Sighting in the cabin area behind the cockpit, he gave it just enough lead, depressed the Fire button, and sent the projectile skyward. It couldn’t have been a more prefect shot.
Upon piercing the Mi-8, the warhead detonated and the helicopter exploded in a roiling fireball.
As it came crashing to the ground, the team cheered.
Harvath, though, knew they weren’t safe yet. They still had to make it back to the plane—and even then, he wouldn’t feel completely relieved until they were out of Russia.
Rapidly organizing the team, Haney had Sloane return to the point position and lead them toward the lake.
With just his first steps in the snowshoes, Harvath was reminded of how much agony his body was in.
He could have asked Staelin, who functioned as the team’s medic, for a painkiller, but he didn’t want to slow them down. It could wait until they got to the plane. Or at least, that’s what he had thought.
Out of nowhere, they heard the sound of an engine coming to life, powering up, and then speeding away.
Harvath didn’t need to ask what they were hearing. The look on Haney’s face said it all.
“Is that our ride leaving?” Harvath asked.
“That motherfucker,” the Marine cursed. “I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him.”
“Who’s him?”
“Pavel,” Haney replied. “A local alcoholic and chickenshit bush pilot who’s an asset of the Finns.”
“You left a foreign asset sitting there with a fully functioning aircraft? You didn’t even pull the master fuse?”
“I had no idea how quickly we’d need to take off. I didn’t want to screw around with his plane.”
“So what are we going to do now?” asked Harvath.
Without missing a beat, the Marine stated, “We’re walking out. It’s just a little over fifty kilometers.”
“I knew this was going to happen,” said Staelin.
“That’s enough,” replied Haney as he looked over at Sloane and said, “Pick the nearest spot the Finns told us we’d be safe to cross the border and plot us a course.”
“Roger that,” she replied, punching her ski poles into the snow and turning her attention to her wrist-top GPS device.
In the meantime, Haney transmitted a new SITREP to JSOC and told them to stand by for the updated route information, which was slow in coming.
“Sloane,” he said. “What’s taking so long?”
“All of a sudden, my GPS is all wonky,” she responded.
“What do you mean wonky?”
“Wonky meaning it’s not working.”
“Is it the weather?” the Marine asked.
“I don’t know.”
Harvath, though, did know. “It’s not the weather. The signal is being jammed. And if the signal is being jammed, that means Russian military is inbound.”
“Wait,” said Haney. “How do you know?”
“The Russians have been perfecting their GPS jamming. During the last set of NATO training exercises in Norway, they turned everything upside down.”
“If that’s what’s going on here, how do you know they’re inbound?”
“Because the system has a particular radius. The jammer is usually mounted on a ship or a vehicle of some sort. As we’re not close enough to the water and there are no passable roads anywhere near us, I’m guessing it’s on a plane or a helicopter.”
“We’re not far from Alakurtti Air Base,” said Haney. “They’re known for their helicopter regiment that specializes in electronic jamming.”
“There you go,” replied Harvath. “So what’s Plan B?”
As team leader, the Marine rapidly weighed their options.
But when he didn’t answer right away, Harvath began to feel uncomfortable. “There is a Plan B, right?”
“There’s one hell of a Plan B. But the President needs to sign off on it.”
Pretending his hand was a telephone, Harvath lifted it to his ear and said, “Then you’d better get hold of him fast because the Russians aren’t going to stop at killing our GPS. They’re going to flood this area with troops and either capture or kill all of us.”
CHAPTER 72
* * *
* * *
WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM
WASHINGTON, D.C.
When JSOC relayed Haney’s request to the President, Porter immediately turned to Nicholas and SPEHA Rogers. “Are we officially out of options? Because as we discussed, this has the ultimate downside risk.”
Rogers looked at Nicholas and then back to the President. “The team on the ground has maps. They know where they are and can attempt to land nav to the border, but . . .” he said, as his voice trailed off.
Porter raised an eyebrow. “But what?”
“But there’s a reason the Russians are jamming their GPS,” stated Nicholas. “They want to slow them down, so they can capture them. Not only will they have Harvath, but seven more Americans who will