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  Team Sergeant Nathan Vatz never finished his sentence. The Russian T-100 main battle tank on the opposite end of the intersection finished it for him.

  Vatz slammed onto his gut, sliding across the rain-slick pavement as the office building fifty meters ahead exploded with a thunderous boom.

  Shards of concrete, glass, and mangled metal arced into the cold night and fell in a hailstorm on the blackened remains of the HMMWVs and a pair of eight-wheeled Stryker infantry combat vehicles, behind which Vatz’s special forces team had taken cover. A black rose of smoke backlit by fire bloomed across the intersection, driven by a wind thick with the stench of cordite.

  With a sudden lurch, the fifty-ton tank rumbled closer, its 152mm smoothbore main gun swiveling menacingly, tracks grinding over the bodies of the rifle squad—the tank’s first victims—who’d been hit as they’d dismounted from one of the Strykers.

  Vatz wiped sweat from his eyes, cleared his throat, and spoke into the tiny voice-activated boom mike at his lips: “Victor Six, this is Vortex, over?”

  His voice had cracked. Calm down. They just had to get the hell out of here. That was it.

  But now their exfiltration had gone to hell. No bird to swoop in, land on the rooftop helipad, and whisk them to safety. No nothing.

  And that tank wasn’t operating alone. The rest of that platoon had to be nearby, with dismounted forces from the BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles parked outside the gate.

  “Victor Six, this is Vortex, over?”

  Where was the rest of his twelve-man team? They’d been right behind him, and the captain had been holding up in that doorway, which was now empty.

  Vatz bolted to his feet, darted back behind the still-burning hulk of a Mercedes SUV, and suddenly raised his pistol, about to fire—

  When he realized the men down the alley were friendlies, his team, easy to mistake because of their Russian Spetsnaz uniforms.

  Weapons Sergeant Zack Murrow had already shouldered the Javelin antitank missile they had recovered from one of the dead infantrymen and was moving toward the street, about to lie prone and get a bead on that tank.

  Vatz rushed toward Zack; never breaking cover, he said in perfect Russian, “Don’t miss.”

  The sergeant answered in English. “Right. But forget the Russian, Nathan. Our cover’s been seriously blown.”

  Vatz and his colleagues were Joint Strike Force soldiers wearing enemy uniforms. They would be considered spies. They would not be taken prisoner. There would be no diplomatic negotiation for their release.

  Hurrying farther along the wall, Vatz found the detachment commander, Captain Tom Gerard, and the assistant detachment commander, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Douglas Barnes, speaking softly, Gerard working an index finger over his pocket PC. Next to them were the team’s two commo guys, and farther back were the two engineers and assistant weapons sergeant, Russian Varjag heavy pistols drawn as they covered the end of the alley. One of the two medics was positioned at the near side.

  Somewhere in the distance voices lifted. The Spetsnaz dismounted forces were drawing closer. And the drizzle was beginning to get heavier, promising a downpour.

  “Hey, Vatz,” grunted the captain. “Heard you calling, but I was on the Shadowfire with higher.”

  “Bad news?”

  Barnes, a round-faced man with more than twenty years of service, smiled broadly. “We have to fall back another half klick. Our friends across the street have pushed too far forward, and our bird can’t get in here. She’s already found a secure spot behind a parking garage near the old municipal airport.”

  “Couldn’t be easy, huh?”

  “Vatz, we’re a Joint Strike Force team in the middle of Moscow. Operational Detachment Alpha. Special Forces. The world is at war. Damn. If you wanted easy, you should’ve joined the—”

  “My cousin’s in the Air Force.”

  “I was going to say the circus.”

  “We got one right here. What the hell happened? They were waiting for us.”

  Gerard and Barnes just shrugged.

  Vatz swore under his breath. “Let’s move.”

  As team sergeant, Vatz was responsible for the fighting men during combat situations, which freed up Barnes and Gerard to maintain close contact with their company commander and coordinate team movements within the larger battle plan.

  At the moment, Vatz was all about giving one order: Run!

