He got down on his hands and knees to inspect the outlet nearest the door and felt his spine tingle. A small wire protruded ever so slightly from the bottom of the half-installed outlet. His mind had been in paranoid overdrive since finding the disturbed gravel near the gate, so the tiny wire had piqued his attention. He slowly pulled the outlet from the wall without a screwdriver, easily separating the heavy duty staples from the drywall. Once removed, he twisted the outlet to examine the back. Nothing unusual. The outlet was still attached to the wires, and Daniel had to pull the wire bundle free of a few staples to get it far enough away from the wall for an easy inspection. He removed a small screwdriver and opened the outlet box. He didn't like what was inside.
The small, protruding wire turned out to be the antennae for a highly sophisticated listening device. The presence of this device in a random room meant that the entire building was bugged. More likely, the entire complex had been rigged with these tiny UHF passive bugs. The UHF bugs operated on a line-of-sight principle and had limited transmission power. Despite the fact that these were top shelf surveillance bugs, the gentle hills surrounding the complex suggested the presence of a manned hide site, or a remote transmitter hidden somewhere among the buildings. Unfortunately, by handling the outlet, he may have already tipped off his listeners. They would have to compress their timeline.
He gently placed the opened outlet against the wall, hanging from the wires, and walked briskly to Andrei. Upon seeing him, Daniel put his finger to his lips and signaled for him to come closer. In a barely audible whisper, he told Andrei about his discovery and asked him to finish searching the building. He would need to notify the others. After leaving the structure through the back door, he bumped into Dusty, who was staring through night vision goggles at the surrounding hills.
"Looking for trails. The new building is located about fifty meters down that path. Funny they would put it there. I don't get the impression that building codes are big out here," Dusty said.
"Maybe it's a pump station," Petrovich said, trying to keep the conversation natural.
"For what?"
"A well? Geothermal?"
Dusty lowered the night vision goggles, and Daniel could feel the quizzical look on the man's face. Before Dusty could fire back a smart-ass comment, Petrovich quietly filled him in on what he had found and asked him to step inside to help Andrei, while he talked to the others. With two people nosing around in the building, his absence might go unnoticed.
Senior Warrant Officer Grigory Limonov stared through a powerful night vision spotting scope at the compound. Through the green image, he watched as flashlights probed two of the buildings. Dressed in artic level thermal gear, he lay next to Sergeant Mikhail Kilesso inside a small, low profile tent hidden among the larger rocks on the side of a hill eight hundred meters away from the buildings. The tent's opening faced the complex and had been nestled right against two of the larger rocks, allowing the occupants a clear field of vision of the entire site.
Slightly higher in elevation than the building area, they were virtually invisible to the men that had arrived thirty minutes earlier. Even in the daytime, the camouflaged tent had been undetectable, so perfectly placed and concealed, that close-up Russian satellite photos had failed to find them. Constructed of specialized thermal blanketing material, they were also invisible to any infrared or thermal imaging devices deployed from the ground or air, as long as they stayed in the tent.
The two men had been part of the security detachment for the scientific team that had analyzed the site and cleaned up the remaining mess. They had been left behind strictly to conduct surveillance and see if there were any other interested parties. The scientific team hadn't found much in the main buildings, other than a few walls that needed further cleaning, but the building outside of the complex had been a different story altogether. The original six man Spetznaz team had been given few details regarding the site's purpose, but the discovery in the outer building required everyone's involvement. They had spent the better part of a half day digging a hole deep enough to bury what seemed to be an unending quantity of skeletal remains. Not exactly the kind of work any of the Spetznaz soldiers had expected, especially Limonov's team.
They were members of the elite Vympel Group, a Spetznaz unit descended from the darkest shadows of the cold war era, specialized in foreign covert operations. The original Vympel commandos had been trained for deep penetration of enemy territories to conduct sabotage and assassinations in support of conventional Soviet military missions. NATO civilian and military leadership lived in constant fear of these commandos, who were given the task of infiltrating Europe prior to war and unearthing hidden weapons caches. These weapons would be used to kill generals, destroy NATO communications hubs, and cause chaos throughout Europe. Fluent in multiple languages and masters of deception, they were the most highly trained and lethal arm of the military.
Since then, little had changed about the quality of the men that comprised the Vympel Group, but their mission had undergone a radical shift. Though they still focused on foreign covert operations, they were now one of the Russian Federation's premier counter-terrorism units, focused on weapons of mass destruction. His unit had drawn this assignment due to their familiarity with the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site grounds. Never removing his eye from the scope, he spoke to Sergeant Kilesso.
"Do you think they found the bugs?"
Kilesso shook his head hesitantly, staring through a smaller scope. Both men wore earbuds attached to receiving equipment on the sergeant's side of the tent and had been listening intently to the group's limited conversations. Both of them regretted not placing a bug at the gate. The gate's location was obscured from their view by terrain, and they had no idea if the group had discovered the anti-personnel mines they had buried in the gravel along each side. Clearly, they had not driven the SUV around the gate. The anti-personnel mines were powerful enough to blow out a tire and possibly bend a wheel hub, but unlikely to destroy the vehicle or kill anyone inside. They had placed them as a deterrent, but the crew searching the buildings seemed far from being easily discouraged. They worked quietly and efficiently, methodically working their way through the complex.
"I can't tell. I think one, or possibly two of the outlets have been handled. Not out of the ordinary, in my opinion. I'd want to examine at least one outlet in each building. Especially given the odd wiring setup."
"I agree. We call this one in once they leave. If the motion detectors along the back trail show activity, we call it in immediately," Limonov said.
"Can we leave then?"
"Not likely, my friend. I suspect we'll be here a few more days, especially if this site has become popular," Limonov said.
Petrovich reached Farrington's building and softly opened the door. He stepped inside and was immediately met by Sergei, who held a finger to his lips and shook his head. Daniel was relieved that they had made the same discovery.
He walked up to Sergei and whispered, "Found the same thing in our building."
They both joined Farrington, who was in one of the rooms at the end of the hallway studying the furnace, which looked relatively new. Scanning the room with his flashlight, he didn't see an oil tank. Farrington stood up and took a few pictures before they all walked outside into the windy, frozen air. They spoke freely, but in hushed tones.
"We have to assume all of the structures are bugged," Farrington said.
"Yeah. I just wonder if someone is watching us right now," Petrovich said.