Page 91 of Dead Fall

“Roger that,” the man replied.

As the team loaded their gear, Harvath studied his map, which he had unrolled across the hood of their armored vehicle.

“Where are we headed?” Hookah asked as he threw his pack in the back and came around to join him.

“I’m torn between the Ritz-Carlton here,” said Harvath, pointing at one of the villages he had circled, attempting a little levity, “and a pretty nice Four Seasons over here.”

“I’m more a boutique hotel man myself,” he replied. “Craft cocktails. Themed rooms…”

“Heart-shaped bathtubs,” Krueger interjected, “vibrating beds, hourly rates. You know, classy.”

Harvath smiled as Hookah gave his colleague the finger.

“All kidding aside,” stated Jacks, “even though you guys think you’ve narrowed it down, we still don’t know where the Ravens are going to be next.”

The Brit was right. It was a coin toss. Without the added piece he needed from Nicholas, there was no way to be certain. He only had his gut to go on. That meant he was going to have to take a guess. “We’re going to the Four Seasons,” he said, tapping the village on the map.

“I hope they’ve got a breakfast buffet,” replied Krueger.

“With an omelet station,” added Biscuit. “I haven’t had a good omelet in a long time.”

Harvath appreciated the esprit de corps. The truth was that they’d be lucky to find anything resembling a single creature comfort once they got out on the road. He had a very bad feeling that it was going to beMad Maxfrom here to the end of their assignment.

Firing up the Novator, he pulled out of the garage, pausing only long enough for Hookah to close the doors and hop back in the truck. Then, with the night-vision cameras activated, they headed north.

Based on the pattern he and Hookah had discerned, there were three locations Harvath believed were the most likely for the Ravens to target next.

He felt certain that their base of operations—or their safe house, as Hookah had called it—was close.Close, however, was a relative term. In essence, the Ravens—no matter how messed up and evil—were like any army. They were reliant upon logistics. How much fuel did they have access to? How far and over what kind of terrain could their vehicles travel? Did they have sufficient stocks of food and water, or did a chunk of their day need to be spent in finding and replenishing their supplies? What physical condition were they in? Were any of the Ravens sick or injured? Did they have access to enough manpower to capably carry out their assignments?

If the atrocity at the convent was any indication of their ability, they definitely weren’t suffering in the labor department, which remained one of the biggest problems in Harvath’s mind.

Hookah hadn’t been wrong when he had expressed his concern about potentially being outgunned by five or six to one. It was absolutely something to be troubled by. The only thing worse than those kinds of odds was having to do battle with a foe of that size while they were entrenched in a fortified position. If that came to pass, Harvath and his guys would be raising up some big prayers to the tactical gods.

Their best hope was to catch the Ravens out in the open; take them by surprise in an ambush of some sort and cut them all down. But as Harvath had found in almost every assignment in his career, Murphy—of Murphy’s Law fame—was going to want to have a say, especially as the battlefield was his playground.

There was also the issue of Anna Royko. Harvath knew close-quarters battle like the back of his hand. He had undergone so much hostage rescue training that he could do it in his sleep. But what about Jacks? Could he slice the pie and clear rooms at a level that wouldn’t get himself, or the rest of them, killed? What about Biscuit? Or Krueger? Or Hookah?

He was 99.9 percent certain that they weren’t going to find Anna tied to a tree in the middle of a field of flowers. She was going to be in the interior of a structure somewhere and that interior was going to very likely be hardened against attack. If the Ravens were halfway near as psychotic as they were made out to be, the booby traps at their lair were going to be a big problem. Was Harvath’s team up to the challenge?

Or was it going to come down to him, slipping in like the fog, killing everyone in sight, and slipping back out with Anna over his shoulder? There simply was no way of knowing. Not, at least, until they found her and could put together a full plan. For the moment, he needed to put it out of his mind. Jacks helped him refocus.

“Up ahead, in seven hundred meters,” said the Brit, who once again was riding shotgun and studying the map, “and we need to go right.”

“Seven hundred meters,” replied Harvath, “fork in the road. We go right. Roger that.”

Jacks helped count down the distance until they arrived at the fork and Harvath took it.

There were a bunch of dilapidated signs, all in Ukrainian, which Harvath couldn’t read. Some were road signs. Most were for businesses in the village up ahead.

One of the signs was bracketed with bunches of grapes. Its first four letters were the same as the word in Russian—winery.

“Look alive, everybody,” said Harvath. “We’re approaching our destination.”

CHAPTER 26

Harvath had no interest in driving through the center of town only to be met with an ambush. He’d taken that ride in the M113 on his way to the front lines and had no desire for a repeat.

Pulling off to the side of the road, on a high piece of ground, he decided that they’d take a nice, long, slow look around.

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