Rising Tiger: A Thriller (4)

That only added to the sickness Harvath felt. He knew and had worked with courageous Afghans. Men and women willing to go the distance and do whatever needed to be done. Unfortunately, the nation’s tribalism and rampant corruption had doomed even the most noble of freedom fighters to a near-impossible battle against the Taliban and other terrorist organizations that had taken root once again like weeds throughout the country.

It wasn’t his problem, however. Especially not now. He and his team had been sent on a specific mission—the extraction of a high-value Afghan intelligence asset.

Unlike many Afghans who had dragged their feet and had postponed getting out, this Afghan, code-named “Topaz,” had selected to stay behind.

At great personal risk to himself and his family, he had continued to willingly serve as a well-placed, loyal set of eyes and ears for the American government. The man had gone above and beyond what anyone could have asked of him. Now, with murder, rape, starvation, and so many other evils falling like a poisoned, unstoppable deluge, all he wanted was out.

While the United States was sorry to have to pull him, the man had more than earned it. And so, Harvath was called in.

The former SEAL Team Six member turned covert intelligence operative was no stranger to extracting individuals from hostile, war-torn places, including Afghanistan. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that if something could go wrong, it would. That fact had just gruesomely played out right before his eyes.

In an effort to deescalate the situation with the Taliban, one of the resistance fighters had pulled out an envelope filled with currency and had offered a contribution to the cause. Normally, after a little haggling, such an overture—referred to as baksheesh, a Persian word for bribe—would be enough to settle everything and see the thugs move on in search of their next victim. This time, unfortunately, things had taken a deadly turn.

The security patrol’s commander was seasoned and possessed of above-average intelligence. Where there was one envelope of cash, he had reasoned, there were likely more. He initiated a search of the men and their vehicles.

Not only did the Taliban uncover the rest of the money, but they also found weapons and equipment hidden in the resistance fighters’ truck that clearly suggested they were up to something. Discovering what that something was had been the patrol commander’s next goal.

He gave the first fighter an opportunity to explain. When the man didn’t answer to his satisfaction, the commander removed his pistol and shot him point-blank in the head.

Harvath’s sniper, Jack Gage, had been poised on a rooftop halfway down the block. Gage had been ready to let loose, but Harvath had held him back, wanting to give the resistance fighters a chance to do what they had been hired to do—smooth things over and convince the Taliban to move on. As it turned out, Harvath had held out hope a fraction of a moment too long.

The moment the commander fired, Harvath cleared Gage to shoot and joined the fight himself. It was too little, too late.

Gage managed to drop the commander with a head shot of his own, as well as another Taliban standing nearby.

Harvath laid down cover fire, but before the remaining resistance fighter could get to safety, another gunman from the security patrol had popped up and shot him dead.

The fight was on and it was vicious. Whatever concerns the Taliban might have had, running out of ammo wasn’t one of them. The onslaught was intense.

It was only a matter of time before more Taliban showed up and pinned them down. It wouldn’t have shocked Harvath if more men were already headed in their direction.

Three hours on the ground, tops, was all that they had budgeted for the operation. If the extraction took any longer, they would miss their window and would have to move to Plan B.

Nobody—not a single member of the team—wanted to activate Plan B. Fighting their way north, in hopes of escaping through high mountain passes on horses and donkeys, via dangerous opium routes, with smugglers as their guides, limited supplies, and no backup, would be like poking death in the eye with a sharp stick. It was not how Harvath wanted this to end.

He needed Plan A to work. But for that to happen now, he was going to have to take an even greater risk. The team had to move—get off the X, as it was known in their business—because even more troubling than the potential of reinforcements arriving was the fact that the Taliban were big fans of rocket-propelled grenades.

He had no idea if the men out on the street had any RPGs, but if they did, it would take only one, fired directly into the small house, for it to be game over.

As delegation was one of the most important components of leadership, he’d made that Gage’s problem. From his vantage point, with the powerful optics on his rifle, he had the best odds of not only seeing someone with an RPG, but of taking the person out before he could mount and launch the weapon.

That said, the clock was running for Gage as well. He wasn’t safe on that rooftop. The security patrol would have called in the presence of a sniper and would have given his approximate location. Harvath needed to evacuate his whole team, along with Topaz and his family, and get them all to the extraction point. To do that, he was going to have to offer himself up as bait.

Radioing his plan to his team, he leaned back out from behind cover and let loose with another volley of shots. He drilled two Taliban, who dropped like sacks of wet cement. Whether they were dead made no difference. They weren’t moving, which meant they were out of the fight.