Brandon
I took David's advice and switched out my rounds. I replaced the rounds in all seven of my MP5 mags and all four for my M9. I took a look down the scope of the M110 and didn't see any change, all of the Tangos were just hanging out on watch, waiting for us.
I picked up our newly acquired AT4 rocket launcher. I wasn't sure how I was going to carry it. I thought about just letting it hang out of the top of my backpack, but it was too long. I saw the sling hang off David's M110 on the wall. I looked on the AT4 and found sling mounts so I snagged the sling and attached it to the launcher. I got up on both knees and tried it on. It sat low and not vertical enough, so I took it off and tightened the strap. It sat perfectly after I put it back on again. The muzzle end was just behind my right shoulder.
"Where did that come from?" asked Big Luke who was asleep when I found the AT4.
"Hephaestus came to me in a dream. He said we were going to need this."
"Do you know how to shoot it?" he asked.
"No."
"It's not going to be much good if you don't know how to shoot it. Let me see it," I took the launcher off and handed it to Big Luke.
"Now, the first thing you do is pull this safety pin out," he pulled the safety pin towards the rear of the launcher. "Then you cock it by moving this lever to the side. After that, you hold down this safety lever down, aim using these sights and pull the trigger," He said pointing to the different parts. He put the pin back through the hole and handed it to me.
"You only got one shot. So make it count," he added. "After you shoot it, that leftover tube makes for a pretty good club."
I chuckled and put the AT4 down.
"What's it like?" I asked.
"To do what?"
"To kill a man?"
"In close quarters like this, there will be a lot of blood on the walls. They probably have pistol plates, your gonna want to aim for the neck and up. If they have a carrier that's a bit short, go for a gut shot," he said.
"Does it ever get easy?" I asked.
"It's never easy. It is however easy-er when they're trying to kill you back. Look, just focus on the mission. Think what would Brittany do when you save her," he chuckled.
"Oh, please. She's into you. Do you even like her back?" I asked while I smiled.
"Not really. Her and her brother are just a job. There will be more like it," he checked his watch. "It's 315 hours. We should probably get a move on."
I shook David awake.
"Is it time yet?" he asked.
"Yeah, get your gear on," said Big Luke.
We put our gear on in silence while we mentally prepared for the operation. It was a tradition we always did, even in training. After we were all ready, we could ask all the questions we needed to ask.
I had my plate carrier and my helmet on. I flipped down my night vision and adjusted them for the amount of light that was outside, then I amplified it a little to compensate for the light in the building. I picked up the AT4 and slung it over my shoulder, then came my MP5. I pulled the handle next to the barrel, or the charging handle, all the way to the rear as far as it would come. Then I let it go and heard the click as the first round chambered. I pulled out my M9 by pressing the button on the holster. I grabbed the rear of the slide on the serrations and pulled the slide back. I saw the copper-jacked round on the top of the magazine slide into the chamber when I released my grip on the slide.
The M9 is a single/double action pistol with a decocker safety, so when I put the gun on safe, the hammer fell safely forward. I reholstered the handgun and picked up my MP5 from the sling. Big Luke and Brandon both finished gearing up.
"Any questions?" asked Big Luke.
"How are we going to breach the door?" I asked.
"You guys can go in with lower profile, melt the handle or something. I'm going to go loud. I'll use my 590. Hopefully that will keep most of them on me. Another thing, watch for booby traps. I taught you guys about claymores and C4 so keep an eye out. I want to go radio silent on this one, too. If we start talking to each other it might set them off that there are two groups in the building," he explained.
"More guys? Can you handle it?" asked David.
"I got all I need. There is no weapon deadlier than a Marine and his rifle, and I got my rifle," he said confidently with a smile. His arrogance was showing. "Let's roll out."
We went back the way we came, down the fire escape and back to the truck. I sat in the shotgun seat and David sat in the middle of the back seat. Big Luke drove us as quietly as he could to the target building. The last thing we needed was our op cut short by the Fuzz. We parked the truck behind a building across the street in an alley. I got out and met David and Big Luke by the grill of the truck.
"OK, I'm going to get into that building next door and I'll repel down to the roof of the target. I'll breech there and when you hear that wait two minutes and enter. Got it?" he asked and we both nodded. "See you guys on the fourth floor," and he was gone.
