Shadow War (21 page)

They passed into a town, Alie driving in the rear, following two sedans and a minivan that comprised the official vehicles of the Donbas Battalion patrol. The town was scattered houses, then apartment blocks and small businesses, and finally, a one-story building next to a park.

“We're here,” said Shwetz, the teacher, taking a deep calming breath.

He jumped out of the car and started toward the building, as twelve men jumped out of the other cars, their weapons drawn. Several stopped behind a planter, a few against the front wall of the building, while three rushed to the door and burst through. Alie could hear yelling from inside, and then gunfire, and then all the militiamen began to converge, swiftly, as if they were being sucked through the front door.

Alie followed the teacher, figuring it was safer that way. Inside the small building, it was a scrum of bodies. Men were swinging guns, and screaming, and one man was down on the floor holding a wad of bloody paper to his face. A police officer was rushed by, two militiamen holding his arms behind his back, his face covered with blood. Two policemen were on the floor, their hands on their heads. Two more were cornered in a front room, where a man without a hood was yelling in their faces, spittle flying, the militiaman with the cell phone camera close enough to capture the veins bulging as he barked. One of the
two policemen was nodding absently. The other was staring out the window.

Alie grabbed the teacher, who was on the edge of a scrum. “What's he saying?”

“That they are prostitutes,” the teacher translated. “That Ukrainian citizens have been paying them with taxes. That they are not getting what they paid for because the police have gone over to the separatists. That he is an unhappy customer.”

A complicated message,
Alie thought, as more men surged into the room holding policemen, knocking her against the wall. She could see a dozen fresh bullet holes in the ceiling. Intentional? Or was someone about to get accidently shot in the face?

She saw Hargrove in the crowd, recognizable under the hood, as two policemen were knocked aggressively to their knees. The cell phone cameraman caught the triumph, then switched to another corner. There were eight policemen in the front room now, their hands behind their heads. They were not resisting. They had experienced this kind of harassment before, Alie figured, probably from the other side.

The mission leader stepped forward, berating and lecturing along with the civilian, whose voice was starting to crack. The militiamen nodded along. The policemen had their heads down, avoiding eye contact.

“They are shamed,” Shwetz said.

They are waiting it out,
Alie thought.

The speech seemed interminable, but eventually the men started to chant. “Putin is a motherfucker,” the teacher translated with a smile.

The leader chose two policemen, and the militia moved into the street, shoving the policemen before them with their AK-47s. Hargrove made eye contact with her as he passed, but Alie couldn't tell what he was thinking. At this point, after the dis
appointments of the last twelve hours, his brain might be totally fried.

“Where are they going?”

“To victory,” Shwetz said gleefully, heading out the door.

The street was quiet. There was no one on the block except a few militiamen swinging their AK-47s and the knot of men leading the policemen toward the park. It was a few hours after noon, and the sun was shining. Three trees were in bloom. The police station had felt claustrophobic, but out here, the operation was a stroll. A block away, a small crowd of people on foot and bicycles had stopped to watch.

Really?
Alie thought when she saw the Ukrainian flag.

The flagpole was in the middle of the park, but the cord was too high.
It must have been cut by the militia that raised the Donetsk Republic flag,
Alie thought. After a few leaps, the Donbas men stopped and stared. They signaled for an older man, who was wearing an antique World War II infantry helmet, and tried to lift him. No good. Finally, someone ran back to the police station for a table. It took a moment to get it straight. Then the old man—now the symbolic everyman of the group—climbed on top and hauled down the Donetsk Republic flag. Another man tore it off the cord, stepped on the corner, and ripped it in half, or tried to—flags are hard to tear. When three men couldn't do it, they stomped on it, kicked it into the street, and lit it on fire as the man with the cell phone tried to direct them for his propaganda piece. The fire also failed to take. The spectators at the intersection started to fidget.

The cameraman turned to the park. The new flag was on the cord, but the leader wanted to make sure the ceremony was filmed. The man in the antique helmet gave a thumbs-up, then started to raise the flag. The Donbas militiamen began to sing the Ukrainian national anthem, while the cameraman zoomed in on the limp flag as it inched its way bravely toward the top.

And then something cracked, loud enough for Alie to hear it from half a block away, where she'd stopped outside the police station. Even from that distance, she could see the old man totter. A leg had snapped off the table, but the men were holding him steady now, the group precariously balanced.

