Shadow of Doubt, page 31
Taking up his position in an exam room, Harvath used a small mirror, placed across the hall, to watch the stairwell.
It was hard to hear anyone approaching over the continuous ringing of the elevator alarm. The attackers could be right behind the north door, having a full-blown conversation, and he wouldn’t have known. His only confirmation of their arrival was going to be visual. And so he watched, and waited.
Finally, he saw the stairwell door crack open and figured one of two things was going to happen next. Either these guys were going to toss out a flashbang or an actual grenade first, or they were going to push right out of the stairwell, ready to get their gunfight on.
As he hadn’t noticed any of the men in the elevator carrying grenades, he assumed it would be the latter and gripped the detonator a little bit tighter. Then he heard Staelin through his earpiece.
“Someone just tossed a smoke grenade into my hallway,” he radioed.
Harvath was about to reply when the north stairwell door was opened a bit farther and he got treated to a smoke grenade as well.
The device was pitched in a long arc, clattered to the ground, and rolled as it began spitting out thick white smoke only a couple of yards from Harvath’s position.
He gave them three seconds to exit the stairwell and all be in the hall together before depressing the switch on his homemade detonator.
Nothing happened.
Checking the wires, he tried again. Nothing. Pulling the wires out and reattaching them, he tried one more time. Still nothing.
From the south hall, Harvath heard Staelin’s device detonate. He could imagine the tsunami of shrapnel—nails, screws, scalpel blades, and hypodermic needles—that were slashing through the smoke and ripping into the flesh of the attackers who had exited the south stairwell. Within seconds of the device going off, gunfire began.
Harvath had a decision to make: lean out the door and start firing blindly, or wait for the Russians to come to him. As it turned out, the decision made itself.
The room he was hiding in was beginning to fill with smoke. He had a couple of seconds left, at best, before he wasn’t going to be able see anything. That was when a gun barrel appeared at the door frame.
Letting the UMP fall in its sling, Harvath used both of his hands to wrench the man’s weapon down and away. Simultaneously, he delivered a blistering headbutt, which caused the man’s vision to dim.
Rocking unsteadily on his feet, the Russian looked like he was ready to fall over. Harvath helped push him in that direction by slamming the man’s weapon into the base of his skull and knocking him unconscious.
Patting him down, he found that the man was carrying an unusual Russian Brutalica knife in his waistband. It was jet black, resembled a straight razor on steroids, and now belonged to Harvath.
With three more Russians in proximity, a head shot would have only brought them running and was therefore out of the question. Instead Harvath put the knife to work. One down.
Slipping out of the exam room, Harvath crept to the office across the hall, ready to take down his next Russian. The space, however, was empty.
He was about to twist to his left to step back into the hall when he heard the metallic click of a weapon’s hammer fall. Harvath had had no idea that the guy had been right there. It was the second time in a matter of hours that had happened to him. He pivoted hard to get off the Russian’s line of attack.
Whether the click had been the result of a misfire or the man not having seated a round wasn’t Harvath’s problem. Not getting shot was.
As the man slapped the bottom of his mag to make sure it was fully inserted and went to recharge his weapon, Harvath shot him twice with his UMP—once in the chest and once in the head. The attacker fell to the hallway floor, dead. Two down.
The smoke had largely dissipated by this point and when the remaining two Russians swept back into the hall to see what had happened, they easily identified Harvath as a target and began firing. The gunfight was on.
Diving back into the room he’d just been in, the Russians’ bullets tore up the walls and floor, missing him by mere millimeters.
He scrambled to take cover behind a heavy wooden desk as dust, splinters, and shredded papers filled the air.
Round after round ripped through the walls and the doorway as the Russians focused their fire on him and kept getting closer. Raising his UMP, he tried to anticipate where they were, and fired back.
For a moment, he forced the Russians back and their guns fell silent. Then another smoke grenade was loosed, and it landed only a few feet away from him. His attackers were about to make a final, deadly assault on his position.
Having mapped the entire building, he knew going out the fifth-floor office window was a nonstarter. There wasn’t enough of a ledge to provide a foothold and there were zero handholds. Unless he could get out the doorway before they pushed in, he was going to be worse than trapped; he was going to be dead. He had only seconds to figure out what to do. Suddenly, he thought of the Brutalica.
