Chapter 30
The second wave stacked outside. Then, guns up, the tight column flowed through the lobby doors as one. The instant the last man cleared the threshold, Harvath sent the elevator down.
These were definitely the guys Harvath and Morrell had been looking for, but they were coming in on high alert.
He watched the way they moved as a unit—disciplined, precise. These men were highly trained pros. Peeling off even one wasn’t happening. Not on such a hot entry and not with Thai police likely minutes away.
Harvath and his team needed to get out of the building as quickly as possible. There was only one way out—through the attackers in the lobby.
As the elevator began its descent, Harvath joined Palmer and Ashby in the stairwell and took the stairs fast but controlled. At the ground-floor landing, the rest of the team was waiting for them.
Outside the heavy fire door, they could hear the muted thud of boots crossing marble as the attackers spread out. Via the feed, it was obvious from the cover positions they took that they knew the elevator was on its way down. What or who was inside, however, was a mystery to them.
No one on Harvath’s team spoke. No one needed to. They all knew the plan. It would all come down to speed, surprise, and overwhelming force.
The elevator’s motor changed pitch as it began to slow. Harvath signaled them to get ready. It felt like an eternity. Finally, the chime sounded.
At first, none of the attackers moved. Then, a figure could be seen issuing orders. Seconds later, two men emerged from behind cover and moved cautiously toward the elevator. The corpse Davi had let Morrell borrow from the morgue was lying face down inside.
As soon as the two attackers entered the carriage and rolled him over, two violent explosions detonated—venting outward in a brutal flash of debris and fire.
Shards of steel, bone, and shrapnel blasted into the lobby. The two men inside the elevator were obliterated.
Sprinkler heads erupted and alarms screamed as Harvath drove the stairwell door open and the team charged, weapons up.
Heat and dust rolled across the lobby, thick with the metallic tang of explosives. The steel elevator doors had buckled and been blown off their tracks.
One attacker near the elevator bank had been thrown hard against a column. Bloody but still moving, he fought to shoulder his weapon. Harvath double-tapped him in the head.
Palmer shifted left and finished a wounded operator crawling toward his PP-2000.
That left two. Both had fallen back near the entrance.
The first man stepped forward and fired controlled bursts through the haze, chipping the wall above Harvath’s head.
Ashby pressed her trigger once. The man went down.
The last attacker moved fast and low, using the lobby’s reception desk as partial cover, firing as he advanced.
The marble floor was already slick with sprinkler runoff. Harvath closed the distance carefully.
But when the attacker leaned out to fire again, it was Staelin who ended him. Two shots to the face. Two shots to the chest. He dropped dead where he stood.
Above the alarms and spray from the sprinklers, Harvath caught the distant wail of approaching sirens. He scanned the lobby. Six men in. Six men dead.
While Haney retrieved the other drone, Ashby and Palmer took up a security position at the front door. Morrell kept an eye on their captive as Harvath and Staelin conducted rapid pat-downs.
No embassy credentials. No diplomatic badges. No phones. No wallets. Nothing. These men were even cleaner than the men from Tommy Sombat’s. Harvath checked their wrists.
No Breitling Emergency watches. No emergency beacons. Only cheap, matte-black digital watches.
They weren’t embassy security. They were the cavalry. And if they got into trouble, nobody was coming for them.
Harvath straightened and looked across the wrecked lobby. Embassy security had been used as a cutout. Then a tactical team had been sent in.
Two tiers, back-to-back—all because one operative had activated a beacon. Obviously, the man on the roof hadn’t been expendable. He’d been important.
But why? That was the key question.
The sirens were getting closer.
“Let’s move,” Harvath ordered.