Chapter 67

CHAPTER 67

The Russians sprayed the room with bullets. Had Harvath been anywhere inside that space, even if he had remained behind the wooden desk, his life would have been over.

Using the doorway to conceal as much of himself as possible, he opened up on the Russians and let his own bullets fly. Each one found their target. He shot the men multiple times, cutting them down where they stood, and finished the job with a head shot apiece, just to make sure. Three and four down.

Removing his almost spent magazine, he inserted his lone backup, which was half-empty and headed quickly to assist Staelin.

"Moving to you," he radioed.

"Hurry up," Staelin replied.

Making sure to rapidly clear each doorway he passed, he got down toward the south stairwell area as fast as he could.

As soon as he neared, he could see what the problem was. Staelin was pinned down behind a large column. Two Russians were firing on him. A third was on the ground, covered in blood. There was no sign of the fourth.

Taking cover, he radioed for Staelin to get ready. Then, with the first Russian in his sights, he gave the order to move and began firing.

Neither of the Russians was aware that Harvath was there. He caught the first Russian with two rounds to the upper chest and one to the base of the throat.

As the man dropped to the ground and Staelin scrambled out from behind the column, Harvath adjusted his aim. He was about to engage the second Russian, who had just spun in his direction and was preparing to fire.

Before he could, Staelin executed an incredibly difficult shot. At great risk to himself, he had moved toward the threat, not away from it, and leaning hard to his right, had double-tapped the man in the head. It was one of the most audacious maneuvers Harvath had ever seen.

He thought about administering a head shot of his own to the Russian who had been lying in the pool of blood, but it wasn't necessary. Staelin's homemade claymore mine had torn the guy to shreds.

Looking around, Harvath asked, "Where's the fourth guy?"

Staelin looked but didn't see him either.

Harvath gave the signal to fall in behind him. They were going to have to clear every single room until they found him.

As they moved down the hall, Harvath noticed a trail of blood splatter. Their fourth Russian was not only injured, but was also leading them right to him.

Ejecting his magazine, Harvath did a quick check to see how many rounds he had left. Eight was better than zero, but not by much. At least they only had one more attacker to neutralize.

Harvath's optimism, however, began to crater the moment he saw a shift in direction of the blood droplets. The Russian hadn't been looking for a room to hide out in; he had headed back to the south stairwell. Harvath immediately picked up his pace and Staelin followed.

Carefully, they pushed the door open and, guns raised, stepped into the stairwell. The fifth floor was the top floor of the building. The blood didn't go toward the roof access, it went down the stairs toward the next level. With Staelin covering their six o'clock, Harvath followed.

When he saw the blood pooled outside the door for the fourth level, his own blood went cold.

The fifth floor had been a decoy—a clinic belonging to a different physician entirely, whose offices had been closed while the staff was on a medical education retreat. The fourth floor was where Jourdain's clinic was located and where Haney and Johnson were recuperating.

As he grasped the blood-soaked door handle, Harvath heard a gunshot ring out from the other side.

Throwing the door open, he and Staelin heard two more shots as they charged into the clinic, its reception area empty, and rushed to the aid of their comrades.

There was blood all over the floor and, as they got closer to the source, Harvath's heart rate began to elevate.

Somehow the Russian had been drawn right to Johnson—the most grievously injured and the most defenseless person on their team.

Applying pressure once more to his trigger, Harvath raced for Johnson's room, his heart pounding in his chest.

Swinging into the doorway, he expected to see the worst—Johnson dead and a badly injured Russian, whom Harvath would instantly kill, very much alive.

Instead, he saw the opposite—Johnson was very much alive, the Russian was very much dead, and standing in the corner, protecting his teammate, was Haney. He was bracing the Flux PDW that Harvath had given him against his good shoulder.

"Shot him two times," he said, referencing the Russian. "But he wouldn't go down. The third time, however—"

"Was the charm," Harvath replied, finishing his sentence for him.

Drawing the Russians into the building had been the only way to flush Elovik into the open and separate him from as many of his security forces as possible. It had been done at a considerable risk, but it had paid off.

The next step in Harvath's plan came with its own potential downfalls—not the least of which being their inability to, once again, escape before law enforcement arrived.

He had also worried that Jourdain and his two nurses wouldn't go for it, but offering to significantly increase the amount of money they were being paid had eliminated all resistance.

While Jourdain and the nurses took Johnson and Haney to the underground parking facility, Harvath and Staelin dumped the dead Russian back in the stairwell, rolling his body down a level, and then returned to the fifth floor to retrieve Haney's 417, and so that Harvath could plant something on one of the bodies.

After sanitizing Jourdain's clinic, bagging up the medical waste from Johnson's and Haney's procedures, which would be thrown in the back of one of the nurse's cars, they went down to the garage, where Harvath hopped in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle, Staelin did the same in the third vehicle, and they all departed the underground parking facility together.

As they drove, Nicholas kept track of their progress remotely, scrubbing footage from each of the traffic cameras they passed.

From Jourdain's clinic, it was a half-hour drive to the village of Les Molières and the team's new safehouse.

The director of Bastide Lumière, a luxury assisted living community in the countryside southeast of Paris, was a long-standing business partner of Jourdain's. Whenever his clinic was full, or he had patients who required extended stays, Bastide Lumière, or in English the luminous country house, was where he placed them.

The property was over two hundred bucolic acres with an eighteenth-century chateau as its main facility. Scattered throughout the woods were smaller houses for residents who were capable of independent living. There was a full modern medical clinic, a spa, two golf courses, tennis courts, a restaurant, a movie theater, and all the other amenities one would expect from a high-end development of its kind.

Harvath and his team had been booked into a cluster of cottages as far away from the rest of the structures as possible. And while Haney had said no to a hospital bed, one was definitely waiting for Johnson when they got there.

One of the nurses would stay in the room next to his to keep an eye on him, while Haney would receive the same care from the other nurse. Jourdain, as requested, would remain on property to oversee everything.

With Haney and Johnson settled in, Harvath left Staelin behind to protect them, borrowed Jourdain's car, and drove to an even more remote part of the property to meet up with Preisler.

When he got there, he stepped out of the vehicle and took a deep breath. The evening air was cool and smelled of pine. It was quiet. Peaceful.

For a moment, Harvath was almost able to forget that he was in the middle of an operation.

Almost.