34. Chapter 34
Chapter thirty-four
Day 16 Denali, Alaska
O’Neill paused in the doorway to the war room and looked for a place to park his ass. It wouldn’t be in a chair, that was obvious. Wolf’s Alpha and Beta teams were in attendance, which pushed the constraints of the space. The room was overflowing with huge, muscled bodies, some with long hair, some with short. All with impassive, flat faces and watchful eyes. A good chunk of those eyes had turned toward him as he stepped through the door. He could almost hear the internal groans as they caught sight of him.
He was still jie'van. Unwelcome. His gaze skipped from hard face to hard face, all so righteous in their moral superiority. His muscles seized beneath the ever-familiar rise of frustrated irritation. Nobody in this room knew a damn thing about him. None had given him the chance to prove himself. He was still caught in the same fucking riptide of his childhood, held to a standard nobody had bothered to explain.
He glimpsed the crown of the Taounaha’s head with its gray, braided hair. Perhaps there was one in the room who knew him well, even too well.
The chairs surrounding the table were occupied. Those warriors who hadn’t grabbed a chair leaned against the walls. The scent of coffee overshadowed the smell of sweat and male musk. Testosterone amped the air. He’d never seen so many warriors in attendance at a strategy meeting. Hell, even the woohanta were here. Except for Winchester.
That realization brought him up short. Where the hell was the Shadow Warrior’s favorite squid? Apprehending Kuznetsov was at the top of Winchester’s wish list. Hell, the bastard was obsessed with bringing the Russian in. Understandable, sure, but that obsession should have propelled him front and center for this meeting.
He glanced toward the three former SEALs propping up the wall beside him. Winchester wasn’t the only one missing. So was his brother by marriage. Their absences had to be connected. Then again, Wolf’s little bro had looked like shit earlier this morning in the gym. Complete and utter shit, as a matter of fact. Like he’d had a hell of a hangover, or he was coming down with a nasty bug. Was that why he was missing this mandatory meeting?
Not that he was going to ask.
“Hey, asshole,” Mackenzie snarled from O’Neill’s right. “How about you move your ass so we can close the damn door?”
That was Mackenzie for you, snarling rather than asking, referring to everyone as asshole rather than by their names, constantly exhibiting his generally shitty disposition. No wonder Wolf called him umbretan. The former commander was best described as the human personification of a thundercloud. How the hell did the bastard’s wife put up with him?
“Since you asked so nicely…” O’Neill sent him a saccharine smile. Ignoring the stiffening of Mackenzie’s body, he pushed into the bastard’s personal space, then turned around and parked his ass against the wall—shoulder to shoulder with the umbretan himself. “That better?” Another saccharine smile, this one with lots of teeth.
Shock seized the dude’s muscles. His hawkish face darkened past his habitual thunder cloud mimicry. Lightning flashed in his black eyes. Commander Squid was not pleased with O’Neill’s intrusion into his coveted personal space.
Too damn bad.
He snared the edge of the door and swung it shut, ignoring the ominous vibrations seething in the air to his left.
“Now simmer down there, skipper.” A soothing drawl started up as Rawlings tried to intercept the brewing explosion. “Man’s got to stand somewhere. Not much space left, as you can see.”
O’Neill suppressed a grin. Mackenzie was so damn easy to detonate.
It was amazing the guy had ever passed BUD/S, earned himself a spot on the teams, and then climbed all the way to Commander of ST7. Explosive personalities didn’t fare well in WARCOM. They burned through their allies and contacts quickly. Mackenzie certainly fell into that category. After all, nobody had stepped up to save his ass when his career had gone up in flames.
He’d heard about the guy long before the commander and his men had hit the skids with USSOCOM. Discovering they’d joined Shadow Mountain had been a surprise. Nobody in SEAL Command or among the soups knew where they’d disappeared. Some believed they’d been killed, although Zane Winters remained in contact with his family and Simcosky in contact with his mother. Mackenzie and Rawlings, they didn’t have family and hadn’t reached out to anyone. Hell, the whole lot of them had simply vanished.
It all made sense once he found them tucked away in Wolf’s Mountain. Shadow Mountain might just be the biggest military secret of the century. Nobody would have found them here.
“It don’t seem natural, Aiden missin’ out on this and all,” Rawlings said from the other side of Mackenzie. “He’s been the one gunnin’ for Kuznetsov. After what happened to his team, this takedown is personal. He’d want to be here.”
