Commander-In-Chief (35 page)

Clark settled in for the long wait, and then he sent a text to Gavin and another to Jack, telling them both what he had just learned. He might have to sit here for another three hours before he could return to his boat, but that didn’t mean his two colleagues couldn’t work remotely to start looking into the kidnapping.

He didn’t really know what they would be able to accomplish up there, but Clark liked his chances, whenever he did get out of here. If the Walkers were on a boat and the boat was still here in the BVIs, Clark knew exactly where he needed to start his hunt to find them.

C
havez, Caruso, and Herkus Zarkus stood on the roof of a high school assembly hall in the town of Pabradė, looking out to the east at the Belarusan border in the distance. They took pictures of the farmland between their position and the border from three different points of the roof, pleasing the men greatly because they got to check three more objectives off their list without having to load up the vehicle and drive to a new location each time.

The two Americans were now more convinced than ever that the work they were doing was in support of a military defense of Lithuania. It seemed odd to them that the director of national intelligence would be the one sending them here, or that they would go at all, as the Defense Department had its own intelligence service that normally did these sorts of things.

Still, Dom Caruso and Ding Chavez weren’t complaining about the technical collection work. It gave them the opportunity to get a feel for the area.

Dom had joked dryly earlier, when he was certain Herkus was out of earshot, that the work they did now might help CIA operations behind the “New Iron Curtain” in the future. Both men knew the ground they walked on could easily be Russian territory in a matter of days, just as the ground they walked on in the Crimea a year earlier was now as much a part of Russia as was Red Square.

They finished their precision imagery, climbed down off the roof of the high school, and waved thanks to a really confused but compliant building supervisor.

As they were packing up the van to go to the next location, the phone in Chavez’s pocket chirped.

“Chavez.”

“This is Greg Donlin, Branyon’s PPA.”

Chavez remembered meeting CoS Pete Branyon’s personal protection agent the week before when the chief of station dropped in on their safe house. “Hey, Greg. You doing okay?”

“I remember you guys offered to help us out in your downtime. I’m hoping that offer still stands.”

“Of course it does. We don’t normally knock off till the light gets too bad to work, usually around seven or so. But if you’re in a jam we can make an exception.”

“This would be at five p.m. Branyon needs to go east this evening, to meet with an agent in a village called Tabariškės. It’s about a half-mile, tops, from the Belarusan border.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. I have tried to dissuade him from his decision, but he says it’s vital. His network in that area is reporting more Little Green Men sightings. He wants to meet with them in person to see what we’re dealing with here.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Might be, but we had a NOC in Tabariškės last night, and he reported it was all clear. We’re not too worried about the town, but the drive down has us a little concerned. Lithuanian police and military presence is light on the road there, it’s just too far off the main highway, and the cops and soldiers around here are stretched thin enough as it is.”

Chavez said, “We’d be happy to escort you guys down, but, as you know, we don’t have any weapons.”

“I’ll fix that. If you come along I’ll hook you up with some bang sticks. One thing, though. Branyon doesn’t want you in Tabariškės village. He is worried about compromising people in his network with strangers showing up. He asks that you guys just follow us down, find a place to park to the west of town, and then wait for us to call and let you know we’re en route back toward Vilnius.”

Chavez asked, “Do you feel safe being Branyon’s only security man while he walks around in this town by the border?”

“Hell, no, I don’t. I’d roll in with an Abrams tank if I was calling the shots, but I’m not.”

“I hear you,” said Chavez. “We’ll watch over you guys on the road down and back. Stay in comms with us in case you need us in the village.”

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s meet up at seventeen hundred hours so I can give you guys some weapons and we can discuss the movement.”

•   •   •

B
ranyon and Donlin pulled into the parking lot of an IKI chain grocery store in Nemėžis, a southeastern suburb of Vilnius. It was five p.m., there was still a lot of light out, but storm clouds were rolling over the area, with heavy rains predicted by sunset. As they came to a stop in a space well to the side of the entrance, a
black Toyota Land Cruiser pulled into the spot next to them. Chavez and Caruso climbed out of the Toyota, and then got into the back of the CIA men’s vehicle.

Branyon was in the passenger seat. Everyone shook hands quickly, then the station chief said, “Appreciate the company, guys.”

Dom replied, “Our pleasure. You guys are cutting it close on the light, though. Not sure how long you plan on being at your meet, but it looks like we’ll be coming home in a pitch-black storm.”

Donlin said nothing. Both Campus men had the impression he didn’t like this scenario at all, which meant they weren’t too crazy about this movement, either.

