Meant to Be (24 page)

Rad listened as Bipp announced the
charge getting ready to blow. In anticipation of the blast,
everyone dipped their heads to protect their eyes. There was a
quick flash, followed by an explosion and a shock wave that blew a
hole in the gate. Wynn was the first one up to it, kicking and
pulling the metal wider so everyone could fit. Guys piled through
and peeled off toward their planned objectives.

Arriving at their next target, a
building to the right of the main house, Wynn took a position to
the left of the door while Rad tried the knob. Finding it locked,
he took a position on the other side of the door, covering Wynn who
pulled out a sledgehammer. A couple of good whacks resulted only in
a battered handle. Wynn turned to the window and tried to smash the
glass, but the bars were too narrow to get the hammer
through.

With the element of surprise gone and
time slipping by, Rad decided to use an explosive. He pulled the
breaching charge off his kit and moved in low to affix it to the
door.

From across the compound came an
explosion as another team attempted to gain entry by blowing a side
gate of the compound. “Failed breach,” came over the radio. “Moving
to Delta gate.”

Geez. They should be inside
by now, and they are still trying to gain entry on the west
side.

Rad did the calculations. It had been
about five minutes since they’d hit the ground and twenty guys were
swarming the compound. Taking into account the noise of the
helicopters and the sound of at least two charges blowing, there
was no way everyone in the compound was not awake.

Pushing these thoughts away, Rad took
a knee to the right of the door and peeled the adhesive backing off
the breaching charge before setting it across the mangled knob and
lock.

Without warning an AK-47 round tore
through the door to the right of his head. Rad rolled away as
bullets cracked just inches away. Pieces of wood and shards of
glass from the window beside the door hit his shoulder and tore
into his skin.

Whoever was inside didn’t stop, but
continued firing blindly, now aiming chest high. Intelligence data
gathered on this building had revealed this door as the only entry
and exit point. The occupant apparently knew he was trapped, and
was not going to go down without a fight.

Wynn, covering the door from the left,
fired back as Rad opened fire from the ground. He felt a searing
burn from the shrapnel in his left shoulder but didn’t stop to
think about it.

Rolling clear of the dangerous area in
front of the door, Rad jumped back to his feet and ordered the man
inside to come out in what little Arabic he knew. When the response
was more gunfire, he stuck the barrel of his gun between the bars
on the window and fired toward the terrorist’s likely position in
the house.

Everything went silent.

With no time to spare, Rad went back
to the explosive charge to blow the door. He was about to attach
the detonator when he heard the latch on the door unlock. He looked
around to see if Wynn heard it too and saw he was backing away.
Neither one of them had anywhere to move for cover, and no way of
knowing if they were going to get sprayed with an AK or hit with a
grenade. Backing up seemed like a good idea.

After they had taken only a few steps,
the door opened a little wider, and a woman’s form appeared. Rad
breathed slowly and concentrated on her every move. If she was
wearing a suicide vest both he and Wynn were dead. But trying to
figure out whether she was or not was like predicting if and when
lightning was going to strike.

Through the sweat running down his
face and the grit that remained in his eyes from the rotor wash on
the landing, Rad could barely distinguish that the woman had
something in her arms. His finger slowly applied pressure to his
trigger as lasers from both him and Wynn danced around her head. It
would only take a split second to dispatch her.

Then he saw the bundle was a baby.
Behind her, three more kids came out.

As Wynn moved the woman and kids away
to another team member who did a pat down, Rad stood to the left,
pushed the door open with his rifle barrel, and spotted a pair of
feet lying in a puddle of blood with toes pointed toward the
ceiling.

From behind him, Wynn squeezed his
shoulder to let him know he was ready. Moving forward, Rad stepped
over the body and kicked the terrorist’s AK away. It was obvious he
was dead. The entire room was shredded from the gunfire, and the
floor was slippery from dripping water pipes and blood. After
checking the rest of the building, Rad found it clear.

“
Shots fired. Building is
secure,” Rad reported over the troop net as he tossed another
chemlight at the front door. Then he moved toward the main building
to backfill other teams.

Rad heard the boom from another
breaching charge somewhere else in the compound as he made his way
around the west side of the main house. His heart picked up its
pace with anticipation as he thought about what they might find
inside. Lauren had said the target and his father most likely
resided on the third floor. If she was right, they would soon have
their man.

Once inside the main door, the hurry
and rushing turned into a slow, deliberate waiting game as Rad
became stacked behind other men methodically clearing rooms. It was
the impatient rhythm of battle—violent motion reduced to perfect
stillness.

Listening to another door or gate
being breached in front of him made the situation feel strangely
surreal, like he was waiting to enter the house for Close Quarters
Battle training. He’d done this hundreds of times, but this one was
somehow different.

Rad heard a
bop, bop
coming from down
a hallway ahead of him, and then the call over the radio. “First
floor, secure.”

The house was dark and eerily still as
the team made their way to the stairwell to check the next floor.
They did their best to be quiet, but Rad knew whoever was hiding up
there had had plenty of time to get a weapon and prepare a defense.
On some raids his men would use a flash grenade to clear their
objective, but this one was all about throttle control. Everyone in
the compound had certainly heard the helicopters, the shots fired,
and the explosive breaches. The fact that everything had grown
quiet again would keep the occupants upstairs guessing about what
was coming next.

When Rad made it to the second floor,
he saw it had four doors, two right and two further down on the
left. His teammates crept down the hall, backing each other up on
doors before expeditiously clearing each one.

