|
“Now!”
With that command, the team of elite attack troops
swung into action.
A half-dozen men rushed the front door of the house.
An equal number rushed the rear, and teams of two covered every
ground-floor window. The men were dressed completely in black, with
black ribbed sweaters, black slacks, black soft-soled shoes, black
helmets with tinted visors, and black bullet-proof vests. They carried
machine guns in their hands and pistols in their belts. Their faces wore
looks of grim determination.
The ground troops stormed the doors and windows of
the two-story house. Additional men swung down onto the roof, sliding
down lines dropped from hovering helicopters. All two dozen men moved
quickly, silently, and purposefully, according to a predetermined
plan.
Only after they were inside did the silence of the
night explode in the muffled thud of concussion bombs. Thick black smoke
quickly enveloping the house.
“Team Leader Two, report!” barked the thin man.
He was huddled beside a black van that was parked outside the
normal-seeming suburban house. The entire street, for at least a block
in either direction, was filled with similar black vans.
“The downstairs is secure, sir,” crackled the
voice from the thin man’s walkie-talkie. “We’re heading upstairs
now.”
The thin man heard the rapid popping of automatic
weapons fire. This was followed by shouts and cries from the men inside.
He stared intently through a pair of night-vision binoculars, trying in
vain to see through the dense smoke that was pouring from the house’s
windows.
“Team Leader Two! Report your situation! Over!”
There was no immediate reply. “I said report, Team Leader Two!
What’s going on in there?”
After several long seconds the gunfire subsided.
“Ran into a bit of resistance, sir,” the team
leader finally responded. “The second level is now secure. The area is
now clear.”
“Roger, Team Leader Two. I’m coming
in.”
The thin man rose to his feet and walked across the
yard to the shattered remains of the front door. He wore a dark gray
trench coat and a black slouch hat. He looked both older and more world
weary than the husky young team leader who met him at the door.
From the front hallway he looked left into the
living room. There he saw three men and two women laying on the floor.
Their hands and legs were bound and their mouths were gagged. Their eyes
were full of hate.
“All of the suspects have been subdued, sir,”
reported the team leader. “There appears to be a hidden office
downstairs in the basement. Permission to escort you downstairs, sir.”
The thin man looked at the taller young man. He
smiled a wry smile.
“I think I can find it myself, soldier,” he
replied.
As he walked towards the basement stairway, the
thin man nodded at a large hole blasted in the wall.
“You boys certainly do a bang-up job, don’t
you?”
“We have five suspects in custody, sir, no
casualties,” replied the team leader, somewhat defensively. “Some
property damage was unavoidable.”
“Don’t mind me, soldier,” said the thin man.
He walked through the smoke down the basement stairs, “I’m just
making a little joke. Not that this bunch is much to joke about, all
things considered.”
To the left of the stairs was a false wall. The
troops had neatly and precisely ripped a part of the wall away from the
frame. The man in the trench coat stepped through the opening into what
looked like a small office. A wooden door was laid across two file
cabinets to function as a crude desk. On the desk sat a old rotary-dial
telephone, a Rolodex file, and a portable computer monitor and keyboard.
The man with the craggy face flipped a switch on
the side of the computer. He sat down in the armless desk chair and
thumbed quickly through the Rolodex as he waited for the PC to boot
up.
The computer screen filled with characters. The
thin man hunched forward and placed his hands on the keyboard. He tapped
on the keys, then stared at the screen, then tapped some more. After a
few minutes of this he shook his head slowly. Then he pushed the chair
back from the make-shift desk.
“Find something, sir?” asked the team leader.
He had been standing guard in the doorway.
The thin man looked up with a sigh. He pushed the
hat back from his forehead.
“Found something I didn’t want to find,
soldier. Contact the Assistant and tell her I'm coming in. Then help me
pack up this equipment, and get me a driver to take me back to the
Agency. There’s something big going on — and we have to deal with it
immediately!” |