Asymmetrical Interference

  The Founders

  Book Three

  J.W. Clay

  FREE copy of Severance Notice

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  Anastasia Orlov isn’t just one of Russia’s deadliest assassins—she’s a harbinger of terror.

  Her target is the United States, but the mission starts with one of Mexico’s most ruthless cartels … and a weapon capable of killing thousands. When she’s finished, the cartel will be the Western Hemisphere’s most notorious terror organization.

  And the United States will be ensnared in a trap it cannot escape.

  But the cartel is more than a criminal empire; it’s a twisted cult built on dark rituals and savagery. As Anastasia travels deeper into Mexico’s underworld, she realizes her own life may be the price of success.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Also by J.W. Clay

  About the Author

  One

  Luhansk, Ukraine

  At night, the city is spectral. The streets, the high-rises, the squat apartment buildings—they are skeletal husks, hollowed out by months of shelling. When the Russian military occupied the city, they imposed a strict curfew along with light restrictions. For safety, they told the residents. But it hasn’t stopped ordnance from pulverizing the skyline.

  The front line is about fifty miles to the west. Russia is advancing toward Kyiv, but at a high cost. When the sun rises, a thousand Russians will propel themselves toward Ukrainian positions. Machine guns, flying drones, and space-age rockets will annihilate them. When the fog of war lifts, the front will have advanced, and the invaders’ success will be measured by the dirt under their dead fingernails.

  Ukraine is the deadliest place on the planet, and Jen Yates is in one of its deadliest cities—Luhansk.

  Russia occupies about ninety percent of the city, but the fighting remains intense. Strings of tracer fire arc across the midnight sky. From a distance, the rounds seem slow, like red stars clinging to the heavens before they fall. Rocket motors glow as they roar toward their targets. Cones of blinding light pierce the horizon when they land.

  Jen is leading a five-man team through the eastern part of the city, far behind enemy lines. They’re traveling in a Land Cruiser from the mid-2000s. It’s old enough to blend into war-torn Luhansk, but new enough to trust. The cabin is dark. The headlights are out. If it weren’t for the hypnotic groan of the engine, the vehicle would pass through the neighborhood like a ghost.

  In the rear passenger seat, Jen keeps her sector covered despite the city’s blackout. Her ENVG-B “fusion” goggles merge night vision with thermal into a single picture. They color the surroundings in fluorescent green. The thermal sensors pick up the rest, sketching warm objects in orange wireframes and turning heat sources into solid blocks of amber.

  But she doesn’t see a soul.

  Residents abandoned the neighborhood, leaving row after row of five-story apartment complexes vacant.

  The rooftops remind her of a busted smile. Sunken. Jagged. Uneven. The product of a massive artillery strike. Successive blasts gutted the apartments, blowing out the windows and leaving glass shimmering in the street. People fled with what they could carry. The rest—sofas, cribs, broken chairs—remains on the sidewalks.

  The eeriness of her surroundings adds to her unease. They are within a mile of their target, and as the Land Cruiser crosses the debris field, the feeling worsens. Something terrible is going to happen tonight. She is certain of it.

  An orange glow appears on a third-story windowsill—heat.

  Jen shifts in her seat and orients her rifle toward the threat. The orange orb shifts and walks across the sill. She lets out a nervous laugh. “Just a cat,” she says, reactivating her rifle’s safety. “That stunt is going to cost you a life.”

  “You a little jumpy over there, Jen?”

  Charlie “Animal” Keats is the giant sitting in the cargo area behind the rear seats, a belt-fed machine gun resting across his massive thighs. Like Jen, he’s wearing street clothes: a heavy leather jacket, which conceals his chest rig, blue jeans, and boots with his blood type on a piece of Scotch tape—an old Delta Force tradition.

  Jen holds her breath. Stops herself from trembling. Her unease isn’t normal, and her team is sensing it. A problem. “The new NODs are playing tricks on me, but I’m fine.”

  “I call them Terminator goggles,” Animal replies. “Gets me in the mood.”

  “So long as it wasn’t a black cat,” Salvator “Coco” Garcia says. The team’s sniper and ladies’ man is sitting next to Jen in the Land Cruiser. His callsign is a team joke—derived from the cocoa butter he religiously applies to keep his skin soft for the ladies. The team gives him hell for it, but he takes it in stride. He adjusts his leather jacket, his demeanor calm, despite the surrounding danger.

  “You need something to take the edge off, Jen?” Grayson West, or “Gray,” is the team’s medic. He is in the front passenger seat ahead of Jen. Born and raised in California, Gray exudes a smooth, laid-back cool that seems entirely out of place in a war zone. He is wearing civilian hiking gear over his kit, and a suppressed rifle is resting between his legs.

