Black List Read Free Page B

of a muffled shot as someone must have put an additional round into Riley Turner to make sure she was dead.
    He knew there was absolutely nothing he could have done for her. Even if she had still been alive, the only first aid you provide in a firefight is to put rounds on your attackers. If you stop to tend to someone else, you’re both going to end up being killed. Riley had been trained the same way and would have done the same thing.
    She also would have kept her cool and would have focused on getting out, even if her colleague had just been killed. It was the professional,responsible thing to do, and Harvath knew it was exactly what he should do, but anger had gotten the better of him. He was now committed to a more dangerous and violent strategy, and he wasn’t leaving until every single one of the attackers was dead.
    With the element of surprise still on his side, he swept through the living room toward the hallway. The shooters knew he was in the apartment but had no idea where. He knew where they were, though, and he began putting rounds through the wall.
    On the fourth shot, he heard a man in the hallway grunt and fall to the floor. His partner had figured out what was going on and began returning fire through the wall. Harvath, though, had already inserted a fresh magazine into his Glock and moved to a new position.
    As the man continued firing through the wall, Harvath appeared like a wraith at the end of the hallway. The OC gas began to burn his eyes and before it could take full effect, he lined up his sights and fired.
    The shot caught the man in the head and he dropped instantly. Harvath then locked in on the other man, who had been shot through the wall and was lying in a heap on the floor but still alive. The man was bringing his pistol up to fire when Harvath depressed his trigger and fired a round into him just inches above his body armor, right into his throat.
    The attacker’s weapon clattered to the floor as blood gushed from his wound. Harvath closed in and finished him with a shot aimed right at the bridge of his nose. He fired another round into the man’s accomplice just in case.
    With his lungs burning and his eyes and nose watering, he retreated from the hall and rushed into the living room. He wanted to throw open one of the windows and suck in a deep breath of cold, clean air, but he knew he couldn’t. The shooters might have had more men positioned outside, possibly even a sniper, so he stayed away from the windows and moved around the darkened apartment as quickly as possible. Outside in the distance, he could hear the wail of approaching Parisian police cars.
    He located a black Camelbak backpack that contained Riley’s wallet, passport, and multiple personal effects. He stuffed the remaining items from the capabilities kit inside and zipped it up.
    One of the safe house closets contained an array of spare clothing indifferent sizes. He hurriedly switched into a larger jacket to help downplay his muscular, five-foot-ten frame and grabbed a dark baseball cap to cover his brown hair. It wasn’t the best of disguises, but it was better than nothing.
    Shouldering Riley’s pack, he returned to the apartment’s entry hall only long enough to snap photographs of her, as well as the two dead shooters, both of whom looked to be in their early twenties.
    He turned their pockets inside out, but there wasn’t a scrap of paper to be found on them. Besides their weapons and extra magazines, they were completely clean. For communications, they carried cheap walkie-talkies and headsets—all likely sourced at a local outdoors or electronics store.
    With no time to say a proper good-bye to Turner, Harvath made for the kitchen where he conducted a similar quick search of the men lying on the floor. Both of the men looked to be in their mid-twenties and were clean of any pocket litter as well.
    Normally hitters were older, more seasoned. Besides their youth, everything else suggested a thoroughly