  He called the others out of the alley, just as Zack announced that his missile was locked, his eye pressed tightly against the command launch unit’s night-vision sight. A heartbeat later, he fired.

  The missile ripped away with a terrific whoosh while a massive chute of fire extended from the launcher’s tail.

  Like a star in the night, the missile streaked up into the dark mantle of clouds. Even as Zack ditched the launcher and scrambled to his feet, the projectile abruptly changed course, coming straight down in top-attack mode. It struck the tank’s turret with a powerful explosion that shattered nearby windows and, in turn, tore into the ammo compartment, creating several more explosions, white-hot shrapnel fountaining from the wreckage.

  As more tongues of fire rose from the dead tank, Vatz signaled the others on down the avenue, then stole a glance at his wrist-mounted GPS. The captain had already programmed in their destination. All they had to do was leap over the debris and bodies, connect the dots, and they’d be home.

  If you wanted easy.

  The two medics, Patterson and Eck, were in charge of keeping the “package” in good shape, said package being one Pavel Doletskaya, a special forces colonel working for the Glavnoje Razvedyvatel’noje Upravlenije (GRU), or the Main Intelligence Directorate.

  According to intel intercepted by the European Federation Enforcers Corps (EFEC), Doletskaya worked for the big man himself, General Sergei Izotov, the director of the GRU. The two were planning a covert operation with mention of the Amundsen Gulf region up in Canada. The EFEC had tipped off the Joint Strike Force, and the team had gone into isolation until the opportunity arose to abduct the good colonel. Weeks of planning had resulted in a clean snatch as Doletskaya was leaving “The Aquarium” (the nickname for GRU headquarters) and heading home for the night.

  Moreover, the team had done a fine job of wrapping their package. They had bound his wrists, taped his mouth, and placed a ballistic assault helmet with full visor over his head. They needed to protect that head. What he had in it could prove extremely valuable. They had also fitted him with a Dragon Skin armored vest composed of silver dollar-shaped pieces of silicon carbide ceramic. The pieces overlapped like fish scales to help dissipate a bullet’s kinetic energy. Doletskaya was far better protected than any member of the team and, of course, worth a lot more to the JSF than they were.

  Rifle fire suddenly erupted behind them, rounds burrowing into the wall just a meter behind Vatz.

  He wanted to scream for the others to move faster, but that incoming was more than enough motivation.

  They charged forward, Barnes and Gerard in the lead, the medics and Doletskaya and the rest right behind them. Vatz pulled up the rear.

  Vatz raced to the next corner, dodged behind a wall, then rolled back and opened fire as Zack arrived at his side, adding more suppressing fire.

  Six Spetsnaz troops were hustling across the road about a block away, muzzles flashing as they cut loose another salvo.

  Vatz and Zack fired a few more rounds that sent them into crouching positions; then Vatz urged Zack back and the sergeant nodded and took off.

  The wind picked up and the rain finally came, hard and heavy, in time with Vatz’s pulse.

  Meanwhile, the team ducked right down another alley, heading for the next street, and a glance at his GPS told Vatz that the captain was taking a shortcut, probably getting word from Detachment Bravo. That Special Forces team was back at the tactical command post, monitoring their Blue Force Tracking screens and informing the captain that more soldiers were beginning to surround them.


  Vatz got on the radio. “Victor Six, this is Vortex.”

  “Go ahead, Vortex.”

  “We have a squad in pursuit. Maybe more coming, over.”

  “Roger, there are at least a few guys coming from the west, along with a vehicle from the north.”

  “I figured. We’ll break off and intercept the dismounts. Buy you a little time, over.”

  “Do it.”

  “On our way. Vortex, out.”

  Zack, who’d been listening over the channel, slowed as Vatz caught up with him. They continued straight up the street, toward a two-story warehouse or factory.

  As they reached the corner, they jumped down a meter into a loading bay area, where collected rainwater nearly reached their knees.

  Zack swore, slipped, fell face forward, and Vatz seized his arm and dragged him up. They trudged forward, out of the puddle, toward where flashlights—three to be exact—shone across the street from an alley that divided another two factory buildings in half.

