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He blocked Stepan’s path again, this time shoving him backward. Surprise flashed across the Russian’s face and then he reached out to grab the front of Rapp’s jacket. He was a bear of a man typical in this part of the world—six one, 240, with thick forearms covered in dark hair and tattoos. Someone best dealt with quickly.
Rapp grabbed Stepan’s thumb and bent it back before sweeping the man’s right leg just below the knee. He executed the maneuver about half speed—enough to put the Russian on the ground, but not enough to do any permanent damage.
The air rushed out of Stepan’s lungs, but he looked more surprised than injured. More problematic was the fact that his equally burly brother had come around the makeshift bar and was in full charge. He made it only a few steps before noticing Coleman tracking him with a silenced Glock. That was enough to bring him to a halt, but it was an open question whether he was smart enough to stay that way.
“Irena,” Rapp said. “You own this company, right?”
She was completely frozen, eyes locked on the gun. Finally, she managed to answer. “Yes.”
“Then you’re in command and these men are your responsibility. You understand you can’t win, right? All that can happen is that you and your people get hurt.”
She said something in Russian and Alexi helped his brother to his feet. Then both retreated to the bar.
“We . . . We don’t have anything worth stealing,” she said, trying to decipher what was happening. “What do you want from us?”
“I want you to go to bed,” Rapp said. “Tomorrow morning I want you to sleep in. Your fees have been paid and we’ll be wiring another fifty thousand U.S. dollars to cover damages.”
“Damages?”
Right on cue, McGraw came back through the door. “They use walkie-talkies for local communication and the shortwave is connected to an antenna out back. We’ve cut the wires and Wick’s on the roof dismantling their satellite dish.”
“What about the snowmobiles?”
“All well maintained and gassed up. We’ve loaded the gear on the five newest ones and disabled the others. Keys are in ’em.” He glanced at his watch. “Wick said he’d be ready to go in four and a half minutes.”
Rapp loved working with Coleman’s team. No complaints, no hesitation, no detail too small or timeline too tight. He turned back to Irena. “Do we have a deal?”
CHAPTER 52
THE Russian-built snowcat was shut down, leaving an icy world illuminated only by a distant glow. Travel up the makeshift road had taken almost nine hours and had involved digging a path through three drifts too dense for the vehicle’s front shovel.
Kabir Gadai stared through the windshield, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. Spindrift swirled from the towering banks on either side, but with less violence than it had only an hour ago. The snowflakes were still thick and heavy, but now floating straight down at a predictable rate. With the engine off and the storm subsiding, the breathing of the five ISI operatives packed in behind him now dominated.
Based on what he knew from the odometer and intermittent GPS signal, the source of the dim light was Pavel Katdsyn’s village, perhaps a half kilometer to the east. As had become customary, there was no time to collect detailed intelligence or recon the area. They were in a race against America’s Central Intelligence Agency and once again Gadai would have to endure risks that would normally be unacceptable.
According to his FSB informants, the village was inhabited by approximately ten families, some of which included children. Focused on hacking and Internet scams, they weren’t involved in any activity that could create territorial disputes, and they paid significant protection money to both organized crime and the police. Combined with the remote setting, this suggested—but by no means guaranteed—that they would have light security.
“I’ll go in using the road,” he said as his men began piling out of the vehicle. It was the most straightforward of the three attack plans they’d devised. Unfortunately, it was also the most dangerous. With visibility so limited, though, the risks were outweighed by the benefits. Every moment of delay increased the potential for a confrontation with the Americans.
Gadai started the snowcat and propelled it forward. His men would follow at a distance that allowed them to remain in darkness.
At first, he thought the entrance to the village was completely unguarded, but then he spotted a man running toward him. He was wearing mismatched down pants and jacket, both in garish colors that made him stand out against the white background. The rifle over his shoulder hung up as he clawed at it, finally coming free and allowing him to aim the weapon in Gadai’s general direction. It was a pathetic display that confirmed his suspicions about security. No doubt the men of the village took turns on watch with no regard to ability or training.
Gadai slid the driver’s-side window down and shouted a greeting in Russian as the man cautiously approached. Satisfied that he posed little threat, Gadai turned his attention to the small enclave beyond his windshield. The photos he’d seen appeared to be accurate. The village formed a rough U shape, with four buildings on each side of a snowpacked street and one at the end. All were two stories, constructed primarily of local timber and metal sheeting. A single snowcat and various snowmobiles were visible but showed little sign of use. None could be dug out quickly enough to be used as escape vehicles and fleeing into the wilderness on foot would be suicide.
When the man got to within a few meters, he called out to Gadai. The Pakistani smiled in an attempt to put the man at ease, but al
so in reaction to his own good luck. He possessed only a single blurry photo of Pavel Katdsyn and had assumed that he would have to question the guard out of fear that it could be him. The man’s pure-blood Asian features made that unnecessary.
Gadai lifted the silenced pistol from his lap, aiming it through the open window and squeezing the trigger. The round hit the man directly between the eyes and he crumpled to the snow without so much as a whimper.
Gadai’s team appeared a moment later, running past the snowcat and fanning out in a well-coordinated pattern. He jumped down to the snow and sprinted toward the first building on the left as his men began accessing the others.
The door was unlocked and he went inside, entering an open room with threadbare sofas and a kitchen stacked with dirty dishes. There was a set of stairs to the left and he began to ascend, dragging a hand against the wall as a guide in the darkness. He heard a muffled scream from outside and picked up his pace, concerned that it might wake the house’s occupants.
His instincts were right. When he slipped into a room on the upper floor, he found a man desperately searching an old chest of drawers for a weapon. He spun when Gadai stepped on a loose floorboard and instinctively threw an arm in front of his face. He was wearing only a pair of briefs, but his long hair provided a convenient grip point that Gadai used to drag him down the stairs and out into the snow.
He began to babble in Russian, but Gadai ignored him, scanning the upper windows of the buildings for any threat. There was nothing, though. His men had control of the situation and were marching people out of their homes at gunpoint. Men, women, children, and even infants appeared, some fully dressed and others naked or in bedclothes. His team lined them up on their knees, standing behind them with weapons at the ready. Some were shouting angrily, others pleading. The children wailed, already shivering as their skin reddened in the frigid temperatures.
