by Brad Thor
As soon as he knew he was going to have to fight his way out, he again wished he’d brought along the shiv he’d made.
The hookah was the nearest and best weapon he had available and it broke over the head of the first jihadist he struck with it. Unconscious or dead, Chase didn’t care. The man dropped to the floor and that left three.
Chase slashed the second Islamist’s throat with the jagged, broken glass base of the hookah as the two remaining men turned on him.
They charged in unison. Chase caught the first man with a low thrust kick to the knee and the other with a foreknuckle strike to the throat.
The man who received the kick to his knee fell to the floor screaming in pain. The other man, who had been struck in the throat, was a different story. His windpipe should have been crushed, but Chase had failed to grab his hair or his clothing and pull him into the strike. The man had recoiled just as the punch came in, lessening its severity. Like an enraged bull, he gathered himself and charged again. This time, Chase would not screw it up.
As the man came in, he bent his head and ran at Chase with his fingers spread and his hands outstretched like claws. Wherever he had grown up, apparently it was his mother who had taught him to fight.
Chase slipped between the man’s arms and caught him right beneath the chin with a perfectly placed uppercut. Chase drove him backward with two jabs to his face.
The man swung wildly and got lucky, punching Chase in the side of the head. The blow hurt like hell and immediately his ear felt as if it was on fire. Chase let his anger get the better of him.
Spinning, he kicked the man directly in the center of his chest, sending him out through the glass window down to the street below.
Chase knew he couldn’t have survived the fall and didn’t bother to look to see if he had. There were five men left in the apartment and he moved quickly. He wasn’t about to wait for them to come find him.
He had made it almost all the way to the doorway when he saw the barrel of the rifle. He wasn’t surprised that the terrorists had had guns hidden away. Grabbing the weapon, he tried to twist it away from his attacker.
There was a rapid burst of fire as the rifle erupted. Where all of the rounds went, he had no idea. All he knew was that one had torn right through his right bicep and hit the bone. The pain was excruciating, and he immediately lost the use of his arm.
Sweeping his left arm, he came up underneath the barrel and knocked it off him just as another volley of shots was fired. The noise at such close range was deafening.
By moving the weapon, Chase had his opponent off-balance. Finding the weapon’s upper handguard, he pushed down with all his might, forcing the man to lean forward. As he did, Chase snapped his head forward. There was a spray of blood and a sickening crack as Chase connected with the bridge of the man’s nose.
It was game over. Chase snatched the rifle away from him. Balancing the buttstock against his left shoulder, he depressed the trigger and put a three-round burst right through the man’s chest.
He then spun and capped the jihadist with the blown-out knee who was coming back at him from behind. Five down, four to go.
He could sense movement from out in the hallway and didn’t bother looking to see who it was. Propping the gun up against his shoulder once more, he fired a burst directly through the wall.
There was a scream and the sound of a weapon clattering to the floor. Shooting without identifying the target was usually a bad thing, but Chase didn’t give a damn. Even if he had capped Karami, this was kill or be killed.
He doubted Karami would have come down the hallway himself. That’s what cannon fodder was for. He hoped he’d just nailed Sabah, but he doubted it. It was probably one of the two goons from the garage.
Bending his left arm into an L shape, he positioned the stock in the crook of his elbow, up against his good bicep. Popping the weapon around the edge of the door frame, he sprayed the hall with another burst.
He waited for any return fire, and when none came, he risked a quick look. His guess had been right. Lying facedown on the floor in a pool of blood was the man from the garage who had gone out and bought him the bandages and energy drinks. Six down.
Chase now had a decision to make. Duck back inside the room and wait the other three out, or take the fight to them. Neither option was that appealing. In a matter of seconds, the street outside was going to be filled with police and other first-responders. He needed to capture Karami and Sabah if he could, do a quick sweep of the apartment, and then get the hell out of there. He had no choice but to step out into the hallway and risk exposure.
Wedging the rifle against his shoulder again, he took a deep breath and swung into the hall. His right arm hung limp at his side. Blood was rolling down his hand and dripping off the tips of his fingers.
With his heart thudding in his chest, Chase moved forward as quietly as he could. His senses were hyper-alert, attuned for any sudden movement or noise he might hear above the ringing that might give his remaining attackers away. The apartment, though, was quiet. Too quiet.
As he moved, he was plagued by the thought that the technique he had used would be used against him, and any moment now he would be shot through the drywall. Hagakure, he reminded himself. Hagakure.
He carefully peeked into the first room he came upon. It was empty. After a quick scan, he turned his attention back to the hallway. The rifle was growing heavy in his left arm.
The next room was a bathroom, which was empty as well. He stopped repeatedly and strained his ears for any sign of where the others might be hiding. There was nothing. Growing ever closer to the room that Karami and Sabah had disappeared into earlier, he had a good idea of where the remaining three men were. Sure enough, the door to that room was closed.
Chase was a risk-taker, but he wasn’t an idiot. There was every reason to believe that kicking the door in could only result in all sorts of bad news for him. There could be three heavily armed men waiting for him on the other side, or the door itself could be booby-trapped.
