Gambit, David Hagberg [most life changing books .TXT] 📗

minus five once I get the signal from the ground.”

EUTELSAT was the European Telecommunications Satellite Organization, which administered all the communications satellites used by the forty-nine member states. Thirteen was the main bird that serviced Greece and its Aegean Islands, including Serifos.

“Nothing must be traced back to us.”

“I know my job, sir,” Sepelev said.

He was just a kid barely out of his teens, but he was highly respected in the Russian intelligence community, and like most junior officers, his pay was terrible. Since he’d began doing favors for Tarasov, he’d been able to move to a nicer apartment and buy a BMW and all the computer toys he’d ever dreamed of.

“You should be getting the call within the next quarter hour at the latest. Let me know when it’s done.”

“Their techs will be all over it within minutes.”

“How long will we have until they fix the problem or bring up another satellite?”

“That’s just it. They won’t be able to pinpoint the problem, let alone fix it, and when they try to switch to another bird, my program will follow them.”

“Very good,” Tarasov said.

“But you must understand that nothing lasts forever. I’ll want word the moment I can withdraw.”

“It shouldn’t be long.”

“How long?”

“An hour, tops,” Tarasov said. “If it took longer than that, it would mean that the team had failed.”

“I can manage that,” Sepelev said. “The remainder of my fee will be paid into my account the moment the bird comes back online.”

“Da,” Tarasov said, but the phone was dead.

Vetrov and his team got up on signal at 0155 and stacked up in the aisle aft of the portside hatch.

He phoned the contact number stored in the sat phone he’d been given on base. It was answered by a man.

“Da.”

“We’re five minutes out from the drop site.”

“Udachi,” the man said, and the connection went dead.

SIXTY-NINE

It was just before two when McGarvey and Pete got to the bottom of the saddle three hundred yards from the dark lighthouse above their position, and about the same distance in the opposite direction to the nearest buildings, on which no lights were showing.

The scrub brush was thick here, but the rocks were mostly too small to offer any protection, though as long as they kept low, they wouldn’t be visible even with night vision goggles.

“It’s beautiful at this time of the night,” Pete said softly.

The lights in town across the bay came mostly from the hotels and the commercial docks on the other side of the inlet. The moonless evening sky up here was dark enough to see the stars and even some of the pale Milky Way.

“Yes, it is,” McGarvey said.

“Good for stargazing, but I wouldn’t want to have a picnic here.”

McGarvey’s phone vibrated, but it had switched automatically from satellite to cell tower mode.

“EUTELSAT’s thirteen just went off-line,” Otto said.

“It’s started,” McGarvey said.

“Yes, and Lou’s best guess is that it’s the work of a hacker in the GRU. They’ve got some pretty good people over there, same unit that hacked into the presidential elections in ’16 and again in ’20.”

Mac looked up at the sky, searching for a small star or strobe light that was moving. “How long will it stay down until the system is cleared?”

“Within twenty minutes, I’d suspect. But if the Russians are half as good as I think they are, they’ll infect the backup bird when the techs try to bring it up. And there’ll be no real urgency because the traffic is very light at this time of the morning. So I’d say that they’ve bought themselves an hour, tops.”

“Can they take the cell tower down on this side of the island?”

“There’s only the one west of you at nineteen hundred feet, the island’s highest elevation,” Otto said. “And yes, if they have the right equipment, they can block its signals indefinitely.”

“We’re ready,” McGarvey said, and he thought he spotted something very high up and to the south. “Stand by.”

“What is it?” Pete asked.

“South, about twenty degrees below overhead. A thin line moving across the stars.”

After a couple of moments, Pete spotted it. “There,” she said. “But what is it? A cloud?”

“In a manner of speaking,” McGarvey said. “It’s the contrail of a high-flying jet.”

“Hold on a mo,” Otto said.

“Is it them?” Pete asked.

“Otto’s checking.”

“Nothing is scheduled from that—” Otto said, but was cut off in mid-sentence.

“The cell tower just went down,” McGarvey said.

“We can’t warn Bender or Alicia.”

“They’ll figure it out,” McGarvey said. He unslung the MP7 from his shoulder and fired a short burst into the sky.

“Jesus, it’s started just like he predicted it would,” Bender said, going over to where Alicia stood at the open window.

She held up a hand. “Wait.”

“Maybe we should go out there; they might need help.”

“Shut the fuck up, sir.”

The night was deathly still—no other noise, no other gunshots.

“What is it?”

“That was the other room broom,” Alicia said. “But there was no return fire. McGarvey just warned us that the fur ball is about to go down.” She glanced at Bender. “Just take it easy, okay? I don’t want you shooting your own foot, and I especially don’t want to be shot in the back.”

He was looking past her out the window toward the bottom of the depression. “But how the hell will we be able to tell who it is if someone comes up here? I mean, it could be McGarvey or his wife.”

“When they’re close enough for us to shoot, they’ll be close enough for us to recognize them,” Alicia said. “Stay cool, because it’ll be a while before anyone gets this far. Try to reach them on your sat phone.”

Bender holstered his Glock 19M and tried his sat phone. “No signal,” he said, looking up.

Alicia laid the room broom McGarvey had given her aside and tried her cell phone, but she had no signal either. “Whoever is coming is well equipped enough to take out the satellite as well as the island’s cell phone tower. It means they know what they’re doing, and