Pulling out the knife again, he picked a lower section of wall behind the desk and cut into it. Once it had been properly scored, he kicked through the drywall, yanked the insulation, and repeated the process on the other side. He then slipped through the narrow opening into the empty office next door. The tables had been officially turned.
Gun up, ready to engage the enemy, he moved to the door. From the south stairwell, he could hear the sounds of Staelin’s ongoing, intense firefight. He needed to get down there to back him up, but first things first.
The smoke had poured into this office, but less so, and it was already starting to vanish. Any moment the Russians were going to make their move. So was Harvath.
Risking a look into the hall, in between the weakening curtains of smoke, he could see two figures massed near the other door. The attackers were getting ready to make entry. As they did, Harvath began applying pressure to his trigger.
The moment they charged into the office, Harvath sprung into the hall and went straight after them.
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.
CHAPTER 68
Knocking on the side of the maintenance shed, Harvath waited for Preisler to roll the sliding door back. When he did, the first thing he noticed was Powell’s Citroen sitting off to the side of the large space.
“Do you want to bring your vehicle in?” Preisler asked.
Harvath shook his head. “It’ll be okay outside.”
Standing aside, Preisler let Harvath enter and then slid the door closed behind him.
“Any problem getting here?” Harvath asked.
“Negative,” Preisler replied. “Neither of those assholes wanted to ride in the trunk, but other than that, everything went fine.”
Harvath had figured as much. He and Preisler had predetermined a secluded spot for Preisler to pull over. Upon which, Powell was enlisted to help secure Elovik and place him in the trunk. After that, it was Powell’s turn. The less each of them was aware of, the better.
Powell already knew Harvath’s reputation and what he was capable of. Inviting, or even forcing him to watch the interrogation, was pointless. By and large the station chief had served his purpose. When Harvath was ready to put him out with the trash, he would do so. Right now, he had some very personal business to attend to.
Unlike the woodsy scent outside, the maintenance shed smelled like diesel fuel and old motor oil. The concrete floor was cracked and covered with decades of stains. Iron trusses ran overhead, and snatches of moonlight spilled through the dirty glass skylights. Parked at the far side, a yellow snowplow looked old enough to have served as a troop transport in World War II.
The place had character. It had served a purpose in life. And though it was a little aged and a bit worn down, it was still doing its job. Harvath respected that.
He also respected the touch of modern that had recently been added, and which Preisler now drew his attention to. Mounted to one of the trusses was a two-ton electric chain hoist. Its remote hung from a thick, black cord. Underneath, a table with two chairs had been set up.
“Hands over his head or keep them behind his back?” Preisler asked, a wry smile on his face.
Harvath smiled back. Even the most inexperienced police officers didn’t pull up on cuffs to get a suspect to his feet when his hands were behind his back.
What’s more, with equipment like this it wouldn’t take much to tear the arms out of someone’s sockets. Between the screaming and the passing out from the pain, the interrogation they were planning could go well into overtime. Nobody, especially Harvath, wanted to be here a minute longer than they needed.
Nodding at the Citroen, he said to Preisler, “Time’s a-wasting. Let’s get Vlad out.”
Opening a trunk with one prisoner inside, much less two, was a lot like opening a soda you’d left in the presence of a vindictive sibling. You never knew how explosive the result was going to be.
As seniority had its privileges, Harvath motioned for Preisler to hand him his Taser and then stood back as the junior operative popped the lid.
Thankfully, especially for Preisler, whose job it had been to properly secure the two men, nothing happened. Powell and Elovik were right where he had left them—hands and feet secured, hoods over their heads, and pieces of duct tape across their mouths underneath. Harvath had been quite clear that he didn’t want these two comparing notes and making plans for some great escape. They were no longer masters of their own destinies. Harvath, and only Harvath, would decide what happened to them.
Grabbing Elovik, who had been placed in the trunk first and was therefore farther back, Preisler dragged him across Powell and pulled him out.
Preisler then removed his knife and cut away the plastic restraints from Elovik’s ankles so that he could walk.
Guiding him to the table, he sat him down in such a way that his hands, which had been bound behind his back with flex-cuffs, were slipped over the rear of the chair.
As Preisler went to stand next to the Citroen, Harvath removed Elovik’s hood and peeled the piece of duct tape from his mouth.
The Russian didn’t speak. He just blinked as he tried to adjust his eyes to the light.
