a set of empty shackles. Then, they found the body of the fourth and final soldier.
The man’s face had been caved in, beaten to a congealed, bloody pulp. Looking at the blood spatters along the interior of the fuselage, it was obvious that whatever had been used to bludgeon the man, the killer had swung the weapon in wide arcs and with extreme force over and over again. It was an act of excessive violence, an act of pure rage. His scalp was also missing.
The scalps had been a message. Someone was taking revenge. That someone was Harvath.
Getting on the radio, Teplov ordered two of his best shooters to break off their search of the wreckage and get to the helicopters. Unless he was lying dead somewhere out in the snow, Harvath was already on the run. And while he might have had a head start, Teplov had both superior numbers and superior equipment. Harvath wouldn’t stay hidden for long. Teplov was going to find him.
CHAPTER 30
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Harvath’s mind instantly went into fight mode. He had landed hard on his rucksack, with his chest and stomach fully exposed. He looked like a turtle that couldn’t right itself.
The large jet-black alpha wolf had come out of nowhere. It ripped and tore at him, sinking its long, sharp teeth into every part of his body that it could.
Using one arm to fend off the massive beast, he tried to reach for the shotgun, but it was pinned underneath him. The animal seemed to sense what was happening and intensified its attack, going for Harvath’s throat.
Drawing back his free hand, Harvath delivered an uppercut, punching the wolf right underneath the jaw. He followed it up with a strike to the side of the animal’s head. He did it again and again and again.
He kept punching until the beast jumped off him and backed away. Harvath knew that the retreat was only temporary. It would last just long enough for the wolf to shake off the pain and then come back at him. He would have enough time to make only one move.
Getting to his feet was out of the question. He would have to fight from the ground.
In the fraction of a second that it took for him to commit to what he was going to do and make ready for the attack, the animal struck again.
On his belt, beneath the trapper’s anorak, he had hung one of the dead man’s best knives. It was long and incredibly sharp, and when the wolf leaped at him he drove the blade in all the way to hilt, just below the creature’s breastbone.
The alpha, though mortally wounded, fought back viciously. It seemed determined to kill the man who had taken so many of its extended pack.
As the wolf slashed at him and tried to clamp its jaws around his throat, Harvath twisted the knife and drove it even deeper into the animal’s chest cavity. Slicing open its left ventricle, he drove his knee up into its belly, grabbed a fistful of the scruff around its neck, and yanked its mouth away from his neck.
Rolling to his left, he pushed the dying animal off him. He was covered in blood, though whose, he had no idea. Before he could assess his injuries, he had a bigger problem to deal with—the rest of the pack.
He had been so focused on the alpha that he hadn’t even noticed the others. Now that he could risk a look, he saw that they had him surrounded. Growling, their mouths dripping with saliva, they appeared ready to attack. None of them, though, were making the first move. With their alpha dead, they were waiting for a new alpha to step up and take charge. Harvath took full advantage of the situation.
Pushing himself up onto his feet, he unsheathed the shotgun, pointed it at the nearest group of wolves, and blasted away. And as soon as the first wolves dropped, he took off running.
He hadn’t attached the snowmobile’s kill switch cord to his clothing, nor had he wrapped it around his wrist. When the wolf had attacked, he had been revving the gas. When he had gotten knocked off, the sled had rocketed forward.
That was both a blessing and a curse. It was a curse because now he had to struggle through deep snow to get to it, but it was also a blessing, in that he could hear it was still running.