Page 116 of Shadow of Doubt

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 rippinginto 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 theclickhad 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

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