  Vatz tipped his head in that direction, and they sprinted off, able to reach the wall near the alley before the Spetsnaz troops emerged.

  There they paused, and in the seconds it took to catch his breath, Vatz tapped his GPS, zooming in on his location to see if they should circle around the alley and come in from the back side or simply try a frontal approach.

  A man’s voice, low and heavily burred, echoed off the walls. The Russians were right there.

  Zack’s expression grew emphatic with the need for orders.

  Vatz motioned Zack to crouch down, then whispered into his mike: “I got the first one.”

  “Okay.”

  The soldier reached the end of the alley, and Vatz already had his BlackHawk Caracara knife in hand, a black talon of steel that would cut silently and effortlessly through flesh.

  The soldier came forward, waving his light—

  Vatz sprang on him, drawing his blade across the soldier’s neck in one fluid motion while cupping his hand over the man’s mouth.

  Even as the blood gushed from the Russian’s severed carotid artery, Vatz gave the soldier a second punch—the kill shot to the spinal cord. He grew limp and crumpled.

  One of the troops called out to his buddy.

  Zack’s eyes could not grow any wider.

  Vatz nodded, and Zack whirled forward, into the alley, just as the second soldier drew near—

  Yet even as Zack fired point-blank into the man’s head, the third and final soldier fired before Vatz could.

  It all happened so fast that Vatz wasn’t sure what had happened until . . .

  The two Spetsnaz soldiers collapsed to the puddles.

  Followed by Zack.

  “Aw, no . . .”

  A hollow pang struck Vatz as he rushed to his friend, dropped to his knees, eyes already burning.

  Zach had taken a round to the head. He was already gone.

  Vatz froze. In shock. No time now. Just nothing. Emptiness. And suddenly, he thought of the day he and Zack had been sitting in the barracks and had heard the news about the nukes going off in Saudi Arabia and Iran, destroying both countries. People always asked: where were you on the day the nukes went off?>

  I was with my buddy Zack.

  Vatz reached out, wanting to touch the man’s cheek, when the captain’s voice boomed in his ear: “Vortex, this is Victor Six. We’re nearing the pickup zone, taking heavy fire, over!”

  Vatz just breathed.

  “Vortex, this is Victor Six, over!”

  “Uh, Victor Six, this is Vortex.”

  “Taking heavy fire!”

  “Roger that, Victor Six. We got those other guys but lost Volcano, over.”

  The captain’s tone shifted. He swore then said, “Just rally on us now!”

  Watching Zack die right there in the street got under Vatz’s skin, that impenetrable Special Forces skin. And suddenly, he wasn’t thirty-two years old anymore but just about eight, propelled by utter fear as he raced down the alley. He came out, glanced around, and began to hear the heavy whomping of the chopper. But it was accompanied by another sound, a whirling alarmlike noise that droned on.

  He was at full sprint alongside the parking garage now, the chopper just on the other side, the alarm growing louder; and as he rounded the corner, he saw what was happening: a Russian BMP-3 was rolling up and blasting the team with its Long-Range Acoustical device. The sound was so loud that you couldn’t help but cover your ears while the enemy gunned you down.

  They hadn’t opened fire with their big guns because they wanted their colonel back alive. But that didn’t stop five or six dismounts from putting more selective rifle fire on the team, just as they reached the chopper’s open bay doors.

  The chopper’s two door gunners did what they could, firing wildly, but they couldn’t concentrate with that sound blaring in their ears. No helmets or plugs would help.

  Vatz wasn’t sure if he’d taken a round or not as he came in from the other side of the bird and launched himself into the air, crashing into the bay, someone shrieking in agony as the helicopter tipped its nose forward and suddenly took off, the gunfire still pinging off the fuselage.

  The BMP-3 crew cut loose with their 7.62 mm machine guns, deciding that they’d take the risk and bring down the bird. But the team’s pilot descended quickly to the other side of the garage, out of the line of fire, then suddenly banked right and headed back east, keeping low, weaving between buildings, heading for the front lines, for Joint Strike Force-held ground, for safety.

