Moments later Adams, Lampedusa, Bos'n's mate Ted Yates, and Quinley ran into the room and found cover.
Quinley had a shortened pistol-grip shotgun with no stock or much of a barrel, and five rounds of double-aught buck.
"Quinley," Lincoln said. "You and me up the stairs. Side by side. You've got the left. Blast at anything that moves."
Quinley pulled down his night-vision goggles, and the two ran for the stairs and up them.
Quinley fired one round upward as they hit the bottom step. When they got to the top they dove to the floor and surveyed the scene. Just in front of them lay a green-clad Kenyan ranger with his head half blown off his shoulders. His AK47 lay just beyond his stiffening fingers.
Ahead they saw a long hall with lots of doors opening off it. "Shit," Lincoln said. "We got to clear every fucking one of those rooms." He touched his mike. "Bring up the troops," he said. The other four SEALs ran up the steps and went flat on the floor at the top.
"Rooms to clear," Lincoln said. "Two men to each room, just like in training. We do three rooms at the same time. Move out."
The first three rooms contained no enemy troops. The next three had two men in one who didn't get off a round before they had half-a-dozen 9mm slugs in their vital organs.
Fernandez looked at the last two rooms. The doors were farther apart. So far they had found only sleeping quarters for two to three persons.
Fernandez motioned to Quinley, and they took the far door. Lincoln and Adams had the near one. The other two pointed outward as security.
On signal they kicked in the doors and charged inside.
Fernandez saw it was a three-room suite. Maybe the ambassador's. The main room was clear. They swung open another door and found a bathroom. Adjoining it was the master bedroom. Once inside the bedroom, Fernandez swore. One woman lay dead on the big bed. She was naked, and her breasts had been sliced off. The other woman, a redhead, lay on the floor, naked as well, with several big-caliber slugs in her body.
"Gonna be hell to pay," Quinley said.
Fernandez nodded. "Hope to hell I get to do the collecting."
Lieutenant Ed DeWitt ran into the room, and shook his head. "The bastards."
He went out to the hall. At the end of it there was another corridor at right angles. There were only six doors on this side. Before they got into the line of fire from down the hall, DeWitt sent a three-round burst down it.
Two weapons answered him.
"One came from the second room on the right," Quinley said. He had been flat on the floor peering around the wall. "The other one was farther down.
"They don't have NVGs," Quinley added. "If they did they would have seen me."
"How in hell do we get down there and not get ourselves shot to hell?" Fernandez asked.
"I'll go," Quinley said. "Hey, I'm the smallest one here. I'll take fraggers and crawl down there along the wall. You guys give me some cover fire three feet high. I get to the second door. Must be open or they couldn't fire out of it. I cook a grenade for two seconds, then throw it in, and two seconds later, whammo."
"Could work," DeWitt said. He touched his mike. "Front side, we've got a holdup here on the second floor. We're working it out."
"Need any help?" Murdock asked.
"Negative, front side. Hang on."
They fired from the wall opposite the one that Quinley crawled along. Bursts of three rounds, then single shots, never in any pattern. Some shots went to the third and fourth doors too.
Quinley had almost gotten there when a rifle poked out the second door and slammed off six rounds well over his head. Most dug into the walls. Nobody got hurt. Quinley surged ahead before the door could be closed, and let the arming handle pop off a grenade, held it two seconds, then threw it into the second room.
The explosion came almost at once. Quinley jolted forward, came to his feet, and surged into the room with his MP-5 chattering. A few seconds later, he waved out the door with a thumbs-up. Three SEALs used assault fire and stormed down the hallway to the second door and rushed inside.
Lincoln led them. Now he checked the hall. They weren't sure which door the second sniper had used. DeWitt had cleared the first room, and Yates and Lampedusa cleared the third room. They had three ahead of them.
"It was either the fourth or fifth door," Quinley said. "Sure as hell wasn't the last one. All that's left is four and five."
"One man on each side of the hall," Lincoln said. "Same procedure. I'm on one side, Willy Bishop on the other. Same thing Quinley did. Give us some cover."
Two more SEALs ran into room two, and were ready for support fire. Lincoln nodded and dove to the far wall, and Lincoln took the near one. The SEALs laid down the covering fire. One weapon poked out of door four, but jerked back in when the fire concentrated there.
Lincoln had that side. By the time he got there the door was closed tightly. He fired three rounds into the locking area, kicked the door open, and sprayed the inside of the room with 9mm whizzers.
Return fire blasted through the door. Lincoln had fired from low and to one side. He tossed in a fragger grenade, and when it went off, he was up and charged inside. No shots came from the room.
DeWitt and the others cleared the last two rooms, and they relaxed. "Second floor clear," DeWitt said into his mike. "Nobody exited the joint," Murdock said. "Good work. You moving downstairs for the first floor?"
"Roger that."
The Second Squad went down the far steps quietly and with caution. They cleared three doors and found no one home. They went through the kitchen, the infirmary, a library, and six more offices. There were no more Kenyan rangers in the compound.
"Clear all," DeWitt said. "Where the hell are the hostages?"
"We found a door with stairs leading down," Willy Bishop said.
"Let's do it," DeWitt said.
The stairs were clear. In the basement they saw two small rooms had doors standing open. Big locked double doors led to what must be a larger room just beyond the smaller ones.
DeWitt tapped on the steel door with the butt of his MP-5. He waited. Three taps came back. DeWitt tapped again, three quick raps, then three slow ones, then three fast ones. Dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot. SOS in Morse code. They heard a cheer from inside. More noises came as the doors were evidently being freed so they could be opened. One door swung open slowly, and a lone man stood there with a bandaged left arm.
"Lieutenant (j.g.) DeWitt at your service, Mr. Ambassador."
First Secretary Frank Underhill let the tears roll down his cheeks. "Thank God," he whispered, then pulled both doors open wide. "Thank God for the United States military forces."
"Hostages freed," DeWitt said in his mike. "Call in the choppers, Murdock. Time's a-wasting."
The SEALs had never received a warmer welcome. Every one of the hostages hugged the SEALS, and the women kissed them on the cheeks and didn't want to let go of them.
"The two women Colonel Maleceia took away?" Underhill asked. DeWitt took him aside and told him what they had found.
"The redheaded woman was our CIA agent. I'm sure she put up a fight. She'd know the time to pick. Damned shame. Both fine women, both of them." He paused a moment. "We're taking out our dead, of course."
DeWitt shook his head. "Sorry, but we don't have the capacity on our aircraft. We'll be back soon to claim them. We won't leave them here for long. You have the U.S. Navy's word on that."
The wounded were led up first. DeWitt picked out twenty people, including the wounded and the distraught, and kept them inside on the first floor until the big Seahawk chopper landed and the dust cloud blew away.
The SEALS spread out as security around the landed Seahawk as the civilians ran to it and climbed on board. Underhill declined to go on the first bird.