Stepping into the bathroom, which had only a shower, no tub, Chase crouched behind the toilet and balanced the rifle’s magazine on the seat. At this angle, he could see only a very narrow sliver of the door he was shooting at. Taking aim, he squeezed the trigger and let another hail of lead fly.
The rounds chewed up the left side of the door, splintering the frame. Chase waited for a response, but none came.
Picking up his weapon, he walked into the hall and put another burst through the door as well as through the drywall. No response.
Against his better judgment, he decided to kick the door open. He counted to three and let his foot fly.
The moment his shoe connected, he heard a roaring barrage of gunfire.
CHAPTER 27
Harvath ran across the street and charged directly into the building he’d seen the man fall from. He didn’t know if his mind was playing tricks on him or if he’d actually caught a glimpse of Chase in the upper window.
Murphy was right behind Harvath, and they ignored the elevator and headed right for the stairs. They were halfway up to the fourth floor when some Islamist skidded to a halt on the landing above them and tried to bring his weapon up to fire. The man never had a chance.
Harvath and Murphy both drilled him with suppressed rounds to his chest and face. The man’s finger pulled down on the trigger in spasm and his weapon discharged wildly. Rounds ricocheted through the stairwell, sending Harvath and Murphy diving for what little cover there was.
When the dead terrorist’s weapon fell silent, Harvath double-tapped him with two quick shots to the head just to make sure. After kicking his weapon away, they resumed their charge up the stairs.
When they got to the fourth floor, Murphy covered Harvath as he stepped into the hall. There were only four apartments per floor, and based on the window the body had come out of, Harvath knew exactly which one they were looking for. He just prayed that Chase was inside and that he was still aliv
e.
Covering the apartment door with his weapon, he signaled for Murphy to come forward and join him.
Harvath studied the door frame for any sign that it was wired. He didn’t see anything, but that by no means meant it was safe. Schiller and his team hadn’t seen anything either, and the entire third floor of the building across the street had been incinerated. This apartment could be rigged to explode as well.
If it wasn’t rigged, and they did have Chase inside, was he sitting there with a gun to his head? Would they shoot him if Harvath kicked open the door and rushed in? Without knowing how many there were, could he and Murphy take them out before they did anything to Chase?
It was a big gamble. Five men on his team were already dead. Whatever Harvath decided to do, he’d better be sure he was absolutely certain about it. He already had gallons of blood on his hands. He needed more information.
Taking a deep breath, he placed his ear against the door and listened. He heard a noise from inside. It was faint at first, but the longer he listened the louder it grew.
It sounded like a scuffle. Then Harvath realized it wasn’t a scuffle at all, but rather the sound of somebody turning the place inside out.
He signaled Murphy to be ready, and then, taking a step back, Harvath raised his boot and kicked the door in.
Nothing exploded, except the door off its hinges from the force of Harvath’s kick. He figured he had a fifty-fifty chance of being right. If someone was turning the place over, it meant he was looking for something. And you don’t bother looking for something if you’re about to blow yourself up. At least that was what Harvath hoped. Lucky for them, he’d been right.
Harvath moved quickly inside, his weapon up and at the ready. Murphy was right behind him. They hadn’t even made it through the living room when there was a burst of automatic weapons fire and rounds came slamming through the wall at the other end of the room. Harvath and Murphy hit the floor.
The Green Beret came up onto his elbows and prepared to return fire, but Harvath waved him off. They had no idea where Chase was. They couldn’t just fire blindly through the walls.
“Phoenix Three!” Harvath yelled. “Are you in here?”
“Harvath?” came the reply.
“Roger that.”
“I’m coming out. Don’t shoot.”
Chase stepped out into the hallway and walked toward them. His arm was covered with blood.
“Is there anyone else here?”
Chase shook his head. As Murphy swept the rest of the apartment, Harvath ripped open Chase’s sleeve and checked his wound.
“Does it hurt?”
“A lot. It hit bone.”
“We’ll get you taken care of,” replied Harvath. “Right now we’ve got to get out of here. Is there anything worth gathering up?”
“Maybe. I turned the place upside down fast and dirty, but couldn’t find anything. If we had more time-”
“We don’t.” Already the sounds of approaching emergency vehicles could be heard in the distance.
“The apartment is clean,” said Murphy as he rejoined them. “What do you want to do?”
Harvath knew what he didn’t want to do. He didn’t want to walk through the throngs of people out on the street, around behind the burning building and off into the woods to pick up Murphy’s car. Too much could go wrong. His car, the one with the book on the dashboard, though, was parked right outside. It didn’t matter if people saw it or gave a description to police. They wouldn’t be using it long enough to make a difference. All they needed to be able to do was make it back to the barn.
With Murphy on point, the three men exited the apartment and quickly made their way down the stairs. They laid Chase down on the backseat. Murphy rode shotgun and Harvath slid behind the wheel.
The onlookers stared, their mouths agape. They didn’t know what to make of any of it. The last thing the trio heard as they sped off were the cries of revulsion from the crowd as Harvath drove over the body of the dead terrorist still lying sprawled in the middle of the street.
