Page 10 of Rising Tiger

When the little man confirmed, Harvath prepped the bike, propped open the front gate, and counted down.

Three. Two. One.

CHAPTER 7

There had been nothing in the main house, or in the shed, that Harvath could have used to cobble together some sort of a distraction device. He had only one thing going for him, and that was the element of surprise.

The moment he fired up the dirt bike, however, his element of surprise would be gone. At that point, his only chance for escape would be to outrun his pursuers. It was a serious gamble considering how low on fuel he was. Nevertheless, it was a gamble he was going to have to take.

With the gate propped open, he was about to start the motorcycle when he heard voices approaching and, simultaneously, Nicholas radioed him a warning.

“Two tangos, just south of your location, fifteen yards and closing,” the little man said.

There was no time to close the gate. There was no time to hide the bike. The only thing he could do was to hide himself.

Flipping down the kickstand, he got off the bike. He moved as quietly as he could to the shed, crouched down, and readied his rifle.

It wasn’t optimal. Unlike in the movies, suppressed weapons weren’t totally silent. They still emitted acrackwhen a round was fired; it was just at a partially reduced decibel level.

But maybe the courtyard’s high walls would help dampen the sound. Maybe the rest of the Taliban down the street wouldn’t hear anything.With the gate wide open, however, it wasn’t a wager Harvath would have been willing to put a lot of money on.

He would have much preferred using his knife. Cutting throats was a lot quieter. The only problem was that it wasn’t scalable. You couldn’t slice two throats at once. That meant he was going to have to use his rifle.

Thankfully, the EOTech holographic sight mounted atop it was compatible with his night-vision goggles. That would allow him the advantage of hanging back in the darkness and attacking from there. It took only moments for the men to arrive.

He watched as the pair entered the courtyard and did a terrible job of “slicing the pie.” They seemed more interested in the abandoned motorcycle than clearing all the angles a threat might be coming from.

Applying pressure to his trigger, he fired at both Taliban in rapid succession. One shot apiece, each in the face.

The first man received his round right between the eyes and it tumbled out the back of his skull. The second took his just underneath the nose and it exited out the top of his head.

A spray of red mist hung in the air as their lifeless bodies collapsed to the ground with bits of bone and bloody brain tissue splattered across the wall behind them.

Slinging his weapon, Harvath radioed Nicholas as he sprung out of hiding and raced for the bike. “Tangos down.”

“Whatever you did, you just stirred the hornet’s nest,” the little man replied. “There are multiple tangos inbound to your location.”

“How many?”

“Allof them. Get out of there.Fast.”

Harvath didn’t need any additional encouragement. Leaping onto the motorcycle, he began the very specific process of starting a cold Honda XR.

Turning on both the fuel switch and the ignition, he adjusted the choke all the way forward, pulled in the decompression lever located above the clutch, and rapidly pumped the kick-starter.

He raced through several more steps until he was ready to go.

Finally, he stood up on the kick-starter, pushed straight down, and the bike came roaring to life.

No matter how fast the Taliban were coming at him, hearing the motorcycle firing up would only cause them to double their pace. Opening up the throttle, he popped the clutch and shot straight through the courtyard gate.

As soon as he hit the street, the shooting started. He got as low as he could over the bike and gave it as much gas as possible.

The red-and-white Honda was fast, capable of reaching speeds of over 110 miles per hour. Bullets, however, could reach speeds of thousands of feet per second. He needed to put as much distance between himself and his opponents as quickly as possible.

“I’m going to need a route to the airport,” he said over his radio. “Preferably one with no checkpoints.”

“Can do. The problem is going to be getting you on the other side of the fence once you arrive. Dalton has already left for the night.”

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