Peter Kirsanow - Target Omega

This complicated matters significantly, rendering a bad situation worse. Garin had expended thousands of rounds in innumerable kill-house exercises, as well as in actual hostage scenarios in both Iraq and Somalia. None had presented the challenges he was facing tonight. It would be difficult enough for one man to take out Bor and the Iranians were they all grouped together in a small area. Taking out the downstairs contingent without alerting those upstairs, and without increasing the already high probability of collateral damage, would be nearly impossible. He had no flash bangs, no backup, and poor intel on the bad guys’ positions. He needed support — lots of it — and he needed it now. Otherwise, this exercise would be futile, suicidal.

He hit the redial on his cell again to no avail. Seconds later, more movement caught his eye, this time in the living room window below. He looked down at the ground-floor window and his chest seized with astonishment. Seated on a couch was his sister, Katy. Although he couldn’t see them, he knew Joe and the kids must be nearby.

The noise outside the bunker. In the chaos of the last few days Garin had neglected to check on Joe and Katy. The seemingly omniscient Bor, however, had not. Clearly, to have located the bunker meant the Russian had extraordinary resources here in the United States. But that wasn’t an issue to be addressed now. Right now, all that mattered was that Bor had located Garin’s loved ones and was using them as an insurance policy. Just in case Garin showed up. Freeze him in place. The Russian assassin had covered all the angles. Once again, he remained one step ahead.

Garin felt a rush of adrenaline fueled by a combination of fear and fury. A jumble of childhood memories and emotion swirled in his brain, stoking his rage and causing the muscles in his neck and jaw to tense. The monsters in the cabin were holding the person who knew him best, loved him most. Maybe the only person who loved him. And they had Olivia, too. She’d taken a chance, risked her career, to help him.

So for their crimes they would suffer. Especially Bor. Garin would rip out his intestines and ram them so far down his throat they’d end up where they’d started. He was going to die slowly, in unbearable agony.

And then Garin’s training — the cold, steel discipline of Omega’s team leader — began to kick in. His training told him that any move he made now, compromised by emotion, would end in disaster. He needed to think, be rational.

His training, however, was at war with his instincts. Long ago, Laws had warned him there would be one or two extraordinary situations in his career in which that would happen. No amount of training, no amount of experience, would help. And on these occasions he would be alone, the correctness of his choice validated only by its outcome.

He sensed he was left, quite simply, with no choice but to act. If he didn’t, Katy and her family would be dead.

Katy’s eyes reflected seething hatred toward her captors. The animals had thrown her family, bound and gagged, into the rear of a filthy Econoline van and had driven from Ohio to… wherever they were. Joe, bleeding from his scalp from repeated blows to the head, had been unconscious for most of the trip. They had stopped only once, Katy presumed for gas. The family was kept locked in the van, and the kids, denied the use of a restroom, had soiled themselves. No food, no water. Nine hours of driving sprawled on the bare metal floor of the van.

The animals had taken Joe somewhere else in the cabin. She hadn’t seen him since their arrival, and she suspected the worst after Joe had punched one of the men as they were herding their captives into the cabin. Two of them leapt upon Joe, beating him as the others kept their weapons trained on him. Katy held no illusion that the beatings had discontinued. The kids were sitting together at her feet on the floor, frightened but quiet.

Seated on the couch to Katy’s immediate right was a young woman who had arrived at the cabin along with a frail, distraught-looking man a few hours after the Burns family. She had tried to speak to Katy but was slapped by one of the guards for the effort. The leader of the group seemed to take particular interest in the woman, who apparently possessed information valuable to the animals. One disapproving glance from him had caused the guard to retreat submissively.

A total of six guards, each with some sort of submachine gun, formed a semicircle in front of the couch. The one named Atosh sat in front of her in a chair. Two stood to his right in front of the living room window. Three stood to Atosh’s left. Katy let them know she was unimpressed.

“Six men with guns to cover two women and three children,” Katy hissed in contempt. “Pathetic. You’re not men. You’re not even cowards. You’re beneath cowards. My husband—”

“Will be dead soon,” Atosh said dismissively, cutting her off.

“My husband will kill you,” Katy continued. “He will—”

“Silence,” Atosh commanded. “Your husband, like all Americans, is weak. He is all but dead.” Katy heard the soft sniffles of Kimmy and Alex. But Katrina Garin Burns didn’t heed the Iranian.

“My brother will find you,” Katy continued in a poorly controlled rage. “Every single one of you. You’ve bought yourselves a nightmare. Worse. You don’t know it yet, but you’re already dead. There’s nothing you can do to change that. Nothing you can do to save yourselves. Because you can’t stop him. Can’t beat him. No one can.” A pause. “But you can still save your families. Let my children go. That’s your only chance. Otherwise, every member of your families will be dead.” Katy looked at each guard in turn. “Every. Single. One.”

A sneer crossed Atosh’s face. The impertinence of the American female. She had been a constant irritant throughout the trip from Ohio. No matter, the impertinence would soon be purged from her, along with her life. “You foolish—” He stopped in midsentence, distracted by the chirping of the outdoor motion detectors. And the sound of someone singing.

Garin, vastly outnumbered, decided to hide in plain sight. Unable to see all the perimeter guards, he determined that the risk of being detected before he was able to get into the house was too high. So Garin decided to take the risk of detection out of the equation. He’d simply make his presence known to everyone in the cabin. Garin quietly retreated from the tree line back into the woods. When he’d gone far enough, he began humming loudly and walked to the cabin again, making no attempt to conceal the noise of twigs and branches snapping underfoot.

Just before he broke the tree line, Garin began singing boisterously, feigning inebriation.

The guards peered into the dark, standing tensely, with their hands near the pistols on their hips. A third guard quickly appeared from the front of the cabin to check on what was happening.

Garin walked unsteadily toward the cabin, carrying the six-pack in his left hand and the fishing rod camouflaging the SIG in his right. His head down, he appeared lost in song, but through veiled eyes he was assessing the guards, gauging the angles.

As Garin drew closer he saw that one of the guards wore a head mike, his hand pressing against the earbud so he could hear over the noise. Someone from inside must have been inquiring what the commotion was all about.

The guard responded in Farsi to the inquiry coming over his mike. “No, Atosh, no. There is no problem. Everything is under control.” A pause, then: “A drunken American. Yes. We will send him on his way.”