“We got tear gas in the last truck,” the FBI man said. “But getting to it is gonna be a bitch. Those two guys who shot us up are still running around loose over there.”
Brighton raised up to fire a few rounds from the SR-25, calling down the line to Caraway. “Chief, we still got two tangos loose outside the house. Call Cox and tell him to get his ass up here!”
“He’s on the way!”
A Chechen dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt stepped from the shrubbery two houses down on the same side of the street and opened fire with an AK-47, killing all four remaining FBI agents and wounding another SEAL before Brighton dropped him.
Now only Brighton and Caraway remained combat effective.
“Fall back through the houses!” Brighton shouted, grabbing the wounded SEAL by the wrist and dragging him. “There’s still another one loose in our rear!”
Caraway ran down the walk, grabbing the SEAL’s other arm, and together they dragged him back through the neighboring yards to the police cars where the two wounded cops lay bleeding in one of the cruisers.
“Backup’s on the way,” the sergeant groaned, holding his gut.
“Where the hell is Samir?” Brighton said.
“The Arab lookin’ guy?” The other cop pointed down the block. “One of those bastards took a shot at us from over there, and he took off after him with my M4.”
Cox’s red Blazer came screaming down Alameda from the northeast, screeching to a halt when Caraway ran out to flag him down. The naval air station across the street had gone on alert, and Marines were gathering at the gates along with armored Humvees bristling with .50 caliber machine guns.
Cox sat gripping the wheel. “We saw what happened to the FBI from the other end of the street and came around this way.”
“We have to move on that house and take it now,” Brighton said. “If the feds show up in force, they’ll shut us down, and there’s no telling how much time they’ll waste putting together their master plan.” He looked at his watch. “It’s 08:15.”
“Why haven’t they just blown up the damn thing?”
“They probably don’t know how,” Samir said.
Brighton turned around to see the EOD man standing there with a long gash in his forehead, holding an M4. “Fuck you been, sailor?”
“Killing a Chechen,” Samir said, wiping the blood from his face with his hand. “At least I think he’s dead. I hit him pretty fucking hard with the barrel of this rifle.”
Caraway grinned. “It’s a carbine.”
“Whatever,” Samir said. “They haven’t blown the bomb because they don’t how to reset the timer, and it doesn’t have a dead-man switch.”
“How do you know all that?”
Samir looked around. “Because we’re still here.”
“Maybe they’re just dedicated to their schedule,” Brighton ventured. “Waiting till the last possible second.”
“Sure, maybe, but would you be that stupid?”
Cox yanked the SAW from the front seat. “Hear all those sirens? We’d better move.”
The six SEALs moved off past the houses, with the EOD man bringing up the rear. The house on the corner came into view, and the Chechens inside began taking potshots at them.
Cox propped the SAW’s bipod on a brick wall. “I’ll pin ’em down. You guys flank left and right!” He opened fire on the front of the house, raking it back and forth in steady bursts of suppressing fire. The enemy was forced to take cover under the hail of fully jacketed 5.56 mm rounds. Brighton took Samir and one other SEAL across the street toward the north side of the house. Caraway and three others ducked between the FBI vehicles with M4s to flank south.
Sirens were screaming in from every direction now, police cruisers, ambulances, and fire trucks alike.
Caraway and his people ran around to the back door, firing directly into the house on full auto. Men inside began shouting to one another in panicked Chechen, realizing they were about to be sieged out.
Brighton and his men stopped at the side door on the north side, holding fire to await Caraway’s imminent breach.
Cox’s combat instinct told him the moment was ripe, so he bolted across the street and kicked in the front door, spraying automatic fire into a pair of wounded men laying on the floor.
Three Chechens came shouting from the kitchen at the back of the house. Cox summersaulted beneath their arc of fire, twisting around with bullets ripping into his legs as he let loose another murderous hail of fire, cutting through the wall and killing all three men as they became tangled together in their attempt to get clear. He ran out of ammo and tossed the SAW aside, grabbing an AK-47 from the dead man beside him.
“I’m in!” he screamed. “I’m in!”
He got unsteadily to his feet, bleeding from his legs as he stomped pugnaciously through the tiny house. Someone was shuffling around in the back bedroom as Caraway brought his men in through the back door. Cox limped down the hall to find a man shoving something into a crawl space at the back of the closet. He shot him with the AK-47 and dragged him out by the feet.
Caraway came into the room, seeing that Cox was badly wounded. “Whattaya got?”
“Get Samir,” Cox said, sinking painfully to his knees. “The bomb’s in the closet.”
80
Bworz and Tomas stood peering out through a crack in the drapes as Commander Brighton got out of the Bronco and strolled casually up the block toward where the cruisers were parked on the north side of the house.
“He has to be here for us,” Tomas said. “His truck is full of commandos.”
“They’re not commandos!” Bworz said sarcastically, slinging his AK-47. “Look how he’s dressed. Use your head. They wouldn’t send a man in sandals, they’d send the Marines. There are hundreds of them right across the street.”
“Then who are those other men in the truck? They look like Marines to me.”
“Yes, well, this island is full of military men. Rest easy.”
Brighton began to pass out of sight around the corner, but they couldn’t open the drapes to watch him for fear of being seen. “Someone check the other side of the house and see where he’s going.”
One of the men stepped into the bedroom on the north side of the house and came right back out. “There are two policemen parked right across the street. He’s talking to them.”
Everyone unslung and primed his weapon as he moved to take a firing position.
“Admit it!” Tomas said to Bworz. “They forced your uncle to talk. They know we’re in here.”
In his heart, Bworz knew it was true, but he didn’t understand why the Americans were moving so casually. “Why would they send police instead of Marines?”
Tomas shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, you fool, it does matter! You don’t send two policemen and men in sandals to retrieve an atomic bomb. You send Marines! And there are hundreds of them right across the street. Something is wrong here. Maybe Kashkin did talk, but if he did, they obviously don’t completely trust his information. So keep your wits about you — all of you!”
He closed the gap in the drapes and glanced at his watch. They wouldn’t have to hold out for long before it would be too late for the Americans to disarm the bomb. Kashkin had wired a series of booby traps and false leads into the detonator that would make it impossible for even an expert explosives technician to decipher the nest of wiring in under a half hour. Once there was less than twenty minutes or so left on the clock, it wouldn’t matter whether Bworz and his men were still alive or not.
“He’s going back to his truck!” called a man from the other room. “And the police are leaving.”
Bworz smiled at Tomas. “See? They’re unsure of themselves, and they’re wasting time. We’ll let them continue to waste time. In half an hour, we’ll be in the presence of Allah, and these infidels will be burning in hell.”