Page 111 of Rising Tiger

He had, without question, done hundreds more hostile entries than Asha ever had, or would. That made him the most experienced operator on scene and she had agreed to defer to him. She wasn’t stupid. She didn’t want to run in and get shot in the face.

Harvath was of two minds. If they were lucky enough to enter when Durrani was in the shower, he might not have any clue that they had slipped inside.

If, however, Durrani somehow did know that they had made entry, they could be walking into a trap. So, Harvath decided to split the baby.

If Durrani was in the shower, he’d never notice the smoke from the grenades. If he wasn’t, Harvath and Asha would be damn glad to have the concealment. Smoke might not stop bullets, but it made their targets a lot harder to hit.

Harvath signaled for Asha to hand him her grenade. Once she had, he nodded for her to go ahead and hit the door.

Pulling the pins from both her smoke grenade and his, he watched as she counted down from three and then quietly pulled the door open.

As she pushed her pistol into the space to cover him and counter any threats, he tossed both active smoke grenades into the dojo, making sure they landed soundlessly, on different corners of the mat.

Watching the grenades was like watching a couple of smokestacks at a steel mill. The volume of smoke they produced and the rapidity at which they produced it was astounding.

With his pistol up and at the ready, he pushed into the dojo and motioned for Asha to follow.

As degenerate as Durrani was, they didn’t expect to find him showering in the women’s locker room, and so they pressed on toward the back, left-hand corner of the building, where Amit had told them they would find the men’s area.

The thick green smoke was filling the space. It was dense and extremely heavy. Disorienting even.

Harvath looked back to make sure Asha was still on his six, but he couldn’t see her. That’s when he heard the first shots ring out. They had come from the direction of the men’s locker room. Durrani knew they were there.

Backtracking to where he hoped he would find Asha, Harvath fired repeatedly in the ISI operative’s direction. He was supposed to take Durrani alive, but at this moment Harvath had crossed into don’t-give-a-fuck territory.

Despite the heavy smoke, he found Asha. She had been hit. The bullet had struck her in her right thigh.

“You okay?” Harvath asked.

“I’ll be fine,” she snapped. Though she was bleeding, it didn’t appear the round had hit an artery. “I can’t find my damn gun in all this smoke.”

Harvath turned, felt the toe of his boot bump something, and bent down to retrieve Asha’s pistol. Handing it to her, he quickly helped her up and said, “We end it right now. Can you move?”

She put some weight on her leg and nodded.

“Good,” he stated. “On my mark.”

Harvath counted backward from three and the pair charged, shredding the locker room area with rounds from their pistols.

But no sooner had they started than they were met with an even deadlier response. Durrani had picked up a machine gun and was firing from the shower area into the dojo.

As the bullets popped and whizzed around them, Harvath tackled Asha and took her to the floor.

In so doing, he saved her life as a bullet that was headed for her brain instead only creased her scalp.

Even so, as head wounds often bled the worst, the blood poured profusely into her eyes, making it hard for her to see.

Using a damp, matted clump of her own hair to wipe the blood away, she reloaded and begin firing again. But she only served to act as a beacon for the machinegun fire, which pounded her again and again and again in the chest, like a psychotic John Henry, hell-bent on knocking every molecule of oxygen from her body.

Asha fell back again to the floor, guppy-breathing like a terminally ill or end-of-life senior citizen, about to cross over. Harvath fired the last two rounds of his one and only spare magazine.

The green smoke was beginning to dissipate.

Out of ammunition, Harvath could see through the haze as Durrani stepped out from the shower area holding an AK-47.

Harvath looked at Asha, hoping to pick up her gun and finish the ISI operative off, but the slide of her Glock was locked back, out of ammo. There was no way he could reload her weapon fast enough.

Pulling the Taser off her vest, he aimed at Durrani’s feet and fired.

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