We watched as Big Luke looked both ways for cops or bystanders and crossed the street. He tried the door but it was locked. He moved to the fire escape and started climbing. The actual target building lacked a fire escape because the PMC inside dismantled it so we couldn't use it. He had made it to the top of the building and we could see him set up his repel. I signaled to David to move out. He got to the end of the alley and checked both ways and signaled to me that it was clear by giving me the thumbs up. We hustled to the front door and waited. It was quiet on the streets at 4 am, nobody was walking their dog or stumbling home from a party.
We waited for what seemed like hours waiting for Big Luke's shotgun to go off. I was standing on the left side of the door and David was standing on the right. I kept my hand off the handle for the time being. David checked his MP7 more then once to make sure he had a loaded chamber. He looked up and I could see a look of shock in his face.
"Come on, go this way," he said as he ushered me under the window sills to an alley on the side of the building. "I saw a cop car coming," he explained.
"OK, good call," I told him.
We saw the black and white roll by and we crept back to the door. I felt like any second now, I was going to hear the boom. I reached around and pulled my gloves out from my back pocket. I changed the left one to grip the handle. I checked my watch, fifteen minutes after Big Luke originally said we would breech.
Finally, BOOM! The shot rang out from the twelve gauge shotgun. I could hear the opposition on the other side of the door bustling making there way to a staircase probably. We could also hear all sorts of commotion on the roof. I checked my watch and we waited the two minutes that Big Luke instructed us to do. We waited more like a minute and a half because we got tired of waiting. I gripped the door handle and willed my glove to heat up. I felt the fire in my stomach grow bigger as I could see the handle heat up. I melted through it and I pulled the door open, David took point while shouldering his MP7. I slipped in behind him as we came to see a empty lobby. Everyone there must have thought the entire threat was up stairs.
We made our way to the staircase when we met our first obstacle: a claymore mine set up on the fourth step. You had to turn the corner to see it. There was a trip wire set up at a forty-five degree angle. I looked at the claymore, it was attached to the detonator pin. So, if we pulled the pin it would explode, killing us both. I took out a pair of side-cutters and knelt down behind the wall. If I was wrong, then we were in for quite a bang. I reached around and put the open jaws of the tool around the trip wire and held it there. I put my head behind the wall and reached up over my head with my other hand. I showed three fingers signaling that I was about to cut the wire. 3, 2, 1 and I cut the wire, bringing down a finger on each number. Nothing happened and we hustled around the corner past the claymore as fast as possible. We climbed the stairs to the second floor.
When we came around he corner at the top of the stairs, I saw what looked like the inside of a office building. There was a large room with three pillars on each end, to the left was a glassed off area with a few desks and filing cabinets. To the right was much bigger with lots of cubicles. There were three lanes that went along side the glassed off area, one by the right wall and one in the middle. They ran with the room and there were two more lanes that ran across towards the center of the room. It was kind of like a grid. David took the right lane and I took the middle. We had made it about halfway through the room when we saw the first mercenary come around one of the pillars at the end of the room. He had an AK-74 assault rifle with some kind of optic. He wore all black so he stood out in the white walled, lighted building. He lifted his rifle but I could swing my lighter MP5 faster. I put the reticle from my holographic sight on his chest and pulled the trigger. The MP5 fired a nice four round burst that crawled up the guys face. I looked away from what was left of him, I couldn't describe it. We headed for the staircase on the other side of the room where David let me catch up.
The staircase was dark so I took point with my flashlight. I turned the corner to see another guy with an MP5 similar to mine sitting at the top of the stairs. I side-stepped to the other side of the staircase, dodging several rounds that impaled the tile next to me. I put three rounds in him and he fell. He started moving and David came around the corner and shot around the guys body armor. The dead guys buddies on the third floor heard his shots and saw his body. We moved back and waited for them to come down, we weren't about to go up and get ambushed. We could hear them discussing if they should come down and get us or if they should wait for us to make the first move. They only whispered but you could tell that there was a disagreement. That's when bullets started coming down around us through the floor. David was standing on the stair side of the opening so he walked a few steps backwards and fired up through the floor where he thought they were standing.
