Page 90 of Dead Fall

The cloud of weapons’ smoke blew slowly off the convent grounds. None of the Russians were moving. That didn’t mean that they could be ruled out as a threat. Not yet.

Harvath warned his team over the radio to move cautiously and to keep an eye out for a second wave. Slowly, they approached the bodies.

The first thing that became apparent was that these were definitely not run-of-the-mill soldiers. They were, as Harvath had assumed and the insignia on their uniforms confirmed, Special Forces; Spetsnaz to be exact. And one of them, it turned out, was still alive.

Always conscious of their proclivity for hugging live grenades as they died—in the hopes of taking out a few more of the enemy when they were moved or rolled over—Harvath proceeded with caution. Both of the man’s hands were visible and there were no loose grenades evident.

Separating the soldier from his weapons, Harvath did a quick assessment of the man’s injuries. He’d been shot in the abdomen and was in a tremendous amount of pain. It looked bad and there was a good chance the soldier had internal bleeding. Harvath had seen enough gunshot wounds to know that if this guy didn’t get treatment soon, he probably wasn’t going to make it.

He located the man’s IFAK and opened it up. The paucity of medical supplies, especially for a high-end Spetsnaz soldier, was ridiculous. Opening his own IFAK, he pulled out what he needed, began packing the wound with sterile gauze, and applied pressure.

“Your injury is bad,” he said in Russian. “You need a doctor.”

The man writhed in pain.

“I am going to try to help you,” Harvath continued, “but first, you need to help me. Who sent you?”

He waited but the man did not reply. “Who. Sent. You?” he repeated in Russian, but still nothing. The soldier just looked at him defiantly.

As this was happening, the two older villagers, drawn by the sound of gunfire, returned.

“Russians,” one of the men said in Ukrainian, spitting to get the taste of the word out of his mouth.

“Is he going to live?” the other asked in Russian.

Releasing pressure on the wound, Harvath stood. “No, he’s going to die.”

Harvath was under no obligation to save the Spetsnaz soldier. If the man wasn’t going to cooperate, Harvath wasn’t going to waste an additional ounce of energy on him. Reaching down, he unplugged the man’s microphone and turned off his radio. He then motioned for the two old Ukrainians to come with him.

As the blood began soaking through his bandage, the Russian tried to apply pressure himself to the wound, only to realize how much trouble he was in. “Zhdat!” he shouted in Russian.Wait!

Harvath very quickly hit the ceiling on his Russian language capability and assigned the villagers to take the soldier’s rapid, difficult-to-understand confession.

The team had been sent in search of an unknown, high-value target who was using some form of advanced encryption on his phone. Their assignment was to bring the phone and its owner back for interrogation.

When Harvath asked, “Back where?” the villagers pulled a map off one of the other soldiers and had the Russian identify where the command truck for the Leer-4 electronic warfare system was located.

Once the Russian did, Harvath had a decision to make. The soldier had lived up to his end of the bargain.

After speaking with his team, he turned his phone back on, dictated a rapid situation report, and transmitted it to Nicholas before turning his phone back off.

The convent had been exposed and was no longer safe for them. There was no telling if the Russians would send a second team or not. They would have to find someplace else to hole up. He was glad they had all gotten a shower and a hot meal when they had.

According to the Russian, his team was driving a 4x4 Škoda that they had parked nearby. Harvath sent Hookah and Biscuit to go get it.

While they were gone, he had Krueger and Jacks retrieve all of the Russians’ radios and cell phones. After pulling their batteries, he wrapped them in a Mylar space blanket and enclosed them in an empty ammo can he had retrieved from the Novator in the garage.

It didn’t make for a perfect Faraday cage, but it was better than nothing. Ukrainian intelligence might find the equipment useful, and he didn’t want the Russians tracking any latent signal.

He also didn’t want them tracking the elderly villagers who had selflessly offered to drive the injured soldier back to the front, where he could be transported to a Ukrainian field hospital.

Harvath explained the importance of keeping pressure on the wound and put together some extra gauze and bandages for the trip.

When Hookah and Biscuit arrived with the Škoda, Harvath and Jacks helped load the injured soldier and then told the villagers to get going. Whether he lived or died depended on how fast they moved.

As the Škoda exited the convent grounds, Krueger looked at the three Spetsnaz corpses and asked, “What should we do with them?”

“Gather up all their weapons and ammunition and throw it in our truck,” said Harvath. “Beyond that, I don’t care what happens.”