for moments like this. The heavy thirty-caliber rounds made more noise impacting their skulls than her weapon did in firing them. The event was over between heartbeats.

  DJ wasn’t going to be happy, she thought. She would need to hide the bodies and then check for a radio. Cash spoke Russian. She would hand it off to him and he could monitor any transmissions to see just how screwed they were. But first, she needed to call the boss and inform him of what happened. She opened her mouth to speak, but words never came out. She caught just a hint of movement from her peripheral before she was tackled from the side. She had a fleeting thought, connecting the image of the Russian with two weapons, the second slung over his shoulder. She caught an odor as well before she impacted the ground. It was foul. The smell of bodily waste? Had this third soldier been taking a crap in the woods while his friend held his weapon?

  She had certainly been hit harder while on a sparring mat, but in the uneven terrain, she lost her footing and went down on her shoulder, impacting something hard. A rock, maybe, or an exposed root. It took the breath out of her and she felt her arm pop out of the socket, dislocating her shoulder. She instantly let go of her main weapon, her left hand numb and tingly. The AR platform rifle was still strapped to her, but now a body was on top of her, pinning it to her chest. She was struck twice in the face, knocking her goggles down below her chin.

  Latricia was wounded, in a bad position below her adversary, and fighting blind. She tried to block the flurry of blows that came at her then, but her left arm wouldn’t respond to her commands. If she couldn’t find a way to grapple with her opponent effectively, finding an opening or some pressure point to utilize, the person on top of her would beat her into unconsciousness. Carbon had been right. This mission really did suck.

  __________

  Argo took up a position at the rear, backtracking to the beach, eyes open for hostiles on their six. The breakers made an oscillating and constant roar, masking out the sounds of people, so he made his approach slow and careful. Still hiding within the shelter of the pines, oaks, and elms, he peered out at the beach and was disturbed by what he saw. Two military-looking SUVs approached, running parallel to the water and just inside the flat, wet strip of sand and rock close to the shoreline. They were following each other close and cruising slowly with their lights off. The sun was just beginning to paint the horizon a deep purple, so there wasn’t enough ambient light to drive by. This meant the occupants were using night-vision goggles similar to his. Not a good sign. At the closest point to him, they stopped, the noise of the waves covering the sound of the engines. As he watched, eight doors opened, and eight people exited wearing the camouflaged uniforms of the Russian Army.

  They didn’t seem to be looking for anything in particular; they just got out and congregated in a group. Two of them fired up cigarettes. Three of the soldiers propped their AK rifles with their long banana-shaped magazines against the vehicles. They weren’t alarmed by anything, nor did they seem to be looking for the team. It was apparent the approach to the shore was not seen by the Russian sub and radioed in. They seemed to only be socializing. Maybe it was just a routine patrol.

  Argo triggered the mic on the strap around his neck. “Hey, boss. We got a problem. I’ve got eight guns on the beach. They just rolled up in two trucks.”

  DJ responded on the other end. “Are they looking for us? Talking on a radio?”

  “That’s a negative,” Argo replied. “They're all relaxed. It’s like they just paused on their way somewhere to stretch their legs. But the trucks were in blackout and they’re wearing night-vision.”

  There was a pause before DJ replied. “All of them?”

  Argo slipped the goggles down and went for a pair of heat sensing/night-vision binoculars. The soldiers jumped closer, their bodies colored in shades of red and orange as the optics picked up the heat. “Every one of them. They’re armored up too, wearing plate carriers. They don’t have the service issue AKs either. I count seven AKS-74Us and one SV-98. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill grunts.”

  DJ’s tone changed on the other end. It was suddenly more tense. “Spetsnaz. If they aren’t looking for us, what are they doing here?”

  Argo chuckled. “Smoking cigarettes and watching the sunrise. They’re not amped up at all.”

  Another pause by DJ. Then, “Let me know if they move. Carbon’s having problems with the Falcon. We’ll move out as soon as we can.”

  Argo looked over the soldiers one more time. “I just had a bad thought. Suppose these guys are perimeter security for the meet going down soon?”

  Coonie jumped in on the comms, voicing her opinion from her hiding spot. “Nah, can’t be. That would mean our spy friend lied to us again, and this meeting is happening with the Russian Army and not some contractors. I mean, what are the odds Agent Seymour would lie to us twice?”

  DJ replied, a hint of anger in his voice. “If that’s true, then this will be a wasted trip. We don’t have the manpower and I’m not taking on an entire country.”

  Argo chuckled quietly to himself. He knew DJ too well. The man was a fixer. He appointed himself to right every wrong he confronted. There was no way the man was going to pack up and go home. He might send the team off, but he wasn’t going to let this go until he had possession of the drive. Then, and only then, would he head back to the farm. And he wasn’t going to let the lies from Agent Seymour go either. Argo felt sorry for the spook. But only just a little. The spy deserved what was coming to him.

  He hit the mic again. “Coonie, you got any Russians on your end?”

