If they'd been able to carry out a heloborn assault, or if they'd had time to place a sniper on the mountain above the level of the keep and with a clear field of fire onto the roof enclosure, Murdock would almost certainly have decided to have Gold take the roof first and work down. As it was, however, there was a convenient compromise available. Murdock's squad, after knocking loudly at the front gate, would force the front door to the keep and get two men into the basement to check out the rooms down there. The six men of Gold Squad, meanwhile, would take the tower from the middle, going in by way of that wooden door set into the east side of the keep.
All of Gold Squad was on the parapet walk now, Kos and Stepano breaking left and right to cover the flanks, Holt and Frazier aiming their weapons almost straight up, ready to target any curious head that showed itself from the roof. Rattler Fernandez had his CAW unlimbered. As the other members of the squad took up positions against the stonework to the left and right of the door, Fernandez leveled the assault shotgun at the door and opened fire.
There was no way to silence a shotgun. On full auto, the big weapon bellowed a deep-throated slam-slam-slam that echoed back from the cliffs behind them. Rattler had loaded his first mag with slugs rather than shot. The door, an inch-thick, solid wood instead of hollow-core, bucked and cratered under the impacts of the first three one-ounce slugs, then cracked open in a whirlwind of lead and flying splinters. Fernandez shifted his aim and sent two more rounds, a light tap on the trigger for each, slamming into the door's hinges. The ruined door crashed back into the corridor beyond, as Fernandez went full auto, emptying the last of his magazine in a sweep designed to take down any unwanted ambushers guarding the door from the inside.
"Avon calling!" Kos yelled, and he tossed in a concussion grenade as the SEALs pressed back against the wall; the blast rang through the tower like the tolling of a huge bell. Frazier hurled a flash-bang, and as the last detonation died, Holt went through the door, his big M-60 leveled from his hip.
"Passageway clear!" Holt shouted. The other SEALs rushed in, leapfrogging down a darkened corridor that was littered with wood splinters and blast-loosened stones and — yes — two shredded bodies.
"Alex One, Alex Two! We're in! Two tangos down!"
"Copy, Two. We're at the front door!"
Holt's machine gun thundered in the passageway ahead, an ear-splitting blast of hellfury announcing quite definitely that the SEALs had just come calling.
"One, this is Three!" Roselli's voice said in Murdock's ear. "We're coming in the front gate!"
"That's right," Sterling's voice added. "None of this 'friendly fire' shit."
"Come on through," Murdock replied. "Rally at the tower's front door!"
Murdock, crouched next to the main door in the tower, turned to face the front gate. A moment later, Roselli and Sterling trotted through the arch, emerging from the battle fog that wreathed the bailey — like specters, their gear-heavy vests and the NVDs worn beneath their helmets transforming them into nightmare apparitions.
"Set at the road entrance?" Murdock asked.
"Claymores are out, Skipper," Sterling told him. "Anybody comes up that way, we'll hear it."
"Okay. Let's get inside. Positions!"
Roselli, Sterling, and Papagos took their places to either side of the front door, weapons ready. Murdock and Nicholson tossed a pair of flash-bangs through the door together, averting their electronic gaze as the first floor of the castle keep lit up in a stuttering chain of light bursts and sense-numbing blasts. They charged through the opening as plaster continued to rain from the ceiling, both as a fine cloud of dust and as chunks the size of dinner plates. A guard staggered erect behind a counter to the left and Murdock shot him down. Another man lay on the stone floor across the room, fumbling with the receiver on his AK until Nicholson put a burst into his head and back.
Left, beyond the counters, an unsteady light spilled through a partly open door. The door opened and an officer emerged, back-lit by an emergency battle lantern.
"I'm on him," Murdock said, thumbing his HK to full auto and spraying a burst across the officer at the level of his chest. The man shrieked and went facedown. Sterling pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade, let it cook off for two seconds, then yelled "Grenade" and hurled it through the open door. There was a tinkling of smashed glass, then a shattering blast that blew out the door. Roselli ducked in, then came back out. "Clear! Three tangos down inside! Looks like the commo shack!"
"One-One," Murdock called into his lip mike. "We're in the front door."
"You're clear outside," Higgins said. "And Two-Eyes is on the third floor."
"Roger that. Keep an eye out for unfriendly neighbors. The commo shack was occupied in here."
"Ay-firmative."
The soft stutter of suppressed fire clattered at Murdock's back. Turning, he saw Nicholson and Sterling in the middle of the rotunda, firing full auto at a trio of half-glimpsed shapes moving on the second-floor balcony at the top of the stairs. One shape slumped over the banister, then dropped to the stone floor below; another spilled onto the stairs, thumping loudly as it rolled halfway down. The third slipped through a door to the left, vanishing.
The lights came on.
"Hello," Jaybird said, reaching up to adjust his night goggles. "Somebody's home!"
"Jaybird! Red!" Murdock snapped. "You've got the basement! Nick, you're with me."
"Right, Skipper."
Together, Murdock and Papagos stormed up the stairs.
"What's happening? What's happening?"
"Easy, Celia," Kingston said quietly. "Worst thing we can do now is panic."
"That's right, Celie," Bunny added. "The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand."
Another explosion sounded, much closer this time, and Kingston was certain she could hear someone screaming in pain. She wondered if the lights would stay on this time.
The women were all in the same room, lying flat on the floor behind the bed with their arms over one another, listening to the approaching thunder. Never in her life had Ellen Kingston felt so utterly and completely helpless. There were six of them, Kingston, the four of her staffers who were women, and one female sergeant who was on Colonel Winters's staff. So far they'd held up remarkably well, Kingston thought, all except Celia, who'd been on the verge of hysterics the whole time and who was certain that they were all going to be raped.
Celia, unfortunately, was the Army sergeant. In Congress, Kingston had delivered speeches several times in favor of bills that would allow women to serve in combat. After observing Celia these past few days, she was beginning to question her stand.
So far, and despite Celia's shrill fears, none of them had been mistreated in any way… none of the women, anyway. She'd not seen any of the male hostages since they'd arrived here — wherever "here" was — and she didn't know where they'd been taken. The soldiers watching them had been stiffly formal and correct, even courteous with an Old World formality; the women had been fed, and several times a day a uniformed woman had escorted them one at a time to the toilet.
But no one had so much as questioned the women or come to tell them why they were being held or what demands were being made for their release. Hour after hour was an agony of not knowing, of wondering what each new sounding of footsteps in the corridor heralded.
Footsteps sounded outside the door, and the rattle of the lock as someone turned the knob. Kingston, braced for the worst, prayed that it would be Americans who opened it.