“Ten seconds!” the jumpmaster yelled.
They were all assembled near the edge of the ramp now. The wind was practically deafening, and it was much colder than it had been a few feet back. Technically, they were about to jump into Russia.
Harvath raised his gloved fist and gave everyone a bump. He’d be the last one out in case anything went wrong.
Ashby would go first, followed by Palmer, then Staelin, and finally Harvath. Had they clumped together, they might have created a significant radar signature. So instead, they were to take different glide paths to the same broad drop zone.
In their packs, they carried suppressed pistols, radios, individual med kits, a ton of cash, maps, and some compact, very high-tech equipment. President Porter, Bob McGee, and Lydia Ryan had wanted to ensure that they were as self-sufficient as possible.
“On the green!” the jumpmaster yelled, pointing to the light near the ramp. “On the green!”
Harvath glanced one last time at the infrared lights on the backs of everyone’s helmets. They were all working. He’d be able to track them all the way down.
“Five, four, three, two, one!” shouted the jumpmaster as the light turned green. “Go! Go! Go!”
One by one, the team dove, headfirst, off the ramp at the rear of the aircraft and tumbled through the bitterly cold night sky.
Quickly righting themselves, they extended their limbs, spread-eagled, and began to glide.
Harvath, like the other team members, watched the computer strapped to his wrist. It provided a range of important data, including altitude, speed, direction, and distance to target.
He had jumped with a wingsuit a handful of times before, but had done so in relatively controlled environments without much gear. The added weight they were now all required to carry had been a big source of back and forth with the flight crew, as they tried to decide where and when to green-light the team to jump.
Sailing through the moonless pitch-black, the only thing Harvath could see through his NVGs were the lights on his team’s helmets as they floated through the darkness ahead of him.
Per the course they had charted, they anticipated being in Lithuanian airspace for several minutes before they crossed into Kaliningrad’s.
Looking at his wrist, he did a quick bit of math. There’d be an alarm reminding them when to pop their chutes, but he didn’t want to depend on a computer. That wasn’t how the OSS would have done it.
Adjusting his trajectory, he continued to glide. There was absolutely no other feeling in the world like it.
He continued to check his speed, stunned at how fast they were moving. The pilots had said there would be a favorable wind, but this was amazing.
A minute and a half later, he looked at his wrist and saw they were about to cross into Russian airspace.
Ahead, he could see each helmet already curving left. They were all precisely following the flight path. According to NATO analysis, there was a gap in Kaliningrad’s radar system. By hitting it one at a time, they could slip through the crack without anyone knowing. Harvath followed their lead and adjusted his course to match.
The altimeter spun wildly, like a countdown clock on speed. The drop zone was coming up fast.
They had picked a spot that had “looked good,” but that could have, for all they knew, belonged to some trigger-happy Russian farmer. According to the Lithuanians, it was a rotating livestock pasture that wasn’t currently being used.
Giving his altitude and location one last check, he flared his wingsuit to help reduce his speed and popped his chute. The large black canopy burst into the air and unfurled above him.
He grabbed the toggles and steered himself in just as the alarm on his wrist computer vibrated. Below him, he marked the positions, and speeds, of everyone else. All of their chutes appeared to have deployed, and they were expertly navigating the final distance to the ground.
Just before he reached the grass, he pulled down on the toggles and flared his chute, slowing himself down as he had done with the wingsuit.
Bending his knees, he touched down and jogged forward to dissipate the energy of his landing.
It was textbook. Perfect, even. As his canopy collapsed behind him, he did a quick visual check to make sure everyone else had landed safely. They had.
Wriggling out of his harness, he felt something soft underfoot. Looking down, he saw what it was—cow shit. Fresh cow shit.
The pasture wasn’t out of rotation, it was in use, and recently so. That was a bad piece of intelligence from the Lithuanians. He prayed it would be the only one.
CHAPTER 63
* * *
WASHINGTON, D.C.
They met at the Riggsby bar in the Carlyle Hotel at DuPont Circle. Ryan wore an emerald-toned dress that matched her eyes. Kopec wore a black, ill-fitting suit that matched his mood.
“I’ll have a Manhattan, please,” she said, as the waitress took her order and disappeared.
Kopec, as was his habit, had arrived before her and had started without her. He had been halfway through his second cocktail when she entered the bar.
Though it was only a few years old, the Riggsby looked as if it had been around since the 1940s. With its forest green walls, old-school furniture, and keyhole entryway, it was a passage back to a bygone era.
A plate of sardines sat on the table and Kopec nudged it forward, indicating Ryan should help herself.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she replied.
“That must be how you stay so skinny.”
He was maudlin. The booze was probably part of it, but there was something else going on.
“What do you have for me, Artur?” she asked.
Removing his phone, he pulled up a series of photographs and slid the phone across the table to her.
Ryan scrolled through the photos. “Where did you get these?”
“My contact in Belarus was able to access one of the kits,” he said. Technically, it was his contact’s contact, but she didn’t need to know that.
“That’s wonderful. Where are the rest of them?”
“Somewhere near Minsk, we believe.”
“All of them?”
The Polish intelligence officer nodded.
“This is very good news. Who has control of them?” she asked.
“We don’t know. They’re using a cutout, a middleman.”
“Then how do we get them back?”
“You must purchase them.”
Ryan glared at him. “Purchase them?” she snapped. “The hell we will. Those are property of the United States government. We’re not paying someone to give us back what’s rightfully ours.”
“You don’t have an alternative.”
“Like hell I don’t. I’ll send a team in and we’ll take them back ourselves.”
“A paramilitary team. On a direct-action assignment.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Exactly.”
Kopec shook his head sadly.
“I paid you a lot of money to track those kits down, Artur. It wasn’t your job to set up a purchase.” Pausing, she then asked, “Are you trying to rip us off? Because if you are, I promise you, we’re going to have a big problem.”
“Lydia, please. Of course not,” he protested. “The kits were stolen and now they’re in the hands of another party who wishes to sell them.”