Page 121 of Dead Fall

Once more, she nodded. “He brought them to show me. To torment me.”

“Who’s ‘he’? The Colonel?”

“Yes,” Anna rasped, the children even more important in her mind than rescuing the art. “They’re babies. You have to find them.”

“My job is to get you out of here.”

“Please,” she insisted.

Waving Jacks in to help Krueger carry the stretcher, Harvath asked her, “Do you know where the girls are being kept?”

Anna shook her head. “Find him and you’ll find them.”

Stepping out of the room and into the hallway, Harvath inserted a fresh magazine into his rifle and took point. Jacks and Krueger emerged with the litter carrying Anna, and Hookah positioned himself to bring up the rear. They would have to fight their way back to the mechanical room and freedom.

At the top of the stairs, Harvath peered over the three Russian bodies into the reception hall. So far, the coast was clear. He gave the command to move.

They crossed the hall and crept along its long, north side. They passed alcove after alcove where statuary or suits of armor must have once stood. The emptiness of the space only contributed to its evil eeriness.

Pausing at the main doorway, Harvath listened for any sound of the enemy. It was all quiet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close. He risked a peek into the vestibule.

As he did, he heard a thud and a roll as something was dropped from someone on the stairs.

“Grenade!” Harvath yelled as he jumped back into the reception hall.

There was a huge explosion as the device detonated and sent shrapnel flying in all directions.

Thankfully, Harvath was able to get out of the way and escape harm, as was the rest of the team, who were farther back in the hall.

Getting to his feet, he crept back over to the doorway and pounded the staircase with rounds of 7.62 from his Galil.

Ducking back into the hall, he swapped out magazines, called Hookah up, and told the team to get ready to move.

On Harvath’s signal, he and Hookah lunged into the vestibule and began shooting. As they did, Krueger and Jacks rushed Anna toward the front door.

With a pile of dead Ravens on the staircase, Hookah watched for any additional threats from behind, while Harvath once again took point. All they needed now was to just make it across the courtyard.

The moment Harvath opened the front door to take a look outside, it was riddled with heavy automatic weapons fire. The Ravens had moved one of their general-purpose machine guns, probably a PKM, onto the rampart over the courtyard. They had the high ground and they had them cut off. There was no way they could make it across the courtyard as long as that machine gun was live. They needed to take it out.

Off the vestibule was another, deeper alcove fronted by a large stone counter. Harvath had Krueger and Jacks place Anna behind it. Then, with Jacks keeping guard over her, he had Krueger take up position near the front door.

Once everyone was in place, he and Hookah readied their weapons and, climbing over the dead Ravens, charged up the stairs.

Reaching the top, they turned right and proceeded cautiously down a long, wood-paneled hallway. Like the basement, it had a ton of doors. At the moment, however, there was only one door they were interested in—the one all the way at the end that led to an anteroom attached to the rampart.

There was no time to check each room for threats. There were simply too many and they had absolutely no time. Keeping their heads on swivels, the pair moved as quickly as they could.

When they got to the end of the hall, Harvath signaled to Hookah what he wanted to do. The man flashed him the thumbs-up, removed a frag grenade, and pulled the pin.

Harvath tried the door. It was unlocked. Looking at Hookah, he mouthed a silent countdown.Three. Two. One.

As Harvath slid the door open and Hookah cocked his arm to throw, they were met by a fusillade of bullets. One of them caught Hookah in the shoulder and he fumbled the grenade, dropping it to the ground.

Despite the gunfire, he went to lunge for it, but Harvath knocked him out of the deadly line of fire.

As Hookah tumbled into the hallway, Harvath kicked the grenade into the room and dove out of the way, landing on top of him. The grenade detonated before it even had a chance to stop rolling. It was one of the shortest fuses Harvath had ever experienced.

Leaping off Hookah, he brought his rifle up and, approaching the shattered doorframe, began firing into the room. The two Ravens inside were already dead.