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“How many times have you simulated your role?” Kadir countered. “I know mine better than anyone.”
According to Maslick, it was true. He’d worn a groove an inch deep in Kadir’s damaged brain, forcing him to go over the mission hungry, thirsty, and sleep-deprived. Even wearing headphones blasting Justin Bieber while being jabbed with a stick. According to him, the Syrian could pull this off with a spike through his skull.
“Then may Allah be with you, my friend.”
The Syrian grinned. “Heiswith us. I can feel Him.”
He let the vehicle drift to a stop next to the guardhouse. The soldier who appeared looked a little bored as he walked toward Kadir’s open window. Rapp had the .22 in his right hand and his left on the lever that toggled the truck’s high beams. The Russian came even with the sill and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak, a round penetrated under his chin and passed into his brain. The sound of the shot was absorbed by the suppressor and the cab, and Rapp had turned on the beams simultaneously with pulling the trigger in an effort to obscure the muzzle flash.
Kadir caught the Russian and pulled him partially through the window, creating the illusion that he was leaning inside to look at something. Anyone watching from the tower wouldn’t buy it for much more than a few seconds, so Rapp slipped out the passenger-side door and snatched up the RPG. He was blocked from view as he moved along the side of the truck, finally breaking into the open near the back. He tensed slightly, half expecting to take a round to his body armor, but it didn’t materialize. Instead he got the grenade off and the top of the tower was converted into burning debris cartwheeling through the air.
The sound of the explosion was the signal that the operation had begun, and his men came pouring from the back of the truck, some carrying heavy gear, others with only light arms. When Scott Coleman hit the ground, he tossed Rapp a pack, filtered face mask, and rifle. JoeMaslick and Bruno McGraw came out last, each carrying one side of an electromagnetic device that was jamming all communication frequencies except the one they were using. At this point, tactical comms between guards, as well as cell and satellite service, would be down.
As the men scattered to carry out their assigned tasks, Rapp slammed a fist into the side of the truck three times in rapid succession. It immediately launched forward, crashing through the flimsy gate and bouncing over the tire spikes before angling toward the garage entrance.
Coleman was crouched about twenty feet from the guardhouse, surrounded by burning debris and holding a more sophisticated version of the RPG-7 that had taken out the tower. He depressed the trigger and a moment later the projectile hit the older section of the facility, destroying a series of cables and conduits that carried both electricity and landline communications. The few lights burning at the complex went dark and about half the windows shattered, raining glass down the front.
The only illumination now came from the stars and Kadir’s headlights as the truck descended the parking ramp. Rapp and Coleman both ran, trying to put some distance between them and the building. Neither turned when the sound of gunfire began reverberating from the garage, but when they heard the crash of the truck hitting the makeshift support column, they dove to the ground.
The explosion was earsplitting. Rapp rolled on his back in time to see a jet of flame erupt from the garage entrance and the sparkle of the remaining glass in both buildings cascading to the ground. The hospital section shook dangerously, expelling dust and smoke for a few seconds before the second level partially collapsed. The sound of cracking concrete rose over the echo of the detonation, but the roof mostly held.
The incendiary element included with the C4 started to do its work, generating flames that were increasingly bright through billowing smoke. The southeast tower was hit by an RPG, adding anotherpillar of fire to the already chaotic scene. A machine gun erupted from the southwest tower, creating a brief arc of tracer bullets before it, too, was decapitated by a rocket. The north towers were being targeted by two-man teams, but the distance and worsening visibility would make them more challenging.
“Not a bad start!” Coleman shouted through his face mask.
“Don’t get overconfident,” Rapp responded, but he doubted the former SEAL heard him.
Wicker, McGraw, and Maslick formed up on them as they started back toward the entrance. They covered Wick as he climbed into what was left of the tower, using a fire extinguisher to put out the remaining flames on the shattered platform. When he indicated he was in position, the four other men entered the compound, staying low as they made their way toward the new section. It was largely undamaged, but that might not last. The spread of the fire would be unpredictable. Coleman and McGraw broke off and headed east to try to access the chopper behind the building just as another explosion sounded. Rapp assumed it was one of the north towers and got confirmation over the comms a moment later.
