Chapter 2
With the trackers they all wore, Harvath could see on his screen exactly where Palmer was located. Re-engaging with his night vision goggles, he could also clearly make out enemy muzzle flashes and instructed Haney and Staelin where to fire.
The Chinese were on the move, firing as they retreated farther into the forest. Harvath’s team took turns laying down cover fire as they moved up to Palmer’s position.
Once they got to him, they adjusted their assault and pressed their biggest advantage—they now knew where the enemy was.
Bullets cracked and sizzled through the air around them, shaving the leaves and sometimes even whole branches off trees. Harvath and his team returned fire and pressed forward.
The fact that the Chinese had pre-deployed weapons in the forest not only confirmed Harvath’s previous suspicions about their readiness, but it also brought something else to mind—the possibility that they had laid booby traps.
“Watch for tripwires!” he cautioned, as the firefight continued to rage.
He had been on assignment in a similar, wooded environment recently and had seen men sawed in half and otherwise obliterated by cleverly placed mines. It was a series of mental pictures he would never be able to shake.
As if on cue, the lone female operator on his team, ex-Army soldier Sloane Ashby—who was now running point—gave the command to stop and indicated that she had indeed found a tripwire. The Chinese were doing all they could to lure them to their deaths.
Confident that her teammates were aware of the wire and where it had been strung, she stepped over it and continued to give chase. The rest of the team followed.
The gun battle continued its fevered pitch. If Harvath and his people weren’t shooting or reloading, they were moving.
First to take out one of the enemies was Haney, hitting a man with one of his heavy 7.62 rounds and knocking him down to the forest floor, dead.
Staelin, the team’s machine gunner, was next.
With a muzzle velocity of three thousand feet per second, when his 135-grain .
277 Fury rounds found their mark, he tore right through the next Chinese operative—shattering the man’s hips and pelvis, while simultaneously severing his spine and ripping massive holes through his bowels.
If he wasn’t dead when he hit the ground, he would be soon enough.
That left just two more.
This time it was Palmer who, exposing himself from behind cover, made an incredibly difficult shot. His bullet, fired at a complicated, upward angle against a fleeing target, found its mark, entered the base of the third Chinese man’s skull and traveled up into his brain, killing him instantly.
The fourth and final target was Harvath’s and, if possible, he wanted to take him alive. Even if the man only had limited intelligence value, it would be better than nothing.
Harvath radioed the rest of the team to start pulling their shots.
If they could wing him or knock him down, great.
If not, they were to keep the pressure up on him.
At some point, the man was going to run out of energy or ammunition.
Either way, when that moment came, he’d be theirs for the taking.
What Harvath hadn’t realized was that there was a third option.
Itbayat was the largest of the Batanes Islands, but also the most remote and windswept.
The Philippines’ last inhabited outpost before the Taiwan Strait, it rose steeply out of the sea, formed entirely from uplifted coral reefs and limestone cliffs—sheer walls that plunged right down into the ocean.
It was on one of those cliffs where the final Chinese operative now found himself.
Scrambling the last several yards, the man turned to fire at his pursuers but only managed to get off two more shots before his weapon ran dry. He was now out of runway and out of ammunition.
Casting the rifle aside, it clattered onto the hard, stony ground. Harvath instructed his team to cease fire. As they covered him, he moved forward.
The Chinese man appeared to be somewhere around Harvath’s age, mid to late forties.
He was lean and sinewy. He had dark circles around his eyes, which made his face look gaunt and hollowed out.
Harvath had no idea how long the men had been on the island, but he figured they didn’t make lots of runs into town for supplies, out of fear of drawing attention to themselves.
Very likely, they had been stretching whatever rations they had.
No matter how bad Harvath had thought his assignment was, this guy’s had likely been much worse.
Not only that, but the price for mission failure in China wasn’t simply a bad performance review and the possibility of getting passed over for a promotion. This man was facing nothing but bad options. Harvath hoped that might make him pliable, open to a deal.
And if it didn’t, there was always the enhanced interrogation route. Either way, the man was going to share everything he knew—whether he liked it or not.
Harvath watched as the Chinese operative took a couple of steps backward, right up to the edge of the cliff, and looked tentatively over his shoulder. It had to have been over a thousand feet down, and even in the cloudy moonlight, the view must have been vertigo-inducing.
Lowering his weapon, Harvath beckoned the man forward, away from the edge. “Let’s talk,” he said, not knowing if the man spoke any English.
The Chinese operative didn’t budge.
“If I wanted you dead,” Harvath continued, “you’d be dead. We can make a deal. The two of us. No one is going to hurt you.”
Weighing his options, the man glanced once more over his shoulder.
“Eyes here,” instructed Harvath, slinging his Sbr and pointing at his own eyes.
The operative seemed to understand. Turning his head, he looked at Harvath’s face.
Harvath felt himself relax.
Then, without warning, the man took one giant step backward and dropped from the cliff.