There were a lot of things Harvath would have preferred—more guns, more men, a better-prepared trap—but in warfare, having the element of surprise was an advantage you never squandered. That was why he had seized the moment.
As the four Russian soldiers approached, he made ready. They were moving exactly as he and Oleh had—carefully, from building to building, optimizing their cover and concealment. There was an area coming up, an open piece of uneven ground, where they were going to be in the open and exposed. That’s where they would take them.
At the same instant, on the other side of the village, their sniper would take out the two Russian soldiers who were carrying the RPGs. Once those soldiers were down, the sniper had permission to take out any other Russians at will.
It was Harvath’s hope that the sniper fire would drive the remaining Russians toward the school, where the balance of the Ukrainian soldiers would be waiting to finish them off. A lot was going to have to go right for his plan to be successful.
Looking through his holographic sight, he gauged the distance of the four Russians closing in on them. He had no idea how good a shooter Oleh was. Because of that, he wanted to wait until they were within a hundred yards before engaging them. The only downside was that they’d mostly be through the open space and almost to cover by then.
If Harvath was lucky and if nothing went wrong, he figured he could take out two of the men. The other two were Oleh’s responsibility. He was about to see what they both were made of.
“Ready?” he asked.
Oleh nodded and snugged the butt of his weapon in tighter against his shoulder. Like his colleagues’ rifles, it was an older, Russian AK-74 with no fancy optics or attachments—just iron sights and heavily worn, wood furniture. It looked like it had been liberated from some Cold War museum.
When the AK-74 had entered service via Soviet forces in Afghanistan sometime around 1979, the CIA had been anxious to study it and had allegedly offered a $5,000 bounty for the first one captured by Afghan mujahideen forces.
Judging by the condition of Oleh’s weapon, it might have been the very same rifle. Harvath’s concern about the young Ukrainian’s ability to make not one but both of his shots was growing. That said, it was too late to change the plan. The Russians were almost in range.
They had agreed that Harvath would take the first two targets and Oleh would take the remainders.
Though the soldiers were wearing plate carriers, there was no guarantee that they had any ballistic plates inserted. Nevertheless, Harvath would be targeting vulnerable areas other than center mass. He had encouraged Oleh to take the best shots he could. The object was to take these men out of the fight by any means possible.
With the first of the Russians coming into range, Harvath waited for the second and then sent two squelch clicks over the radio, which began their five-second countdown. Applying pressure to his trigger, he exhaled and lined up his shot.
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. The clack, clack, clack of 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. Fresh blood. 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. Very close.
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 I will kill 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.
“On me,” Harvath ordered as he moved toward the front of the shop. Oleh followed.
Harvath opened the door, waited, and then carefully peered out. The gun battle was still going hard in the direction of the school and the APC.
As no rounds had been fired at him, he stepped fully into the open and took a wider look. All clear.
Satisfied that they were good to go, he signaled Oleh to ready his rifle and tighten up.
Once the young Ukrainian indicated that he was ready to move, Harvath gave the command and they slipped out of the shop and hustled to their first piece of cover.
They were sacrificing a little safety for a lot of speed, but it was a necessary trade-off. Harvath had no idea how many, if any, of the Russians the Ukrainian sniper had been able to pick off. What’s more, he had no idea if the rest of the Ukrainians back at the school had entered the fight, though by the sound of the gunfire, they were all fully engaged.
Moving from building to building, Harvath and Oleh arrived at an open space just before the town square. It would get them back to the school faster. With no Russians in sight, Harvath was willing to risk it.
There were two pieces of cover as they made their way across—a burned-out old Russian tank and an equally obliterated Russian APC. Their first objective was the tank.
Counting to three, Harvath sent Oleh running toward it while he covered him. Then he had the young Ukrainian return the favor. They both made it successfully to their first objective. Next was their run to the APC.
As he had before, Harvath told Oleh that he was going to count to three and cover him as he ran to the APC, at which point the young man would cover him. Oleh nodded, but seemed out of it.
