feet. Neither he nor Christina, though, had killed them. Somebody else in the forest had fired the shots.
What’s more, they had come from suppressed weapons—something Harvath was intimately familiar with.
Tier One operators used them not only to dampen noise and help reduce muzzle flash, but also to know which gunshots were being fired by their teammates.
The sound was unmistakable and hearing it now could only mean one thing. There were friendlies close by.
Scrapping his plan to abandon their position, he warned Christina not to shoot anyone, unless she was absolutely certain she was targeting Wagner mercenaries.
She asked how she would know the difference, when all of a sudden there was a flash of white behind one of the trees below them. It was followed by another and another.
A small force, carrying suppressed rifles, was quickly working its way up toward them.
Their winter whites were more sophisticated and less splotchy than Wagner’s.
Harvath was just pointing out the difference to Christina when several of them raised their weapons, pointed them in their direction, and began firing.
Instinctively, Harvath and Christina dropped to the ground. As they did, two more dead Wagner mercenaries dropped over the edge of the overhang.
The force then split into three teams, two of which branched off to the sides, forming a perimeter as they continued to engage the enemy, while the third headed right for them.
When the leader turned his head and revealed the muted American flag on his helmet, Harvath felt flooded with a sense of both relief and overwhelming pride. He wanted to wrap the man in the biggest bear hug he had ever given. Even before the operative had pulled down his facemask, he knew exactly who it was.
“Friendlies!” Haney called out.
Harvath helped cover them as they hurried up to the outcrop.
“Somebody here order a pizza?” Staelin asked, pressing himself against the rocks next to Christina.
“Hours ago,” quipped Harvath, who was so glad to see them. “What took you so long?”
“Traffic was terrible.”
Harvath couldn’t wait to hear all about it. Patting Staelin on the helmet, he ran his gloved hand over its American flag patch.
“We’ve got a plane waiting,” Haney stated, as he kept his weapon up and continued to scan for threats. “It’s a couple of klicks away. Are you both capable of walking?”
“Affirmative,” answered Harvath.
Haney was attempting to call in a SITREP to JSOC when all around them a tidal wave of bullets crashed down and showered them with more sharp pieces of chipped rock.
“What the fuck?” Haney angrily demanded. “How many more of those assholes are out there?”
“Can’t tell,” Staelin responded, as he looked for targets to fire on. “Harvath picked the one spot in the entire Oblast with zero lines of sight.”
“I was in a hurry,” Harvath said in his defense, subtly giving his colleague the finger. “But I counted four on our flank.”
“Plus the four above you,” Haney stated, unshouldering his backpack. “Whom we neutralized.”
“What’s the plan, boss?” Staelin asked.
Unzipping the pack, Haney withdrew a two-foot-long, olive-drab-colored tube and said, “I’m going to need some cover fire in a moment.”
“Roger that. Just say when.”
Harvath pulled Christina closer to him. The back blast from the M72 Light Anti-Tank Weapon, or LAW, could be pretty intense. You didn’t want to be anywhere within its path.
The LAW was a one-time-use, shoulder-fired, 66 millimeter, antiarmor rocket launcher that weighed five and a half pounds. It was, essentially, a mini bazooka.
Pulling the retaining pin from the back, Haney removed the rear cap and then the one up front. Extending the collapsed tube to its full, locked length—causing the front and rear sights to automatically pop up—he slid the safety forward. The weapon was now armed and ready to fire.
“Going hot,” said Haney, as he checked to make sure no one was behind him in the exhaust area. Placing the weapon on his shoulder, he called out, “Back blast area clear?”
“Clear,” Harvath and Staelin responded.
“Cover fire in three. Two. One.”
Harvath and Staelin trained their rifles on the trees from where the Wagner mercenaries had been firing and unleashed a storm of lead of their own. As they did, Haney leaned out from behind the rocks, sighted in where he believed the Russians to be, and fired the LAW.
The projectile erupted from the rocket launcher and went screaming through the trees.
When it connected with its target, it exploded, sending snow, bark, and body parts in all directions.
Haney looked at his buddies and said, “First rule of a gunfight? Bring a Marine with an antitank weapon.”