“Northeast outpost neutralized.”
Another explosion followed, and a similarly accented voice confirmed the destruction of the remaining guard tower. Unfortunately, that piece of good news was overshadowed by the fact that Rapp and Maslick were taking fire from an upper-floor window in the hospital section. With the smoke, they couldn’t see the shooter, but it was clear that he could see them—probably through a thermal scope. Rapp shoved his comrade forward and then broke left to create confusion as they sprinted toward the burning building.
“Wick! Are you on this?”
“Doing what I can,” came the immediate response.
They made it to what had once been a set of glass double doors without getting hit and slipped across the threshold. Inside, the dust and smoke were tinged red by multiple emergency lights.
They turned toward the modern wing, bypassing the elevator in favor of a stairwell. Bruno opened the door and Rapp moved inside, starting up the steps at a pace that bordered on reckless. He couldn’t be sure what the windowless levels below Semenov’s penthouse contained, but a personal security detail was a good bet. And unless they were extremely sound sleepers, they were about to become a problem.
Maslick dropped a tear gas grenade on the floor and threw another. It spewed hazy spirals as it passed over Rapp’s head and hit the second-floor landing just as the door there flew open. Rapp used his AK-74 to take out the first man who came through, but missed the second in the increasingly dense smoke. With no better option, he fired at the concrete walls, hoping to get lucky with a ricochet as the Russian climbed toward Semenov’s living quarters. Maslick concentrated his fire on the partially open door, hitting the steel plate with short bursts until someone inside slammed it closed.
The soldier above was coughing and choking audibly, but not so much that the scrape and clang of him opening a door and closing it again was obscured. Gunfire was intermittent outside as Rapp’s team engaged what was left of the men in the hospital section. Those engagements would be limited, though. Their orders were to remain at as safe a distance as possible and to focus on preventing any Russians from leaving the building. Achieving the mission objective didn’t require any more than that.
After they passed the second level, Maslick settled into a position that would allow him to take out anyone unwise enough to try to exit onto it. Rapp grabbed a flash-bang grenade from the side of his pack and tossed it onto the top-floor landing. It was almost certain that the fleeing guard had taken refuge in Semenov’s apartment, but there was no point in taking chances. It clattered around for a moment and then detonated, with Rapp continuing his upward sprint right after.
There was a trail of blood on the steps—a shred of good news Rapp hadn’t expected. Apparently, he’d gotten lucky with his Hail Mary volley up the stairwell. But not lucky enough. The man hadn’t been killedand was likely now barricaded somewhere on the other side of that door. Almost certainly with his rifle trained on it.
A burst of gunfire sounded just below, suggesting that the Russians were trying to escape. Whether that was out of a sense of duty to Semenov or their fear of being trapped by fire was hard to say. Either way, as time went on, their motivation would only increase.
Rapp moved to the broken window on the south side of the landing and took in the scene below. The towers visible from that position—with the exception of the one Wick was perched in—were just starting to burn out. In contrast, the main building was in the process of being engulfed. A light desert breeze was pushing the smoke around a bit, making visibility intermittent. He could see flashes in the haze as his men fired at anyone trying to escape the growing inferno, but little else.
Not his problem. His mission was on the other side of the door to his right.
A support column about two feet wide separated the window he was leaning through from the much larger one that looked out from Semenov’s quarters. It was in a similar condition, with most of the glass lying on the ground twenty-five feet below. Rapp eased out a little farther, putting himself in a position where he could see a section of Semenov’s apartment.
The soldier who had run up the stairs was in the living area aiming his rifle over an overturned dining table. A sofa in the center of the room further protected his position from anyone coming through the door. How badly he was injured or whether he was still bleeding was impossible to discern. Unquestionably, he was still capable of pulling a trigger.
