Chapter 10: Going in Hot
"Three... Two... One... Go!" A female voice said over the phone. The SEALs, now suited up for battle, ran outside the hotel room and made a beeline for the utility stairs to the roof. "Eight seconds" the voice said as the first man reached the door and opened it, making room for the rest of the men to go through. "Six seconds" The voice called out as the utility door was closed and the soldiers rushed up the stairs. "Four seconds" the SEAL in front opened the door to the roof and held it open for his teammates. "Two seconds" the door was closed and the team was out of sight of any cameras on the roof. "Time."
"Thanks Mel, on my Zulu cut power to the target structure" Richard said over the radio. "Alright... Snipers find a cozy spot and setup, let me know when you're ready... Green team you'll be breaching the upper floor, blue team pick a window on the left, red team we're taking the right."
Mark setup on the right hand side near the edge of the building with his spotter. He adjusted his bipod and got a comfortable cheek weld. Ryuku setup on the left side on top of an industrial air conditioner, his spotter opting to sit next to Ryuku's perch.
"Sniper two ready."
"Sniper one ready."
"Roger snipers ready..." Richard began, his heart was beating quickly from the stress, on top of the highly sensitive nature of the mission it was his plan being employed, a lot was riding on it. "... Everybody know where they're going?" Some of the men nodded but all stayed silent. "If anybody isn't sure about something now is your last chance to speak up" again nobody said anything, Richard picked the phone back up. "Okay... One minute to breach, launch the hooks!"
Roy and two other SEALs crouched at the edge of the building with a trio of odd looking rifles with grappling hooks sitting in the muzzles and a strange added compartment under the barrel which housed the rope. Almost in unison, the three fired. "Zulu Zulu Zulu!" Richard called out, the few lights that were on in the building went out just before the hooks crashed through the windows they were aimed at. "Find an anchor!" He said after seeing his three teammates confirm the hooks had latched onto something solid. Roy and the man from the green team anchored their rope to a set of thick steel pipes about thirty feet from the edge of the building while the man from the blue team anchored his to another set of pipes twenty feet to the left. "In we go!" Richard said as he attached his zip line pulley to the rope. This pulley employed a pair of handles instead of a hook for a harness, so the only thing preventing him, or any of the other SEALs who were using the same device from falling, was his grip. The pulley moved slower than he expected, but before too long Richard crashed into the partially broken window and let go of the device, landing on the floor and rolling into a crouching position, he immediately put his feet under him and scanned every direction, the room was empty.
Roy was the second one to come over making an entrance very similar to Richard's and nearly bowling him down in the process. "That was graceful" Roy quipped. The two men made their way to the door to the main hallway as the third SEAL entered the room.
"Hear anything on the outside?" Richard asked.
Roy put his ear against the door and listened, the final man just entering the room, cutting the line behind him. "Nothing."
"Open it" Richard whispered. The door was opened and the men entered the hallway, it was empty.
The sight of the hallway with ones own eyes was more intimidating than the floor plans suggested, doors on either side every twenty feet or so, luckily most were open. The closest door was closed so the men stacked up to it, Richard and Roy on the left side, the other two men on the right. The door was opened and Richard raised his rifle , pointing it into the room, there was nothing. As the minutes passed and rooms were observed, not cleared, without any enemy contact the SEALs began to wonder what was going on, the floor the blue and red teams were on appeared empty. As the red team approached the stairs to the next floor, they started hearing muffled gunfire, very much like standing outside an indoor shooting range. "Green team has heavy contact, we need help!" A voice yelled over the radio as louder, unsuppressed shots began to ring out.
"Go!" Richard yelled as the men ran up the stairs. Roy was on point, as he rounded the corner at the top of the stairs he spotted four hostiles at a hallway intersection thirty feet away. He began firing at them immediately along with the SEAL right behind him, by the time Richard and the fourth man had rounded the corner the four enemies were down. Shots were still being exchanged down the hallway. Green team coming up behind you, friendlies friendlies!" Richard yelled into the radio as he and the other three rushed in to aid their colleagues. All eight SEALs were now firing at hostiles down the hall, after a few seconds the shooting stopped on both sides.
"What the hell is going on?!" One man on the green team demanded, "we've already had to engage a dozen enemies, what the hell was downstairs?"
"It was empty" Roy informed.
The man who spoke looked at Roy with both shock and severe irritation, then turned to Richard. "Great plan Grayson, send two thirds of your manpower to clear an empty floor, brilliant!"
"Hey!" O'Malley said, "we don't have time to dick around, we have three more floors to clear after this one!"
"Any problems you have with my planning we can talk about later, we need to go now, backtrack down the hall and link up with the blue team, we'll clear the last hallway" Richard said, turning back the way he came. "Blue team report."
"No contact yet" the blue team responded.
"Green team is headed your way, move to the next floor with them and split up."
"Copy."
