“Ivan Zharkov has a dacha on the Black Sea where he doesn’t spend much time. He also has a compound in central Siberia,” she said, bringing up a map of Russia and zooming in on an area in the middle. “It’s located at the epicenter of the Tunguska Event, of all places. He frequents it in the spring and fall but we do not have any reports of Aleksandr accompanying his father there in quite some time.”
“Enemy situation?” asked a laid-back looking operator chewing gum in the second row.
“Aleksandr is an odd one,” Andy chimed in. “He doesn’t trust his own military or intelligence services and instead has contracted security from the Wagner Group.”
Heads nodded in recognition.
“As a refresher,” Andy continued, “Wagner is a private military company; think the Russian version of Blackwater.”
“Didn’t they get tied to the killing of those journalists in the Central African Republic last year?” the same operator asked.
“Yes, along with disappearances and ‘suicides’ of more than a few in opposition to Putin’s policies. They’ve been very active in Africa, specifically in CAR, Madagascar, Sudan, and Libya. They continue to grow in power and influence, propping up Russian-backed dictatorships in Venezuela, Syria, and elsewhere. We estimate that Aleksandr has eight to ten Wagner contractors on the island and possibly a personal bodyguard, but we can’t be sure.”
“How well trained are they?”
“The Wagner rank and file are mostly filled with regular Russian Army personnel who are trained up at a Wagner compound in the North Caucasus region of southern Russia. They do have a small special operations component for special activities who handle operations like targeting those journalists in Africa.”
The inquisitive assaulter nodded like these were normal everyday occurrences in the life of being a commando, which, in fact, they were.
“The big question here is, why?” asked Sergeant Major Holloway, verbalizing what they were all thinking.
“I’ll take that one,” interjected Reece from the back of the room, making his way to the front. Nicole and Andy stepped to the side to give him the floor.
“I’m James Reece. I met most of you tonight. I’m a former SEAL currently working for Ground Branch, though I think we are supposed to call it something else these days.”
The comment elicited a chuckle from a room full of people accustomed to senior ranking officers renaming programs as a way to fill evaluations, insinuating that a highly successful established entity was entirely their idea before moving up the ladder in the chain of command.
“Some of you may know Raife Hastings,” the former frogman continued.
Heads nodded again.
“Hanna is his sister. She was abducted in retaliation for events last year in which Raife and I were involved. Raife has gone dark. Our last communication was from his sister’s residence in Romania. I think he’s on his way to Medny alone.”
“Shit,” Holloway said, leaning forward in his chair. “So, what you are telling us is that we have two potential hostages in Russian territory?”
“And that’s not all.” Reece hesitated. “Recent intel suggests that Aleksandr has moved on from his serial killing of prostitutes and is hunting humans on Medny Island. He’s going to hunt Hanna, but her real purpose is bait. What he really wants is to hunt me and Raife.”
“What?” Holloway asked in disbelief. “How reliable is this intel?”
Reece thought of Dimitry in Thorn’s cabin, the capsaicin flowing through his veins cooking him from the inside out.
“Very,” concluded Reece, not bothering to use the military terminology associated with source verification.
Holloway shook his head. “This is a new one. Though it’s not usually my place to ask, how will this be handled diplomatically?”
Nicole stepped forward to take the question.
“If approved, President Grimes would call the Russian president only if things went south. Insert and extract via MH-X Black Hawks,” she said, referring to the “stealth” helicopters made famous by the raid in Abbottabad. “We have AKs and Russian ammo sourced in Russia to make the actions on the objective look like a rival gang hit. This needs to be nonattributable to U.S. forces. Fallout could be a house cleaning inside the bratva. Off the record, I think the president will do little to downplay any rumors of U.S. involvement. He will be eager to show the world that he is not a puppet of Russia after all the accusations of Russian meddling in the last elections, when he was the ticket VP.”
Holloway stood up and looked at his watch before turning to address his men.