He’d felt uneasy giving the task to the men who were watching the place. Most of them were eastern European assets, excellent at surveillance and other tradecraft drills, but less than half of them had any prior military training. Only Mikhail was ex-Special Forces, having spent five grueling years in Spetsnaz Vympel before transferring to the SVR, and he’d used his expertise to devise an assault plan to ensure that each man knew exactly what to do. Nevertheless, his men were amateurs. Last night he’d told his assets that there would be no shame if any one of them decided not to take part in the offensive. None of them had stepped down.
Over the last twenty-four hours, he’d considered many times whether he should move his four men to the farmstead perimeter. They were professionals, all Special Forces, and their presence here would easily be worth that of another thirty untrained but brave assets. But if anything went wrong tonight and Kurt escaped, he needed them to be ahead of Kurt, ready to block off his route to the Black Forest. For that reason, four hours ago he’d ordered them to leave their Berlin hotel, travel west, and wait on the outskirts of Hanover.
His thoughts turned to his family. His wife, Diana, had called him a day ago and told him that she’d been threatened by men representing the person he was seeking, that he was to send a messenger into the property he was watching with a note to say he was completely withdrawing from the place. His stomach had wrenched as he heard her speak, and when the call had ended he’d spent hours trying to decide what to do. Finally, he’d called her back and said that he was sending three trusted former police officers to their Moscow home. They would take her and their two daughters-Tatyana and Yana-somewhere safe. What he didn’t tell her was that he’d arranged for a further four ex-FSB men to watch the safe place. He knew Kurt’s men would follow his family and no doubt try to kill them when he realized Mikhail wasn’t going to back down. If they did that, they’d be confronted by an unexpected force.
But the threat to his family had significantly enhanced Mikhail’s desire to get his hands on Kurt Schreiber’s throat. He wanted that just as much as he wanted to retrieve the paper. In just over two hours, he hoped to be holding a gun to Kurt’s temple and a cell phone to his mouth, telling him to order his men to back away from his family. If the former Stasi officer didn’t, Mikhail would have no hesitation in pulling the trigger.
He slowed the vehicle and turned off its headlights as he drew nearer to the place he always stopped to examine the perimeter and the farmstead before proceeding onward on foot. Driving the SUV off the road, he brought it to a halt and exited the car. During daylight, visible over the two thousand yards between this position and the farmstead would be undulated land containing heather, blueberry heath, streams, isolated trees, and the occasional herd of moorland sheep. Three hundred yards around the farmstead, the land was flatter and featureless. The perimeter where the SVR assets were stationed was close to the outskirts of that flatland.
Turning on his ISS T-iV HD Thermal Imaging Binoculars, he waited three seconds for the military-grade equipment to power up, then held it to his eyes. Though he was nearly one mile away, he could see the white images of four men, all positioned exactly where they should be. Moving the binoculars a few millimeters, he spotted three more of his men, all stationary and spread apart. The rest of his men were out of range and sight, beyond the farmstead’s buildings. Checking that his powerful MK23.45-caliber SOCOM handgun was secure under his jacket, he jogged forward.
Then he sprinted, leapt over a brook, and made for higher ground as he heard distant gunfire. Breathing fast, he placed his binoculars against his eyes and said, “Oh, no!”
One mile away, men were running out of the farmstead. From beyond the SVR perimeter, more men were moving toward the farmstead. His assets were stuck in between both forces. He stood still, knowing he couldn’t get there in time, watching one of his men fall down, others emerging from behind the farmstead, three of them collapsing and staying still, flashes of light as some of them opened fire, more flashes of light from the hostiles as they returned fire. One by one, he saw his men being killed, standing no chance of escape, trapped in a pincer movement that had the sole purpose of massacring his men. He saw the last of them fall.
More light, but this was brighter. Vehicles emerged from outhouses in the farmstead. The men in the complex ran to them and entered. Those who had attacked the perimeter from outside the farmstead retreated; within seconds they were heading toward more vehicles that had been hidden out in the heath. Mikhail ignored them, focused on the multiple vehicles leaving the farmstead, and muttered, “Bastard!”
His reinforcements weren’t due here for another two hours. If he called them now, it would take them at least twenty minutes to get here, probably longer. He watched the convoy. It was heading away from the farmstead on the road he’d driven in on. In approximately five minutes, it would be driving within one hundred yards of his hidden vehicle.
Mikhail decided the only thing he could do was wait for them to pass, get in his SUV, pursue the convoy, order his remaining assets to search the farmstead and dispose of their colleagues’ bodies, and tell his four-man team of shooters that they needed to be ready to intercept the convoy. He reached for his cell phone and ran to his vehicle.
Twenty-Four
One of them is on the phone. Engines are running. Vehicles are rolling.”
Adam turned on the ignition. “We’ll take point.” He kept his headlights off, watched the two Russian SUVs emerge back onto the highway, drove off the hard shoulder, moved behind a civilian vehicle, then turned his lights on. “Shit! They’re driving at pace.”
“Stay on them. I don’t care if they see us.” Will gripped his handgun, glanced over his shoulder, and saw Roger and Mark’s vehicle race out of the gas station. “Something’s wrong,” he said into the phone.
“Yeah, I’m getting that feeling.” Mark accelerated. “Don’t think it was us that spooked them. There were nineteen other cars in the gas station.”
Roger added, “It was the cell phone call that did it.”
Will looked around. “Do you think they’ve got a countersurveillance team out? Maybe they spotted us; the call came from them.”
“Nah. I’ve been looking since Berlin. There’s no team.”
“Then most likely the call came from Mikhail,” Will said. Adam was now driving at nearly one hundred miles per hour. “But this isn’t premeditated. There’s been a change of plan.”
Mark’s SUV moved in behind Adam’s. “They must know we’re pursuing them. Let’s just hope they think we’re kids, looking for a race.”
Will placed his pistol into his jacket and held his assault rifle with both hands. “Nice thought, but I doubt they’re thinking that right now.”
The Russians’ vehicles were forty yards ahead of them, increasing speed, moving in between other cars.
“Exit’s coming up. One hundred yards. They ain’t slowing. Fuck!” Adam yanked the steering wheel down as the Russian team took the exit at speed. Taking the corner, he shouted, “They’re trying to lose us.”
Roger’s vehicle was only feet behind, its tires screeching as it entered the bend. “They’d have been better off going into Hanover to do that.”
“Exactly.” Will wrapped the assault rifle’s strap around his forearm. “They’re heading to an assault. Standby. Most likely they think we’re cops. They’ll try to kill us if they think we’re going to get in their way.”
They were now on a minor road, straddled by countryside.
“Multiple oncoming headlights.” Adam downshifted and braked hard as the Russian vehicles did the same. “Eight vehicles, all together. All look like SUVs.”
Will stared at the approaching convoy, his mind racing. “That’s their target, and that’s our target!”