were going to hand her over to the GRU, who at best would throw her in prison, and at worst would execute her, or the mercenaries would rape and then beat her to death, leaving her body for the wolves. None of those were acceptable outcomes in his book.
She had helped him and he needed to help her. He just prayed to God that she was on that helicopter. He didn’t want to have to go back to Nivsky to find her.
Based on the possibility of hostages being among the mercenaries, his mindset flipped from ambush to rescue. That didn’t mean, though, that he couldn’t kill every last Wagner soldier on that helo, it just meant he had to make sure no harm came to Christina and, if he was present, Sini’s husband.
If he knew exactly where the helicopter would land, he might have been able to find concealment nearby and, using the night vision goggles, catch a glimpse of who, and how many, got off. But as it stood, he had no clue.
All he knew was that they would search Jompá’s cabin first. That’s where they expected to find him. With the bird coming in fast, he kicked it into high gear.
He hid the snowmobile and his rucksack at the edge of the village, covering them with broken pine boughs. Then, he strapped on as much gear as he could carry, shouldered all the guns, and rushed toward the cabin.
He knew where he was going to end up, but before he got there, he needed to establish several alternative positions—places where he could predeploy weapons and ammunition.
Moving through the shadows behind the cabins, he picked his spots carefully. He wanted to be able to quickly access the gear, but also to remain hidden. And, if he found himself in a running gun battle, he wanted at least some cover.
With everything set, he moved to his final position.
Each cabin in Adjágas was different, but most of them were built with crawl spaces underneath—similar to the one where he had hidden his skis.
One of them was rather dilapidated, but had an excellent view of Jompá’s. Even better, it was uninhabited.
Clearing some of the snow away, he was able to dig a hole wide enough to allow him to squeeze underneath. It was only then that he realized how structurally unsound the cabin was.
The floor above had rotted through in places and it sat on beams atop short, stacked stone pillars. He had the sense that just bumping one could bring the entire cabin crashing down on him.
The space was so small, he had to balance the AK-15 rifle on his forearms and belly crawl to get into position. Had he been even the slightest bit claustrophobic, it would have been impossible.
At the far end of the crawl space, he set his rifle aside and pushed away enough of the snow to be able to see Jompá’s. The range was perfect and there was nothing obstructing his view. The only drawback was going to be his muzzle flash. As soon as he started firing, it was going to be obvious where it was coming from.
Backing up, deeper into the crawl space, and firing from there was out of the question. As he backed up, his line of sight became impaired and he couldn’t fully see the target. He was going to have to risk shooting from where he was and follow the three Bs: be fast, be accurate, and be the hell out of there.
He hoped there’d be enough chaos that he could get in all the shots he needed. But he knew better than to think like that. Murphy, of the eponymous law, always found a way to screw things up.
For his own good, he needed to resist becoming greedy. Staying one second too long in that crawl space could mean death. If at all possible, he had to be on the way out before they even began shooting back at him. It wouldn’t be easy, but he didn’t get to choose the circumstances. He only got to choose how he was going to react to them.
Outside, he could hear the thump, thump, thump of the helicopter’s blades as it arrived and hovered somewhere overhead. The rotor wash sent snow and ice flying in all directions as it illuminated its powerful searchlight and lit up Jompá’s cabin. Even at his distance, the light was practically blinding for Harvath.
Shielding his eyes, he was able to watch as ropes were dropped and a