Branyon saw the expressions on the men’s faces. “Look, I’m not doing this because I want to. There are a lot of people down there by the border that are relying on the U.S. to protect them. They work for me, and they are skittish as hell, but I still need them to do their jobs. I can’t just call them from the safety of the U.S. embassy and tell them I’ve got their backs. I need to go down and convince them I’m still looking out for them, so they’ll continue providing intel to me.” He shrugged. “For whatever that’s worth. Fucking Volodin going on TV and saying he basically owns their homes is creating more anxiety than I can dispel with my handsome face.”

Chavez and Caruso smiled.

Greg Donlin said, “At your feet you’ll each find an AK and a pistol, along with some extra mags. The guns are a little old, but they function, and they’ll put holes in people if it comes down to it. Stay on our ass on the way down, but peel off before we get to the village. I’ll let you know when we’re about to leave the meet.”

“Roger that,” said Chavez. The two men in the backseat collected their new weapons. Each was folded into a blue gym bag so
they didn’t have to climb out in the grocery store parking lot waving guns around. Instead, they just hefted the bags and returned to their vehicle.

Back in the Land Cruiser they took a moment to check the rifles and the pistols. The AKs had folding wire stocks and simple iron sights. The pistols, big Glock 17s, looked just like the AKs: well used but also well maintained. They shoved the pistols in their waistbands under their jackets, then placed the rifles on the floorboard of the backseat, where each man also had a Maxpedition sling bag filled with surveillance equipment, medical supplies, and other odds and ends they knew they might need on an escort mission like this.

As they began following the CIA men’s white Mercedes SUV, Dom began looking at a map of the area near the border on his phone, trying to find a place for them to wait for Branyon and Donlin while they conducted their meeting in Tabariškės. As he looked over the map, he said, “Ding, does any of this feel right to you?”

“From a personal-security perspective?”

“Yeah.”

“Not at all,” said Chavez. “I respect Branyon for not riding a desk, but like he said, I don’t know that there is much he can do by coming down here. If the Russians start shelling the area, those mortar rounds aren’t going to know or care the CIA is in that village.”

Dom said, “From the map it looks like there are some low hills on a farm about five hundred yards to the southwest of the village. How would you feel about us finding a layup position that gives us a little overwatch on Branyon’s poz?”

Chavez said, “I like it. Not much we can do to affect things from five hundred yards, but I guess we can call in to Donlin if we see anything in the area we don’t like.”

“Like Russian T-90 tanks or incoming rockets?”

Chavez laughed. “Yeah, for example. In the meantime, let’s keep our eyes peeled on this road. We’ve been driving five minutes and we’ve already passed a half-dozen perfect places to get bushwhacked.”

Light rain began to fall on the SUV as they headed for the border.

P
ete Branyon and Greg Donlin rolled into the village of Tabariškės, just a half-mile from the Belarusan border. Branyon was behind the wheel, and he drove his white 1998 Mercedes M-Class SUV through the rain, along the narrow, flat streets, passing only a few other vehicles on the road. After a few minutes he turned off the road, and crunched up the gravel driveway in front of a mustard-colored wooden church. A small, bleak cemetery sat in front of the building, with tombstones on both sides of a path from the entry of the church to the parking lot out front.

Branyon put the vehicle in park, then just sat there, peering out through the rain in all directions.

There was only one other car in the church driveway, and Branyon did not recognize it.

He’d come out to the church this evening to meet the agent who ran his cell here along the border. Albertas Varnas was a parish priest living in the village, and he had been reporting to Branyon about the situation in the area, as well as organizing others in his
parish. Branyon had recruited him just a month earlier, and the only thing Varnas and his people had been used for so far was setting up a few remote Internet-based cameras that beamed images of the road to the border back to the CIA shop at the U.S. embassy, and calling in tips about border activity.

Branyon decided to come out here this evening because he wanted to ask Varnas personally about his claims that villagers were reporting sightings of foreigners in the area.

Branyon had been advised by Langley to get Varnas on the phone and question him a little deeper, but Branyon felt he’d be better able to gauge the veracity of the reports in person. Plus, if there were any Little Green Men out here in Tabariškės, he wanted to see them firsthand. He knew if the chief of station told Langley the Russians had breached the border, it would carry more weight with Langley than if some untrained parish priest just called in the sighting secondhand.

Greg Donlin sat in the passenger seat with his eyes fixed on the east. The border was beyond a wood line that began on the other side of a field, right outside the village, and it also jutted out to the west just south of the village, meaning it was also a mile and a half behind them. He said, “Closer than we need to be, boss. We’ve got Belarus on two compass points of this poz.”

“I know, Greg,” Branyon said, still looking at the unfamiliar car in the lot. He checked his phone for any missed messages, then he dialed Varnas. After twenty seconds with his phone to his ear he said, “No signal. Perfect.”