  “Hey, be easy with the pills, Doctor Feelgood. We’re still on the clock,” Jen replies, smirking at her team, who are all former members of the U.S. Army’s Combat Applications Group. After a disastrous mission in Mexico, she recruited them to the dark side—or the CIA. They’ve been fighting with her ever since.

  “Sierra One, this is the Tactical Operations Center.” The voice in Jen’s earpiece belongs to Gabriella Martinez, the senior officer handling tonight’s mission. She’s monitoring their progress from a U.S. airbase in Poland, hundreds of miles away. “We’ve got a visual on the target structure. Check your nav-board.”

  “Give me thirty seconds, TOC.” Jen reaches for the navigation board at the center of her low-visibility chest rig. She flips it down. The small tablet illuminates with an aerial surveillance feed. An RQ-170 Sentinel, or Wraith, is overhead, guiding them in.

  A red navigation line traverses a three-dimensional map on the tablet, highlighting the team’s pathway to their target. It’s a five-story apartment complex, like all the rest in the area. An artillery round struck the center of the building, causing significant damage. From the outside, the building appears uninhabitable. But the Wraith found multiple signals emanating from the structure.

  “I count six cellular phones on target. That’s more than we expected. Are they all connected to Vympel?” Jen asks, unease worsening. The name belongs to Directorate ‘V’, an elite unit inside of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB. Their reputation is written in redacted files and shallow graves from Syria to Chechnya.

  T
hey’re about to do the same in Ukraine.

  The FSB is smuggling cruise missiles through Belarus, toward Ukraine. Kalibr-2s, Russia’s fastest. Soon, they’ll be within striking distance of Kyiv. That’s fifty miles. At Mach 3, the Mariinsky Palace will be ash within thirty seconds. Langley fears they’ll hit their targets before American Patriot batteries can react.

  Jen and her team are en route to neutralize the threat.

  “Down to the Moscow area codes, Sierra One. Civilians evacuated before the bombing. You’re clear to engage anyone you encounter at the target location,” Martinez replies.

  “Have they brought the Universal Launching Module online?” Jen asks.

  “Not yet, but their Kalibr-2s are nearing Ukraine’s northern border.”

  “We’ll need to work fast,” Jen replies.

  As the team’s cyber specialist, Jen is responsible for the ULM, a mobile launching station. Think of it as Armageddon in a suitcase, only heavier. She plans to hack the device. Repurpose the Kalibr-2s to strike targets in Belarus and Russia—if she can get past the six Vympel operators on target.

  “If you’re unable to access the ULM, we’ll hit it with a Hellfire,” Martinez says.

  “Always pays to have a backup plan.”

  “Always,” Martinez replies. “We’re not detecting any movement between you and the target structure, Sierra One. You’re clear to approach.”

  “Solid copy, TOC. Sierra One out.” Jen rechecks her nav-board before folding it into her chest rig. “Lev, we’re a thousand yards away from the target. Make your next right and park in the alley. We’ll approach on foot.”

  “Got it,” Lev replies. He is the team’s ‘terp’—an interpreter on loan from Ukrainian Special Forces. He’s also a local, and tonight, he is hunting the invaders in his own backyard.

  “Last looks, gentlemen.” Jen raises her rifle and eases back the bolt. It’s a custom job from Knight’s Armament, chambered in .300 Blackout. Coupled with the sound suppressor, its subsonic two-hundred-twenty grain bullets are Hollywood quiet. The ideal companion in a city crawling with Russian troops.

  Animal and the others switch to their primary weapons, which are identical to Jen’s, and perform similar checks.

  Lev enters an alley that cuts into the rows of brick apartments. He parks the Land Cruiser behind a mound of trash bags and kills the engine.

  Jen reaches for the door—and freezes. Her unease swallows her. She scans the area, but she isn’t searching for threats. She is taking a last look at her team. After tonight, it will never be whole again.

  This mission will end in failure.

  She will be the reason.

  Two

  A chill catches Jen as she steps out of the Land Cruiser. Tonight, her mission is personal—separate from her team’s. For her to win, they must lose. When the after-action reports are complete, and they read the crisp black ink, they’ll view her actions as a betrayal. But she considers it necessary.

  My sacrifice will be worth it, she reminds herself.

  She forces her attention forward. Two hundred yards to the target. Within that distance, she must guide her team to the point of failure—and be the one who goes over the edge. And as she looks down the pitch-black alley, she realizes the journey toward failure will be dangerous.

