Page 93 of Dead Fall

“Three oil paintings,” he replied, showing him pictures. “Landscapes by artists named Ivan Pokhitonov, Georgy Kurnakov, and Pyotr Sokolov.”

“There’s only one place we haven’t cleared,” said Biscuit.

Harvath nodded. “The cellars. That’s our next stop.”

The entrance was marked by a pair of large wooden doors with thick bands of metal and knobby metal rivets. They were set into the side of a hill behind the vintner’s house and looked like they were a thousand years old.

With Biscuit on one door and Jacks on the other, Harvath, Hookah, and Krueger steadied their weapons and prepared to make entry. When Harvath nodded, the men pulled back the doors.

A tunnel, carved out of the rock, led down beneath the hill. Cautiously, they made their way inside.

It appeared to be a limestone cave system of some sort that had been enlarged and improved over the years. A sensor picked up their presence and automatically switched the lights on.

Harvath hated tunnels. They were bullet funnels, often with no place to hide or take cover. Picking up the pace, he moved as rapidly as good tactical procedure would allow.

The tunnel bent to the left and opened into a large cavern stacked with wine barrels. Up ahead, beyond the barrels, Harvath could see a body.

They worked quickly but methodically toward it, making sure it hadn’t been placed there as bait and that no one was hiding in the barrels along their path.

When they got to the body, Harvath saw the wheelchair close by and knew who the deceased was. Someone had stuck a shotgun in the man’s mouth and had pulled the trigger.

On the other side of the room was the naked corpse of the man’s wife. She had been tied between two barrels and her throat had been sliced. He had no doubt that she had been sexually violated. And when he saw the empty, specially insulated barrels that had been used to hide the paintings, he knew who had done it.

Being underground, the cellar maintained a constant temperature. Harvath removed his glove and touched the woman’s skin. It was cool, practically cold. He checked for rigor mortis, which had already begun to set in. She could have been dead for a good three to six hours. Maybe even more.

All he knew was that had he and his team arrived sooner, they might have been able to stop this, and that pissed Harvath off. Orphans, nuns, and a man in a wheelchair: the Ravens were absolute animals.

Harvath had no idea of the whereabouts of the couple’s twin daughters, seen in the photos back at the house. He prayed to God that they hadn’t been present for their parents’ brutal murders.

The men spent several minutes sweeping the various subterranean side rooms but found nothing. The Ravens had come, they had gone, and there was no telling where they would appear next. Nothing of any value had been left behind.

Walking back up the tunnel, they exited the double doors and took a deep, pained breath of fresh air.

Jacks and Biscuit could read the expression on their colleagues’ faces.

“How bad was it?” the young Canadian asked.

“Terrible,” replied Krueger.

“They killed the husbandandthe wife,” Hookah stated. “The guy was in a wheelchair, and they fucking killed him.”

Jacks looked at Harvath, who shook his head and said, “It’s a horror show down there. Not sure how quickly they ended it for the husband, but they definitely made the wife suffer. I’ve seen a lot of gruesome things in my time, but what the Ravens are doing is…” His voice trailed off as he sensed something to their left.

“Movement left,” he stated, raising his rifle and turning in the direction of the threat. “Ten o’clock.”

As the men all took cover and adjusted their weapons, Harvath flipped down his thermal vision and powered it up.

When the image came on line, he could see the heat signature of a lone figure attempting to use the brush for cover. The figure did not appear to be armed.

“I count one person,” he said. “Doesn’t appear to be armed—at least, not with a long gun. I don’t think it’s a hostile.”

“Could it be a local?” asked Jacks. “Someone from the village?”

“Let’s find out,” Harvath replied. Raising his voice so it could be heard by the person in the trees, he called out using the term for bread, “Palianytsia!”

A few moments later, a shout came back. It was a woman’s voice. “Palianytsia!” she replied. “Khto ty?”

She was speaking Ukrainian, but the phrase sounded almost identical toKto ty?—the Russian words forWho are you?

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