Seal Team Six Hunt the Wolf(11)
“Light on the third floor. Some movement,” he reported back.
“Give Akil the signal.”
“Romeo, this is Def Jam One…”
Half a minute later, the van sailed past, groaning slightly. They watched Akil roll out. One somersault and he was on his feet and running, his smile catching the half-moon light. Like an actor winking at his audience. Smooth.
Crocker couldn’t help but laugh inside.
“You see that, boss?”
“Fucking show-off. Cover your ears! Hit the ground!”
Fourteen seconds. Fifteen. The van’s tires hit the curb and the back fishtailed right. For a second it looked like the Econoline was going to flip over on its side, but the rear panel smacked the corner of the building with a crash.
Ritchie pushed the digital signal that activated the detonator. A fraction of a second later a huge explosion split the air and propelled out like an angry god spreading his arms. The force lifted all five men half a foot off the ground. A hot, churning wind blew past their faces. Chunks of concrete and shards of metal pelted everything around them.
Then a moment of silence, punctuated by a woman’s scream from the apartment house.
Crocker whispered urgently into his headset: “Now!”
They rose up as one and deployed as planned. Davis and Mancini approached the front. Ritchie ran left along the side street. Crocker and Akil crossed to cover the right of the building and the back.
The three-story apartment looked like a layer cake that had collapsed on one side—the left front. The charred wreckage of the van was barely visible past what had been the roof. The right side, particularly the rear of the structure, was more or less intact. Which meant survivors. Stunned, no doubt.
Crocker heard someone screaming in Arabic as he crossed the street. Dust and smoke rolling out in thick waves.
He motioned to Akil to circle around back, while he stopped at a side door that had shifted so that the top leaned forward. One kick from his boot smashed it in.
Angry flames shot out. He jumped back.
That’s when he heard a peal of automatic-weapon fire from his right, reverberating off the wall.
Akil’s voice in his earbud: “Shooter back of Z Central. Second floor.”
The firing immediately picked up. Lead splattered and ricocheted off the concrete walls.
“Manny, Def, what have you got?”
“Rubble, dust, and smoke. Can’t see shit.”
“Manny, you cover. Def, help Romeo in back.”
“Roger,” Ritchie replied.
Crocker pried the side door open and, using a plastic garbage can lid to shield himself from the flames, entered. Immediately felt the heat.
The first-floor store appeared to sell cleaning supplies—mops, brooms, floor polishers, wax. A brilliant orange-blue against the opposite wall was spreading, consuming god knows what. More flames to his immediate left.
He hung a sharp right and was crossing to the stairway in the corner when something exploded and knocked him off his feet.
Fuck.
As he got his boots under him, thick black smoke twisted around his head, crawled down his throat. Smelled like burning rubber. Worse.
Hearing footsteps, he got into a crouch and readied his weapon.
A shadow fell across the second-floor landing, then disappeared. Crocker was about to squeeze the trigger when he spotted a pair of skinny bare legs emerging from the gray smoke and saw that they belonged to a boy in underpants carrying a red plastic truck.
Seeing the American soldier, the little boy froze halfway down and looked back at two women in dark brown burkas. Faces obscured in shadows and cloth. Was one of them the boy’s mother? The taller of the two cradled something wrapped in a blanket.
Crocker, assuming it was a baby, held a finger to his lips and waved them down. Whispered: “Come on. Come on.”
All three descended quickly and passed Crocker without uttering a word.
Then the whoosh of a rocket and an explosion out back.
Crocker, into his microphone: “What the fuck was that?”
“RPG fired from the back window. A panic shot. Landed near the tracks.”
He turned back to catch a glimpse of the taller woman in the doorway. Caught the corner of her left eye in the shadows. Onyx black, defiant. Crocker didn’t have time to consider what it meant. AK-47 ready, he hurried up the concrete steps two at a time.
The second floor was completely dark. Desk and chairs overturned. A blackboard swaying from one hook. Papers scattered everywhere.
Sweat rolled down his legs into his boots. Footsteps moved frantically overhead.
They know they’re trapped.
He had a choice. Retreat outside and wait for the smoke and flames to force the terrorists out, or push forward.
But how long would it be before Pakistani security forces showed up? Fifteen minutes? Twenty at the most? This op was considered so sensitive that the Pakistanis hadn’t been informed ahead of time. Which meant that he and his men had to vanish before they arrived.