The militia must have decided the buildings weren’t worth it as they picked up speed once again and proceeded past.
Harvath kept his finger on his trigger and followed the convoy with the suppressor on the end of his rifle. He didn’t even take a breath until the last vehicle had gone by.
Once it had driven down the road, he radioed his team and said, “We’re clear.”
A feeling of relief washed over him as he set his rifle down and unkinked his neck. For a moment, he allowed his eyes to close. He was beginning to think that they just might make it out of this after all.
Then he heard Barton’s voice over the radio. “Second convoy inbound,” the SEAL said.
Opening his eyes, Harvath snatched up his rifle and looked. He already knew how many vehicles there’d be. He didn’t need to count. Based on the math, this had to be the remaining five—including two technicals.
As they neared, he saw that he was right. It wasn’t much consolation. The moment they pulled even with the compound, the two technicals came to a stop on either side of the entrance, turned on an angle to block traffic, and took up firing positions.
The other three vehicles were SUVs. One stayed outside the compound, a little farther down the road, while the other two slowly rolled inside and stopped. They were here to search the property. Fuck.
Harvath took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and began applying pressure to his trigger once again.
CHAPTER 36
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The militia members didn’t seem keen to get out of their SUVs. Rolling their windows down, they pointed their guns out and waited. They were so close and the desert so quiet that he could hear them whispering to each other in Arabic.
Finally, one door opened. Then another. Out on the road, fighters had already climbed into the beds of the technicals, chambered the heavy machine guns, and pointed them at the buildings.
Harvath focused on the closest technical to him. Barton would take the other. Haney, Staelin, and Morrison would handle the men on the ground inside the compound.
There was still time for them to get back inside their vehicles and drive away. He knew, though, that they wouldn’t.
There were eight of them. Slowly, they began to walk away from the SUVs and toward the buildings. That’s when Haney gave the command to light them up.
As soon as they heard the word “Now” over the radio, the entire team began firing.
Harvath dropped the machine-gunner first, and then locked in on the ammo feeder standing in the truck bed next to him. He caught the man in the lower back as he was diving out and then lost sight of him.
Adjusting his rifle, he turned his attention to the windshield of the technical and pumped the cab full of hot lead.
Both the driver and passenger had been trying to get out and now fell to the ground dead.
When the ammo feeder popped his head up at the rear of the vehicle, Harvath was ready for him.
Pressing the trigger of his M4, he sent a round through his skull, just above his left eyebrow. There was a spray of blood across the tailgate as the man fell dead.
Sweeping his rifle toward the other technical, he saw Barton had already taken out its crew and had focused on a new target.
Out on the road, the remaining SUV was trying to make a run for it. Harvath added his rifle to the fight, sending round after round into the vehicle.
From downstairs, a round from Gage’s M4 ripped through the air and entered the rear passenger side window, tearing through the back of the driver’s head.
The fighter was killed instantly.
With no one controlling it, the SUV caught its tire as it veered off the side of the road and flipped over.
A fraction of a second later, Gage could be heard on the radio, “Enjoy the virgins, you assholes!”
Harvath and Barton remained on their rooftops to provide overwatch while Haney and Morrison patrolled out to the road to make sure there were no survivors.
They had checked the bodies around both technicals and were halfway to the overturned SUV when Harvath thought he noticed something in the distance. Raising the binoculars, he saw a string of militia vehicles coming back from the other direction.
And even at this distance, he could tell that two of them were the technicals with the antiaircraft guns mounted in back. The fleeing militiamen must have raised the alarm before Gage shot their driver and their SUV flipped.
Grabbing the RPG, he radioed for Haney and Morrison to get back to the compound as fast as they could.
His next transmission was to the USS George H. W. Bush. “Where the hell is my drone?”
“Ten minutes out,” a voice responded. “Max.”
“There’s a convoy of technicals headed right at us. Two with ZU-2 antiaircraft guns. This is going to be over in less than five if you don’t get that drone here now.”
Ending the transmission, Harvath had a decision to make. The RPG-7 had a maximum effective range of five hundred meters. But that was for stationary targets. If the target was moving, the range was cut down to three hundred meters.
Once he fired, they’d know exactly where he was and where to shoot. Looking at the militia vehicles down in the compound and shot up out on the road, he came up with a plan.
It wasn’t a great plan, but given how rapidly things were deteriorating, it was the best he had.
As Morrison and Haney came running back, Harvath had them stop at the bullet-ridden technicals only long enough to grab what they needed.
Barton leapt down from his roof and helped Staelin secure Halim in the bigger of the two SUVs. Morrison hopped into the smaller one and fired it up. Haney then brought their technical out of hiding and parked it alongside the rear of the far building.
When everyone was loaded, Harvath didn’t waste any time. “Let’s go!” he shouted, pounding on the sides of both SUVs. “Move! Move! Move!”
The vehicles sped out of the compound. Out on the road, they swerved around the perforated technical and headed in the opposite direction of the approaching column.
Back in the compound, Harvath and Haney took up their positions and readied their weapons. They were the leave-behind force. No matter what the militia decided to do, it was their job to wreak as much havoc on the convoy as possible.
Shouldering his RPG, Harvath looked over at Haney. The Marine, who had pulled an RPG from one of the technicals out front, was doing the same.
He flashed Harvath the thumbs-up, and then, over the radio, said, “Gage told me to tell you double or nothing you miss this shot.”
Harvath just shook his head.
Normally, he was full of smartass rejoinders. Not now, though. His body was beat to shit from jumping out of the Land Cruiser, he’d spiked his adrenaline multiple times over the last eighteen hours, and he and Haney were severely outnumbered by an approaching force. He was saving all of his energy for the ass-kicking they were about to unleash.
As the convoy neared the compound, Harvath signaled Haney. Everything was going to be decided by what happened in the next thirty seconds.
CHAPTER 37
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