The Sniper and the Wolf

35

The Cape of San Vito was on the northwestern point of the island, two miles wide and five long with particularly rocky terrain running the length of the western shoreline. Gil and Dragunov were now well ensconced among the rocks, having ditched their car in the village of San Vito Lo Capo a click and a half to the east. Nothing but a lonely stretch of dirt road lay between them and the open waters of the Mediterranean a hundred yards away.

Gil scanned the water through a pair of infrared binoculars that had been stashed beneath the driver’s seat of the car, watching for the telltale flash of an infrared strobe that would be invisible to the naked eye.

“Typhoon actual, this is Typhoon main. Do you copy? Over.”

Gil picked up the sat phone, answering the USS Ohio’s transmission: “Roger that, main. I copy. Over.”

“Actual, be advised your driver is parking the car. Over.”

“Parking the car” meant that the SEAL team from the Ohio had arrived at its insertion point and was now in the process of “parking” the SDV on the ocean floor in 5 fathoms, or 32 feet, of water. The divers would be using rebreathers for stealth, recycling their unused oxygen to eliminate the large bubbles released by standard scuba tanks. The Ohio waited silently three miles out in international waters, 160 feet below the surface.

“Roger that, main.”

Gil looked at Dragunov. “Ready to get wet again, partner?”

Dragunov rubbed a hand over his face in the darkness. “This is always when I am most nervous — waiting for extraction.”

“Me too. Glad to hear it’s the same for Russians.”

“It was the same for the British at Dunkirk,” Dragunov said grimly. “The same for the Greeks when Themistocles ordered the evacuation of Athens. It’s always the same when the enemy is on your heels, and you’re about to show him your ass.”

The captain of the Ohio had already advised them that the extraction point was compromised, and they had agreed to proceed with the exfiltration; given their collective physical condition, another twenty-four hours on the island without food and water would be too dicey. Both men suffered from dehydration and suppurating wounds, and Gil had begun to run a low-grade fever, signaling the onset of infection. Without proper hydration, such a fever could quickly turn severe, particularly under the stress of combat conditions.

“How much longer?” Dragunov asked.

“They’ll park the SDV two hundred meters out then swim in beneath the surface. They’re lugging our dive gear, so that’ll slow ’em down a bit, but we should see the strobe in ten minutes or so. Only thing that concerns me is the delay in comms.” The Ohio had to relay its sat phone communications to the SDV team by radio, and this made it impossible to communicate with the divers in real time.

Dragunov grunted. “Kovalenko’s here. I can feel him.”

“Sorry to hear it. That fucker’s too good with a rifle.” Gil scanned up and down the coast through the binoculars, seeing nothing but jagged rocks on their side of the road in both directions. “At least it’s inside-a-black-cat dark out here.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have thrown away our rifle.”

“Woulda, coulda, shoulda,” Gil muttered. “You can stay here on the island if you want. I’m not sure we need a Spetsnaz major aboard one of our subs anyhow.”

“Why? Do you think I have a microcamera hidden up my prick?”

Gil snorted, secretly aware that Dragunov would be sequestered immediately aboard the Ohio, kept in the wardroom. There he would be well treated and well fed but unable to mingle with the crew or see anything of any intelligence value whatsoever.

“What are the chances they’ll let me see the con?” Dragunov asked, smiling from the side of his face.

“Ivan, you got a better chance at seein’ a Swiss combat medal than you do the con of that submarine.”

A little over a hundred meters to the south, also well hidden among the rocks, Kovalenko lay in wait with the AWS, still cursing the GRU operative who had failed to supply a nightscope for the rifle.

“Hey, what the hell do you want from me?” the smartass had said to him. “You’re lucky I came up with anything on such short notice.”

“Tvayu mat’,” Kovalenko murmured, biting off a chunk of chocolate and chasing it down with a long drink of French mineral water taken from the house where he had killed the Sicilian couple in their sleep.

There was no rolling surf along the shoreline, and that was good because it meant there was less noise, and any wake kicked up by a boat would be more likely to stand out. He knew how much the American SEAL teams liked their high-speed Zodiac boats, and he was looking forward to shooting one of them up.

There had been no sign of the Italian navy since his arrival the hour before, and he assumed this was because the Americans had probably suggested that the Italians steer clear of the cape for the night, but there was never any telling how much cooperation took place between the two governments. The Italians and the Americans were forever pretending to be at odds while secretly jerking each other off under the table.

“Kozly.” Jackasses.

Kovalenko pulled the rifle into his shoulder and scanned the shoreline for movement, looking for lights or reflections out on the water. Unable to see much of anything, he settled in to wait, certain that Dragunov was hiding somewhere along the shore and that the American sniper was with him.

Watching through the binoculars, Gil spotted the infrared strobe beneath the surface of the water and grabbed the sat phone.

“Typhoon main, I have visual on the strobe. Team is clear to surface. Over.”

“Roger that, actual. Relaying now.”

A couple of moments later, the heads of two SEALs from SEAL Team IV appeared above the surface.

“Let’s go, Ivan! We’re on.”

They moved out of the rocks, taking it slow as they covered the fifty yards to the dirt road. Once across, they double-timed it to the waterline, slowing again as they moved into the water to avoid making noise or kicking up a froth.

The waiting SEALs crouched low in the waist-deep water fifty yards from the water’s edge, having switched out their full-face diving masks for night vision goggles. They watched for danger as the Spetsnaz man and their fellow SEAL waded out to meet them. Then they rose up to their full height, each of them holding a second set of dive gear. They were armed only with suppressed M11s (SIG-Sauer P228s).

No one said a word as the SEALs began helping them into their dive gear. They were almost home, and no one wanted to risk ghosting the mission.

Kovalenko was still studying the shoreline when a car came around the curve to the north, stopping abruptly with its headlights shining on four divers standing out in the water 150 meters from his position.

“Blyat’!”

He swept right and fired without even bringing the rifle to a stop, picking off one of the divers. The other three dropped below the surface as Kovalenko steadied the rifle and fired into the water. The water began to bubble, and one of the divers resurfaced with air hissing from his rebreather, which he immediately threw off.

Kovalenko fired again, and another diver resurfaced holding his chest.

Dragunov hurled the hissing rebreather into the water, jerking the Beretta from his pants and firing at the car. The car immediately backed away through the curve, and darkness swallowed them again.

Gil barked into the radio-equipped face mask of the wounded SEAL cradled in his arms: “Typhoon main, be advised we are taking fire! Repeat. Taking fire. One KIA. One severely wounded. Request immediate surface evac — over!”

Dragunov waded over to him. “I can use the dead man’s gear. Let’s go!”

“We can’t,” Gil said, pushing the wounded SEAL into Dragunov’s arms. “He’s hit through the lung. The dive would kill him.”

The Ohio answered his transmission: “Typhoon actual, stand by for immediate surface evac. Over.”

“Roger that, main — expedite! We’re standing by in the shallows.” Gil dropped the mask and pulled on the SEAL’s night vision goggles. Then he took the M11 pistol from the holster on his leg. “Keep him alive, Ivan. I’m going after Kovalenko.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Dragunov hissed. “Stay here in the goddamn water! Your people are coming for us.”

“They’re three miles out, coming in rubber boats that make a lot of noise. Right now Kovalenko is displacing for a closer shot, and if I don’t take him out before the surface team gets here, he’ll kill every damn one of us.”

“Shit!” Dragunov swore, holding the wounded SEAL so that his head and chest were out of the water. “Don’t get killed!”