Free Shadow War by Sean McFate Page A

gun’s balance, and never muffled noise as advertised. If you want to kill silently, get a crossbow.
    Greenlees nodded. “And the other supplies.”
    I had sent the list through Wolcott before leaving Washington. The Berettas were on it, but so were other necessities for an airlift: infrared lights to outline a landing strip, marker beacons, aviation radio, laser range finder, broadband scanners, and night-vision and field glasses. For an operation like this, supplies were often the most difficult part.
    He handed me an envelope of euros, probably the €50,000 Wolcott promised. I shook my head and handed it back. “I’m set for now.” There was a decent chance the goons would pick me up on suspicion of being suspicious, and I didn’t want to give them a reason to detain me.
    â€œI’ll pick you up here at 2100,” Greenlees said, as we pulled up in front of my hotel. “Wear your fine dining attire.”
    Nine o’clock. Damn. I thought about the dinner date I’d be missing with Alie and felt a tinge of guilt. I wanted to see her. I wanted to explain myself. Who I was. Why I left. Maybe, if she didn’t walk out after the first glass of wine, I’d tell her that I hadn’t forgotten her, even after all these years. That she always meant something to me.
    But she was a reporter. I was clandestine. I was never really going to meet with her. Was I?

CHAPTER 7
    We drove silently through the sparse night traffic, Greenlees’s brother-in-law watching me with quiet disdain in the rearview mirror. No trouble with the FSB, Russian or Ukrainian, so I’d had a chance to shower and nap before changing into field clothes, and I was feeling fresh. Greenlees was wearing the same retiree-on-vacation outfit he’d been wearing before, but now with extra wrinkles, both in his shirt and under his eyes. He looked like he’d been at it for an extra ten hours, even though we’d only been apart for six.
    Alcoholism, maybe—it was a common malady in the field. Or maybe he’d been compromised. It wasn’t unheard-of for these old Cold War warriors to lose their way when the world changed.
    â€œI was visiting with . . . someone,” he said, by way of explanation. “I made promises, you see . . .”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” I said, not wanting the old man to struggle on. It was clear that his young Ukrainian wife (judging from the age of his brother-in-law) and decade (at least) in retirement had softened the man Ronald Reagan had sent to lay mines with Dave Wolcott in Corinto. We hadn’t even left Kiev, and it looked like my Sherpa was coming apart.
    What have you gotten me into, Winters?
    We took the long route, stopping several times and making several left turns at red lights to see if anyone was followingus, which they were. Eventually, we pulled up at a restaurant, walked through the dining room, and out the back door to another car. Old school. Like 1950s old school. So old the goons following us might even be fooled. At least the new driver was a professional. By the time we pulled up to a field somewhere beyond the outskirts of Kiev, even I didn’t know what direction we’d gone.
    The helicopter appeared less than a minute later, flying low against the dark sky, its lights off. It was an AgustaWestland corporate model, intended to ferry business executives on short commutes. Limited range. Unarmed. Seating for seven at most. It might have been Karpenko’s, but more likely, given that Karpenko was a wanted man, it had been rented in the last few hours.
    â€œGrigory Maltov,” Greenlees whispered, as a burly man stepped out. “Karpenko’s fist.”
    Maltov was a classic enforcer, maybe a former bodyguard, probably a thug jumped up to the inner circle because of his extreme efficiency at disagreeable tasks. Every organization had a man like this, and twenty more waiting in line to take his place. The key