Chapter Nineteen- Recon
Detective Catherine Snow dashed quickly along the sidewalk with Sergeant Charlie Redbone as they ran to the entrance of a large apartment building. She could see glimpses of the enemy as they did so and leaned beside the doors.
She saw the gray wolf take out his Mp5k submachine gun as they snuck into the building in complete silence, gripping it tightly and observing his surroundings.
Although she only had an M1911 pistol, she aimed it at every corner they passed with her paw pad itching to pull the trigger at any moment.
"Nick said the roof's accessible through here" Catherine whispered as they stood in front of a stairwell, Charlie nodded "rog, cover my six . . ."
Catherine nodded too, aiming her sidearm behind them as she climbed the steps backwards, she kept looking back just to see where she was going.
They were about two stories up when she was startled by Charlie's sudden voice "bugger, this place is so old that the damn stairs caved in" Catherine looked at what Charlie was talking about.
The stairs had indeed caved in, with concrete debris covering the entirety of the stairwell and a bit in front of the stairs, it was a dead end.
"We'll have to go and see if the stairs on the other side are fine," Charlie said, turning to the hallways of the apartment itself, which were lined with opened and closed doors.
"What do ya think those odds are?" Catherine asked as they began walking past the apartments.
"Not very high . . . Stay frosty" Charlie said as Catherine laughed quietly "was that supposed to be a pun?"
"No, it's just something we say in the SAS, means stay alert, those bastards can be anywhere" Charlie explained as the two predators aimed their weapons at every doorway they passed.
"It's still too goddamn silent" Catherine started as they made it through the long hallway "can't agree more . . . Places like these are always creepy to me" Charlie added.
"I thought it'd take a lot to scare the best sniper the SAS has" Catherine said snarkly, she heard Charlie chuckle "it does . . . The errieness just puts you on edge though, I'm surprised your fur isn't all staticy" he replied.
"Trust me, that doesn't mean I'm not on edge" Catherine admitted as they turned the corner.
As they did, it revealed the open stairwell "alright, let's continue up" Charlie said as they began to walk up the stairs.
"Bravo Six to Delta Four Three, how copy?" Price's voice abruptly spoke through the radio on Charlie's hip.
"Delta 4-3 to Bravo Six, we hit a dead end on the second floor but managed to find a way up, we'll be able to give you a sitrep shortly" Charlie whispered into the device.
"Hard copy, stay frosty 4-3" Price said as Charlie put the radio back.
"How many do you think there'll be?" Catherine asked out of curiosity "a lot. Rouen always raises the bar when it comes to manpower, given how many thugs he's got at his disposal" Charlie said as Catherined aimed behind them.
"We better be ready then" Catherine added "Oh we are, without a doubt" he said in response.
Eventually as Catherine looked up, she could see the ceiling of the stairwell, and as they made it up the last set of stairs they both saw a rusty door.
Charlie approached the door and tried turning the knob, but the door wouldn't open, the wolf audibly growled at this, it was a rather aggressive growl as well.
"Door's stuck?" Catherine asked, walking over.
"Yea, don't worry I've got it" he said, stepping back and running at the door, lifting his foot and kicking it.
There was a loud *CLANK* as the hinges to the door broke and the door fell to the ground with an audible thud.
"Woooow . . . Pretty good" Catherine said impressed, Charlie smiled and shrugged "thanks, but let's get our asses over to the edge and see what's going on" he said, running across the roof of the building.
Catherine took out her Lw3 Tundra as she followed him and extended the bipod.
The two mammals reached the edge of the roof and looked over at the street below, they could see the group of mammals that Raptor One was talking about.
"This is Echo 4-3 to Team 1, we have eyes on at least . . . 30, 35 Tango's about a street in front of you" Charlie said through the radio.
"Copy that Redbone, do you two have a shot?" Grizzoli's voice responded.
"Yeah" Catherine nodded "lots of opportunities to shoot" she said, bipoding her Tundra and lining up a shot.
Charlie grabbed her shoulder though "don't shoot yet" she looked at him "why?" she asked, tilting her head.
"Because . . . You don't just shoot immediately and blow your cover, you've gotta identify what you're working with first" he said behind her.
"Right . . ." she said, nodding, as Redbone took out his multiple rifles, Catherine was looking through the 6x scope and down at the thugs below.