O’Neill tuned into the conversation. Mackenzie’s internal vibrations had eased. At least he wasn’t vibrating with the intensity of an off balance, fully loaded missile that was about to self-destruct.
“Nothing to be done about it.” Winters’s voice was matter of fact. “Can’t do much when you’re out cold in the ER. Cos says the docs don’t know when he’ll wake up, or even if he’ll wake up. Hell, they don’t even know what’s wrong with him.”
“It’s those damn bots.” Rawlings sounded certain. “The ones that took down his team. They got into him, somehow, and now they’re creatin’ havoc.”
“Maybe, but there’s still no sign of them in his blood or brain, which is where the damn things congregated in Squirrel and the others.” Winters sounded more cautious, like he wasn’t ready to jump on the bot train with no evidence. “Plus, Aiden’s symptoms are different. His crew didn’t run a fever and fall into a coma.”
In a coma?
Well, that explained why the chosen one was missing the meeting. Too bad. The fact they were even having this strategy briefing was because of Winchester’s relentless pushing.
At the front of the room, Wolf rose to his feet, with the television remote in his hand. He pressed a button and both the monitors filled with color, then images.
“What you’re looking at is Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a Russian city in the far east Russian corridor. The city sits along the Pacific Ocean, against the shores of Avacha Bay, which is also home to Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base.” He clicked the button again and another image swallowed the screen—a man, barrel chested, light on neck, with massive arms. His head was shaved. His eyes were small and mean. “Our mark is Grigory Kuznetsov, a Russian arms dealer. He’s believed to be involved in the testing of the wanatesa weapon that decimated Karaveht and Aiden Winchester’s SEAL team. Our intel indicates he’s hiding within this fenced, monitored, and guarded compound along the eastern corner of Petropavlovsk.”
A moment of shocked silence fell, followed by a cascade of voices blurting what the hell and you have to be fucking kidding me , all of which came from MacKenzie and his two SEAL henchmen. Okay, henchmen might be a bit bombastic. But Mackenzie, Winters, Rawlings and Simcosky stuck together.
Wolf ignored the raised voices at the back of the room. Of course he did. The big bad Wolf showed rare talent in ignoring those he didn’t wish to acknowledge. Usually, it was O’Neill.
It tickled O’Neill immensely that Wolf’s invisibility spotlight was centered on others for a change.
“The terrain surrounding our quarry is snowy, mountainous, and ringed by volcanoes. It’s also prone to blizzards during this time of the cycle. The snowpack is currently estimated at thirty-eight inches. To avoid detection, we’ll have to snowshoe to our attack points. The Thunderbird can exfil us directly from the compound once we’ve secured the target and package, but we don’t want to alert Kuznetsov or his guards to our presence on aggress .”
“Wait a mother fucking minute!” Mackenzie pushed off from the wall, his shoulders pulled back, his face hard, tendons standing out on his neck. “You’re telling us this is where Kuznetsov went to ground? In the ass crack of Russia? Right next to a submarine base?”
“Yes.”
Wolf shifted to face Mackenzie, his expression impassive, but O’Neill sensed the annoyance beneath the simple acknowledgement.
Zane Winters stepped away from the wall. “Where’s this intel coming from? Our sources pinpointed several likely locations.” He frowned before shaking his head. “Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is not on the list.”
O’Neill almost rolled his eyes. Like the squids’ contacts had an exclusive lock on where Kuznetsov had gone to ground. Talk about ego.
On the other hand…
“The man’s got a point,” O’Neill drawled. Who could blame him for seizing on such a prime opportunity to needle Wolf? Honest to shit, he couldn’t help himself. Even though he knew with absolute certainty that Kuznetsov was indeed bunkered down in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, right next to the Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base. He, too, had been surprised when his spook had told him that. But the intel was square. Not that he intended to admit it. “It seems mighty foolish of the guy to hunker down in the beast's belly, so to speak. Didn’t Winchester say he was a Russian defector? Why the hell would he go to ground in the heart of Russia?” He paused and lazily scratch at the corner of his eye, before moving in for the kill shot. “Where did this intel come from, anyway?”
Fuck, would Wolf’s answer ever set the squids off. He swallowed an unholy grin, ignoring the reproachful look Benioko sent him. Hell, under the circumstances, with his looming sacrifice and all, the Old One should let him have some fun.