The red team returned to the first hallway where they had eliminated the first four hostiles, only two doors were closed along the entire hallway. They moved down slowly, watching each door for potential threats until they reached the first closed door. They stacked up and opened the door, empty, the second door was the same thing. As they moved to the stairs, their tech girl came over the radio, "be advised guys the police have been called."
"Clock's ticking gentlemen" Richard said as he and his team made their way up the stairs. They emerged into the next hallway to find two men walking towards them and a third further down exiting a room. The SEALs immediately fired upon the unarmed men. More muffled gunshots could be heard from the southwest corridor as the green and blue teams engaged their own targets. The red team took only a few steps before enemy soldiers began pouring out from the side rooms, few of them got any shots off however as the SEALs night vision gave them a distinct advantage. A total of fourteen bodies lined the hallway once the shooting stopped.
"Blue and green heading east" a voice said over the radio.
"Copy check, red team heading west" Richard replied as he walked. After opening a few closed doors Richard spotted someone at the far west end of the hallway, he identified the person as General Immortus. "Flashlight spotted!" He yelled as he pointed his rifle at the distant target. Immortus began to run, surprisingly fast for someone of his apparent age as Richard fired several shots at him. "Sniper one northwest stairwell!"
"Copy!" Ryuku responded. He fired several rounds into the appropriate windows, unsure if he was hitting anything.
Richard continued to fire at the target as he disappeared onto the next floor, going so far as to shoot through the ceiling, he only stopped when his magazine ran dry. "All teams flashlight is on the next floor up last seen on the northwest stairwell, blue team take the southwest stairs, green team take the southeast!"
"Copy" two men said in near unison over the radio.
The red team ran up the northwest stairwell with Richard on point, before rounding the corner and entering the corridor Roy spoke, "hey Rich I think you got him." That got Richard's attention, he turned to look at Roy. "High velocity blood spatter" Roy said pointing to a small pattern of blood on the wall, "and there's a blood trail."
Richard did a quick peek around the corner, he saw that the blood trail continued down it, and also saw the dozen or so enemies waiting for them. "Pop flashbangs, we got company waiting for us."
O'Malley Simmons each pulled the pins on a flashbang grenade. Simmons rolled his only a few yards down the hall, as soon as it went off O'Malley threw his down to the midsection of the hall, as soon as the second grenade went off the red team rounded the corner and began shooting. It could barely be called a fight as none of the ISIS troops got a single shot off.
"Police are on scene guys, speed it up!" The tech girl announced.
"Armed response or air support?" Richard asked.
"Negative, they don't seem to know what's going on but that probably isn't going to last, they're on the north side of the building."
More muffled gunshots could be heard in the distance as the other SEALs engaged hostiles, Richard and his three partners followed the trail of blood to a closed door in the center of the hallway on the left. The men stacked up and Richard extended a fist then opened it quickly, Roy pulled out a brick of titanium-surrounded C4 and peeled off the plastic, then placed it on the door, two seconds later the door was vaporized. With Richard leading the way the men entered the room which appeared to be setup as a waiting room, but through an open doorway on the opposite side was another room. They continued into the room and found Immortus off to the left sitting in a chair behind a large desk, he was leaning back and holding his side, his breathing heavily labored. With the four men pointing their rifles at their target, Immortus spoke in German-accented English, "Mohammad will have his revenge on you..."
Richard pulled his trigger, sending a bullet right into Immortus' third eye, the back of the man's head exploded in a disgusting shower of red and he slumped forward onto the desk, motionless.
"Flashlight eliminated, time to get out of here!" Richard yelled over the radio. The red team backtracked into the hallway and ran towards the floor to ceiling window at the southwest end. "Cut the power to the cameras at ground level, all teams exfil through the south windows!"
"Green team taking the plunge!" A man said.
"Blue team jumping!" Another said.
"Snipers jumping!" Mark announced.
The red team shot at the glass at the end of the hallway, Roy was in front and jumped through it, shattering it into millions of pieces, he was followed closely by Richard and the other two SEALs.
"Cameras disabled, don't dilly dally!" The girl said.
Less than thirty seconds passed between the time Richard jumped off the building and when he landed safely on the ground with the rest of his team. As the men rolled their parachutes up a white Ford Transit van drove up next to them with its rear doors open, the SEALs scrambled in, closing the doors once everybody was inside. "Red team clear" Richard announced.
"Blue team and snipers clear" Ryuku said.
There was a pause, longer than comfortable for Richard, before a voice came over the radio, "green team clear."
With a sigh of relief, Richard sat down and allowed himself to relax, "let's not do anything like that again." The men nodded in agreement, Richard turned to the driver, "where to now?"
"Outskirts of the city, there's a few cars waiting for you in a blind spot to get you boys to Luton Airport where there's a charter plane waiting to take you back to Tel Aviv... There's business suits in that container there for you."
"Blind spot?" Roy asked.
"You can't scratch your ass in the UK without the government watching it on a camera, unless you're in one of the blind spots."
Richard took a breath, "who do you work for guy?" He asked the driver.
"Special Agent Walter West, Central Intelligence Agency."