Page 102 of Dead Fall

He asked the old woman if it had been via text or a voice call. Her response surprised him. She said that she didn’t know. When he pressed her for more information, she explained that she didn’t have a cell phone. Someone else had received the warning. She had merely helped pass it along and had guided everyone to the caves.

Harvath was frustrated, but he maintained his composure and smiled. If his Russian had been better, perhaps this fact would have been clear from the jump.

He followed up by asking if the person who had received the warning was in the caves. The woman shook her head. His heart was ready to drop into his stomach. Was this person still alive? Or had they lost a crucial link, perhapsthecrucial link, in the bush telegraph?

He asked where the person could be found now. She informed him that the woman with the phone was in the woods keeping watch. He asked if she could take him to her. The old woman agreed.

Stepping out of the vintner’s residence, Harvath let Jacks and Krueger know what he was up to. They offered to come along with him, but he told them it wouldn’t be necessary and that they should remain in place.

Powering up his thermal device, Harvath followed the old woman up into the hills above the cellar.

Despite her age and crooked posture, she moved at a good clip. Soon they were stepping into the trees at the edge of the woods. Twice, the old woman looked over her shoulder and asked if Harvath needed a rest. He did, a nice long one, preferably on a warm beach somewhere with Sølvi and a bottomless bucket of ice-cold beers. Right now, however, he would have settled for forty-five minutes sitting upright in a chair or laid out in the back of the truck.

Repeatedly running, gunning, and trying not to die—all while on little to no sleep—reminded him of Hell Week as he fought to become a SEAL. He was a lot younger then, but the lesson had been seared into his mind. Sleep was a luxury. When pushed, there was a tremendous amount he could still do without it.

Deeper into the woods, the old woman began calling out for her friend with the phone. Seconds later, Harvath picked up her heat signature on his thermal.

The old woman introduced her as Vesna. After a quick discussion, they led Harvath to the cave where the others were hiding.

It was a mix of women and children, about fifteen in total. He invited them to come down to the winery, get something to eat, and spend the night there. When they agreed, he radioed Jacks and Krueger to let them know.

The vintner’s residence was too small to cram fifteen additional people into. Hookah and Biscuit were already bedded down there. Draggingin a crowd would make it impossible for them to sleep. And there was also only one bathroom. The best option was the tasting room in the main building.

By the time Harvath arrived with the villagers, Krueger had already gone through with a large push broom and had swept up most of the glass. He had also found a mop and a bucket, which he had filled with soapy water. When he reached for it, the old woman insisted that she be allowed to do it. Politely, he stood back.

As the women and children used the washrooms, Harvath went out to the truck and grabbed a stack of MREs, as well as bottles of water.

Bringing them back to the tasting room, he opened them up, distributed the snacks to the kids, and explained to a couple of the ladies how the flameless ration heaters worked. They smiled nicely, set the heaters aside, and took the pouches of food into the kitchen to warm the meals up the old-fashioned way—on the stove.

Sitting Vesna down at the far end of the room, Harvath removed his map and spread it across the table. The old woman had already explained to her what he needed.

Her phone was almost out of power, but she had been smart enough to bring her charger when she fled the village. Plugging it into a nearby outlet, she moved her chair closer to the wall and sent her first text message. They waited, but there was no immediate response.

It probably had to do with the hour—it was late and the person she was attempting to reach was likely asleep. Taking the initiative, she gave up on texting and placed a call. She was a self-starter. Harvath liked that.

She was also smart and had understood, right down to the minutiae, what he needed.

He had told her to ask questions like a journalist or a police detective. It wasn’t just which direction the Ravens had been seen traveling in that he wanted. He also wanted to know how many men and what types of vehicles they had been driving. What kind of weapons did they have? Had they stopped to loot any other towns? What did they steal? Did they post guards on the road? Every single piece of information was critical.

While she continued working the phone, one of the ladies brought Vesna a mug of tea and something to eat.

With each contact she made, the woman identified the town or village on Harvath’s map and slowly explained for him what had happened. Slowly, rung by rung, they were working their way up the ladder.

Everyone she spoke with had been horrified to hear what had happened in her village and out at the winery. Several had their own terrible tales of wanton slaughter. The Ravens had been blazing a trail of savagery across the region. There was almost no one anywhere in the area who had been untouched.

After fixing himself a cup of coffee, Harvath returned to the table and went back to making notes and circling places on the map. He couldn’t have asked for a better intelligence network. The bush telegraph was helping him close in on the Ravens.

He was also developing a picture of their strength and how they operated. Their hits weren’t simply pell-mell, anything-goes free-for-alls. There was, at least on a small level, a little bit of tactical thinking going on.

The men with their faces painted to resemble skulls were part of every raid. Their war paint and violent behavior appeared to be meant as a form of shock and awe, a way by which to cow villagers and townspeople into submission.

Harvath was also open to the possibility that the “painted devils,” as the old woman had called them, were recruits from Russian insane asylums who either didn’t know any better or didn’t care about charging headlong into potentially deadly situations.

For the more mentally balanced members of the unit, the painted devils might have been nothing more than cannon fodder—bullet sponges, sent in first to see what happens.

Regardless of how they deployed their forces, the mercenaries were ruthless and showed no concern for life or limb. In keeping with earlier reports, eyewitness accounts continued to place their strength somewhere between twenty and thirty soldiers.

Harvath still wasn’t crazy about taking on that many and he knew his team wouldn’t be, either. Their best bet was to try to thin the Ravens’ ranks before engaging in a head-on fight. Based upon the developments he was seeing on his map, he was beginning to think that he might have identified an opportunity.

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