Page 54 of Edge of Honor

“Six?” McGee replied, his pistol out as he kept his eyes on the windows in the living and dining rooms. “That’s an insane amount of manpower for the Iranians to be sending.”

Harvath agreed and was about to say as much when the second Dragonfly picked up an additional threat. “Hold up. We’ve now got two more,” he said, trying to zoom in to get a better picture. “West side of the house. Moving through the woods. It looks like they’re carrying something. I can’t tell what it is.”

“Reboot complete,” Haney interjected. “But I don’t think it took. The cameras are still down.”

“Kill all the lights in here,” Harvath ordered.

Haney swiped over to the home-automation screen with the light controls and turned everything off.

As Harvath continued watching the feed from the Dragonflies, he put his helmet on and cinched up the strap. He was about to activate the optic on his weapon when he saw the two men to the west of the house step out of the woods and he finally recognized what they were carrying—a ladder.

“They’re going to go for the roof,” he stated as he turned to Haney. “Get the Ambassador out of the safe room.Now.”

Haney didn’t need to be told twice. Dropping the tablet on the counter, he charged back upstairs.

“I think I should have brought a bigger gun,” said McGee.

The man was an excellent shot. Harvath knew that about him. The size of his gun didn’t matter. “How many magazines do you have?”

“On me? Three. I’ve got two more in my bag in the den.”

“Go get them,” Harvath replied.

As McGee headed for the den, Harvath kept his eyes glued to the Dragonfly feeds.

The six-man team was nearly at the house. They moved in a tight, tactical “stack” formation, meaning that they had probably had some sort of military training. The two men with the ladder were getting closer as well.

Harvath couldn’t wrap his head around what he was seeing.Eight men?To take out a former government official, who, as far as anyone knew, didn’t even have a protective detail? It didn’t make sense.And what’s with the ladder?

They had to be going for the roof.

And in his mind, if they were going for the roof, it had to be because they wanted to hit the safe room. But how did they know about the room, much less its greatest vulnerability? And if they knew that piece of critical information, what else did they know?

He had his answer soon enough.

Suddenly the tablet on the counter came to life and the screen was a large number pad.

Harvath watched as the buttons were remotely activated and someone entered the Ambassador’s security code. The LED warning light went from red to green.

The alarm system was now off.

CHAPTER 26

Harvath had to think fast. They were outgunned by more than two-to-one. And though the house offered plenty of concealment, it didn’t provide a fortified-enough fighting position from which they could effectively repel this many shooters over a prolonged firefight. There was only one thing he could do and he explained his plan over their encrypted radios as quickly as he could.

Clicking his phone into the hands-free mount on the front of his plate carrier, he powered up the optic on his rifle and readied to slip outside. As he did, he remembered his wish from earlier—that he could have had enough manpower to allow him to spend the night in the woods, hunting bad guys. Now he was going to get his chance, but at the cost of leaving Haney and McGee by themselves to protect the Ambassador.

Because of that, he decided to help them first.

There was a window for each bay in Rogers’s three-car garage. That was how Harvath was going to get out. Leaving the lights off, he flipped down his night-vision goggles and entered the garage. As soon as he had, McGee closed and locked the door behind him.

He headed for the farthest window, crossing the garage as quickly and as quietly as he could. Once he got there, he checked the feed from the Dragonflies. The two men, just outside, were already setting up their ladder.

The other team was holding in place, just behind the trees, off the southeast corner of the house. This was where the living room windowsgave onto a flagstone patio behind which was a long stretch of manicured lawn that ran down to the river. It looked to Harvath as though they were waiting for their colleagues to get into place up on the roof so they could all enter the house simultaneously. He needed to move now.

Opening the window, he removed the screen and climbed out, closing the window behind him.

With his rifle up and at the ready, he crept to the corner of the garage. Even though the drones appeared to show that he was safe, he did a quick peek, just to make sure. Seeing that he was, he moved around the corner and headed for the edge of the structure.

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