Stop.
Jompá and Olá had no other option. That’s what they did.
The frozen slabs of meat should have hidden their presence from any thermal imaging. This had to be about something else. Someone in the village had talked.
Harvath, though, had expected that. What he hadn’t expected was that the Wagner mercenaries would devote time and resources to scouring the countryside for a couple of Sámis known to be gone at odd hours and for days at a time, hunting and trading with other villages.
Sinking the snowmobile had been meant to throw them off his trail, but maybe it had ended up leading them right to him.
He didn’t have time to figure out what had happened. He needed to make a plan to deal with this threat—right here, right now.
The helicopter was too loud for him to yell back to Christina. It was almost too loud for him to communicate with Jompá. Almost.
Though Harvath’s Russian was pretty bad, he knew enough to get what he needed in this situation.
“Shto ty vídish?” he shouted. What do you see?
“Odin vertolet,” the man shouted back, so that Harvath would be sure to hear him. “Dva verevki.” One helicopter. Two ropes.
This wasn’t a reconnaissance. It was an interdiction. They were going to have a team rappel, inspect the sleds, and question Jompá and Olá.
Harvath planted his feet and brought his knees up against the slab of meat. “Skol’ko soldat?” How many soldiers?
“Chetyre.” Four.
Two for each sled, Harvath thought to himself.
He tried, in vain, to listen for the approach of footsteps. But between the roar of the helicopter blades and the dogs barking, it was impossible.
Suddenly, though, he could hear the helicopter ascend and then move off to the side. It was still close, but not directly in front of them, nor immediately overhead. The mercenaries were obviously concerned about what they were about to face. And having already lost one helo, they didn’t intend to lose another.
As the Wagner men neared his sled, they began yelling at Jompá in Russian.
“Dva ostalos,” the Sámi said for Harvath’s benefit. “Dva verno.” Two left. Two right.
With his face hidden behind the ruff of his anorak, the mercenaries couldn’t see him feeding one last clue to Harvath. It was the last thing he was able to utter before the men were right on top of them.
Harvath gripped his weapons as an icy calm settled over him. Now that trouble had arrived, he was in his element.
His challenge was to affix in his mind, without having seen them, where all the players were—the four mercenaries on the ground, the helicopter and its likely snipers, Christina, Jompá, and Olá.
He was about to engage in an incredibly dangerous gamble, but there was no alternative. It was kill or be taken prisoner, and he had already made it quite clear where he stood on that proposition. He was going to kill whoever got in his way, and he would keep killing until he had escaped. He was going home and nobody was going to stop him.
Though the clouds had dampened its first rays, the sun had begun to rise. To his left and to his right, Harvath was able to see beneath the edges of the reindeer hides covering the sled.
He could make out two pairs of legs. Both were wearing the same winter whites as all the other Wagner thugs.
Once he had both his weapons in place, he said a quick prayer, exhaled, and pressed the triggers.
CHAPTER 67
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Using his legs to upend the frozen slab and the reindeer skins, he let them fall to the ground as he came out shooting.
He put two more rounds into the injured men on either side of his sled, killing them both, and then quickly rolled to his left to engage the men behind him before they could get to Christina.
As he did, the snipers in the helicopter let loose with a withering barrage of fire. Jompá, who had crouched down behind the sled for cover, fell bleeding into the snow.
Harvath kept his attention on Olá’s sled and the two men there. One of them had his weapon pointed right at him. Harvath fired before the man could get off a shot, double-tapping the mercenary in the chest and putting an additional round underneath his chin and up into his brain.
Before the man had even hit the ground, Harvath had his colleague in his sights and was already lighting him up.
He ripped a zipper of lead from the man’s left rear buttock, up