Harvath snapped his fingers to get his attention once more and ordered him to focus. The Ukrainian shook it off and appeared to focus.
Using his rifle to scan for any threats, Harvath then counted to three and sent the young man running for the cover of the destroyed APC.
He waited for several seconds for Oleh to get his rifle up and to start scanning for threats. There was definitely something not right with the kid.
He finally got the young Ukrainian’s attention; Oleh signaled back that he was okay and that Harvath could make the dash to the APC.
Ready to return fire if any should come his way, Harvath ran his ass off, not exactly confident that Oleh’s head was fully in the game. He made it to the APC, however, in one piece.
“Oleh, seriously,” he said. “You need to snap out of it. We’re almost there. Can you do that for me?”
The young Ukrainian nodded, but it was another of those halfhearted nods. Harvath was worried that he wasn’t going to make it.
“We’re almost there,” he informed him. “You’ve got this. Okay?”
Once more, the Ukrainian nodded.
Harvath studied the distance from the APC to their next piece of cover. It was the longest they were going to have to be out in the open. He wasn’t exactly crazy about it, but as long as they moved fast, they should be okay.
“See where the front of that building has collapsed?” Harvath asked, pointing at their next objective. “I want you to run toward where the roof has caved in. Okay? Stay away from the window openings. Do you understand?”
The young man nodded, but that wasn’t good enough for Harvath. “Repeat it back to me.”
“Roof. Not windows,” Oleh mumbled.
It wasn’t the committed, emphatic response Harvath would have preferred, but at least he knew the kid had heard him.
“Move fast, keep your head down, and wait for me to get there,” said Harvath. This part was almost over. Once they had fully made it across, if Oleh couldn’t get his shit together, Harvath would park him someplace safe and come back for him once the dust had settled. The only thing he’d be in a firefight was a liability.
After a quick scan, Harvath reminded him to move fast and keep his head down, then counted to three and sent him running.
To his credit, the young Ukrainian moved fast. Not world-record fast, but fast enough. Just as important, he took cover where he had been told to. Now it was Harvath’s turn to cross.
But once again, Oleh wasn’t ready.
In almost any other circumstance, Harvath might have allowed him a moment to catch his breath, but they didn’t have a single second to spare. The kid needed to pull it together. Harvath signaled the Ukrainian to get his rifle up and cover him.
Readying his own rifle, Harvath was about to charge out from behind the APC when a shot rang out, kicking up a cloud of debris as it landed just next to Oleh.
Reflexively, the young man rolled away from where the bullet had landed, right toward the place Harvath had told him not to—the ruins of the open windows.
Harvath tried to signal him to go back to where he was, to retreat into the wreckage of the collapsed roof, but Oleh wasn’t paying attention.
“Get back!” Harvath shouted, giving himself away to the sniper. “Get back to where I told you to be.”
As he yelled at Oleh to return under the collapsed roof, he scanned the other buildings with his rifle, trying to find the sniper.
All the while, he was wondering why the Russians would have put a sniper here in the first place. Then it hit him. Wherever the shooter was, he had a view of this location, as well as where the fighting was up by the school and the APC. That narrowed things down considerably.
But what it didn’t do was throw a big, bright spotlight on the sniper’s precise perch.
There were a couple of locations where a shooter could be hiding that would allow him to fire in both directions. But short of a means by which to flush him out, the act of pinpointing his nest was going to be next to impossible. That was when Oleh adjusted his position again.
Propping his gun up on the sill of one of the shattered windows, he signaled Harvath to run and began firing in the direction of where he believed the sniper to be. But he was off. Way off.
Because of his position behind the APC, Harvath had a different vantage point than Oleh. When the sniper fired again, he saw a faint muzzle flash and now knew where the shooter was hiding.
He pumped round after round into the window and kept doing so as he ran toward Oleh.
Skidding to a stop at the pile of rubble, he lunged for cover under the collapsed roof. In doing so, he clipped a beam and sent a searing, white-hot bolt of pain down his hip.
