USTAD: Copy that. Our lead.
Ustad looked to each of his rangers-his nickname for them-and silently made contact. Each of his boys nodded in return. They knew the drill. They had heard the words “our lead,” and understood it was time. Training had its rewards. Devon Long’s eyes were dead, void of the fear his squad leader wanted to see there. If a person didn’t find some form of terror in the prospect of ramming down a door and charging into a darkened house filled with bad guys, then Ustad didn’t want him along. Ustad told him softly, “Long, you’re doorman here.”
The rest of the squad glanced at the man, knowing it meant he was being left behind, and obviously curious as to why. Long, for all his personal problems, was one of Ustad’s two or three natural leaders.
“Yes, sir, Squad Leader,” Long returned in a hushed voice in true spirit and form, although Ustad saw something else entirely in his eyes, something he didn’t like.
Ustad told his team, “We go on three. I want this done smart. We’ve got a lot of firepower out there so watch what the hell you’re doing, verify targets and don’t shoot any yellow letters. We’ve got four birds in the roost,” he said, lifting his right hand and holding up four fingers. “Four!” he repeated. “Give it back.”
“FOUR in the roost, sir, Squad Leader!” the squad whispered in unison.
“On the count of?”
“THREE, sir, Squad Leader!”
“Radio check,” he demanded.
Each of his men counted down into their headsets.
“Ram up,” he ordered.
Four of the men took hold of the heavy device termed “the big dick” by his squad. It was a steel battering ram with rubber-padded handles on the side and a wedgelike tip carrying four one-foot stripes of luminescent paint that sharpened to its point like an arrow. It was scuffed and scarred from its many operations, both practice and real-life. The four men on the handles had the weight and size to deliver the big dick with the force of a small truck. Ustad’s squad was anything but dainty.
Officer Devon Long moved past Ustad to the back of the trailer to take care of the trailer’s large door.
Ustad turned around, away from his other men, and switched off his mike at his belt. “You okay, son?” he asked Long.
“Roger that, sir,” the boy answered in a hushed voice.
“Stay alert,” Ustad ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
Ustad switched on his radio and contacted operations. Blood pulsed loudly in his ears as his remaining men came up off the steel bench behind him. He counted down in rehearsed rhythm, “One … two … three …”
Long threw the two halves of the trailer’s reinforced doors open and the squad disembarked as silently as a snake. Ustad took the lead, followed by the big dick and then the remaining two rangers. Ustad turned sharply left, having memorized the route: straight down the driveway into an overgrown backyard, up the steps and right through that door. No turns, no tricks. Surveillance reported his squad’s actions, the only other sound the uniform rhythmic crunching of gravel beneath his team’s feet. Halfway there and closing, he lifted the shotgun he carried, silently reminding himself he had five rounds to use before abandoning it for his side-arm. He mentally rehearsed his every footstep as he gained on the house ahead of him. Seconds to go.
He knew that the Trojan Horse and the snipers were prepared to provide cover, to defend them if needed. One of his rangers would let ERT in through the front door, Narcotics to follow his own ERT unit. He brushed his thumb against the protective vest just to assure himself he had remembered to wear it. Drug labs were the absolute worst. If the small weapons fire didn’t take you out, the fire would.
He bounded silently to the platform of the back porch, his crew coming to a halt below. He hand-signaled their surveillance technician forward. The man snaked a thin tube of fiber-optic wire beneath the crack in the door, viewed a small monitor strapped to his chest, withdrew the wire and pronounced a thumbs-up to his squad leader.
Ustad signaled the two trailing rangers to break formation. Armed with a bolt cutter, they would attempt an incursion through the locked storm cellar on the building’s south side, but only in the event of weapons fire.
So far, so good. The back of the house was empty. The intelligence was proving sound. The lab was believed to be in the basement.
From that moment out, Ustad feared a shooting gallery. The key element missing was the floor plan. They had no idea of it, other than a generalized opinion that similar structures of a similar era accessed the basement from a door in or near the kitchen. That was the door they’d be looking for.
Ustad waved the big dick up the stairs. Leaving the device to two men, the two others readied their weapons. He held his five fingers out straight and folded them in, thumb first, one by one until his hand became a fist. As he began his count, the ram swung back once, forward once, back again and then blew the door, frame, hinges and all, right to the kitchen floor. The team flooded into the kitchen. Within seconds, Officer Randy Deschutes signaled that he had found the basement door.
The big dick rocked once, twice and smashed into the door.
It held, reinforced.
Back it came, the glowing arrow on its nose aimed for the doorknob. Again the huge ram lunged into the door. Splinters of wood flew through the air, but again the door held. Ustad cursed in Arabic. Sitting ducks-the worst of situations.
On the third attempt, the doorjamb dislodged. The next two collisions drove the door down the basement stairs in a cacophony of destruction. Ustad heard the all too familiar hand clap of small weapons fire, and saw a member of his team spin and fall to the floor. The man rolled over, wincing in agony, but not bleeding; the vest had saved his life; he had four broken ribs.
Ustad shouted, “Police!” stuck the barrel of the shotgun down the dark hole and fired off two rounds. Three to go.
Weapons firing. Voices shouting.
The sound of banging metal told Ustad the storm cellar had been breached as well. They had them from two perimeter positions. The Bad Guys were pinned.
“Drop the weapons!” echoed from below.
More gunfire, short and percussive.
Ustad heard a sliding sound directly overhead followed by the distinct snap of a marksman’s rifle. He turned in time to see a body tumble off the roof into the backyard. The cookers had placed a lookout on the top floor. Watching the street instead of the backyard, he had missed the approach of the ERT unit and was hellbent on escape. Coming to his feet, he spun and let loose automatic weapons fire. Ustad was clipped in the shoulder by a bullet. Charged with adrenaline, he barely felt it. Instead, he hoisted his shotgun, got off a round and watched the fleeing man stagger with the hit. The escapee limped away following the same route Ustad and his squad had used.
Ustad depressed his radio-com button and shouted, “Devon, armed bird coming right at you!” Lightheaded, he sank to his knees, his full attention fixed on the shooter limping at a run toward the Allied moving van.
The back door of the trailer swung open and Devon Long jumped out, weapon in hand. Ustad saw him open his mouth to shout a warning but did not hear him over the surrounding chaos.
The escapee came to an abrupt stop and raised his weapon at Long.
Ustad mumbled, “No! No!”
Long elevated the barrel of his assault rifle but immediately identified that his weapon was trained in the direction of his own people. He could not fire at the escaping shooter without risk to his colleagues. Overeager, he had jumped from the trailer too soon.
Long dove to the dirt and rolled for a safer angle as the sniper unloaded his weapon wildly. A volley of muzzle flashes followed. The sniper spun and fell to the dirt. Long, favoring his right side and obviously hit, was over the man in an instant, kicking the weapon away and one good boot toe into the man’s ribs.