State Of The Union

With first-generation FLIR capability, it wasn’t impossible to blend in with trees and avoid detection. To be successful, though, several factors needed to be taken into consideration such as how long a person had been in the cold, what they were wearing, how much activity they had undergone just prior to the engagement and if they were carrying anything hot, like a recently fired weapon. Though second-generation FLIR could even spot the heat signature of a recently deposited hand-print and engage an automatic detection and targeting system, fooling a low-hovering, first-generation FLIR enhanced helicopter was by no means a walk in the park. It was still one of the hardest pieces of technology on the battlefield to beat.

Alexandra held up a pair of plastic flexi-cuffs and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Not really, but we don’t have much choice, do we?” replied Scot as he placed his hands behind his back.

“Don’t forget whose idea this was,” she said as she loosely secured his wrists.

“Don’t remind me,” responded Harvath.

Exiting the Cherokee, Alexandra swung Harvath’s pack over her shoulder and urged her “prisoner” forward. They walked toward the middle of the clearing as a biting wind tore at their clothing. With his arms behind his back, the best Harvath could do to avoid the weather was hunch his shoulders and tuck his chin into his chest. Alexandra kept her silenced Walther trained on him the entire way.

Suddenly, the sound of the rotors grew louder, and Harvath looked up through the snow to see the underside of a Russian-made Mi-17-1V Assault Helicopter as two long lines were kicked out the doors and a pair of commandos fast-roped to the ground on each side.

“Spetsnaz,” mouthed Alexandra, who then cemented upon her face a look of austere professionalism.

Harvath turned his eyes away from her and watched as the men, intimidating in dark uniforms and black balaclavas, fanned out with their silenced nine-millimeter AS assault rifles up and at the ready. Approaching Alexandra, they called for her to lower her weapon. She did as they commanded and watched as one of the men frisked Harvath, while another kept him squarely in his sights.

“I already checked him” she shouted in Russian, holding up his backpack. “His weapon is in here, along with several other pieces of equipment provided by his government.”

“Orders,” snapped the Spetsnaz operative, who then made his way over to her. Waving his gloved hand, he indicated in a very condescending manner that she surrender her weapon. “Also orders.”

Alexandra made a show of being very displeased at her treatment. After which, the Spetsnaz operative began to frisk her in a very inappropriate manner. Having brushed against her breasts no less than three times, and satisfied that she was clean, he withdrew a walkie-talkie and radioed the helicopter to land. Next, he turned to Alexandra and said, “I assume the nuclear device is in the car?”

Alexandra nodded her head.

“And the keys?”

“Also in the car,” she responded.

“You couldn’t have parked any closer?”

“And if someone had come along while we were waiting and asked us why we had driven off the road into the field? What should we have told them?”

“Good point,” said the soldier who got back on his walkie-talkie. He instructed the second team of Spetsnaz troops, who had secured the landing zone, to go get the Cherokee and drive it over to the helicopter so they could load the nuclear device onboard. As he finished his communication, he unshouldered his rifle and directed Harvath and Alexandra toward the helicopter, which was just touching down.

“He’s my prisoner!” insisted Alexandra as they approached the bird and she pushed Harvath ahead of the soldier, “I will see to him.” As soon as they stepped on board, all hell broke loose behind them.

Seeing Harvath and Alexandra climb into the helicopter, Morrell gave the go command over his throat mike. “The playground is ours. I repeat the playground is ours.”

Avigliano, who was hidden in the woods next to Morrell, dropped both of the Spetsnaz troops nearest the helicopter with perfect head-shots from his silenced M4, while Carlson and DeWolfe, who were hidden on the other side of the field, did the same to the other two soldiers approaching the Cherokee.

Back in the helicopter, Harvath wasted no time in slipping out of his flexi-cuffs and charging the cockpit. When the pilot happened to peer into the cargo bay and saw Harvath racing up the aisle, he immediately went for the nine millimeter Gyurza pistol strapped to his flight suit, but it was too late-Harvath was already on top of him.