"We've got . . . Foxes, wolves . . . A few big cats and what looks like four bears, that's what I can see" she reported as Charlie moved beside her.
"Good targets . . . good targets, guarantee that's not all of them though, wait till more come into view" he responded, kneeling against the concrete guard.
She watched him take out a pair of binoculars and peer through them.
. . .
Charlie Redbone peered through his binoculars and down at the assortment of hostiles below his perch. He acknowledged what his feline ally had told him, seeing the array of mammals in the mix and nodding slowly as he spotted each of them.
But as he suspected, more of them waltzed into his view, about ten in fact . . . Every single one of them was armed. There were assault rifles, submachine guns and what looked like light machine guns in their hands as they seemingly walked around obliviously.
The sound of a vehicle grew louder as he observed a cargo truck come into view and park on the side of the road.
"Echo 4-3 to Bravo Six, they don't know you're there, they're loading something onto a truck, do you have eyes?" He spoke into the radio.
"Copy, I see them Redbone, hold your fire, we're gonna make a move" Price said as Redbone glanced back at the four teams below them.
The mammals below him began to move towards the hostiles across the street and Redbone looked at Catherine.
The snow leopard was just about ready to fire before he put his paw on her shoulder again "hold on, zero yourself in first, they're about fifty meters out in front of us" he said, turning the knob on the leopard's scope.
"Right . . ." She said again as Charlie was interrupted.
"Bravo Six to Echo 4-3, Team 1 is in position, hold your fire until your notified"
"Roger, we're ready when you are," Charlie said, holding the radio up to his mouth and peeking over the concrete railing.
He grabbed his AX-50 and set the bipod over the edge, he adjusted the rifle's scope and zeroed himself in.
To him, the group of 30 targets were about some 50 or 60 yards in front of them, the rangefinder on his sniper scope confirmed this rough estimate, calculating that the nearest hostile was approximately 54 yards away.
His reticle slowly descended onto the head of a brutish looking brown bear, who was holding some kind of light machine gun, he couldn't make out what model it was.
His paw pad moved to the trigger and rested on it ever so lightly, he looked away from his scope and at the four teams below them.
Manson had made Team 1 fall into a loose formation, roughly 10 yards away from the nearest criminal, with him, Wilde, Grizzoli and Fangmeyer in the front and Delgato and Mchorn in the back, Mchorn was almost crawling to conceal himself and his massive weapon.
The entire SWAT team was hidden against a building that had a view of Rouen's men, right next to what looked like an open door that went into the building.
The three SAS Teams were spread out on the other side of the street, and were also behind cover. Diego had led SAS Team 1 almost directly parallel to the SWAT Team, the Dire Wolf was peering out and at the enemies from the building they were hidden behind.
Rouen's men were almost completely encircled and didn't know it, some of them were still loading large boxes onto the cargo truck while most of the other mammals were simply lounging or unaware . . . Redbone couldn't say he didn't expect that from untrained criminals.
Suddenly though, Redbone saw Manson begin to dash over and slide behind a concrete barrier a few feet from where they were hidden, he watched the grizzly hold his M60 tightly as he looked back and gestured to the SWAT Team.
Wilde was the first to follow, he ran like hell as he also slid behind the barrier, Redbone watched him aim his M4 over it.
The wolf stopped observing and returned to his scope, noticing that the bear he had in his sights had moved; it didn't take any effort to find his target again though.
"What's the move, captain?" Redbone asked through the radio, his paw pad just about pressing the trigger.
"Hold your fire Redbone, take out one of those big bastards first" Manson answered calmly.
"Bravo Six to SAS, get your asses ready . . ."
Redbone watched Catherine aim her sniper rifle at the sound of these words, and so did he.
"Charlie . . . Why don't you introduce yourself?"
"With pleasure, Captain . . ." Charlie said as a malicious smile crept across his face.
And with that, Charlie lined up his shot and gritted his teeth before pressing the trigger. The Brown bear's head was instantly blown open by a 50 caliber round and the mammal fell to the ground as the loud gunshot rang out across the city.
It was followed by the close gunshot from Catherine as she struck one of the smaller mammals.
"NOW!" Manson yelled over the radio immediately after the gunshot could be heard, Redbone chambered his brass as the criminals below them began to yell and return fire sporadically.