Page 15 of Dead Fall

Nicholas shook his head. “That’s not what we’re talking about. You need to keep in mind that there are not only international factors at stake here, but domestic ones as well. Sixty-eight percent of American voters still believe it’s important for Congress to keep aid flowing to Ukraine.”

“That’s a great number,” Harvath interjected. “When’s the last time seven out of ten Americans agreed on anything?”

“I’m with you, but that’s not the only number the White House is watching. In the spring, only twelve percent of voters thought the U.S. was doing too much to help Ukraine. In the eight months since, that number has doubled to twenty-four percent and it has got Washington worried.”

“Russia,unprovoked, invaded a sovereign nation.”

Nicholas put up his hands. “Moscow claims it was in response to Ukraine getting too cozy with NATO.”

“The Russian President loves to blame everything on NATO expansion,” Harvath responded. “Finland and Sweden have both nowdecided to join NATObecauseof Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But we haven’t heard so much as a peep out of the Kremlin. If Peshkov was so concerned about NATO invading Russia, why hasn’t he reinforced his border with Finland? In fact, he’s done just the opposite. He pulled Russian troops away from the border with Finland, as well as with the other Baltic NATO member states, in order to reinforce his operations in Ukraine.

“And what makes his NATO excuse even more ridiculous is the fact that the Ukrainians informed Moscow that they were willing to rule out any future NATO membership in order to prevent a war. You know what President Peshkov did? He turned them down cold. The man is insane. He thinks he’s the reincarnation of Peter the Great. His invasion of Ukraine is about one thing and one thing only—imperial conquest and his desire to go down in history as the person who put the old Russian Empire back together again. Fuck that guy.”

“Considering your history with him,” Nicholas replied, “I’m sure the feeling is mutual.”

“I should have killed him when I had the chance. If I had known this was coming, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. The Ukrainian people have a right to decide their own destiny. The Russians don’t have a right to decide it for them. The Russians also don’t have a right to invade Ukraine and rape, maim, torture, and kill their way across the country. And torturing and killing noncombatant Americans, aid workers and journalists no less, is way beyond the pale. Somebody needs to send Peshkov and his thugs in Moscow a message.”

As someone who had grown up in Soviet Georgia, Nicholas shared Harvath’s hatred of Russian brutality. He also had a clear-eyed view of what was going on.

In his estimation, no one had summed it up better than the political scientist and former counselor of the U.S. Department of State Eliot A. Cohen.

What was happening between Russia and Ukraine was a war not only of will and resilience, but also of vitality. Russian President Peshkov was in his seventies, and his Chief of the General Staff—in charge of the war in Ukraine—was only months away from his seventieth birthday.Ukraine’s President and Chief of Staff, on the other hand, were both in their forties.

In Russia, the largest and strongest support for the war was among those old enough to remember, and pine for, the old Soviet Union. On the contrary, in Ukraine support for the war was overwhelming across all age groups. To put it bluntly, it was a Russian invasion led by the aging men of Peshkov’s inner circle against a generation of Ukrainians in their prime.

Among a host of excellent insights, Cohen had one line in particular that had resonated and stuck with Nicholas. What was happening in Ukraine was a war between a calcified society lost in its brutal past and a free society looking toward a decent future. Nicholas couldn’t have said it any better himself.

In hindsight, perhaps he and Harvath shouldn’t have toasted to strong stomachs, but rather to independence—the independence being celebrated outside the windows of the safe house at this very moment by the free people of Poland, as well as the independence that hopefully every man, woman, and child in Ukraine would soon know.

Like Harvath, he also wanted to see more get done, especially when it came to putting the largest dent possible in Russia’s war crimes, which was why he had flown more than four thousand miles to hand Harvath his next mission in person.

Pointing at the second folder on the table, Nicholas said, “Now let’s talk about the rest of the reason I’m here.”

If folder number two was anything like folder number one, Harvath wanted a bit more fortification before diving in.

Picking up his glass, he took another sip of bourbon and then opened the file. He skipped over the reports and went straight to the photos. The impact was like being punched in the face.

It wasn’t the blood that bothered him. He’d seen plenty of blood over his career. It was the bodies. The tiny bodies. Children. All slaughtered. It was gruesome. Harvath felt a tidal wave of rage building inside him.

He had a thing about targeting the defenseless, especially children. People and societies should always be judged by how they treat the weakest among them.

Slowly, he asked, “What happened? Who did this?”

“The photographs were taken at an orphanage in eastern Ukraine. It was attacked by a unit of Russian mercenaries.”

“Wagner?” Harvath replied.

Nicholas nodded.

Harvath had tangled with the Wagner Group before and almost hadn’t survived to tell the tale. They were exceedingly aggressive and absolutely ruthless. But the butchery of women and children? This was beyond barbaric, even for them.

“We believe they’re behind the murder of the six American aid workers,” the little man explained, “as well as the two American journalists.”

“To what end? These guys are all ex–Russian Special Forces. There’s always been at least a little discipline in their ranks.”

“Not anymore. The war has upended everything. Just like the Russian military, Wagner has burned through a ton of men. It’s gotten so bad that they’ve been reduced to recruiting from prisons and insane asylums. Rapists, serial killers, drug addicts—Wagner is taking anyone they can get and promising full pardons in return.”

Harvath was instantly reminded of the Nazis’ Dirlewanger Brigade and all the atrocities that unit committed during the Warsaw Uprising.

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