Crunch, crunch.
Red Four and Red Five were on point, both just shy of their twenty-third birthdays. Their breathing was steady but their hands inside the Nomex gloves were damp with sweat. Moving in tandem — in radio silence, using only hand signals between them and to the men half a flight above them— they worked their way down the central stairwell inch by inch, shrouded in complete darkness. All the lightbulbs were smashed or nonexistent. There were no exit signs. No emergency power boxes. Just the eerie green imagery from their night-vision goggles.
As they slowly turned the corner, they could see the door to the fourth floor. It was closed. Just a thin slice of light seeped from the hallway. But from what? The building's power was out. The hallway had no windows. Where was the light coming from? The light moved. Just a little, but both men saw it and tensed.
Suddenly, two men kicked open the door and began shooting. Two more men popped up from the stairwell below and opened fire as well. Bursts of automatic machine-gun fire exploded around them. Concrete shrapnel was flying everywhere. The SEALs hit the deck and returned fire. Nonstop flashes erupted from the muzzles of their weapons as both sides fought viciously for control. Red Six pulled pins on two grenades and tossed them both — one at the door, one down the stairwell at the attackers below.
"Grenade," he shouted, and the Americans stopped firing and took cover.
The explosions were nearly instantaneous, one after the other, and they achieved their intended effect. One of the Palestinian gunmen was killed instantly. Three of the four were screaming uncontrollably. Red Five lifted his head up and peered through the smoke and dust. He could see one gunman engulfed in flames. He fired oflf two rounds at the man's head and one at his chest. All three hit their mark and the man collapsed down the stairs onto the lifeless body of his comrade in arms.
"Let's go, let's go," he yelled, grabbing Red Four and helping him to his feet.
They raced for the smoking hole in the wall where the fourth-floor door had been, and dived through, guns blazing. Red Six and Seven moved past them, down the stairs and burst onto the third floor. More gunfire erupted. Both floors were engaged now.
"Red Four, Red Four, talk to me — what've you got?''the team leader shouted over his radio.
"Heavy resistance on the fourth floor. Shots coming from the corner apartments. "
"Red Four, can you take them on your own?"
A response came back, but it was almost impossible to hear with all the shooting in such tight quarters.
"Say again, Red Four, say again — can you take them on your own?"
A hiss of static. The words were garbled.
"… support, we ca—"
The whole building seemed to be exploding around them.
"Say again, Red Four—/ can't hear you."
"… we can't move, can't get a better position — need close air support into the corner apartments immediately."
"Roger that, Red Four, and stand by one."
"Red Leader, this is Red Six, we've got the same situation on the third floor. Request CAS into all four corner rooms. Over?"
"Got it, Red Six — stand by."
The team leader turned to his radio operator, as both men remained hunkered down in the stairwell.
"Get me Storm One now."
Ten seconds later, he was on the radio with Commander Ramirez.
"Br'er Rabbit, this is Red Leader, do you copy?"
"Roger that, Red Leader. This is Br'er Rabbit. Go."
"Sir, we've got heavy resistance on the third and fourth floors here, from each of the corner apartments. Request immediate CAS, over."
"Roger that, Red Leader. Close air support on the way."
"Thank you, Br'er Rabbit," the lieutenant acknowledged, then radioed the rest of his team. "OK, guys, hang in there — hold your ground — air support's on the way."
Less than a minute later, four jet black Little Bird assault choppers took up positions off the four corners of the tenement. Using enhanced thermal imaging, they could see the shooters in each room, on each floor. They confirmed their targets and their orders with the C-2 bird, and got the clearance they wanted. Seconds later, all four began simultaneously unleashing their .50-caliber heavy machine guns through the windows and walls into all four rooms. The snipers never knew what was coming, and a moment later it was over. All was quiet in the smoky, shattered hallway.
Red Team was back on the move.
Across the street, Blue Team also fought its way down room by room.
Three Blue Team snipers hunkered down on the roof, picking off anyone stupid enough to fire a round at U.S. forces or aircraft descending into the neighborhood. Inside, resistance was heavier than expected, and Blue Leader worried the intense gun battle might be catching women and children in the cross fire. It was impossible to tell for sure. Most of the shooting was coming from small cracks in apartment doors, and his men had no choice but to punch back with overwhelming firepower, including grenades and the heavy machine guns on the Little Birds buzzing outside the windows.
It was a slow, nasty process. But it was critical. They were keeping the Islamic militants who'd taken over the building occupied, keeping their attention off the main event at the cafe across the street.
Storm Five circled off the coastline, waiting for their signal, while commandos of the Twenty-sixth MEU fast roped onto roofs and into streets in concentric circles around Alpha Zone, the extraction point chosen by Ziegler and Tariq less than half an hour before. They, too, were encountering heavy resistance from random snipers and bands of militants moving about in jeeps and small trucks, just now getting word of the U.S. action and eager to hunt the "Great Satan."
Flashes of grenades and mortar rounds lit up the sky. Tracer rounds streaked back and forth and everyone's ears were filled with the roar of multiple explosions and staccato bursts of machine-gun fire. But the Americans' flood-the-zone strategy seemed to be working. One by one, enemy guns were falling silent, and hastily erected U.S. roadblocks at the major intersections were cutting off any hope of the radicals getting desperately needed reinforcements.
Twelve minutes later, Alpha Zone was secure. Storm Two — flanked by three Super Cobras on hair-trigger alert for any further signs of trouble— swooped in and hovered thirty feet over the street facing the cafe. The pilots scanned the surroundings, then gave the thumbs-up.
"All right, that's it — let's go, let's go!" shouted Gold Leader.
One by one, his team fast roped to the street, taking up positions on each corner and surrounding the scorched timbers of the once quaint little watering hole.
A moment later, Gold Team was in place. All his men were in position, and Gold Leader slapped his pilots on the back as Storm Two ascended rapidly, out of sniper range and waited to be called back in.
Ziegler and Maroq were finished.
And they knew it. Together, they'd destroyed nearly all of their most sensitive equipment and papers. But there wasn't enough time to finish the job. They were being overrun. They'd picked off at least two dozen militants trying to enter the main control room. But they could hear more amassing in the hallways. It was only a matter of time.