Spymaster

CHAPTER 50

Nyström, despite his injuries, found a reservoir of strength and summoned an incredible burst of speed.

As he caught up with Harvath behind the patrol vehicle, his pistol was already out and he was putting rounds on the house.

“Where’s your med kit?” Harvath yelled as he slammed a fresh magazine into his Sig and returned fire at the Spetsnaz soldiers.

“I’ll be okay.”

Nyström was bleeding a lot and starting to look weak. He clearly needed medical attention, and soon. But before that could happen, they needed to neutralize the threat inside the house.

Hailing Sloane over his radio, Harvath said, “Hit them with the gas!”

Seconds later, the first tear gas canister sailed out of the launcher, crashed through one of the windows, and began aerosolizing inside.

Quickly, Sloane worked her way through the trees and pumped three more rounds into different parts of the house.

Harvath had made the rules of engagement crystal clear. Whoever stepped outside holding a weapon was a legitimate target.

With tear gas filling the structure, Harvath secured Gashi with Flex-Cuffs and then searched for the medical bag in the patrol car.

Finding it, he returned to Nyström.

The Chief Inspector was leaning against the left front tire, trying to use the engine block as cover. Laying the bag on the ground next to him, Harvath tore it open and removed what he needed to tend to the injured man.

Around them, gunfire crackled as his team returned fire and put rounds on the beach house. Windows shattered and shards of glass went flying as pieces of wood splintered in all directions.

Using a pair of shears to cut away the clothing, Harvath examined Nyström’s wound. He was bleeding badly, but the wound wasn’t spurting. Applying a tourniquet could mean the loss of his arm.

He ripped open packages of bandages and used an Israeli battle dressing to stanch the bleeding. It was all he could do for the moment.

Taking the cop’s empty sidearm, he ejected the spent magazine, flicked it aside, and inserted a new one. “You’re topped up,” he said as he depressed the slide release and handed the weapon back to the Chief Inspector.

Popping up over the hood, Harvath focused on the front door. When two Spetsnaz operatives emerged, choking on tear gas, but with weapons still in their hands, he and his team let their rounds fly. Both men dropped dead right there on the doorstep.

From the rear of the house came the sound of more gunfire. Harvath knew that meant additional Spetsnaz operatives were likely trying to escape via the back door.

Three more Russian soldiers appeared at the front door, stumbling over the bodies of their dead comrades, but with their hands held high.

Unlike his lousy Swedish, Harvath actually spoke some passable Russian, and he yelled out a series of commands, which the remaining men obeyed. He warned them to stay facedown on the ground, and said that if they did not, they would be shot.

With the three Spetsnaz lying in the dirt, plus the two dead at the door, that made five. He radioed Sloane, who told him that they’d killed three more who had come running out the back with their guns blazing. That brought the total to eight — the same number of men that had been seen running at the Sparrman farm.

Harvath glanced down at Nyström. He was bleeding through the thick bandages. They couldn’t wait any longer. Harvath had to get him to a hospital.

Though it had taken multiple rounds, the police vehicle was still functional. Haney helped load the Chief Inspector into the passenger seat.

He left the medical kit so that Staelin could tend to Gashi. And, after a brief rundown of what he wanted everyone to do, Harvath lit up the light bar and raced for the hospital in Visby.

In a police car, in the early Sunday morning hours before dawn, with no one on the roads and no fear of being pulled over, Harvath should have been able to make the half-hour trip to Visby in fifteen minutes. The fog, though, had gotten worse, and he was forced to drive more slowly than he would have liked.

On the flip side, it might have been for the best, as the fog provided them with a modicum of concealment. A bullet-ridden police car, driven by an officer no one on the island recognized, would have raised a lot of alarms. As absolutely messed up as everything had been, they still had managed to keep most of the operation “quiet.”

Harvath kept Nyström engaged by talking to him and asking lots of questions. They made it to the hospital in just over twenty minutes, which meant that — for the conditions — Harvath had still been driving way too fast.

Skidding up to the Emergency Room entrance, Harvath saw the redheaded nurse at the desk inside and waved for her to come out and help.

Exiting the vehicle, he came around to the side and opened the passenger door for Nyström.

“We made it,” said Harvath. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Thank you,” the Chief Inspector replied. His voice was weak, his eyes a little glassy.

As the nurse came running out, pushing a wheelchair, she already had two doctors in tow behind her.

“Knife wound. Left arm and left side of the torso,” Harvath said to them. “He has lost a lot of blood.”

They positioned the wheelchair next to the vehicle, carefully lifted the policeman out, and transitioned him over.

The nurse recognized Harvath from earlier, but Nyström hadn’t bothered introducing him. Now he was back, wearing a Swedish police uniform, and speaking in American-accented English, not Swedish. She didn’t really know what to make of it.

“He’s a good man,” said Harvath, interrupting her thoughts. “Take care of him.”

As the doctors rushed the Chief Inspector inside, she nodded and then turned to follow them.

At the doorway, she turned back around, but the American had already gotten back into the patrol vehicle and had disappeared into the mist.