“Motherfucker,” he growled, kicking it with his boot.
Suddenly, the debris above him shifted and he instantly regretted his hotheadedness. Rolling hard to his right, he barely escaped being hit by an even bigger, heavier beam that had broken loose from the second story. The sniper notwithstanding, this was a tremendously dangerous place to be holed up.
As he looked over at Oleh, he noticed that the man’s weapon had fallen silent and that he wasn’t moving. Harvath called out, but the young Ukrainian didn’t respond.
Careful to stay close to the wall and out of the sniper’s line of fire, he crawled to where Oleh was slumped, his back to him, just beneath the window.
Turning him over, he saw the kid’s lifeless eyes and knew that he was dead. The sniper’s bullet had entered just above his body armor and had likely traveled down to his heart, killing him almost instantly.
Harvath closed Oleh’s eyelids. There was nothing else he could do. The war had claimed another victim; one with his entire life in front of him. There would be no returning to university, no going back to Odesa, no wife, no family. Everything he’d had was now over—cut entirely too short.
As the battle raged back near the school and around the Ukrainian APC, Harvath inserted a fresh magazine into his rifle and prepared to return to the fight.
He had been wrong in believing that there was nothing he could do for Oleh. There actually was something. He could kill every last Russian in the village. And he would start by making sure the sniper who had shot him was dead.
Since putting all of those rounds into the window where he had seen the muzzle flash, Harvath hadn’t noticed any further activity. But if this was the same shooter who had been in the bell tower earlier, he might be quite practiced at fleeing the moment his nest was pinpointed. There was only one way to be certain.
Doing a wide enough loop to avoid the sniper’s crosshairs was not an option. There wasn’t time. What’s more, there was no telling what kind of damage the man could do in the meantime.
The shortest distance between Harvath and the shooter was a straight line, and, as batshit crazy as it was, that was Harvath’s plan.
Creeping to the edge of the wall, he made sure his weapon was hot, took a deep breath, and then, ignoring the pain in his hip, came out firing.
He did as he had done before—running as fast as he could while putting rounds on the sniper’s location, hoping to keep the man pinned down and preventing him from shooting back.
His plan seemed to have worked. He made it all the way to the building without being shot at.
The thought of charging into another, unfamiliar Ukrainian house in order to deal with a Russian shooter on the second floor didn’t exactly appeal to him, but Harvath had something much better going for him this time. Instead of mothballs and flour, he had fragmentation grenades.
He also had two perfect targets—the broken window the sniper had been shooting out of and a huge hole in the roof.
Using the wreckage of a bombed-out car for cover, Harvath changed magazines. Then, removing the grenades from his pouch, he pulled their pins and let them fly.
The moment they detonated, he was on his feet.
Charging up to the house, he kicked in the front door, made entry, and swept for threats.
With the downstairs secure, he took the stairs two at a time, vigilant and ready for any danger.
Arriving at the second story, he found the sniper exactly where he had expected him to be. The man was alive, but just barely.
Several of Harvath’s rounds had found their mark, though from which volley, he couldn’t be sure. The bullets alone would have ended his life, but the shrapnel from the fragmentation grenades had definitely accelerated the process. Just to be safe, he kicked the man’s rifle out of reach.
The sniper was guppy breathing. Adjusting his aim, Harvath applied pressure to the trigger of his Galil and put a round through the man’s head for Oleh, finishing him off.
He stepped to one of the other windows, where he had a direct line of sight to the Russians and the Ukrainians battling it out. The dead Russian’s radio was chirping with desperate pleas from his comrades.
Setting his weapon aside, he bent down and picked up the sniper’s old SVD rifle. He ejected the curved, ten-round box magazine and saw that there were several shots left.
He got himself into a comfortable position and then radioed the Ukrainians, letting them know where he was and what he was about to do.
As soon as he received confirmation, he peered through the telescopic sight, flipped off the safety, and aligned the crosshairs with his first target. Exhaling, he pressed the SVD’s trigger and let a round fly.
