Gambit by David Hagberg (manga ereader .txt) 📗

this mission. And it’ll be the dishonorable discharges you and your men will receive. You’ll be leaving this base as civilians.”

Vetrov nodded again. “I understand, sir. Plausible deniability.”

When the senior lieutenant was gone, Nyunin opened a desk drawer and pulled the old Makarov 9mm pistol that his father-in-law had given him as a present when he’d graduated from the Frunze Military Academy.

Its serial number identified it as the very first pistol made in the very first manufacturing run in 1949.

But its age did not diminish its ability to kill.

In a detached sort of way, he wondered how Vetrov and his men would handle the situation. The operation itself would be almost routine, but the dishonorable discharge would be like a kick in the balls to young men who had dedicated their lives thus far to their country, the Spetsnaz, and their unit.

Those who survived would be together as a unit, but they would be free of the chain of command. And for men used to taking orders, used to believing that the officers above them knew what they were doing, it would be a difficult, maybe even impossible transition.

It was going to be the same for him after he’d turned in his resignation and it was accepted, something he knew his father-in-law would expect.

What he couldn’t understand was why the general would agree to such an insane plan that had every chance in the book to fail, and fail badly. McGarvey and his wife would die, that was inevitable. But there was a decent chance that one or more of his operators would be captured and made to talk.

There was money for them—not a lot of money, but a fabulous sum for men of their ranks who were earning on average a little more or less than fifteen hundred euros a month.

What was more important—money or honor?

He was more concerned about honor, and at this moment, his hands and more importantly his soul seemed dirtied.

His wife, Katya, had divorced him three years ago, because, as she’d told the judge, her husband, just like her father, valued the military more than their families.

Maybe he would end it, he thought.

But not now, and he put the Makarov back in the desk drawer.

FIFTY-SEVEN

At three in the morning, the Turkish Airlines 8 flight to Athens was four hours out into the Atlantic from Dulles, and McGarvey hadn’t been able to get to sleep yet, though their first-class accommodations were decent. Pete had fallen asleep after a glass of wine once they were in the air, and looking at her now, he was of a mixed mind.

He was afraid for her, and yet he was glad she was at his side. It was a new feeling for him, accepting that he wasn’t going on an assignment alone, and liking it. In fact, it was completely alien to just about everything he’d been taught and had learned by hard experience in the field.

It had to do with trust. Not loyalty, not a fear that a partner would turn out to be a traitor, but trust in that a partner was capable. He’d never wanted to find himself in a situation where he not only had to take care of himself but watch out for the misstep that would put whoever was next to him in a bullet’s path.

He looked at the window, the shade up. The cabin lights had been dimmed, but he could still see his reflection, pale now, almost like how he felt inside. And yet he’d finally—for the first time in his life—learned to trust. And he was damned if he knew whether he liked it or was afraid.

“Such deep thoughts when you should be sleeping,” Pete said.

“I was thinking about us,” he said.

She smiled. “You better have, because I was dreaming about you.” She paused. “And about our game plan. You haven’t said anything about how we’re going to play it, and I thought I’d hold my tongue for a change until you’re ready to clue me in.”

Besides the Glock 29 Gen 4 that Pete favored, and one of his Walthers in the 9mm version, plus plenty of ammunition at the lighthouse, Otto had packaged a pair of HK MP7A1 compact submachine guns along with ammunition, in a diplomatic pouch, that was placed in the cargo hold along with their bags. When it came down to a gunfight, he didn’t think that sheer firepower would be the sole deciding factor; finding the right spot would be just as important, but the room brooms would help.

His major concern was that, this time, whoever had directed the attacks on him would be sending what they might consider an overwhelming force. Maybe a team of four operators. Ex–Special Forces types who knew stealth tactics and were well connected enough to bring some serious weaponry to bear—like the updated version of the Russian-made RPG anti-tank weapon or the British-made, more compact and disposable LAW 80 rocket-propelled anti-armor weapon.

“I was thinking that, had we stuck with my original idea of using the house as our defensive position, we might have been more vulnerable. I think they were going to use the woman in the Gulf as a diversion to lure one of us outside and then come in from the ICW.”

“She would have been the bait, and I would have been the mouse out to the cheese, with you watching my back,” Pete said.

“Something like that.”

“What about this time?”

“For starters, I think there’ll be more of them, and probably better armed.”

“How many, and armed with what?”

“Four, maybe six operators. RPGs or LAW rockets to dig us out of the lighthouse.”

“You were thinking that we’d have the high ground,” Pete said. “But they’d have to get that stuff onto the island. Might not be so easy.”

“By sea in the middle of the night. Or if they’re as well funded as I expect the others were, they could come in by air high and slow and make a parachute drop.”

“Sounds military.”

“I think that’s likely,” McGarvey said.

“Otto