The singing started again. The flag started to move. And then another crack, and this time the whole group went down in a heap.

It's gunfire,
Alie realized, as a third bullet struck the table. The old man was lying on the ground, his crazy helmet beside him, the other three men crawling and tumbling backward to get out of range.

They're beaten,
Alie thought.

But then a man stepped forward from the body of the militia, walking in the direction of the hidden gunman. There was one more shot, but it banged off the flagpole with a resounding gong. The spectators scattered, and Alie saw a man with a deer rifle slide out from behind a parked car and start to run.

The militiaman pointed, waved for his colleagues to join him, and started to run. Behind him, the militia poured out of hiding, following him into the breach. It was the sands of Iwo Jima, on some unnamed Ukrainian square.

The lead runner fired. It was a tinny shot, because he wasn't carrying a Kalashnikov. He was carrying a pistol.

Oh Christ,
Alie thought. It was Hargrove.

Maltov stepped up to the door of the club at precisely 1700 hours. It had taken him more than three hours to assemble the equipment the American needed, but he had done it gladly, thinking through each request, so that he would understand how the pieces fit. He was even the one to suggest the garbage truck—a stroke of genius, the American had to admit.

“
Davaite pohkovorymo,
” he said calmly, as two guards leveled their AK-47s. Let's talk.

Inside, the club was dank. There was one room with a hallway, clearly leading to a back door, and two windows: one in the front to the left of the door, one on the right wall looking out on a side street. A few lightbulbs hung overhead, throwing a feeble light. Three men sat at a table in the center of the room. One was Vadim, a local tough Maltov had known since childhood. The second was the Russian who had arrived ten minutes ago in the bulletproof Mercedes. The third was simply in the way. Behind them, three bodyguards had their guns drawn. There were cigarettes and glasses scattered on the table.

“
Da?
” the Russian said.

Maltov continued to look around. Bar in the back left corner with a man behind it. A pool table blocking access to the side window. Empty right front corner.

“
Chto ty khochesh?
” the man continued in Russian. He turned to Vadim and said, again in Russian, the prick: “Is this your man?”

Maltov placed his hands in his pockets and the three guards raised their guns (they already had rounds chambered, the muscle always had rounds chambered), even though he'd been searched for weapons outside. Two more men came from the back hallway, rubbing their noses and pointing their guns like amateurs. That would be all of them.

“I am Maltov,” he said in Ukrainian. “Vadim knows me, and he knows my reputation. I am from Kramatorsk.”

Vadim nodded. They had been a few years apart in school, and they had run in similar circles ever since, sometimes as enemies, sometimes as friends. Maltov hadn't seen him in almost a decade, but he wasn't worried about Vadim. The man was small. He always had been. This filthy club must have been his, because it was about his speed.

“I hear your boss went down,” Vadim said. It was almost a sneer. After years of watching his old acquaintance rise, Vadim thought he had the upper hand.

“I have a new boss. He sent me to apologize.”

The Russian looked up with interest. He was young. Too young to be somebody. His guards were young, too. Even if they were connected in Moscow, they were nothing more than thugs on the make.

“We mean you no harm,” Maltov said. “We have a long-term interest in this city, and a long-term interest in your friendship. The three men last night, that was an accident.”

Let them think what they want: drugs, arms, as long as it was lucrative.

“Are they dead?” Vadim asked.

“How much?” the Russian said.

“I am authorized to give you five thousand euros.”

The Russian snorted. “Not enough.”

“Per man.”

Vadim tried to hide his smile. He would sell out for too little. The small-timers always did.

The Russian sneered. “Why should we settle?”

Why should
you
get a piece?
Maltov thought.
You just got here.

“This country is at war,” the Russian continued. “That's an opportunity. If you have operations here, cut us in. We can protect you from the separatists.”

It was what the Americans wanted. They had sent him to cut a deal that would buy them one day of peace. That was all. But Maltov had a longer interest in Kramatorsk. And he still wanted revenge for Pavlo.

“I won't cut you in,” Maltov said. “And I won't give you the money. The payment is off the table. I deal with Ukrainians, not pig fuckers.”

“Maltov . . .” Vadim said, always a coward. “Be reasonable. We don't want trouble.”

But I do,
Maltov thought.

“I will be back in three hours,” he said. “If the Russian mercenary is gone, I will give you ten thousand euros, as a peace offering. If he's not . . .” Maltov shrugged. “I apologize again, this time in advance.”

