Page 4 of Rising Tiger

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 coverand 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.

When he retreated back to cover, his teammate Mike Haney shouted from his position, “Nobody else wants to say it, but your new plansucks.”

“It’s a good thing nobody else gets a vote,” Harvath replied. “Make sure the family’s ready. I want everyone prepared to exit in sixty seconds.”

CHAPTER 4

Everything now was about speed, surprise, and overwhelming violence of action. Slinging his suppressed, short-barreled Heckler & Koch 416 A5, Harvath grabbed two fragmentation grenades from his chest rig. The moment the team signaled that they were ready to go, he pulled the pins and threw the devices into the street, yelling, “Frag out!”

They exploded with a deafening roar, showering the Taliban with red-hot shrapnel.

From his rooftop perch, Gage recommenced firing, and Harvath rushed forward, finding concealment behind a parked car. Removing a pair of smoke grenades, he yanked their pins, rolled them across the road, and transitioned back to his rifle.

As soon as the visibility was sufficiently impaired, he gave the order for his team to move out.

He used the engine block of the car he was hiding behind for partial cover and, popping over the hood, began firing on the Taliban position.

Two of their vehicles had been badly damaged. They were both on fire and from what he could tell, were definitely out of commission. That was the good news.

The bad news was that only a couple of blocks away, headlights could be seen racing in their direction. Reinforcements were arriving. He wouldn’t be able to hold all of them off. In fact, it would be a miracle if he could hold off the gunmen he was already engaged with.

Over his earpiece, he heard teammate Tyler Staelin radio that they had successfully made it to the truck. That was Gage’s cue to get off the roof and get down to the street up ahead so he could be picked up.

As the truck fired up and peeled out, Harvath—per his own orders—was left alone.

What he hadn’t told Haney was that he didn’t much like this plan, either. It was suicide. It was also the only way.

He needed to keep the Taliban at bay long enough for Topaz, his family, and the rest of the team to escape. It was the only thing that mattered. Ducking back behind the car, he prepared himself.

Once he was ready, he grabbed his next-to-last frag, pulled the pin, and sent it hurtling through the air toward his attackers. The moment it detonated, Harvath charged.

He used the smoke, as well as the shock of getting fragged again, to his advantage, allowing them to veil his movements.

Sprinting to the other side of the street, he slid soundlessly along the parked cars until he reached his objective. It was a flanking position from which he was going to launch his final attack, but the Taliban had a surprise waiting for him.

A skinny, sickly-looking kid, no more than sixteen, had been positioned between the last two parked cars to protect their left flank. He had his weapon ready, and the moment Harvath came into view, he pressed the trigger. There was just one problem. The teen hadn’t properly seated a round in the chamber.

The sound of the rifle’s metallicclickcaused a wave of panic to crash over his features. Before the boy could cry out to his comrades, Harvath butt-stroked him with his weapon, knocking him out cold.

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