Hit.
The Russian soldier dropped.
Before the man’s colleagues could figure out what had happened, Harvath readjusted his sight picture and had acquired a new target. Exhaling, he pressed the trigger again. Hit.
The Russian soldiers had no idea where the rounds were coming from, only that someone had gotten the drop on them and that they were dangerously exposed. The men bolted for cover.
Harvath waited, his gaze focused through the telescopic sight, but he didn’t see so much as the toe of a single Russian boot. He had helped take two more pieces off the board. To remove any others, which he fully intended to do, he was going to have to get moving. Switching back to his Galil, he headed downstairs and exited the house.
Based on the way the fight was unfolding, he figured his best opportunity to pick off one or two more Russians was near the APC, so that was where he headed.
Using every piece of available cover, he zigzagged through the village, letting the sound of gunfire be his guide.
While the Ukrainians were doing what they needed to do to repel the attack, the Russians were dumping withering amounts of ammo on the school. They seemed hell-bent on victory and taking control of the village.
Harvath had no idea if the town was of any strategic importance or why the Russians would want it. All he knew was that he and the Ukrainians were going to make sure that they didn’t get it.
Getting closer to the fight, he radioed their sniper, only to discover that the soldier had come under heavy fire and had been forced to retreat back to the school. There was no longer a shooter running overwatch. If Harvath did decide to work the edges of the fray, knocking off any Russians he could find, he’d be doing it without backup.
It wasn’t Harvath’s preferred method of operation, but he was no stranger to going it alone. The sun was beginning to set. He didn’t know about the Ukrainians, but he didn’t have any night-vision goggles. If the Russians had come fully equipped, it could end up being a very long and bloody night. That was reason enough for Harvath to risk going it alone. They needed to end this thing before it got dark.
Nearing the school, it was harder to conceal his movements. Each time he changed cover, he was forced to expose himself for longer periods of time. There just weren’t enough places to hide. He was going to have to make a very difficult decision.
From this angle of approach, the Russians were going to be able to see him at any moment. If he got lucky, he’d be able to get off one, maybe two shots. If he didn’t get lucky, he’d get off zero and they’d be focusing a lot of lead in his direction. Adding to their advantage, they’d have much better cover than he did.
Net-net, it wasn’t worth it. If he wanted the most effective strike, he would have to come at them from a better approach. It was a no-brainer. His best choice was to loop around and hope to use the Ukrainian APC for cover.
The only drawback was that once he stirred the hornet’s nest, if the Russians decided to break off from the school and come after him, he was going to be in massive trouble. But as an old SEAL instructor of his liked to say, Don’t ever be part of the problem. Be the entire problem. If the Russians decided to come for him, he was going to make it as costly for them as possible.
Breaking off, he slipped between two ruined houses and moved backyard to backyard, as rapidly as he could.
Arriving at the side street where they had ditched the APC, he took a second to survey the scene. Everything appeared the same. The vehicle was still there, its gunner’s hatch ajar, just as he had left it. That meant all the booby traps were still in place, too. Suddenly, having the Russians chasing him didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
Staying hidden, he removed one of his partially loaded magazines and transferred the rounds into another mag. It was time to put his plan into action.
Approaching the back of the APC, he laid the empty magazine on the ground and partially cracked the door cut into the rear ramp. With the trap baited, he went to draw the Russians into an old-fashioned game of chicken.
Sticking close to the jagged façades of the buildings on the opposite side of the street, he crept toward the Russian position. They were still laying down obscene amounts of fire on the school.
Two of their dead were lying in the road and Harvath was glad to see that they were the ones with RPGs that his Ukrainian sniper had taken out.
Finding a good piece of cover, he steadied himself against the wall, established his sight picture, and, as he exhaled, began firing.
There was so much noise, the Russians didn’t realize another gun had joined the fight until they saw another of their men go down.
When the first Russian turned to engage, Harvath shot him square in the chest, knocking him over backward. It was the last shot he was able to visually confirm hitting its target.