  She replied quickly. “Just trees. Lots of trees and skeeters. If I had me a good cup of Community Coffee it would remind me of home.”

  Argo nodded and called for Sam. “Doolie, you seen anything?”

  Sam answered, his breathing hard from his trek up the steep hill. “No bad guys on my end. Give me a few more minutes to make it to the top. I’ll give you the lay of the land. We heard from the farm yet? If they were able to get us a sat feed, that would be better. If Fred’s broke, we could use ISR.”

  Right on cue, Abbi broke in on their comms. “Greetings from West Virginia. You guys are late. I do have a satellite feed fo
r you. Two of Seymour’s friends showed up at the farm with satellite access. They’re listening in so feel free to bad mouth them all you want. I’m not sure if we’re going to get any more help from them, anyway. They're a little mad at me at the moment, but more on that later. I need you to listen up. You’re surrounded. I have bad guys around you in a three-mile perimeter. Numerous heat signatures. I even have a few armored personnel carriers. The kind with the big guns on top. I don’t know how you managed to get inside the circle without getting caught, but if you so much as sneeze, from this point on my marriage will be long distance only. I doubt very much if our CIA friends will send in a rescue team to a Siberian prison. My advice is to stay where you are and wait for them to leave. The phrase overwhelming odds doesn’t even begin to describe what I am looking at on my screens.”

  For the first time, Argo was worried. They would certainly not stand by and do nothing. DJ was too driven. There was no such thing as a lost cause for the man. He didn’t know the meaning of the term. And there was no way his team wasn’t going to back him up.

  Argo called out to Bounder, asking for a sitrep.

  There was no answer.

  __________

  Latricia’s hands were bound behind her back. She was nearly blind, staggering through the forest in blackness. Her weapons had been removed. She was dizzy and nauseous, with the taste of blood in her mouth. She likely had a mild concussion. As she was shoved down the dirt path, pistol pressed against the base of her skull, moving steadily away from her team, she knew just how much trouble she was in. She could only assume she was being led to where the soldiers had come from. There would be more of them, she was sure. They would discuss the implications of her being here in these woods. Then they would sound the alarm. There would be an all-out search for more of her kind. They would close in on her team. They would be tortured, questioned, and killed. She could not let that happen, but she was unsure of how to prevent it.

  The man behind her shoving her down the trail had not used a radio. Right then, she still had a chance. If she could somehow overcome her captor, she might avert a catastrophe. But how? She could barely make out the darker shapes of trees as she stumbled along. Her hands were locked behind her. Her shoulder was dislocated. Curious, she tested her bonds. They felt plastic, like zip strips. Under the right conditions, she could break them. But not with one arm out of socket. And how to deal with the gun to her head?

  She lost her footing and went down. She did her best to roll with the fall, but failed, gritting her teeth, and groaning from the impact, her shoulder the receiving end of a thousand daggers of pain. Her captor grabbed her by her ponytail of braids and hauled her back to her feet. She wanted to scream in pain. She couldn’t. Sure, it would alert DJ and the others to her situation, but it might also alert whoever awaited her on the other end of the path. She wanted to shout in anger and launch herself at the brute behind her. She couldn’t. The hard truth was she wasn’t physically able.

  Her brain turned over every possible scenario she could think of, searching for a way out. It wasn’t there. It didn’t exist. Without warning, she was shoved out of the trees and onto a gravel road. She was out of time. She could see better here, though barely. The canopy above her thinned, and she could make out a large truck, but precious little else. The sun was beginning its climb from beyond the ocean behind her, but it was still past the horizon. Soon, dawn would bathe this forest in dappled light. But for now, it was still too dark to see much of anything.

  A voice spoke in front of her, gruff and deep. She could not make out what was said. She didn’t understand Russian. Someone fired up a lighter in front of her, sticking the end of a cigarette into the yellow flame. Counting the soldier behind her, there were three of them. Her captor spoke, furious and hissing. She wasn’t sure what he was saying, but she caught the gist. He was explaining what had happened. In the glow of the cigarette, she could tell the other two were surprised. Surprise was replaced with anger. She had killed their comrades, their friends. The one smoking turned and opened the cab door, reached inside and dragging out a handheld radio. This wasn’t good, she thought. He was about to report in. The mission was dead; her team would be found.

  As he held the radio up, preparing to speak, she heard a familiar sound. Metal slapped against metal, along with what sounded like a brief release of high-pressured air. In the silence of the wooded road, it was far louder than anything depicted in movies, but there was no doubt what it was. She was quite acquainted with it as a part of her life. It was the sound of .300 Blackout with subsonic rounds being fired from a suppressed AR15. The man with the radio tipped forward, his forehead colliding hard with the frame of the truck door. She relaxed her knees and dropped into the road, desperate to avoid being collateral damage. Two more identical sets of noises and the other two lay dead about her.