  Without basic services, the apartment buildings are deteriorating. There’s no water or electricity. Sewer lines were already overflowing when artillery shells landed on top of them. Now, it’s bubbling up from the ground or leaking out of kitchen sinks. Trash bags torn open by feral animals are breeding grounds for flies and roaches.

  “Beautiful day in the neighborhood, gentlemen.” Jen pulls a bandana out of her jacket pocket and ties it over her mouth. Once it’s tight, she tests it with a deep breath and almost gags. The smell isn’t going anywhere. “Won’t gulp down a mouthful of bugs, at least.”

  “They’re supposed to be an excellent source of protein.” Gray kneels next to Jen and ties his own bandana in place.

  Animal joins them a moment later, rifle in hand. He kneels, ties off his bandana, and gives Jen a nod. “Gas masks would have been better.”

  “Yeah, Z … come up with a better plan next time,” Coco says, using her nickname Z, which is short for Zero. It’s a callsign she used during her first assignment in Venezuela. He drops in behind Jen and gives her a casual elbow to the shoulder.

  Jen laughs, if only to prevent guilt and self-doubt from returning. This is more than a team; it’s a family. And she is about to shatter it. “Y’all sound bored. Guess it’s time for work.” She splits the team with a hand gesture and directs Coco, Gray, and Lev to the alley’s far wall. “Animal, on me. Let’s roll.”

  “With you.”

  Jen takes the left-hand wall and weaves past debris in the alley, mindful of traps or improvised explosive devices. To her right, Coco leads the second element, his rifle oriented toward the target.

  Jen is crossing an intersecting alley when she receives a call from Martinez.

  “Sierra One, two armed men just exited the target building,” Martinez says. “They’re one hundred yards ahead of you.”

  Jen halts the team and orders them to take cover on opposite sides of the intersecting alley. “Are they on patrol?”

  “Cigarette break.”

  Jen peeks around the corner and tries to get a visual, but they’re behind several mountains of garbage and old furniture. The sound of their laughter carries through the cool spring air, allowing her to visualize their positions. One block, one intersection over. Something crashes to her right, and she jerks her rifle upward, searching for whatever made the sound.

  Jen orients her rifle and drops the safety. Orange pixels shift in a first-floor window frame. A stray German Shepherd jumps through the window. Then a Doberman. A black Lab follows. It doesn’t take long for an entire pack to assemble in the alley. They run toward the Russians, barking and yelping, hoping for something to eat.

  “Give me an update, TOC.”

  “Sierra One, advance your element. You’ll have clean shots within thirty yards.”

  “Coco, keep your element in place.” Jen slides out of cover and marks her next waypoint: a dresser that is propping up an old mattress. She advances. Covers the distance in thirty seconds. With a wave, she orders Animal to peel off. He kneels at the edge of the mattress and raises his rifle. After testing the stability of the dresser, she climbs up and looks over it.

  Two Russians are in the middle of the alley. They’re both large men, wearing street clothes like her team. But they have night vision goggles attached to their helmets. Custom rifles with red-dot optics, quad rails, lasers, and sound suppressors. Expensive kit. And it’s not for the average soldier.

  “Vympel,” she whispers.

  One of them holds a piece of food in his hand as the pack surrounds him. Beef jerky, maybe, and it whips the dogs into a frenzy. He waves it in front of the dogs, pretends to toss it. They bolt in the opposite direction of Jen. Both Vympel operators laugh as they watch the dogs run down the alley.

  “Left.” Jen rests her reticle on the base of the left operator’s neck. He’s wearing a leather jacket, and she can’t tell if he’s wearing armor. But it’s a sure shot. “Set. On you.”

  “Copy.” Animal’s safety drops.

  Jen takes the slack out of her trigger and pauses at its breaking point. Animal’s rifle discharges. It sounds like a pellet gun. A spit of air, followed by the sound of a metallic bolt cycling in the receiver. A shell casing clinks across the ground. Then the loud part comes: the impact of the bullet.

  It’s a thwack that blooms from the base of the Vympel operator’s neck. It echoes through the alley. Before the operator on the left can process the event, Jen’s bullet strikes him. Both men fall, leaving orange clouds of pixels hanging in Jen’s night vision.

  “At least the dogs will have plenty of food,” Animal whispers.

  “What makes you think I needed that image in my mind?”

  “Just thinking out loud.”

  Jen searches the target building. The Vympel team should be on the fourth floor, overlooking the alley. But she doesn’t see any light or movement. She activates her radio. “Coco, advance to the entry point. We’ve got your cover.”

  Sixty seconds later, Coco’s element breezes past Jen. He cuts through the next intersecting alley and proceeds to the apartment’s back door. The dogs don’t disturb them; they now have the bag of beef jerky the Vympel operators were lording over their heads.