There were five people inside the house. From experience in hitting torture houses in Iraq and Afghanistan, three or four terrorists and one or more prisoners sounded like the normal ratio. The prisoners were usually kept in a locked, boarded up room, a basement or cellar, if there was one, or even in a cage like an animal. The terrorists would be spread out, to have all entrances covered and have a good lookout.
The team would try to take as many of the house’s occupants alive, if possible, which should not be difficult if they caught them completely off-guard and roused them out of their sleep. The terrorists would likely have weapons readily available, within reach, but they would also feel confident that they were safe here and wouldn’t expect a rescue team to make entry. If Cramer wasn’t inside, then killing all the terrorists would only bring them to a dead end. They needed at least one alive to question.
If anyone posed a threat, either to a member of the team or Cramer, then Avery and his crew would put them down with two, three rounds through the head, no questions asked. If they were IMU, then Avery expected them to put up a fierce fight. Like Avery, Poacher and Flounder had gone up against IMU forces before. The Uzbeks were some of the most vicious and disciplined fighters the US and its allies encountered in Afghanistan, second only to the Chechens. Cornering them and engaging them within close quarters could turn nasty. That’s why they’d need to utilize to full effect what Flounder’s shipmates from Dev Group called “speed, surprise, and violence of action.” They would move in fast, hit hard, secure the advantage, and the IMU cell wouldn’t know what hit them until it was over. That is, if any of them were still breathing.
Avery, Poacher, and Flounder by now had memorized the floor plan of the house. Each man could practically close his eyes and visualize the entire layout, complete with dimensions and distances. On pencil and paper, they’d spent the afternoon preparing and perfecting plans for entry and takedown. The only factor they couldn’t take into account was any potential traps or hazards inside the house, so they would need to be cautious, alert, and ready for anything.
Going into the front door, which outwardly faced east, there was a small entryway space. Turning left, or south, this led directly into the largest room in the structure, probably what served as a living room in Tajik houses. Opposite the front door, on the north side of the house, there was a wide, almost square-shaped hallway leading into four rooms, two on either side. The two larger ones were the presumed bedrooms. The other two were smaller, the size of Western closets. From the pipes running into these rooms from the outside it was surmised these were the bathroom (houses here didn’t have toilets; they had a hole in a cement floor) and shower room. The west end of the hallway led into the kitchen and eating areas. Combined, these occupied roughly a third of the entire floor space. Finally, at the far west end of the house was a back porch area with boarded up windows and the back door. There was no basement or cellar, which would be the ideal place to hold a captive, so Avery surmised that Cramer, if present, would be held in one of the two bedrooms. There were no windows to these rooms, making it an easily secured space to hold a prisoner.
They waited until 2:00AM and geared up. All light sources were again out in the nearby houses by this time. Also, at this hour, the human body’s senses and reflexes are naturally operating at their lowest levels of alertness and are least effective. It was the ideal time to execute a raid like this one. Even if someone was awake and on guard duty, his body would not be operating at full efficiency, his senses dulled and weary.
Avery dressed in 5.11 tactical pants and wore a lightweight, black ModGear vest, with light armor plates, over a navy blue t-shirt. He secured his Glock in the vest’s fast draw holster over his left side and carried three spare magazines for the handgun. He threaded the Atlas Universal Typhoon silencer/suppressor onto the end of the M4’s barrel and inserted two spare magazines of M193 Ball ammunition into his vest’s pouches. He fastened the M4 to his sling mount, securing the carbine over the front of his body. Poacher also gave him two M84 flashbang grenades, which he secured to the D-ring clips on his vest, and he seated his Cold Steel Tanto knife into the sheath on the vest’s belt.
Poacher and Flounder were similarly dressed. They tucked their pants into their Adidas GSG-9 boots. Poacher wore military standard issue digital camouflage and Flounder black cargo pants. Poacher wore a gray, cable knit sweatshirt, Flounder a desert camou t-shirt, beneath their vests. Poacher also wore knee and elbow protectors. Unlike Avery, the two SAD officers carried silenced, compact Heckler & Koch MP5SD submachine guns with 9mm subsonic hollow point ammunition.
The MP5 is specially made for close quarters combat and one of the favorite weapons of SEALs, Delta operators, and SWAT shooters. Although larger and heavier, Avery still preferred the M4 and, going back to his Ranger days, had the most time on that weapon.
For side arms, the two CIA operators were equipped with Mk 23 .45 ACP SOCOM pistols, specially made by Heckler & Koch for US Special Operations Command. Although phased out of service in 2010, many special operators still favored the Mk 23.
Avery and Poacher also wore black balaclava masks over their faces, leaving only their eyes visible, while Flounder preferred black grease paint and a black watch cap. They also wore Hatch ultra-thin Nomex/Kevlar gloves with removable index fingers for trigger pulling. They were equipped with AN/PVS-21 low profile night vision devices. For communications, they were wired with encrypted Motorola CP185 easy-access tactical throat microphones.
Before leaving the observation post, they checked their gear and comms, making sure everyone’s earpieces and mikes were transmitting.
Then Avery made another pass around the house, with the Radar Scope. He pin pointed the locations of each of the house’s five occupants — two in the front living room, one in a smaller room on the right side of the house, and two in the back room. He took his time, checking to see if there was any activity inside the house. The motion detector indicated that except for one man in the back of the house, perhaps getting something to eat, the other four occupants were stationary, so Avery surmised the others were asleep.
Poacher covered Avery while Flounder drove the van, with the lights off, around the block, pulled over near the target house, and put the van in park. He left the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked. The van needed to be easily accessible to make a fast getaway. They stashed all of their additional gear in the van and made sure that they’d be leaving nothing behind in the observation post.
By 3:45AM, they were ready to go and took up pre-assigned positions around the house. Avery would breach the front door, while Poacher and Flounder simultaneously made entry through the rear.
Flounder, the team’s demolitions expert, had applied a line of detcord — thin plastic tubing packed with a PETN high explosive core — down the side of each door near the hinges. Flounder carried the detonator and would simultaneously blow both doors.
The doors were massive, heavy and thick. They had no way of knowing if the doors were reinforced on the other side, and they weren’t equipped with breach grenades or specialized rifle grenades, so the quickest way through was to blow out both doors. Then they would enter the house simultaneously from both ends and sweep it clear.
The only problem was that this temporarily left Avery in the open, exposed. He waited in a crouch in front of the Uzbeks’ pickup truck, approximately seven feet from and to the side of the front door. He cradled the M4 in front of him, finger indexed over the trigger guard.