“Do you?”
Brooks thought it over and then let out a sigh. “I don’t know. Not for sure.”
“Then look at this way,” Couture said. “If not for Pope, we’d have lost two supercarriers and a huge chunk of the Pacific Fleet to that nuke last summer — not to mention half a million lives or more. Now, I know you’ve never met Hagen personally, but I know the little prick as well as anybody, and I wouldn’t piss in his mouth if his teeth were on fire.”
Brooks grinned. “Senator Grieves speaks rather highly of him.”
Couture’s scarred face turned to stone. “Senator Grieves would. Leave Hagen to Pope — that’s my recommendation.”
30
Yakunin and his Spetsnaz were in hot pursuit of Dokka Umarov and his men, charging through the forest in a running battle against a stubborn Chechen rearguard action designed to buy time for Umarov’s escape. The staccato of automatic-weapons fire was constant, interspersed with exploding 40 mm grenades and the occasional burst of fire from the supporting Hind helicopter, which by now was running low on ammo.
Yakunin drove his men hard, determined to see the end of Dokka Umarov. He estimated that they had burned through half their ammunition, but he was confident they would soon finish off the middling force of Chechens.
All of his instincts were proven dead wrong, however, the second he and his men ran head-on into the defensive line set up by Prina Basayev and his Chechen force from the east.
A barrage of RPG-7s streaked across the forest, detonating among Yakunin and his Spetsnaz. Bodies flew into the air, were hurled into trees, blew apart. Fifteen men were obliterated in the blink of an eye, and the remaining few were quickly picked off.
Yakunin landed on his belly, bleeding from multiple wounds. He felt broken inside, reaching for his carbine only to find that his right arm was missing from the elbow down. The firing died off, and he blacked out.
He came too with someone kneeling on his back, rifling his trouser pockets. The Chechen flipped him over and began rifling his harness, jamming the spare magazines and grenades onto a battered rucksack.
“My men?” Yakunin croaked.
“All gone,” the Chechen said, not even bothering to look him in the eye as he flipped open Yakunin’s wallet.
“The photo.” Yakunin reached out with what was left of a bloody left hand.
The Chechen looked at him, took the photo of the major’s wife from the wallet and stuck it between Yakunin’s only two remaining fingers.
Yakunin stared at the photo as the Chechen stripped him of his gear and body armor.
Dokka Umarov appeared, waving the fighter away. “You are the commander?”
“Da,” Yakunin croaked, still staring at the photo.
“Who betrayed my location?”
Yakunin glanced up, knowing he didn’t have long to live. “You were observed by a reconnaissance team. We almost had you this time, ublyudok!” Bastard!
Umarov nodded sullenly, holding Yakunin’s carbine. “Yes, I admit I got lucky. But luck is the only quality in a commander that really counts.”
“True enough,” Yakunin admitted, choking on the blood rising up the back of his throat.
Umarov knelt beside him to poke a cigarette into the corner of his mouth, lighting it for him with a match. Then he gestured with the carbine. “You want to go quick? Or to wait?”
“I’ll wait,” Yakunin whispered. “It won’t be long.”
Umarov stood up and slung the carbine, giving orders to his men. “Leave nothing of value!” They could hear the Hind, long out of ammo, flying away to the northwest. “They may send more crocodiles, so we’ll travel southeast until nightfall, then bear west over the mountain to link up with Mukhammad.”
Umarov was joined by Lom on the march out. “It was close,” the younger man said.
“Yes,” Umarov agreed. “They should have killed us to a man. They had every advantage, but war is like that sometimes. The superior force does not always win.”
“It was the will of Allah. He was with us.”
“He is with us always, but you would do well not to place too much credit or too much blame where He is concerned. There will be days when He expects you to take care of yourself, and you will never know which days those are. Today may have been such a day.”
Lom thought about his uncle’s words as they marched along through the afternoon, attempting to reconcile them with those in the sixth surah of the Qur’an, verse seventeen: “And if Allah should touch you with adversity, there is no remover of it except Him. And if He touches you with good — then He is over all things competent.”
By sundown, Lom concluded that his uncle either possessed a deeper understanding of the Qur’an than he did, or he had allowed himself to become jaded after so many years of war.
He looked toward the head of the column, where Umarov marched alongside the Basayev brothers — Anzor and Prina. “He is Allah in the heavens and in the earth,” he whispered to himself. “He knows your secret thoughts, and your open words… and He knows what you earn.”
31
“There goes the sun,” muttered Ivan Dragunov.
Gil glanced toward the horizon, the stock of the G28 still pulled into his shoulder. “I’ve been thinkin’. Suppose Kovalenko’s men brought night vision. We could be in for a shift in the initiative here.”
Dragunov considered the possibility. “If Kovalenko had infrared, we’d already be dead. It’s not likely the men brought night vision with them.”
Gil adjusted the sat phone’s earpiece. “Midori, you still reading us?”
“Roger. I copy direct.” Midori was now monitoring both of their phones on separate channels back in Langley, and they could both hear her, but they could not hear each other.
“You still got visual on us?”
“Roger that as well.”
“Okay.” Gil took the 1911 pistol from the small of his back and gave it to Dragunov. “As soon as the light fades, you can work your way down close to the house on the blind side to the east. Stay away from the barn and the goat pens, though. If those fuckers start bleating, Kovalenko’s gonna know what we’re up to.”
Gripping the Italian cop’s Beretta, Dragunov tucked the 1911 into his belly.
“You know how to work a 1911?”
“Of course,” Dragunov said. “It was the preferred weapon of my enemy for a long time.”
Gil chuckled. “It’s still my preferred weapon.”
“I suppose you’re staying up here where it’s safe?”
“Well, this ain’t exactly a close-quarter weapon, Ivan. We have to play to our strengths.”
“I’ll man the rifle,” Dragunov said, taking the 1911 back out of his pants.
Gil moved away from the G28, almost preferring to take the fight to the enemy, and put out his hand for the pistol. “Okay, chief.”
His bluff called, Dragunov put away the pistol again. “Don’t miss, Vassili — and don’t shoot me by mistake.”
Gil repositioned himself behind the rifle. “Midori will make sure I know where you are at all times. Right, Midori?”
“Roger that.”
When the light faded, Dragunov moved out to the east, skirting the farm until he reached the edge of the road. Visibility was less than fifty feet in the darkness. “No movement outside the house?” he asked Midori.
“None,” she answered. “You’re exactly in line with the blind side of the house now. You should be able to advance without being detected. I’ll vector you in.”
Over the next couple of minutes, she fed him directions for the most expedient approach to the house, helping him to skirt copses of trees and brush without getting disoriented in the dark. He arrived at the eastern side and lowered himself into a crouch with his back to the wall, trading the Beretta for the 1911. “Make sure Gil knows I’m in position,” he said in a low voice, knowing that whispers carried in the dark.