It appeared this floor was made up
mostly of women and children because no shots were fired. At the
“all clear” call, Rad turned toward the next flight of stairs. Wynn
was already on the landing, holding security between the floors.
Rad squeezed his shoulder to let him know he was ready. “Take it,”
he whispered.

Everything was bathed in an eerie
green hue as they moved up the stairs to the next floor. This was
it. The culmination of Lauren’s work and the hours of training and
planning that had gone into this mission were going to be decided
in the next few minutes. They had to be ready for anything now.
This terrorist was not going to go down without a fight. There was
no margin for error.

As he slowly walked up the stairs, Rad
continued to scan the top landing. Every sense was on overdrive and
strained to its limit, but he didn’t know if he was breathing hard
or not breathing at all. He was on autopilot.

Wynn stood outside the door of the
first room and waited for Rad to signal he was in position. When he
got the nod, he pushed the door open and immediately swept the room
to the left as Rad followed and swept it to the right. Finding
nothing but storage boxes, they exited and continued to the next
room. After taking only a step, a man appeared at the next door and
let go an un-aimed burst from his weapon. Rad hit him with two
rounds and kept moving as two of his men went in to clear the
room.

A quick movement from the end of the
hall caught Rad’s attention. He let go a burst and stepped back
into the doorway, waiting for return fire, but none
came.

Assured he was covered from behind, he
ran down the hallway and swung his weapon into the room where the
man had disappeared. Rad found the man sprawled in the doorway
reaching for his weapon and put another round in him to keep him
down. Then he did a quick sweep of the room with his muzzle and
settled on an old man lying in bed.

The man raised one hand as if
surrendering, but then without warning drew an AK from beneath the
covers with his other, and fired a round while letting out a
banshee-like scream. Something clipped Rad’s arm, stinging him with
a bolt of fire, but it didn’t stop him from discharging a burst
that sent the man sprawling back into the bed in a spray of red
mist.

“
You okay?” Wynn nodded
toward his arm after they had made sure the room was
secure.

“
Yeah, just a
stinger.”

Wielding the rifle against his
shoulder again, he took a deep breath and swung back into the hall
to the last remaining door. Blood began to drip off the tips of his
fingers, making him think that perhaps his wound was a little more
serious than he thought. But he felt no pain.

With sweat dripping into his eyes, Rad
moved forward as quietly as he could. His senses were hyper-alert,
attuned for any sudden movement or noise. They had not yet found
their target, and time was running out. The success of this
operation depended on getting in and out in a set amount of time.
Thirty minutes, with an extra ten minutes of flextime, was the
deadline based on the volume of fuel held by the waiting
helicopters and the length of time it might take Pakistan to
assemble and launch their military. If Lauren’s information was
correct—and he believed it was—their man had to be behind this last
door.

Rad stood in the hallway and strained
his ears. No sound. Standing with his back against the wall, he
quietly reached over and tried the doorknob. It was locked. Wynn,
in the same position on the other side of the door said quietly
into his mic, “Going explosive?”

Rad made a split second decision that
ran counter to his better judgment and training. Time was running
out. He was so close to the terrorist, he could almost feel
him.

Fuck the
explosives.

Taking deep breaths, he counted to
three, turned toward the barrier and let his foot fly. The moment
his boot connected with the door, he heard a roaring barrage of
gunfire.

Chapter 22

Rad returned fire while
lying on his back and watched Wynn blasting away from the side as
well. Scrambling to his feet, he followed Wynn into the room to
find two shooters sprawled out on the floor, killed in the
gunfight.

The two assaulters had apparently been
standing to the side of the door, waiting to shoot whoever came
through. The angle of their shots actually came closer to hitting
Wynn, even though Rad had been the one directly in front of the
door.

“
What the hell do you
think you’re wearing?” Wynn said once they had made sure the room
was secure. “Bulletproof everything?”

Rad bent over the men, studying their
faces and physical characteristics. “Dammit. Not him.”

He raised his gaze to meet Wynn’s, and
then stood, searching the room for any signs their target had been
there. This had to be his room. Located at the end of the hallway,
it seemed like everyone had been moving toward this position to
defend it. It was the room beside the father’s room just as the
intelligence had noted. It was the only locked door, and there were
files and a laptop in a small enclave off to the side.

Rad listened to the others check in
and give updates. After hearing the third floor was secure they had
already begun the SSE (Sensitive Site Exploitation) phase of the
operation, gathering files, computer disks and hard drives into
their mesh evidence bags.

He stared absently around at his
surroundings. Whoever’s room this was, he was a neat freak. Unlike
most of the other rubbish-filled living areas they had seen, this
one was organized and tidy, everything neat as a pin and in its
place.

He looked back over his shoulder.
Except for one thing. A large floor to ceiling bureau sat a little
cockeyed from the wall as if it had been moved and not placed back
in its original position.

Pulling on some of the drawers, Rad
found everything folded and neatly arranged by color and
size.

“
Is this some OCD or
what?” Wynn rummaged through the drawers. “Who folds their stuff
like that?”

Rad shook his head, stood back, and
studied the bureau again.

“
What’s wrong,
dude?”

“
Something’s not right.
Why is this thing out of place when everything else is so
neat?”

Wynn continued searching through
drawers to see if he could find anything of interest. “Maybe one of
those guys fell into it during the fight.”

Rad studied the distance from the door
where the two bodies were located to the bureau in the back of the
room. “I don’t think so.” Acting on impulse, he put his shoulder
into the bureau and moved it out of the way.