CHAPTER 28
Two extensive medical kits had been allotted for the operation. One was with Riley Turner and Mansoor, who, along with Andy Bachmann, had already left for the airport near Stockholm. The other belonged to the assault team and was sitting in the back of the moving truck that had been abandoned at the scene of the failed safe house raid.
Harvath, though, had a couple of items in his bag of tricks that he never traveled without. As he debriefed Chase and cleaned up his wound, he unwrapped a tampon, cut off about an inch, and packed it into the hole. He then wrapped Chase’s arm with duct tape. It would do for now, but Chase was going to need professional medical help.
Riley had arranged to delay the flight until they could get there. It was a big enough aircraft and the three additional passengers would be posing as the security detail for the wealthy Arab patient. As long as Chase didn’t start bleeding, they should be okay. Just to be sure, Harvath wrapped a few more pieces of duct tape around his arm. It was going to be a pain in the ass to get off, but that was a problem for later.
Murphy sanitized the barn and the farmhouse as Harvath helped Chase put on his suit.
“He must have left the phone in there, knowing we’d be tracking it,” said Chase as he winced, sliding his arm into his jacket.
“Karami definitely knew something was up,” stated Harvath. “He reproduced your signal perfectly.”
Chase felt terrible. “I got those men killed.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“If I’d just found a way to look back out the window sooner, maybe I could have warned you.”
Harvath shook his head and the two men fell silent.
“You didn’t see Karami or Sabah leave the building?” asked Chase.
“No, but I wasn’t looking. If it wasn’t for the guy that came through the window, I never would have known there was a second apartment. I thought you were dead.”
Chase let that sink in for a moment before saying, “How about the Sheikh from Qatar? Any idea who he is?”
“No,” replied Harvath, “but that’ll be one of the first questions Mansoor is going to get asked.”
“I don’t know how we’ll get access to any of the forensics, but I’ll bet the Swedes find fried computer parts in at least one of those apartments that got blown up.”
Harvath nodded. “I agree.”
“They were getting ready to go operational,” Chase said. “I’m telling you. We need to hunt them down and we need to stop them.”
“First things first,” replied Harvath. “You need to get your arm taken care of.”
“Don’t worry about my arm,” Chase said as he tried to move it and failed. “As soon as we get this redneck bandage off and let a real doctor have a look, I’ll be fine.”
Harvath doubted it. Chase was going to be out of the game for months, if not longer. “Whatever you say, boss.”
“Don’t patronize me, Harvath,” he shot back. “I want you to promise me that you’ll wait.”
“For what?”
“For taking out Karami and Sabah,” said Chase. “I want to be there.”
Harvath understood the man’s desire for revenge. Harvath felt it just as intensely, if not more so. He had learned, though, to keep such things to himself. “Let’s figure out what kind of shape your arm’s in and then we’ll talk.”
Chase held up his left index finger and pointed at Harvath. “I want us to do it together.”
Harvath smiled. The kid was a liar. He just wanted to do it. It had nothing to do with Harvath. He just didn’t want to be left out. “I’m going to go make sure everything is ready. We shove off in five. Okay?”
“Roger that,” replied Chase as he turned to the mirror and tried, with one hand, to straighten the knot Harvath had tied in his tie. Staring at his reflection as he struggled, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was what so many of America’s disabled vets went through. He didn’t like needing somebody
else’s help getting dressed.
In fact, it pissed him off and reminded him of the IED videos the jihadists had been laughing at back at their safe house. That only made him angrier.
The Swedish airport authorities stamped the group’s passports and waved them out toward the tarmac where they boarded their waiting aircraft.
Sentinel Medevac was a private company the Carlton Group hired jets from on occasion. Their normal clientele were humanitarian groups and international NGOs. Sentinel was viewed as something akin to the Red Cross, and that was why the Old Man liked working with them. Their planes were an excellent means of covertly moving personnel and equipment in and out of foreign countries.
What Harvath liked about them was that in addition to their fleet of extensive, high-end aircraft, Sentinel’s owner-a successful young doctor out of North Carolina-was a patriot who was more than happy to assist the Old Man and his operators. The doctor always sent the best jets and the galleys were always well stocked.
Normally, Harvath waited until the plane had taken off before fixing himself a drink. Not this time. Losing all those men had been devastating. He walked straight to the back of the plane, dropped a handful of ice cubes into a glass, and poured several fingers of Maker’s Mark.
He was halfway finished with his first drink before the plane had even been cleared for takeoff. When its wheels finally left the ground, he settled back in his seat and tried to make sense of what had happened.
Operationally, they had played their cards very close to their vest. The Old Man had kept the need-to-know circle tight, working long hours and doing several jobs himself. Nevertheless, the operation had been a total failure, worse than Yemen. In Yemen all they had lost was a high-value target. In Uppsala, a high-value target and his second in command had gotten away and five members of the operation’s assault team had been killed.
From a straight scorecard perspective, it had been very, very bad. Coming on the heels of the failed Yemen op only made it worse.