  As he looked around the bay, entirely out of breath and bleary-eyed, Vatz realized that only Gerard, Barnes, one medic, and one engineer were onboard, along with Doletskaya.

  “Where’s everyone else? Where are they?”

  The captain shook his head.

  Barnes and the medic were no longer moving, and the engineer was clutching his leg, shot in the femoral artery and bleeding all over the bay floor.

  Just then Gerard pulled open his bloody jacket and lifted his shirt, revealing a pair of dark holes in his chest. He wouldn’t make it, and neither would the engineer.

  “We need help!” Vatz cried to one of the door gunners.

  The guy ignored him, tending to his own shoulder wound.

  Gritting his teeth, Vatz pushed himself over to the Russian, wrenched up the man’s visor, and grabbed him by the neck. “Are you worth it, you bastard?”

  The Russian stared up with vacant eyes.

  Vatz glanced back at the remains of his team, then glared at the colonel once more and screamed, “Are you worth it?”

  TWO

  “Obviously you don’t remember my father,” said General Sergei Izotov as he rose from his office chair. “He was a division commander and hero of the Motherland in World War II. To imply that there is a lack of intelligence in my family is going much too far.”

  Izotov felt certain that there was only one man in all of Russia who would take such a tone with President Vsevolod Vsevolodovich Kapalkin. He was not that man, but the chance that he might not survive such a conversation was not the point.

  He would not allow Kapalkin to insult him or his family, no matter the cost. And he could not believe the insult had come from a man whose own father was a low-level functionary in the KGB, a man whose own fortune was amassed through smuggling personal computers, blue jeans, and other luxury items while attending university. How dare Kapalkin take such a tone with him!

  Perhaps he would not survive the conversation!

  Izotov glared at the president, who stared back at him from the computer screen. Kapalkin’s pronounced jaw, penetrating eyes, and impeccably combed hair stripped a decade off his fifty-four years, as did his daily exercise regime of swimming, which kept his waist narrow, his shoulders broad.

  The president began to shake his head. “I’ll say it again. I’m shocked that your Spetsnaz and security units allowed such a breach. And now they have Doletskaya.”

  “We were addressing the breach, but they had help
from the inside.”

  “Which is even more disturbing. And now you tell me the colonel’s chip has been deactivated by the Americans? We can’t kill him? If Doletskaya talks—”

  “I think he will hold out for as long as possible. But it won’t matter either way. There’s nothing those cowboys can do to stop us. The wheels are already in motion. And I will plug this leak.”

  “General, I want to believe you’re right. But then again, I believed your security was the best in the world.”

  Izotov snorted. “I’m right. Believe it.”

  President Kapalkin considered that. A smile nicked the corners of his lips as he glanced away at another screen. “The Americans are beginning to pull out of Moscow. It seems Major Noskov is having more success than you are at the moment.”

  Izotov discerned a dismissal in the president’s tone. “At the moment the major is doing quite well for himself and his unit, but we, too, will succeed. Spasibo, Vsevolod Vsevolodovich. Thank you.”

  The president nodded, and Izotov broke the link. Then he whirled around and smote a fist on the table, highly unlike him.

  He wanted to call someone, vent his anger, but he had no real friends, just a shifting coterie of allies. Even his spartanly furnished office seemed to taunt him, to remind him that despite all the blood, sweat, and tears, there were still men like Kapalkin who would dismiss his sacrifices as cavalierly as they would a waiter.

  What had he become?

  The rumors had spread among his subordinates that he only slept one or two hours per day, that he was perhaps part machine, constructed by the government itself. Sometimes he felt that way.

  And oh, he had served that government well, in the first and second Chechen wars, twice a hero back then. He had commanded the 6th Spetsnaz Brigade from 1998 to 2006, and was head of the Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska (VDV), the Russian Airborne Troops, from 2007 to 2012. In 2012, he had assumed his post at the GRU and for the past eight years had expanded the directorate’s power and purpose.

  But had he focused too much on the work?

  His subordinates even questioned his wife’s death, wondered if he was somehow involved.

  He would speak of it to no one, purge all thoughts of it from his mind.