Donlin checked his own phone. “Same here. Wonder if the Russians are jamming this area from over the border.”

Branyon chuckled a little. “Now you are getting paranoid. I talked to Varnas an hour ago, phones were fine then. I’ve had this happen before. No sweat.”

He grabbed his umbrella, opened his car door, and climbed out.

Donlin climbed out as well. “That’s a Honda Civic. Varnas has an old Škoda. He isn’t here, Pete. Why don’t we wait a bit?”

Branyon answered back, “Why don’t we go light a candle and make an offering? Can’t fuckin’ hurt.”

“I don’t like it. Whose car is that?”

Branyon was already moving, but he turned back to his personal protection agent. “Let me ask you this, Greg. If the Sixth Army
does
invade Lithuania, do you imagine they’ll all pile into the back of a Honda Civic to do it?”

As usual, Greg Donlin did not share his superior’s cavalier attitude. He caught up with his boss on the pathway up to the church. Both men stood in the rain. “Pete, I’ll go in first, see if he’s here. You get behind the wheel and wait, just in case.”

Branyon sighed. “Really, Greg? Are you going to ride my ass on this?”

Donlin said, “Just make me feel better. Okay, boss?”

Branyon turned and headed back to the Mercedes, but he didn’t get behind the wheel. Instead, he leaned against the hood, pulled a pack of Marlboros out of his jacket with his free hand, and poured a cigarette into his mouth. He dropped the pack back in his jacket and pulled a lighter from his pants pocket.

Donlin gave him a slightly annoyed look, then turned and headed up to the church.

Branyon took a long drag on his cigarette and fumbled with his umbrella to check his watch. It was almost seven, the clouds made it look like dusk, and he knew it would be pitch-black by the time they left, even if Varnas was here now.

He had put on an air of nonchalance with both his bodyguard and the two contractors shadowing him this evening, but the fact
was he wasn’t taking this lightly at all. He knew he was pushing his luck being here now, and the last thing he wanted to do was hang out here after dark. But his cell of agents here near the border was more important than ever. Not just because they could send him information in advance of an invasion, but if NATO did not rush up and save the day, if the Russians poked holes in the eight-foot-tall wire fence that was the only thing separating a hundred villages like this from the Sixth Army, then this cell would be absolutely crucial working behind the lines in Russian-held Lithuania.

He
had
to be here, he
had
to do this, and if he got his ass shot off in the process—well, he told himself, he’d ignored his dad’s advice to go to dental school, so it would be his own damn fault.

Dom Caruso and Ding Chavez sat in their black Toyota Land Cruiser, parked on a hill 550 yards to the west of the mustard-colored church. Chavez had pulled off the main road and up a hill into an abandoned junkyard, then continued out into an open field, finally stopping in a copse of trees. He turned off the engine and listened to the sound of the rain on the roof of the vehicle.

Through the enhancement of the 500-millimeter lens of his camera propped in the partially open window, Dom could easily make out the scene to the northeast of their position: Branyon leaning on the hood of the white Mercedes SUV with an umbrella in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and his close protection officer disappearing alone into the church.

Dom said, “Can you freakin’ believe it? The CIA station chief heading all the way out here in the boonies like this?”

Chavez agreed. “I know why he’s doing it, but it’s the wrong call.”

“I guess he thinks he’s invincible.”

“All we can do is hope he is. If there are Little Green Men out
here, or any of the local pro-Russian civilians, knowing that the Agency chief for the entire country is wandering around this remote area with a target on his head is almost too good to pass up.”

Dom asked, “Do we want to think about moving closer? Just in case?”

Chavez held his own camera up now, focused in on the church in the distance. “No. Branyon was right about us not entering the village. If there are bad guys around, we’d be made in two seconds flat. Plus, I like our view here. If we break off to get closer we’ll lose sight of him for two or three minutes. Let’s just keep watch.”

Within a few seconds, however, Dom noticed a pair of big covered flatbed trucks pulling out of a tree line due south of the village. They began moving over fallow farmland, three hundred yards east of the church. They seemed to be heading directly toward Branyon and Donlin in the middle of the village, and they were increasing speed over the mud and tilled earth.

“What the hell is this?” he asked. Chavez had been looking up the road to the west, but he oriented his camera on the trucks. Quickly he said, “Call Donlin.”

Caruso lowered his camera and yanked his phone from his jacket. Quickly he dialed Greg Donlin’s number. He held the phone to his ear for several seconds, then checked it.

“Can’t get a signal.”

“Use the sat phone.”

