“Oh…”
“But I thought she sounded and looked good,” the deputy from the White House NSC offered.
“Me, too,” said the FBI hostage expert.
“What happens now?” Senator Clark asked.
The FBI expert glanced at the ticking Tiffany clock on the corner of his desk, which showed twelve minutes before the deadline. “Well, right about now the commandos from the Mexican GAFE have moved into position and are surrounding the site,” he said in a confident voice. “We should hear something in a matter of minutes. These men are highly trained in hostage rescue. There’s no reason to believe they won’t achieve positive results.”
“I hope so,” Senator Clark said, turning and glancing at the framed photos of his wife and daughter on the wooden credenza behind his desk. “The president is confident?”
“Yes, he is, sir,” the NSC deputy answered.
Senator Clark stood, bowed his head, and extended his arm. “Eleven minutes. Please join hands with me in prayer.”
Crocker, Akil, and Suárez knelt behind thick foliage at the corner of the fence, sweat beading on their faces, even though it was almost midnight, as the Coatan River gurgled in the background. Mancini returned to report that he had disabled the security cameras along the top of the chain-link fence.
“All of them?” Crocker whispered.
“The three that run along this side.”
“Good.”
But they had other problems, which Crocker pointed to past the aluminum fence ahead. Up a graded embankment and approximately fifty yards away stood three armed men near the back of the house. One of them held two pit bulls on a leash.
The SEALs had no sniper rifle in their possession. So taking the men and dogs out without alerting the guards inside the house was nearly impossible. Suppressed weapons aren’t completely silent, and even though some of the MP7s featured high-end scopes, none of them had been calibrated, and there was no time to do that now.
“You guys wait here, and I’ll go around from the side and surprise them,” Akil offered.
“No time,” Crocker answered, glancing at his watch. They had eight minutes until the deadline.
“What, then?”
“Hand me the shotgun, some breaching rounds, a couple gas masks, and three CS gas grenades,” Crocker whispered. The shotgun was an M870 single-fire twelve-gauge with a ten-inch barrel.
“We have no gas masks,” said Mancini.
“Then nix the masks.”
“What you gonna do?” Akil asked.
“Secure the hostages.”
“How?”
“Rush the side door, blow the fucker open if I have to, enter the house.”
“Boss-”
“The second you hear me, take out the three guards and the dogs and clear your way to the front gate. Then enter the house. I’ll be on the second deck.”
Mancini nodded. “We’ve got your back.”
Crocker checked his watch again. “Six minutes.” Then to Suárez: “Bring a bolt cutter and come with me.”
Thirty seconds later, they reached a point along the fence parallel to the side door. It took another thirty seconds for Suárez to snip through the aluminum threads and pull them back enough for Crocker to crawl through. The pit bulls started to bark.
Crocker gave Suárez a thumbs-up, then gestured for him to wait at the fence.
Suárez nodded and mouthed the words Good luck.
Crocker dashed in a crouch to the portico and climbed three wooden steps to the side door, only to find it bolted shut. He slammed an M1030 breaching cartridge into the M870, aimed it at the lock, turned his head away, and fired.
Under ideal circumstances he would have been wearing eye protection. But he did the best he could, squinting through the smoke and falling debris and seeing that the wooden door had sprung open. He entered, quickly scanned the large rooms from the hallway, then headed for the stairway.
The three remaining members of Black Cell waited behind the fence with their weapons at ready. As soon as the shotgun blast went off, the three heavily armed Mexican guards came running toward them, just as they had anticipated. One was shouting into a radio; another held the two pit bulls on a chain.
When the Mexicans approached within twenty yards of the fence, the SEALs opened fire with MP7s and cut them down in a mangle of screams, blood, falling limbs, and smoke. Akil was on his belly halfway through the fence when he saw that one of the pit bulls had pulled free and was charging at him full speed. He reached for his weapon but couldn’t maneuver it through the fence because the right shoulder strap of his LBT low-profile vest had gotten stuck on the end of one of the aluminum threads. “I need help here!” he exclaimed, grabbing the handle of his SOG knife with his left.
Neither of the other two SEALs was in a position to assist him-Mancini was in the process of crawling under the fence on the other side of a rosemary bush and therefore had no clear line of fire. Still, he squeezed off a couple of rounds that skittered along the ground and missed the charging dog. Suárez was already in the yard and out of sight, as he had entered at the same spot as Crocker.
So all Akil could do was focus intently on the massive mouth of the dog, which charged within six feet of him and lunged, eyes fierce and full of fury, sharp incisors bared.
At the last second Akil pulled his head back through the hole in the fence, so that the dog slammed into it with a horrific growl. Akil felt teeth graze the flesh near his shoulder. The beast was trying to bite through the aluminum and get at his neck.
Akil pushed his left hand through the opening and sank the blade of the SOG knife into the dog’s neck. Hot blood spilled over his hand and down his arm as the dog’s eyes shifted from surprise, to anger, to recognition that he was dying in a matter of seconds.
“Sorry, mutt,” Akil moaned.
The dog exhaled its last breath, trembled, and went still.
Counting the seconds until the deadline in his head, Crocker hurried toward the stairway, weapons at ready. He glimpsed an olive-green pickup and armed men through the tall windows and white smoke, pulled the pins on two of the CS gas grenades, threw them toward the front door, then started to climb. Boom…boom! The house shook.
Ninety seconds.
He took the wooden steps two at a time, his heart thumping like a piston, the odorless smoke already finding its way into his eyes. Someone was moving above, and he heard shooting outside along the side of the house where the SEALs had entered.
Sixty.
All his senses on high alert and both the shotgun and MP7 off-safety, straight finger, he reached the landing and was confronted with a choice. A horseshoe balcony ran along the stairway opening on the second deck with two doors on either side and three more doors behind him, facing the front of the house.
Hearing something in the room to his left, he crossed and kicked the door open. Someone was leaning out the window. In a split second he ID’d that person as a male and released a salvo from the MP7 that ripped a T in him-eyes, to nose, to sternum. The man crumpled and turned, trying to hold in the white-and-purple putrid-smelling organs that were spilling out of his stomach. The room contained a desk covered with medical equipment (stethoscope, sutures, syringes, scissors, glass vials), a scale, an unmade bed, and a can of Coke.
No hostages!
Crocker took a deep breath and backed out, crossed to the other back bedroom, and stopped. The door was locked. Ten seconds! exclaimed a voice in his head. From the front of the house, he heard men shouting in Spanish, a vehicle starting, and weapons discharging.
Crocker reared his right foot to kick the door open, but something told him not to. So he loaded another M1030 cartridge into the 870 and fired at the lock. A second after the door sprang, the entire wall in front of him exploded, lifting him off his feet and throwing him against the wooden rail. He held on to keep from falling over. Shards of wood and metal embedded themselves in his face, neck, arms, and chest. His head wobbling, he struggled not to lose consciousness.