Chapter 58
Koebler quickly disappeared into the warehouse, forcing Harvath to make up his mind. They couldn’t afford to wait.
Keeping Haney on the roof, with Ashby working the drone feed, he sent Tevy and his men to the canal side. They had one job—to lock down the pier and prevent anything from leaving by water. Harvath, Staelin, Palmer, and Morrell would hit the warehouse.
He had given Haney one last order before leaving. “If he comes back out and you have the shot, take it.”
“Roger that,” Haney had replied.
Then, Harvath gave the signal and the teams headed for the stairwell and descended from the roof.
On the ground floor, before exiting the building, he radioed for a sitrep.
“Still no movement,” Haney replied. “Trucks, long-tail, and workboat all where they were.”
“Nothing new from Skippy,” replied Ashby. “No additional vehicles. No additional watercraft.”
Harvath gave Tevy the thumbs-up, letting him know that he and his team were good to go.
As they exited the front of the building and peeled off toward the canal side, Harvath and his team went out through the back with Morrell on point.
The alley smelled like stagnant water and old chemical residue. Broken pallets and rusted barrels lined the factory wall. They moved quickly, their weapons up and at the ready, constantly scanning for threats.
Emerging onto a service road that ran parallel to the canal, they cut left, using the shadows cast by the buildings to mask their approach.
The only thing that mattered now was timing. If the handoff started before they were in position, it was game over. The moment Koebler got on one of those boats, he was as good as gone. They couldn’t let that happen.
Ahead, Morrell slowed and raised a fist. The entire team stopped.
Across the canal road, they had their first on-the-ground view of the transfer point.
The truck was still backed tightly into the loading bay, the long-tail remained tied off at the pier, and the workboat hadn’t moved. But there was more activity now.
Two men came out of the warehouse and headed for the pier. Another took up a position halfway between the pier and the warehouse.
“They’re getting ready for something,” Morrell said quietly.
Harvath nodded and keyed his Cambodian radio. “Are you seeing this?”
“We have them,” Tevy replied. “We’re almost in place.”
Harvath looked at Morrell and then Staelin. “We’ll cover you. Move.”
The men raced across the road, using the truck and an old shipping container for cover. To their right, Harvath could see Tevy and his men getting into place near the canal.
Suddenly, Haney’s voice came over their radio. “Movement. Two o’clock.”
Harvath and Palmer froze as Staelin and Morrell dropped to one knee. The warehouse door began rolling the rest of the way up as the lights inside were extinguished.
Killing the lights only made the three men who stepped out more difficult to see with the naked eye. But via their night vision goggles with overlaid thermal imaging, Harvath and his team could see the trio almost as clear as day.
The man who stepped out first had his weapon up and his eyes were working the road and the pier. Giving a command, he then began moving rapidly forward. Right behind him came Koebler, followed by another armed man, half a step back. They were driving Koebler straight for the pier.
Radioing Haney, Harvath said, “Three men exiting the warehouse. Koebler’s the one in the middle. Do you have him?”
“Fifty-fifty,” Haney replied. “They’re moving too fast.”
“Stay on him,” said Harvath.
Seconds later, Koebler was almost at the pier. Harvath had to make a call. “Take him,” he ordered.
Haney’s shot cracked across the canal road and the man just in front of Koebler went down hard. That was when all hell broke loose.
One of the men on the pier spun toward the shot, only to be cut down by Staelin before he could get his weapon fully up.
Before the man’s rifle had clattered onto the dock, Harvath and the rest of the team sprang from cover.
Morrell and Palmer broke left for the warehouse door while Harvath and Staelin drove straight for the water. As they did, Tevy and his team began shooting.
Rounds snapped off the concrete of the loading bay and sparked off the truck’s rear bumper.
The men from the warehouse answered right back, firing in controlled bursts, trying to hold Harvath’s team off long enough for Koebler to get clear.
At the pier, the bomber didn’t hesitate. He knew better than to stay out in the open. The dock was a kill zone. So he did the only thing he could.
Lunging for the edge, he dove into the canal.
“He’s in the water!” Harvath shouted.
The men from the warehouse opened up even harder. They raked the banks and the loading bay with vicious covering fire.
Staelin took aim and let the M250 roar. The heavy rounds tore through the loading bay, cutting one of the shooters in half.
Palmer took out the man who had been stationed midway between the dock and the warehouse, while Morrell slammed a volley of rounds into the man who had been bringing up the rear behind Koebler.
Tevy’s men focused on the long-tail, pinning its crew where they were. As they did, Harvath sprinted for the canal, determined to not let his quarry escape.
Ahead, the workboat engine coughed once, caught, and then settled into a rough but steady rumble.
Harvath hit the pier just as a hand appeared on the far side of the workboat’s gunwale.
Koebler.
The man had gone into the water on one side and come up on the other, where the hull masked him from being seen.
Water streamed off his clothes as he hauled himself aboard. One of the crewmen grabbed his arm and dragged him fully onto the deck.
Harvath fired.
From this angle, all he had was the crewman and snatches of Koebler as both men scrambled behind the engine housing.
Harvath’s first round punched into a canopy support, while the second blew out glass in the wheelhouse. The third shot went through the engine housing and struck the crewman, knocking him backward, just as the helmsman shoved the throttle forward.
The workboat lurched and, having already been untied, began to pull away from the pilings.
Over the radio, Harvath ordered Staelin to take it out. Once again, the ex?Delta Force operative brought the big gun to bear.
Maneuvering the M250, Staelin hammered the waterline, the stern—anything he could hit without risking Harvath.
Tevy’s men added their fire from shore, but Koebler stayed out of sight and the boat kept moving.
Harvath, however, didn’t give up. He drilled round after round into the rear of the boat, hell-bent on killing Koebler or, at the very least, rendering the boat itself dead in the water to prevent his escape.
He was halfway through swapping in a fresh magazine, when Ashby’s voice snapped across his radio. “Second boat. Fast. Coming out from under the bridge.”
Looking up, he saw a smaller boat racing toward them. Whether it was to pick up Koebler or cover his escape, it didn’t matter. There had been a contingency. Fuck.
Slamming the new mag home, Harvath continued firing at the workboat, until someone in the bow of the smaller boat scored the entire canal bank with heavy automatic weapons fire.
Harvath had no choice but to break off the pier and race to cover before he was ripped to pieces.
By the time he looked back, the workboat had vanished beneath the bridge.