Dom spun around, grabbed his Maxpedition bag, and yanked it into the front seat with him. His Thuraya phone was in its waterproof case in an inner pocket. “It’s going to take me a minute to get through.”

Ding just watched the trucks get closer through the rain. “Do it, anyway. We don’t know for sure what’s happening.”

•   •   •

B
ranyon stood up from the hood of the SUV, turned around and looked back over his shoulder. He saw a row of homes with white fences in front of them, and a line of big oak trees behind them. He thought he heard the noise of a vehicle somewhere back there, which was strange, because he’d been here before, he’d studied the map, and he knew it was nothing but farmland on the south side of the trees.

Just then, a single gunshot cracked inside the church, spinning Branyon’s head in the direction of the noise. The cigarette flew from his mouth and he threw the umbrella to the side. His hand went inside his jacket and formed around the butt of his compact Glock 26 pistol, but before he could draw it the front door of the church flew open and Greg Donlin appeared in the doorway at a run. He shouted, “Get out of here!”

Branyon ran around to the driver’s side, jumped behind the wheel, and fired up the engine. Directly in front of him Donlin ran through the cemetery in front of the church, his own pistol pointed back behind him at the door.

From the darkened doorway came a flash, then the pounding beat of a single rifle shot. Donlin stumbled in his run, then he fell onto the gravel of the drive. His body stilled.

“Fuck!” Branyon screamed, then he threw the Mercedes into gear and spun the tires, racing forward, trying to get to Donlin. He had no plan for pulling the big man into the vehicle while under fire from less than one hundred feet away, but he was operating on impulse now.

Another burst of gunfire came out of the church. Branyon assumed whoever was there was shooting at him, as the Mercedes
was only twenty-five yards from the front door. But looking at Donlin’s still form lying facedown in the drive, illuminated by the headlights of the Mercedes, Branyon saw mud and rock kicked up around him.

Someone was firing an automatic rifle, not at Branyon or his SUV, but at Donlin’s body.

Pete Branyon saw his bodyguard’s lifeless form kick up with the impact of the bullets. Blood splattered the brown gravel around him.

The CIA station chief screamed again in fury, then stomped down hard on the brake pedal, skidding on the loose gravel and puddles of water. He threw the SUV into reverse and punched the gas, backed down the drive and into the street, then executed a three-point turn and shoved the gear shift into first. Stomping the gas to the floor now, he took off to the west.

He made it less than seventy-five yards. At the first intersection a large truck with a canvas bed top appeared around a building on his left, and it slammed into the left front of the Mercedes SUV, spinning it around on the street. Branyon’s head smacked the door pillar by his head so hard he saw stars in front of his eyes.

The Mercedes stalled out in the middle of the intersection. Branyon was dazed, but he was still able to draw his Glock 26. He raised it at the movement in the headlights in front of him, but just as he did so, the passenger-side window exploded on his right. He turned to point his weapon at the noise, expecting to see an armed man there taking aim, but instead he saw something else.

In the front passenger seat, just a foot or so from where Branyon sat behind the wheel, was a flash-bang grenade. The pull ring was missing.

The device exploded in the confined space, blinding Branyon with light and disorienting his ears with a shrieking ring.

•   •   •

C
havez and Caruso watched helplessly as the action unfolded 550 yards away. It was tough to see the entire scene in the poor light and heavy rain, but when the CIA station chief was dragged from his vehicle by several men in civilian dress and carried in front of the headlights of the Mercedes, both Chavez and Caruso saw movement in Branyon’s arms and legs.

Chavez said, “He’s alive!”

Caruso spoke through a jaw tight with frustration. “A fucking kidnapping.”

Chavez said, “And those aren’t local yokels. That was slick as bird shit.”

“Spetsnaz,” Dom said.

“Or something like them,” Chavez agreed. “We can’t lose visibility till we see which direction they’re heading.”

“
Then
what do we do?”

Chavez fired up the engine of the Land Cruiser. “Donlin’s dead. We go after Branyon.”

“Roger that.”

The two canvas-covered trucks headed east down the main road out of the village, directly toward the tree line, which was no longer visible to the Americans in the low light. But they didn’t need to see the trees to know the fence line separating Lithuania from Belarus was just beyond, and they didn’t have to jump to any great conclusions to figure out what was happening.

Pete Branyon was being taken back over the border.

Chavez threw the Land Cruiser into gear and launched forward, heading down the hill through the center of the farmland that ran along south of the village. “If we don’t run into any natural obstacles we can beat them to the border.”

Dom asked, “Are we going to shoot it out with Spetsnaz?”

Chavez said, “If the Russians get the CoS they will know the name of every U.S. asset in this country. When they take Lithuania they can scour the nation to remove all our eyes and ears.”