He turned and walked out. Behind him, he could hear the Russian laughing. Outside were the three Mercedes and two guards. He scratched his pen, then pushed down on his lapel to switch the microphone on.
Too bad the Americans didn't hear what was said inside,
he chuckled to himself.

“Eight,” he whispered, without lowering his head or changing his stride. “Two on the door. Target is young. Black hair. Black tracksuit. Table inside the door.”

Hargrove sat down on the curb. Collapsed onto it, really, his muscles already starting to seize up. He could feel his blood pounding in his head. He needed water, but he didn't have any, so he stared at the street beneath his feet, sucking wind.

How far had he chased the man? Maybe half a mile. Not far.

But it wasn't the distance that exhausted him. He could run half a mile in his sleep. It was the firefight. The zigzagging and sprinting. The tension. The excitement.

He hadn't expected that. The compulsion to keep going. The excitement, once the enemy turned their backs. How many had there been? Maybe five. Six. He had only seen them in glimpses, hiding behind cars, running up the street. Militiamen without uniforms but heavily armed. Like his men. Like
these
men, the Donbas Battalion, the ones who followed him.

“Good work, guys,” he said. “Great work.”

Eight militiamen had joined him on the corner, but none responded.

“They don't speak English,” someone said finally.

It was the interpreter. The man from the car. He was a teacher, right? He had a baby . . . a baby girl, was it? It didn't matter. Whatever his life had been, it didn't matter here. They were strangers, heaving on a corner with their guns in their hands. Because of the hoods, he had never seen most of their faces. But they were his brothers.
Blood brothers,
Hargrove thought. First
blood. His first firefight. He hadn't hit anybody, but nobody on his side had been hit. Had they?

“Is anybody hit?”

Nobody responded, even Shwetz. The one in the back, the short one, was filming. He wondered if the man had filmed the whole battle—how long did it last, half an hour? He looked at his watch. Eleven minutes! He would have loved to get a copy, but he wasn't supposed to be here, and he wasn't supposed to engage the enemy. It was a serious breach of protocol. But it was spontaneous. An intuitive act. They had shot first. It was self-defense.

He felt for his hood. Still on. Good.

He took a deep breath, his pulse slowing. It had been a while since the last shot was fired, so he could relax. Take a moment. The hostile militia had been driven off. People were starting to drift back into the street. An old man shuffled past, a bag over his arm. Going shopping.

A kid on his bicycle rode by, looked, circled back. Twelve. Maybe seven. Hargrove couldn't tell his age, only that he was young. The boy stopped and stared. He looked nervous, until one of the militiamen started chatting with him—the older man with the antique helmet who had led the chant about Putin.

The man stood up and went into the shop. They were sitting in front of a shop. Hargrove was surprised he hadn't realized that. He looked around. They were in a residential neighborhood in a small town . . . what town were they in?

He heard yelling, and instantly, he was alert, clutching his pistol.

It was only the militiamen, saying good-bye to the boy on the bicycle. The boy was pedaling away, waving, a smile on his face.
An odd kid,
Hargrove thought. He hadn't said much. But then Hargrove realized what they must have looked like, nine men
in masks with AK-47s, sitting on a neighborhood corner. It had taken courage to come up to them. He never would have done it when he was a boy. But then again, he never would have seen masked gunmen in Centennial, Colorado.

A bell rang, causing Hargrove to jerk his pistol into firing position. It was the chime on a door, the old man coming out of the store. One of the militiamen was following the kid, shouting for him. The man was holding a bag, but the boy was gone. It was a backpack, the kind Hargrove had carried himself, in elementary school. The boy must have been in elementary school. Was it a school day? No. There was no school. School was cancelled.

“Is that the kind of kid you taught?” he asked the interpreter-teacher.

“I can't tell,” Shwetz said sadly.

They were doing the right thing. The boy was proof. The Donbas Battalion may have seemed out of shape and poorly trained, but they had charged into gunfire. They had cleared this neighborhood of separatists. He watched the man with the backpack. He watched the older man look down at the bottle of Coke in his hand, obviously intended for the boy, but all that was left of him was the backpack and a cell phone. The boy had left his cell phone.

They would give it back, Hargrove decided. They would find the boy and return his backpack and cell phone, because they weren't just fighters. They were liberators. They were fighting for these people. Not for ideology, or politics, but for the ordinary people and their ordinary lives.

