Page 52 of Dead Fall

Three. Two. One. Harvath, Oleh, and the sniper on the rooftop on the other side of the village all fired at the same time.

Harvath didn’t bother waiting until his first target had hit the ground. Moving the suppressed muzzle of his weapon a fraction of an inch to the right, he exhaled and pressed the trigger again.

A couple of feet to his left, Oleh had already fired four rounds in an attempt to double-tap each of his targets.

Staying calm, Harvath inhaled and scanned the open area. Both of the targets he had engaged were down. Oleh’s targets were not only still up, but were running for cover.

Harvath sighted in on the slower of the two men, pressed his trigger, and sent a round through the base of the man’s neck, dropping him like a stone. He then canted his rifle to the side, ready to shoot the other soldier, but that Russian had already disappeared.Fuck.

“I’m sorry,” said Oleh as he and Harvath leapt to their feet. “I thought I had both of them.”

There were a million things Harvath could have said to buoy the young Ukrainian’s confidence, but now wasn’t the time.

Off in the distance, he could already hear a gun battle beginning to rage. They needed to take out their fourth Russian and then get to the school.

“Let’s go,” Harvath ordered as he signaled for Oleh to fall in behind him and began maneuvering toward the building their target had escaped into.

The young Ukrainian followed Harvath’s command, intent not to let the American down again. He made sure to keep his eyes and ears open, constantly checking their six o’clock to make sure no one was coming up on them from the rear.

Entering what must have originally been some sort of repair shop, Harvath buttonhooked left while Oleh went right. Theclack, clack, clackof gunfire outside echoed through the shop’s broken windows up front and bounced off the walls.

Bits of old, rusted junk hung from the ceiling and the rough-hewn lumber shelves had been all but stripped bare. Harvath motioned for Oleh to crouch down as they each took an aisle and moved forward.

He had no idea what the Ukrainian was seeing, but the first thing that Harvath noticed in his aisle was a stream of blood.Freshblood. Perhaps at least one of Oleh’s shots had been better placed than he had thought.

Keeping one eye on where he was going and another on the blood, Harvath advanced. Either their missing Russian had hauled ass through the shop and was already outside and on his way to reuniting with his team, or he was still inside and close.Veryclose.

As the hairs stood up on the back of Harvath’s neck, he was certain he had his answer.

Coming around the endcap of his aisle, he saw Oleh with a pistol to his head and the missing Russian standing right behind him.

“Drop your weapon,” the Russian ordered.

Harvath tightened his grip and began applying pressure to his trigger. He could see that the Russian’s fatigues were stained a deep crimson and that he was losing a lot of blood.

“Drop your weapon,” the Russian repeated, “or Iwillkill him.”

As the Russian pressed the barrel of his Vektor pistol harder against Oleh’s temple, Harvath locked in his sight picture and exhaled.

“I am not going to say it again. If you do not drop your—”

Harvath, still in a semi-crouch as he had come around the endcap, applied full pressure to his trigger and sent a round right through the cleft in the Russian’s upper lip, which exited out the top of the man’s skull. His pistol hit the shop floor only a second before his lifeless body did.

“Are you injured?” Harvath asked.

Too stunned to speak, Oleh merely shook his head.

“Good. We need to cross back over to the other side of the village. Are you with me?”

Slowly, the young man nodded.

“Okay,” said Harvath. “I’ll lead. You stay behind me. Stay close. Understand?”

Once again, Oleh slowly nodded.

Harvath snapped his fingers in the Ukrainian’s face to get his attention. “Are you all right? We good?”

The young man nodded. More with-it this time.

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