As several of the soldiers began shooting at him, Harvath had to duck back behind cover. With the rounds falling on his position like a hailstorm, all he could do was point the muzzle of his Galil in their direction and blindly fire.
He ran his magazine dry and, pulling his weapon back in, swapped it out for a fresh one. The Russians took advantage of his pause to unload on him.
The bullets popped and whizzed all around him—high, low, and wide. Whoever these soldiers were, they were not terribly good marksmen. Their aim and their discipline sucked.
Based on how many Russians Peshkov had fed into the wood chipper of Ukraine, Harvath could only figure that a good chunk of the soldiers now seeing combat had very little experience and even less training.
The moment they stopped firing, Harvath went at them again—this time risking a peek to better direct his fire. He needed to be a big enough pain in the ass that they couldn’t help but come after him. What he saw made him pull his head and his rifle in and start to retreat—the bullets pinging around him were cover fire for a group of soldiers headed to take him out.
The Russians had likely figured out that this was the guy who had been thinning their ranks. Now that they had a fix on him, they weren’t going to let him get away, which was exactly what he wanted.
Running as fast as he could, Harvath raced back past the APC and around the corner. He kept going until he found a pile of rubble large enough to safely take refuge behind.
Tucking in, he radioed the Ukrainians to get ready. Half of the Russians attacking their position had just broken off and were about to hit the APC.
Not knowing what kind of training they’d had, Harvath figured one of two things was going to happen. The Russians were either going to drop a grenade down the open gunner’s hatch, or they were going to line up in a stack, yank open the rear door, and fill the belly of the APC with automatic weapons fire. For all he knew, they might even do both. The result, however, would be the same. All that mattered was that they took the bait.
By now, they should be coming around the corner and have full view of the large, armor-plated vehicle. As they got closer, eventually even the least observant among them was going to discover the empty magazine near the rear hatch.
If they only sent one soldier forward to investigate, he’d see all this, plus notice that the gunner’s hatch was ajar. It would only be a matter of seconds now as they settled on a plan and put it into action.
Harvath wished the Ukrainians still had the sniper in place. He would have killed for a play-by-play. As it was, he had to settle for waiting and decided to count backward in his head from thirty. That would have to be more than enough time for them to orient and act.
He counted all the way down yet arrived at zero and still nothing had happened. Back at the school, the gun battle was still raging. What the hell was the delay?
Had the Russians smelled a trap? Had they bypassed the APC altogether? Had he miscalculated and now they were only steps away from being right on top of him?
The noise from the gunfight was perfect auditory camouflage. He wouldn’t have known they were there until one of the Russians stuck a weapon in his face and pulled the trigger. The thought of the Russians turning the tables on him like that was nuts, but it would be the ultimate irony. Murphy pulling one last cruel trick before Harvath got his ticket punched. He had to risk peering out from behind the rubble.
Leading with his Galil, he crawled to the edge of the pile and then rolled onto his side to take a look. As he did, there was an enormous explosion.
All of the wooden buildings around the APC were flattened and a gigantic, roiling orange fireball shot up into the sky.
The shock wave pelted Harvath with hot pieces of flying rock, glass, and other debris. Moving as fast as he could, he rolled back behind his pile of rubble.
As soon as the rain of detritus had subsided, Harvath leapt to his feet and ran back toward the blast zone. If any of the Russian soldiers had survived, he needed to make sure that they couldn’t return to the fight.
Arriving at the flaming APC, he saw nothing but dead bodies and body parts. His ears were ringing, and he strained to hear any sounds of gunfire coming from the school.
Slowly, his hearing started to come back. After a lull in the fighting, probably due to the shock of the explosion, the battle was back on.
Gripping his weapon a little tighter, Harvath headed toward the school to finish the job and mop up the remaining Russians.
This had been an expensive detour. He needed to get to the front and link up with his team. Every minute they weren’t chasing the Ravens was one more minute in which those psychopaths were free to inflict their terror.