Page 30 of Dead Fall

The Russian sabotage team had achieved their goal. The train was destroyed. He didn’t hold out much hope for additional survivors. It had been all too easy for the snipers to pick off their targets.

The only reason Harvath wasn’t dead too was that he had known to keep moving. He’d also been lucky as hell. If the other people on that train had received half the training that he’d had, maybe some of them would have survived as well. He was reminded for the umpteenth time that life was often not only unfair, but also exceedingly cruel, especially in times of war.

He thought about engaging the snipers but realized that it would be a waste of his ammo. He had no idea where they were specifically. He would be firing blind.

The question then became, who could hold out the longest? Unless they still had a mortar team out there and were willing to waste shells trying to dial them in on his location, he figured he had the advantage. He could simply wait them out. At some point, a local response team was going to show up and then the shooters would have to break off.But what if that wasn’t their plan?

What if the snipers planned to continue to lie in wait to take out anyone and everyone who arrived to render assistance?The bloodbath, Harvath realized,would only get worse. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed to act.

From the limited amount he could see, without raising his head too high up and getting it blown off, farther back in the field was a small copse of trees. If Harvath was a sniper and had responsibility for staking out the train from this side of the tracks, that’s where he would be.

What he needed was a way to confirm his supposition. He needed some means by which to flush the sniper out, to make him reveal himself. As it turned out, someone else was about to do that for him. That someone was Artem.

The Ukrainian Intelligence operative was alive. But by the way he was moving, he looked to be seriously injured. Even so, he had risked opening himself up to attack to reach another, injured passenger and pull her to safety behind a piece of nearby wreckage. It was an act of pure selflessness and courage.

As soon as he had gotten to the woman, he was fully in the open and visible to the Russian sniper who began firing from within the copse of trees. It was all the confirmation Harvath needed. With his magnifier engaged, he began putting rounds on the target.

He strafed the copse like he was sweeping a well-oiled Weedwacker through soft summer grass.

The sniper on the opposite side of the tracks tried to engage him, but the wind was pushing the smoke from the bombed-out train carriages right at him, making it very difficult to see.

Harvath emptied an entire mag of 7.62, reloaded the Galil, and continued to fire. He didn’t stop shooting until he saw that Artem and the woman were out of the line of fire and had made it back behind cover.

Harvath waited to see if the sniper would readjust and attack his position, but no attack came. The only gunfire was from the sniper on the other side. His rounds were so poorly placed that they didn’t come anywhere near the culvert Harvath was taking cover in. He decided he wasn’t going to get a better chance than right now to make his move.

Using the heavy, black smoke from the burning train to mask his advance, he headed for the copse of trees, rifle up and at the ready.

Once he was twenty yards out, he kicked it into high gear and rushed the sniper’s position.

Stepping through the trees, he found the Russian, in his bloodstainedghillie suit, with multiple rounds to his head, neck, and torso. Harvath didn’t bother to reach down and check for a pulse. The man was definitely dead. One down and, he hoped, only one more to go.

Shutting out the pain he was in, Harvath let the Galil hang from its sling, grabbed the sniper’s rifle—an older, yet still highly effective Lobaev SVL—plus an extra magazine, and hauled ass toward the wreckage.

As he did, he prayed the breeze would hold and allow the smoke to continue to obscure his movements.

Nearing the train, he called out to make sure Artem knew there was a “friendly” coming in. Harvath hadn’t traveled all the way to Ukraine to get shot by somebody on the same side of the conflict.

The intelligence operative responded and directed Harvath to where he and the female passenger he had rescued were taking cover.

The first thing Harvath noticed was what bad shape Artem was in. It was more serious than he had thought. His left thigh had been shredded and he had lost a lot of blood. He was about to ask why the fuck the man hadn’t applied a tourniquet when he looked over at the female passenger. She was in even worse shape,andshe was pregnant.

Artem had sacrificed his tourniquet for her. In doing so, he had very likely saved her life. But he had also put his own in great danger.

Setting down the sniper rifle, Harvath pulled his tourniquet from his chest rig and expertly applied it to the man’s wound.

“Symon?” the intelligence officer asked.

Harvath shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, marking the time on his watch. He needed to get them both to a hospital immediately. Before he could do that, however, there was the issue of the other sniper to deal with.

Several minutes had gone by without any shooting from that direction. Had the man fled? Or was he still out there, dug in, and simply biding his time?

He knew where the smart money was. Snipers were nothing if not the most patient of predators.

There was also the persistent rumor that any Russian who attempted to retreat or who fell short of their mission was being shot on sight. That kind of policy was never going to be good for morale, but it undoubtedlyboosted soldiers’ interest in getting the job done, which only added to the pile of smart money pointing to at least one more sniper still being out there.

In grabbing the dead Russian’s rifle, Harvath had hoped that he could use Artem to flush out the other shooter and finish him off, but the Ukrainian man was on the verge of passing out. He was out of the fight. Harvath was going to have to come up with another idea.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, wanting to warn local authorities and prevent them from falling for the ambush. For all he knew, in addition to the sniper, there still might be a mortar team out there.

---