The skin across Wolf’s broad forehead tightened. But before he addressed his hecklers, the Old One struggled to his feet. He turned to face Mackenzie and the other squids, but his gaze sought and held O’Neill’s eyes.
“This information came from me,” the Taounaha informed the room, his face and voice full of dignity.
His gaze flitted to Mackenzie and back to O’Neill, where it lingered, silently reminding him who’d supplied the intel, and that the tip had been accepted without question. A sliver of shame went through him, eroding his enjoyment of the situation. O’Neill looked away.
He grimaced. The Old One was spoiling his fun.
“ You supplied the intelligence?” Mackenzie’s thick eyebrows flew up in surprised outrage. “How the hell did you manage that? Through a—”
Rawlings’s hand shot out. His palm slapped over Mackenzie’s mouth, muffling the next word, but O’Neill was close enough to hear it.
“ Vision. ”
The derision in the gritty voice, muffled as it was, sucked the last of the enjoyment from O’Neill. That was the trouble with the three woohanta beside him . They had no respect for other cultures or other perspectives. Even if they didn’t put stock in the Shadow Warrior or the Tabenetha, they could still be respectful of the Taounaha and other belief systems.
“No. Not a vision.”
Wolf’s voice was as close to a snap as O’Neill had ever heard it. Mackenzie’s final, derogatory question had obviously been audible to everyone, even through Rawlings’s palm.
Wolf leveled an icy gaze on the cluster of Woohanta near the door, O’Neill included. “Benioko was approached by a source, one who remains anonymous. This contact provided the intel, along with photos, charts, and video. Our own intel techs verified the data provided. Our target is in Petropavlovsk. The video footage and photos are proof of this.”
He clicked the remote again, and an image of a fenced area, full of steel sheds and wood houses, edged by huge mounds of snow, filled the screen. A flagpole—from which flapped the white, blue, and red stripes of the Russian flag—rose above the fence line. Next to the flagpole stood an equally tall power pole. Wolf cast one more disdainful glance toward Mackenzie before turning back to the mounted television screens.
Another click of the remote and a grainy black and white video rolled across the screen. A thick set man stomped down the steps of a two-story house with an A-frame metal roof. The camera zoomed in until the man’s fleshy face and mean eyes were clearly visible. There was no question it was Kuznetsov. Same bald head. Same tiny eyes and muddy expression. His burly body was buried in a wool coat, which was plastered against his barrel chest. The jacket sleeves slapped his thick wrists.
Kuznetsov stood there for a moment, his small eyes scanning the fenced compound. Another man came into view, this one wearing a camouflage parka with the hood pulled up. His gloved hands cradled an AK-74M assault rifle against his chest. Kuznetsov shouted something at the other guy and moved to intercept in a combination stomp/strut.
“Through photos and video footage, we’ve identified eight guards split between two twelve-hour shifts. We’ve also identified multiple surveillance cameras. The grounds are being monitored from virtually every angle.” Wolf nodded toward a smaller wood house with a flat roof. “The guards—both shifts—are based out of here.” He paused the video as the man Kuznetsov had accosted escaped into the flat-roofed house. “At all times, there are two guards patrolling the grounds, while two remain inside this house. We believe they monitor the camera feeds from the inside.”
“Those camera feeds will need to be cut,” someone toward the front of the room said. Nods and indistinct murmurs of agreement swept the room.
From beside him, O’Neill heard mutterings about disinformation and photoshopping techniques. Rawlings stepped forward and raised his hand. O’Neill almost rolled his eyes. The squid had probably been a teacher’s pet in school.
“With the technology available these days, it’s easy to Photoshop images. Have you sent these photos and videos through photo forensics?” Rawlings’s tone was borderline apologetic, like he knew it was an asshole question.
O’Neill kept his face straight. Why yes, yes he had . Which the Taounaha knew. When the Old One turned to stare at him, his dark eyes more scolding than ever, O’Neill pretended not to notice.
Wolf’s face tightened. He answered the question with a truncated nod and gritted his response out. “They have. However, if you have reservations about this mission, you are welcome to sit it out.”
O’Neill shot the former squids huddled to his left a quick glance. How were they taking that obvious dismissal? Not well, judging by the flat, sour looks spreading across their faces.