He looked up at the Soviet-style apartments. The buildings were dull, yes, but the people were proud. He could see their colorful curtains. Their freshly painted shutters. There were flags, mostly Donetsk Republic, but that was to be expected, they had only five minutes ago liberated this block, using the spirit of the
bayonet, of course, Sergeant Barkley had been on to something there, but also the spirit of compassion. And freedom. And self-determination. Everything he had learned in his CIA training program.

He never saw the missile. He saw the old man with the antique helmet holding the cell phone, walking toward him. Then a shock wave, a huge noise, and the man was gone, and Hargrove was rolling on the pavement, covered in glass and blood, the ringing in his ears erasing the cacophony of car alarms.

He never made the connection: the tracking function on the cell phone, the targeting mechanism of the missile. He felt the blast, saw blood spray a building. The windows were blown out. He was lying in blood. There was blood on the sidewalk, blood in his hand, and a hand under the curb. How could a severed hand be under a curb, and what had happened to the curb? He looked away. The top of the Coke bottle had been torn off, and it was lying in the street, the liquid pouring out, foamy and brown.

He sat up. There was a man screaming into a radio. The car alarms were pummeling. There was a car, its tires flattened by shrapnel, with five men crouched behind it. His men. The Donbas Battalion. They were firing, and there were bullets coming back, but his men were in a perfect firing formation, holding their ground. They were real soldiers, brave men who stood and fought for their country.

The old man was dead. So was the teacher. He was lying on his back in the road, with a hole in his head.

No, it wasn't Shwetz. Shwetz was behind the car, firing at the enemy. It was some other teacher. Or butcher. Or baker. Someone else whose family would receive a video of their last moments. If the cameraman made it out alive.

And he would, Hargrove was sure of that. The Donbas men
were disciplined. They were
right.
There was no way a separatist militia could push these soldiers back.

Then he saw the T-72 tank come around the corner, crumpling a car in its path.

“Get outta here!” he yelled in English to no one in particular, frantically searching for something to take out the tank. He tried to grab an assault rifle from the dead man, but it slipped out of his hands. He tried again, and again it was jerked away. It was still strapped to the man's shoulder.

He tried to run. He tried to pull away and get the hell out, but his feet kept slipping on the blood, and then he was falling backward, falling . . .

No. He was being dragged backward. Someone was pulling him. He could feel the hand on his throat, and he couldn't breathe, until he was in a car, in the backseat, being taken away. Kidnapped. Tortured because he was an American, because he was CIA . . .

He kicked the door, but his knees buckled. He tried to grab the seat, but his hands were slick. He grabbed for his CIA service pistol but fumbled it. His shirt was slick. His stomach was covered in blood. He'd been shot.

“I've been shot,” he screamed. “I'm covered with blood.”

He heard the brakes, and he was thrown violently forward, then bounced back onto the seat. He had time to see the fist a half second before it hit his face.

“Shut the fuck up,” the man said. Then they were moving again, faster this time. Hargrove didn't know what to do. He couldn't move. He was too stunned to talk, or think, or even make a sound . . .

“Quit screaming. You're not hurt.”

Hargrove complied. He didn't even know he'd been screaming. He felt his stomach. He didn't know what he was feeling for,
a hole maybe, but there was no hole. He was sore, but not split.
It's someone else's blood,
he thought.

“Alie,” he said.

“Shut up,” the driver said again.

“You speak English.”

“Don't be an asshole.”

Hargrove sat up. The driver spoke English. The driver was . . . Sergeant Barkley's go-fer, what was his name? Jesus. No, Jessup. What was Jessup doing here?

“You're Jessup?”

The man didn't answer.

“What are you doing here?”

“Rescuing you.”

What about the other men? “What about the other men? The Ukrainians.”

Jessup shook his head. “Can't be done. Only you.”

“But I'm not an asset . . .”

“No shit. You're a liability.”

They drove in silence, Hargrove wasn't sure for how long. He kept thinking of the old man with the bag. The kid on the bicycle. The missile. The Coke.

“Good men got killed because of you,” Jessup said.

It was true. Hargrove knew that, and he felt ashamed. “And Alie?”

Jessup didn't say anything for three or four blocks, until the town started to recede. Hargrove was sure the man wanted to punch him again. Was it the ambushed men? The botched mission? Or was it him? Was he asking the wrong questions? Was Alie dead?

“Your girlfriend left you fifteen minutes ago,” Jessup said.