Just after midnight, we arrived behind Adar’s compound, in the exact spot we’d picked out from the aerial photos. I began to unfold the ladder, locking it into its extended position. I leaned it up against the ten-foot wall. Tailor and I froze when we heard someone loudly talking in Arabic on the other side of the wall. Tailor mouthed the word shit. I whispered that I’d go check it out and began to climb the ladder as quietly as I could.
Reaching the top of the wall, I laid eyes on Adar’s compound for the first time. The house was large, square, and made of white stone. A lush garden of palm trees and ferns sat in the middle. There was also a fountain, loudly splashing water into an artificial pond. I was grateful for this as the noise of the water could cover our footsteps.
Below me was the shed, and directly below me, leaning against the wall I’d just climbed, was an Arab man wearing a suit. He was smoking a cigarette and talking to somebody on his cell phone. Shit.
I turned around and looked down at Tailor. I held up one finger, telling him that there was one guy. I pointed down, indicating his location. I held my hand to my head, mimicking a phone, to tell Tailor what he was doing. Tailor nodded and dragged his finger across his throat. I nodded back.
Turning around again, I shuffled forward onto the top of the wall, as slowly as I could, so as not to make noise. The man was oblivious to my presence. His lit cigarette was as bright as a flashlight through my goggles, and it illuminated him clearly.
I brought my weapon around, being very careful not to let it touch the top of the concrete wall. I waited. I didn’t want to interrupt the call, just in case he was talking to somebody who might tip these guys off.
After a moment, he snapped the phone closed. I was ready. Leaning a little bit farther forward, I aimed for the top-rear portion of my target’s head, just as he began to walk back to the house. The suppressed submachine gun clicked and hissed as I fired a two-round burst, and the man collapsed to the ground, blood pouring out of the back of his perforated skull. The strange submachine gun had surprisingly little recoil.
I gave Tailor the thumbs-up and took one last look around the compound. There were bright lights on the front of the house but none on the rear. Seeing no movement, I climbed over the wall and dropped ten feet to the ground below. I landed hard in the dirt between the shed and the wall, and my ankle stung a little. I ignored it, ran forward, and grabbed the dead man’s feet. As Tailor cleared the top of the wall, I dragged my victim into the darkness behind the shed.
Above me, Tailor carefully maintained his balance while he pulled the ladder up over the wall. He handed it down to me. I held it as he quickly climbed down. Once he was on the ground, he covered the courtyard with his weapon as I laid the ladder down in the dirt behind the shed.
“Control, Nightcrawler, we’re inside the compound. Proceeding to the house.”
“Roger that, Nightcrawler,” Sarah replied, her voice still shrouded in static. “Is that you behind the shed?”
“Uh, affirmative,” I said.
“Understood. I see three heat signatures.”
“One of the tangos,” Tailor said. “He’s down.”
“Copy that,” Sarah replied. “We just got the UAV in place. We’ll be providing overwatch.”
“Roger that. Out.” I was happy for the cover of the aerial drone, of course, but I wondered why in the hell they didn’t have it there from the get-go.
“Nice work,” Tailor said, indicating the dead man. “You see the back door?”
“Yes,” I said, peering around the shed. The house was only about fifty feet from our position, but we’d have to bolt across the courtyard and hope we weren’t seen.
“I’ll cover you.”
“Roger,” I said, as Tailor positioned himself to cover the courtyard with his weapon. He gave me the high sign when he was ready. “Moving!” I said, and ran toward the house as quickly and as quietly as I could. I was across the courtyard a moment later. I took a knee, and leaned around the corner of the building, covering the courtyard for Tailor. He then ran from the shed to my position, and crouched down next to me.
Together we moved to the back door of Adar’s safe house. It was locked.
“Can you pick it?” I asked.
“Probably,” Tailor replied, lifting his night-vision goggles up onto his head. I covered him as he pulled out some bump keys and began to work on the door. It wasn’t the best lock ever designed, and thankfully the door wasn’t dead-bolted. It was open in a few seconds.
I turned off my NVGs and lifted them off my face. Giving my eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, I nodded to Tailor. We readied our weapons, and Tailor quietly opened the door. It led into a large kitchen, but no one could be seen, and the lights were off. Tailor and I crept inside, silently closing the door behind us.
Music could be heard from the next room. It sounded like a radio or a television, and we could hear men talking in Arabic. We moved through the kitchen, and I risked a peek around the corner into the other room.
It was a living room. Against the far wall was a huge television. Four more men sat around it watching a porno flick. Cheesy music, grunting, and moaning resonated though the house. I looked back at Tailor and told him what was happening through hand signals. Three men were sitting on a couch, facing the television. Their backs were toward us. The fourth sat in a chair off to the side. He’d be able to see us if he looked away from the TV.
Through hand signals, Tailor told me what he wanted to do. Tailor crawled up right next to me, very slowly so as not to make noise, and stood up. We simultaneously leaned around the corner, bringing our weapons to bear. A short burst from Tailor’s Vector tore into the head of the man sitting in the chair. Tailor’s target slumped forward, his blood pouring down his neck.
At the same time, I put the reticule of my holographic sight on the back of the couch and held down the trigger. The .45 rounds ripped through the couch in puffs of fabric and stuffing. I swept from right to left, stitching bullets across them. The men gasped as bullets tore into them, but they were quickly silenced. Tailor switched targets and emptied the rest of his magazine into the three men as well.
It was over in seconds. They never knew what hit them. We both quickly changed magazines and moved into the living room, doing our best to cover all angles. The men on the couch had been thoroughly ventilated. A few stray rounds had gone into the far wall, but the television was still blaring pornography at an unpleasantly high volume. A cloud of smoke hung in the room, and the air smelled like burnt powder.
This is too easy, I thought, but I wasn’t about to get complacent. Complacency is what had gotten these assholes killed. We still hadn’t found Adar, and we knew from the surveillance that three more individuals were in the house.
“Control, Xbox,” Tailor whispered. “Main floor clear. Four more tangos down. Sweeping the building now.” I could barely hear Sarah’s voice. She was drowned in static. Tailor tried again, but he got the same result. Something in the area was interfering with our transmissions.
Tailor pointed up. He proceeded to an ornate staircase, weapon shouldered and at the ready. I followed, constantly swiveling my head around to make sure no one was coming up behind. The top of the stairs revealed a wide hallway, with a few doors on either side. Strange music resonated through the upper level, and it included people chanting in some language that wasn’t Arabic. At the end of the hall was a closed door that probably led to the master bedroom.