Page 4 of Edge of Honor

That was why Harvath had decided not to pop up—at least not immediately. Removing his left hand from his weapon, he squeezed Sølvi’s shoulder.

As he did, she dropped to her left side, pointed her pistol beneath the SUV, and began shooting at the boots of the approaching attackers. That was when Harvath leapt up and, leaning across the hood, began putting his own rounds on the men.

He was aiming for anything he could get—from the upper torso, above where the body armor stopped, all the way up the throat, into the facial area, including the forehead.

He nailed the first shooter with a shot to the suprasternal notch right between his clavicles and a second round through his lower jaw.

The second man had already been dropped to his knees by Sølvi. While she continued to pump rounds into his lower extremities, Harvath double-tapped him in the back of the head.

With the third shooter still firing at the protesters, there was no time to waste.

Coming out from behind the SUV, Harvath moved past the two shooters, giving them each a final headshot, just to be sure.

As he did, the third shooter spun, catching Harvath out in the open. But before he could fire, Sølvi, having once again swapped in a fresh mag, began painting a racing stripe of 9mm rounds right up his torso from her new position at the back of the Tahoe.

With the bullets bouncing off his body armor, the man jerked his rifleto the right and was just about to fire when Harvath let loose with his own volley of controlled pairs.

The first two rounds ripped open the side of the shooter’s neck, while the next bullet tore through the base of his skull, followed by a final shot through his left ear. He was dead before his body even hit the ground.

Nevertheless, Harvath gave him an additional shot to the head and kicked his weapon away. Changing his own magazine, he was about to yell for Sølvi to grab the medical bag out of the back of his SUV so they could render aid to the injured protesters when he heard her begin to fire her pistol again. Spinning to his right, he saw two more shooters. They were the same men he had seen place the bomb-laden backpacks under the van.

Sølvi drilled one man in the lower abdomen beneath his body armor and then put a round through the other man’s hip, shattering his pelvis. As they staggered forward, Harvath shot each of them in the head.

Quickly, he scanned for more threats. Then he saw it.

A sixth, hooded man had his head down and was walking, not running like the rest of the civilians, away from the chaos. He wasn’t carrying a weapon that Harvath could see, but both of his hands were hidden in the pouch of his sweatshirt.

In the distance, police sirens could be heard approaching from all directions. He had no intention of letting this guy get away.

“You!” he shouted, raising his PDW. “Black sweatshirt. Stop where you are. Let me see your hands.”

The man ignored him and kept walking.

“Black sweatshirt!” Harvath repeated, picking up his pace. “Show me your hands! Do it now!”

The man began to move faster as well.

“Black sweatshirt! Last chance! Freeze!”

For a moment it looked like the man was about to break into a sprint, but instead he pulled a Glock from his sweatshirt pouch, turned, and fired three rounds in rapid succession.

Harvath dove for the pavement.

As he did, the man took off.

Getting up on one knee, Harvath reshouldered his weapon and tookaim. Pressing his trigger, he let loose with two rounds low and two rounds high.

One caught the man in the back of his left leg. Another hit him in the back of his left shoulder. The moment the bullets found their targets, everything changed.

Harvath leapt to his feet as the man stumbled and almost went down. But instead of continuing along the street, the man cut across the pavement and jumped the waist-high, wrought-iron fence of the Norwegian ambassador’s residence. Landing in the grass on the other side, he quickly disappeared from view.

Seconds later, there was the sound of more gunfire, as well as glass being shattered. It only took Harvath a moment to figure out what was going on.

Unable to escape on foot, this guy was either looking for a vehicle he could steal, or he had breached the residence and was looking to take hostages.

Arriving at the fence, Harvath could see across the empty driveway and right up to the shattered glass and iron front door.

Inside the residence, two of the Ambassador’s security detail were down. There was only one thing Harvath could do.