Page 42 of Dead Fall

All pretense of charm having been thrown out the window the second her gun came out, the woman now glowered at him as she spoke. “Enough games. I want to know why you’re here and what your targets are. For every lie you tell me, I will put a bullet in one of your extremities. Who sent you? You have three seconds to answer me. Three. Two—”

“One,” said Harvath as he pressed the trigger of his Glock, which he had drawn when she had turned to look up the stairs, and which he had placed in his lap, out of her sight under the table.

The bullet struck her just below the stomach, shattering her pelvis. Simultaneously, she fired her weapon and missed Harvath by only a couple of inches.

As she screamed in agony, he dropped to the floor and continued firing round after round into her.

From what was probably a bedroom just off the kitchen, a man appeared with an AK-47. Snapping his pistol to the right, Harvath adjusted his aim and let loose with a controlled pair. One bullet went through the man’s lower jaw and through the roof of his mouth. The other hit just above the bridge of his nose and drilled right into the control box of his brain. He was dead before he even hit the floor.

Jumping to his feet, he checked on the woman. She was wheezing, with blood running from her nose and mouth. She wasn’t dead yet, butshe would be soon. Raising his pistol, he delivered a head shot, putting her out of her misery.

Dumping his current magazine, he slammed in a fresh one and swept the downstairs. He had no idea how many others might be in the house, but figured there had to be at least one more. That sound they had heard upstairs hadn’t come from something falling. Someone was up there.

With the downstairs cleared, he made ready to take the stairs. He hated stairs of all kinds. In his experience, the best way to handle stairs was to let somebody else do it. They were death traps.

Staying to the outside of the woven cotton runner, he focused on the edge of the stairs, which he hoped would be less squeaky. Raising his pistol, he began climbing.

He moved slowly, testing each step before fully committing his weight lest he give his position and progress away. After all the shooting, whoever was left in the house knew that they weren’t alone. There was no reason to help them paint a better picture.

Keeping pressure on his trigger, he reached the top of the stairs, but instead of peering around the corner—and very likely getting his head blown off—he bent down into a crouch and then risked a quick peek.

As he did, he was shocked to come almost face-to-face with a woman. She was blond, like the dead one downstairs, and had been badly roughed up. She was bound, gagged, and had been tied to a chair that had tipped over. He figured that was where the thud had come from.

Her eyes were wide. Frantic. She was trying to signal something. Harvath didn’t wait to formulate a precise interpretation. There was a closet with its door partially ajar. Aiming his Glock, he lit it up.

As the weapon bucked in his hands and spat out a torrent of hot shell casings, the captive woman became even more agitated. Rocking and fighting against her restraints, she screamed from behind her gag.

Harvath couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, until he saw a flash of motion up near the ceiling. The trapdoor pull-chain from a retractable attic ladder was swaying ever so slightly.

Looking down at the woman, he motioned toward the ladder, and she began nodding emphatically.

With standard-issue mags, which was what he was carrying, hisGlock could hold a total of eighteen rounds. He had dumped close to half of them into the closet. It was now time to dump the rest into the attic.

Not knowing precisely where the threat was, he put rounds in and around the trapdoor, hoping to take the person out.

When his slide locked back, he punched the mag release, flicked the pistol to the side, and shot the spent magazine out the bottom of the weapon. He drove home a new one before the empty mag had even hit the floor and then thumbed the slide release, ready to reengage. Then he waited. There was no return fire.

Keeping one eye on the trapdoor, he reached down and released the woman’s gag. “Do you speak English?” he whispered.

She nodded.

“How many of them are in the house?”

“Three,” she replied. “Two men. One woman.”

Harvath slid his blade from its sheath and freed her from her restraints. “Are you injured?” he asked, putting the knife back.

She shook her head.

“Good. When I saymove, I want you to get down those stairs as quickly and as quietly as you can, but don’t go outside. Do you understand?”

Once again, the woman nodded.

Harvath had no idea if the person in the attic had been neutralized or not. He also didn’t know if there was a vent or an opening of any sort up there, which could turn it into the perfect sniper’s nest once he and the woman left the dacha and were exposed out in the open.

Fixing her with his eyes, he whispered the command, “Move.”

The moment she hit the stairs he was right behind her, covering her and urging her forward.

---