The rounds stopped coming at us but to be sure, David took out his only regular frag grenade and tossed it up the stairs. It bounced off the wall and into the third floor. BOOM! Then we moved up. The guy on the stairs blood started dripping down the steps which made it slippery. The third floor was identical to the second, only reversed, the glassed area was on the right and the cubicles were on the left. We were now one floor below the target floor.
There was a single hand from one of the guys that was near the grenade when it blew up. It was laying palm up and that image got stuck in my head. We entered the room and immediately started taking rounds. We ducked behind some cubicles and knelt down. The rounds were continuous and never ending. I couldn't tell how far away the source was.
"It's coming from one gun!" I yelled over the gun fire.
"Yeah, I'll try to flank around," David returned.
There was a slight lull in the in the firing and David took it as an opportunity to move. I took a split second to look down the room. There was a man in a big armored suit carrying a belt fed machine gun of some kind. The man was covered from head to toe in armor that I don't think David's armor piercing rounds couldn't penetrate. The the guy opened fire and I ducked.
"It's a juggernaut. I don't think I'll be able to penetrate the armor."
"This must be when I break the big boy out!" I screamed.
"Go for it!" he yelled back.
I slipped my sling off my shoulder and laid my MP5 against the cubicle. I pulled the AT4 off my other shoulder and pulled the safety pin. I put the triangular piece up to my shoulder and held down the safety pad on the right side of the tube.
"Flash him!" I yelled in David's direction.
David took cover behind the cubicle across from mine. He pulled a flashbang from his plate carrier that was mounted to the chest of the front panel. He held down on the spoon and pulled the pin.
"Flash out!" he called as he threw the flashbang at the juggernaut's feet.
We ducked to avoid the flash. Afterward, I stood up and aimed down the sight. I put the sight pin on the wall right behind the juggernaut. I pulled the trigger and instantly felt the launcher vibrate. The rocket flew and hit right where I put the pin. I'd like to say that the explosion was loud but I couldn't hear it. The blast from the AT4 knocked out my hearing, hopefully temporarily. I tried to find David through the smoke.
"David!" I called out.
The juggernaut was gone and I couldn't see him shooting anymore. I felt someone grab my shoulder and spin me around. I saw David screaming something that could have been along the lines of "We have to get out of here!" or "I can't hear!".
"Your right!" I yelled.
He chuckled and pointed to the staircase on the other side of the room and started running at it. I dropped the tube and slung my MP5 back on my shoulder. I ran up and stacked up behind David. He looked up our last flight of stairs and signaled to me that it was clear. My hearing was coming back a little at this point.
We got to the fourth and our final floor and we could hear all of Big Luke's manufactured chaos coming down the stairs. Sounds unimaginable unless you were there. We took a knee at our end and pointed our muzzles at where we expected to see Big Luke coming down.
What we saw instead was a unarmed mercenary falling down the stairs. He got up and ran our direction. A blood-covered Big Luke came crashing through after him. The merc turned around midway down the hallway and drew a black fixed bladed knife and came at Big Luke. Neither David or I felt like pulling the trigger with Big Luke right behind our target, and we knew that Big Luke didn't want us to shoot either.
Big Luke saw the knife coming and caught the guy at the wrist. Big Luke pulled the guy over his shoulder and the knife flew out of the guys hand. He flipped the merc on to his stomach and stomped on the back of his head, probably knocking him out and breaking his nose.
Big Luke stood up, his uniform and face were all covered with blood. He had lost his helmet and headset along the way. His dump pouch had a few empty mags in it. It looked like he didn't fire too many rounds, most of his fighting was hand to hand. He was missing a glove and had a small cut through his sleeve and into his arm a little bit.
"How are you guys doing?" he whispered.
"Still alive. How about you?" said David. My hearing was still a little shot so I kept the talking to a minimum.
Big Luke just nodded, breathing heavily. He nodded his head to a closed door, the only closed door in the hallway. We stacked up. I was the door man and Big Luke took point. David was behind him. I put my hand on the handle and it turned with ease. I pulled it open and Big Luke and David filed into the room. I filed in behind them to see Mathew and Brittany both duct taped to wooden chairs. There was also two more merc's and a leader with a bomb vest and his thumb was on the button.