“The five men stowed in your morgue crewed with us.” Mackenzie’s tight voice sounded like gravel, with a generous dose of fuck you . “They were brothers. This mission is ours more than yours.”
His face tranquil, Benioko stared Mackenzie down. “Your words are ignorant. Like an eseneee anvaa, you do not see the full picture. This battle belongs to all of us. You will not be the only ones affected by what comes.”
More scowls and frowns emerged from his left. Obviously, Mackenzie hadn’t bothered to learn the language of the Hee'woo'nee during his years at Shadow Mountain, otherwise he’d object more strenuously to being compared—unfavorably—to an ignorant child.
Rawlings raised his palms towards Wolf and Benioko in a placating gesture. “We meant no offense. It’s just that Aiden’s contact gave him very different potential locations.”
“Did Aiden’s contact establish that Kuznetsov was in any of those locations? Did he provide photo or video evidence?” Wolf’s voice remained flat, which somehow increased the bite.
O’Neill suppressed a laugh. It did his heart good to see Wolf’s teeth directed elsewhere for a change.
“No.” MacKenzie looked like he’d chewed on a lemon. “We’ve been waiting for an update.”
His face set, Wolf stared back. “The Taounaha’s source has provided all the information we need to act. Kuznetsov is in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. This is where we will apprehend him. Join us or not. Your company is of little consequence to us.”
Wow! Wolfie had his canines bared. O’Neill didn’t remember ever seeing him so short with someone. Of course, Mackenzie had it coming, so there was that.
After that bit of drama, the conversation moved on to logistics.
“Those cameras need to go.” Samuel’s voice was matter-of-fact. “A scrambler would take them out but leave our target wondering why the electricity didn’t go down too. We need to cut the power to the whole compound.”
Wolf clicked a button and an image of the gated entrance with its towering power pole lit up the television screen. “We take down the power here,” he said. “This region of Russia is known for its unstable electrical grid. Particularly during the windy season, which is in full swing now.” He paused. “We’re monitoring a complication. The latest weather projections call for a low-pressure ridge to settle over the area within the next thirty-six hours. If the forecasts are accurate, we’d be a ggressing into snowy, windy, even blizzard conditions.”
O’Neill frowned, surprised that Wolf and the Old One would take such risks with their warriors’ lives. While grabbing Kuznetsov and containing this nanobot weapon was imperative, they still had time before the situation went critical. His contacts had heard nothing about this nanobot weapon. No mention of it was circling the dark web. There was no sign it was up for sale.
They could afford to wait out this low-pressure ridge.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one questioning the wisdom of attacking during unsettled weather. A warrior on the left side of the table questioned the decision.
Wolf looked at Benioko and then back at the warrior who’d asked the question. “There’s reason to believe the weapon is up for sale. We must secure it immediately.”
O’Neill straightened. He’d just spoken with his contacts. Someone would have told him if the weapon was up for sale. The only way Wolf could have received that information was directly from the Shadow Warrior via the earthside mouthpiece.
Benioko had been in touch with the elder gods.
While he was trying to assimilate the knowledge that they’d apparently jumped straight to DEFCON 2, one of the intel techs scurried into the room and joined Wolf. An intense conversation broke out. The room was dead silent. He was too far away to catch the exchange, but it was bad news. Wolf was facing the other direction, so he couldn’t see his face, but the way his shoulders bunched looked ominous. And then there was the other dude, the one who’d interrupted the meeting. He was facing O’Neill, and hell, he looked unnerved, like he’d watched the world die in front of his eyes.
Yep, bad news had walked through the door.
After a few more moments of conversation, the tech guy scurried back out the door. Wolf stood there for several seconds, staring after him, his shoulders still bunched, the back of his neck tense. O’Neill’s pulse picked up. So did his breathing. This was bad. Very, very bad. He’d never seen anything affect Wolf like this.
With obvious effort, Benioko struggled to his feet and settled a claw-like hand over Wolf’s forearm.
With a deep breath and a shake of his head, Wolf turned to address the roomful of warriors. “The weapon used against the people of Karaveht, as well as Aiden’s SEAL team, has gone up for sale. Those selling it have posted videos to prove its effectiveness. The footage is of the villagers in Karaveht, and Aiden’s SEAL team slaughtering each other. The bidding is strong.” His jaw bunched. “The Thunderbird will fly within the hour.”