  She wheezed out a thank you through gritted teeth, her shoulder screaming in pain. “God bless you, DJ Slaughter. I am so thankful you can shoot.”

  The reply made her grin from ear to ear despite her suffering. Bettie Walden, the short and stout redneck woman from Louisiana, answered instead. “Only a coonass could run through these woods without making a sound. That ape-sized fool is still somewhere behind me.”

  Chapter 6: Hammer Time

  After DJ popped Bounder’s shoulder back into place, he looked her over for other injuries. Other than having a fat lip, swollen eyebrow, and other contusions, she was OK. She was definitely still in the fight. When Bounder had gone silent, Abbi had used the satellite feed’s thermal imaging to locate and rescue her. He stood with Coonie on the gravel next to the Russian truck, considering their options. The Sheriff and Carbon were back with the gear, and Doolie Two Names was on the ridge surveying the meet point. They were awaiting his orders. He wasn’t sure what orders to give.

  Nothing was looking like it was supposed to on this operation. A meeting was scheduled to go down in just a short while. A small team, contracted to steal a data drive loaded with top-secret plans, was supposed to hand it off to a unit of North Koreans who had crossed the porous border into a narrow strip of Russia. DJ was supposed to ambush that handoff, take the drive back, and slip out to sea to meet up with the Vermont. So far, none of that was close to reality.

  The Russian Army had set up a perimeter surrounding the meeting location. This could only mean the handoff was happening with the Russians and not the North Koreans. DJ and his team had either been lied to by Agent Seymour, or the contracted thieves found a more lucrative financial opportunity by selling the drive to the Russians. In either case, DJ and his small group were outnumbered and surrounded. Their exit was cut off, and even if they could fight their way through and make it back to the ocean, they would never make the six-mile journey without being intercepted. Even if that were possible, the Vermont might not even be there waiting.

  Brett and Abbi were on the other end of the comms safely ensconced at the farm, instructing them to lay low, wait until the meeting was over, and then bug out after the hand-off had concluded. The two CIA agents with them were heard pitching a fit in the background, saying something should be done, reminding them this was what they had been contracted to do, threatening them with a promise never to use them again. DJ’s team on the ground with him remained silent. He was in charge. Whatever he decided, they would follow his lead. The problem was, the choices only presented bleak options. What they needed was a Plan B.

  DJ looked at the truck, the two female warriors with him, and down the road towards the meeting location. decisions, decisions. Go into hiding, or face off against overwhelming odds? DJ wasn’t opposed to hiding. Certain situations demanded it. Still, at the moment, it didn’t feel right. Compounding that feeling, something was beginning to nag at DJ, chewing on the back of his brain like a dog with a shoe. Something wasn’t right. Something was off. He needed to see this through and uncover the mystery of what it was.

  DJ keyed his mic. “Doolie, head back and meet up with the other
s. Sheriff, I think it’s time to drop the hammer.”

  Argo’s reply came across the earpiece tucked in DJ’s ear. “I have been waiting for months to say this: Stop! Hammer time!”

  __________

  Russia sucked when it came to building roads, Do Hyun thought. Still, it was better than where he was from. North Korea had to be the worst. It was the first thing that amazed him after sneaking out of his home country. The roads almost everywhere else were spectacular by comparison. Oh, sure, the streets were pristine around the capital city of Pyongyang. Image was everything to the potbellied dictator. But leave the city and it all deteriorated quickly. Roads that were considered highways in North Korea, were like dirt tracks in America. Unless they were direct routes to a military base, North Korean roads saw almost no state maintenance.

  Do Hyun had become something of a connoisseur of roads since becoming a spy for the tiny country. He rated all he traveled, critiquing them on smoothness, drainage, width, etc. The one he was on now, meandering its way through the tree-covered hills of eastern Russia, was a three on his scale. Although it was listed as a main road on the map, it was nothing more than a two-lane gravel path. Few people used it, preferring the four-lane concrete and asphalt highway running parallel just a few miles from here. The only reason he chose this route was because of the meeting he was attending. It was at an intersection just up ahead, where two dirt and rock paths happened to bump into each other in the middle of thick forests.

  Do Hyun wished he could take advantage of the cell phone-sized data drive he had in his possession. It was worth a great deal more than he was selling it for. The only problem was he didn’t have the cash or resources for breaking the encryption and obtaining the information locked inside. And even if he tried, word would get out. Someone would talk. Every criminal entity would be out to kill him and take the drive for themselves. It was bad enough that Do Hyun was soon to become a wanted man by his government, but to have every greedy person with a gun hunting for him was more than he could handle. No, this was far better. Sell it to the Russian, and he and the other five members in this rusting van could retire to an island somewhere. Sand, sun, bikini-clad women, and unpronounceable drinks with brightly colored umbrellas were all he craved. Let the Russian deal with cracking the code. Word would get out, as it always did, and North Korea would put a hit out on the man. When that happened, all attention on Do Hyun would vanish. At least he hoped.