Blowback

As he did, he heard a scuffing noise intermingled with the roar and crackle of the flames. Rayburn was sliding one of the leather chairs along the floor, using it for cover as he tried to get closer. That was all the information Harvath needed. Creeping as near as he could to the burning desk, he aimed his weapon toward the fireplace and began to spray rounds back and forth two feet off the ground in front of him.

When he connected with Rayburn, he heard the man cry out in pain. Rayburn’s weapon clattered to the floor, and then there was silence. Harvath inserted another clip and emptied it in Rayburn’s direction. The handle of his gun had grown so hot from the fire he could barely hold it anymore.

Ejecting the spent magazine, he decided he could use it as a diversion by throwing it against the far wall as he ran for the doorway. Counting to three, he pitched the magazine toward the front of the room, and as he awaited a reaction, he heard a groan of wood and plaster from above. A fraction of a second later the ceiling came crashing down.

Harvath dove as far away as he could and ended up tangled in a set of flaming draperies. Had he been wearing anything other than Nomex, he would have instantly gone up in flames.

His exit from the Aga Khan’s chambers blocked by the collapsed ceiling, he used a nearby chair to bat the blazing curtains away from the window. Once he had them clear, he pulled his hand up into his shirt-sleeve and used it to unlock the hinged windows and push them open.

The burst of fresh air only doubled the fire’s intensity, and the raging inferno clawed for any hold it could get on his body as Harvath rolled out the window.

Once on the slippery Spanish tile roof, he moved as far away from the source of the fire as he could. Looking up, he not only saw the rest of the motorgliders circling overhead, most likely awaiting instructions on where they could safely land, but he also saw Ozan Kalachka’s helicopter as it steadily rose in the mountain air. Unfortunately, the MP7 slung across his back was made for close-quarters battle. There was no way he could hit the helicopter from this distance.

Down on the patio beneath him, Harvath saw a large plastic case, which most likely contained the shoulder-fired missile spotted during his surveillance flight, but it was also useless. Even if he could get to it in time and pull it out, the sky above was filled with friendly aircraft. Any miscue, and the missile could lock onto a latent heat signature from one of the motorgliders and more innocent people would die. That was something Harvath couldn’t live with.

The only thought he could find to console himself with as he climbed down from the roof was that he had a pretty good idea of where Kalachka was headed, and if he moved fast enough, he just might be able to catch him.

EIGHTY

When Harvath finally made it to the ground floor, he discovered that whatever Rayburn had done between escaping from Horst Schroeder and confronting him in the Aga Khan’s chambers, he hadn’t told his men they were under attack.

Still believing that Harvath and his team were on their side, the Aga Khan’s security personnel had carried Schroeder outside, and one of the men who’d had previous training as a military medic was busy tending to his wounds. The rest of the men were busy trying to put out the fire that was quickly sweeping through the complex.

Picking up Schroeder’s radio from where the medic had neatly stacked the wounded man’s gear, Harvath walked away from the security people and was able to contact the rest of the team. He ordered the men in the village to subdue the canton police and proceed on up via the funicular. He then ordered the motorgliders back to Sion International and told Claudia to get a medical chopper up to Aiglemont to evacuate Schroeder ASAP.

Hearing the chatter across the radio, Silo One’s pilot walked across the narrow meadow and joined Harvath, quietly accepting Schroeder’s. 40 Sig Sauer pistol, just in case the Aga Khan’s men figured out they’d been duped and things got unfriendly. With Rayburn crushed beneath the burning ceiling on the monastery’s second floor, Harvath had few concerns about that coming to pass.

The first of the Stern commandos were climbing off the funicular twenty minutes later when the medical chopper arrived. After helping Harvath and Silo One’s pilot load Schroeder, along with the bodies of Gösser and Emir Tokay, into the helicopter, the commandos casually strolled past all the men fighting the blazing inferno and rode the funicular back down to the village.

On board the chopper, the medics stabilized Schroeder, treated the burns Harvath had suffered, then helped clean and redress the head wound of Silo One’s pilot. Harvath learned the man’s name was Wilhelm, and that in addition to motorgliders, when he wasn’t flying as a Swiss Air Force reservist, his area of expertise was private, long-haul business jets.