Page 127 of Shadow of Doubt

“And number two?”

“Bring all of your friends with guns.”

“Precisely,” said Barton. “So stop screwing around and let’s Charlie Mike.”

Charlie Mikewas militaryspeak forContinue Mission.

Harvath knew that Barton wasn’t pushing back because he was angry. He was pushing back because he was determined. He wanted the Russians to suffer for what had happened to Lara. The alarm bells in Harvath’s mind, however, were only getting louder.

“If you’re going, we’re going with you,” Morrison asserted. “End of discussion.”

Harvath shook his head. “I’m in charge of this team and if I say I’m going in alone, that’s how it’s going to be.”

“Then I quit.”

“Me too,” Ashby replied.

“Me three,” Palmer chimed in.

Gage flipped Harvath the middle finger as his official resignation and Barton joined him by making an even more obscene hand gesture.

“Maybe you’re the one who should go back to the car,” Morrison stated. “It looks like you’ve got a lot of pink slips to process.”

Harvath loved these guys, but this was too much. Healthy loyalty was necessary for a unit to successfully function. Blind loyalty could get people killed.

Taking up the point position, Barton stated, “I guess we’ll see you up there,” as he signaled the team to move out and began walking toward the cabin.

“Fuck,” Harvath mumbled under his breath. This was a hell of a badtime to have a sudden outbreak of democracy. There was no telling what he was marching all of them into.

But here they were, unwilling to abandon the mission. Unwilling to abandonhim.They were going to Charlie Mike whether he liked it or not.

Harvath had been a leader long enough to know that loyalty was a two-way street. If they weren’t going to let him go in alone, he wasn’t going to let them go in alone either.

Taking back point, he led his team forward.

But with each step, the alarm bells continued to grow louder. He was actively ignoring his instincts, and knew that things would not end well.

Two yards later, something caught his eye. Halting their forward motion, he stared at a tree in the near distance, trying to make out what he was seeing, but it wasn’t clear.

Flipping his goggles up, he transitioned back to his night-vision binoculars and suddenly knew exactly what he was looking at—the glow from an infrared trail camera. And where there was one, there were definitely more.

Calling up Gage, who was carrying the other pair of night-vision binoculars, he showed him what he had seen.

“Do you think the Russians put that there?” the man asked.

“Could be the Russians. Could be the people who own the cabin. Could be some nature club,” Harvath replied. “Regardless, we don’t want anyone to know we’re coming.”

Raising Nicholas over the radio, he described what they had found. Because the trailcam had an antenna, that likely meant it was designed to broadcast over a cellular network. With a log-in and password, you could access it the same way you would a remote CCTV camera. You could also set it up to push alerts to you, with either stills or video, when it detected movement.

The only thing Nicholas needed to know was how Harvath wanted it handled. Even though trailcams were far less sophisticated technology than CCTV networks, their simplicity made them a bigger pain in the ass to loop video and spoof.

The easiest and most believable solution was to jam cell signals in the area. Not only would the trailcams not work, but neither would theRussians’ cell phones. It was a win-win. Harvath instructed Nicholas to get on it.

Seven minutes later, the little man confirmed that the network was down, and the team could advance.

Harvath gave the signal once more to move out and the team continued its cautious journey forward. There were only the sounds of the darkened forest to accompany them.

In any other context, these sounds might have been soothing, but tonight, as they pushed deeper into the unknown, they remained ominous.

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