"Let's hit it," Farrington said.
The four of them simultaneously opened their doors and stepped onto the pavement. Walking briskly, they scanned the courtyard and street for any signs of trouble. Nothing raised any sort of internal alarm for Daniel as they turned onto the narrow sidewalk running parallel to 85 Idsteiner. The first doorway confirmed the apartment-numbering scheme. "Apartments 1-3A." Five more doorways to the entrance for 1-3F. 2F would be on the second floor. Upon a casual glance at the first door, Klinkman turned his head to Farrington.
"Ten seconds to pick the lock," he said casually.
They filed down the sidewalk until arriving at the door marked "Apartments 1-3F." Hubner walked past the doorway, leaning against the wall just short of the nearest first-floor window. Farrington took a few steps into the courtyard, through a break in the hedgerow, and examined the opposite building's facade. Klinkman immediately went to work on the door with a tool extracted from a small kit he had kept concealed under his black leather jacket. Petrovich concentrated on the street, particularly the area around the van. So far, he hadn't detected any unwanted attention. One pedestrian crossed the opening between buildings, but never glanced in their direction.
Unfortunately, interested pedestrians posed the least of their problems. The real threat came from paranoid neighbors peeking through windows. It didn't take a master's degree in criminology to figure out that Daniel's team was attempting an unauthorized entry. Klinkman was fast, but few citizens kneeled down to insert their keys. A quick scan of the balconies revealed that they were empty, which surprised him given the warm temperature. Then again, most of the working-class denizens of the Gallus didn't have time to lounge around mid-week and breathe in the spring air.
"We're in," Klinkman said.
The team disappeared into 85 Idsteiner with one purpose: to extract Sahil Mazari from the apartment. Mazari worked as a computer network programmer at Deutsche BioMedizinische, assigned specifically to support DBM's distribution department. Mazari had been the only employee at DBM's Frankfurt facility flagged in the CIA database, which made him their most logical starting point. A Pakistani-born immigrant, he had taken several trips back to Pakistan within the past year, which raised red flags given his previous association with Al Qaeda extremists. The sudden, increased number of visits to Pakistan fit a pattern identified by the CIA. A dangerous precursor for escalated participation in extremist activity. Similar patterns had been identified prior to hundreds of attempted or completed terrorist attacks in the past.
Even more condemning, he had twice travelled back with known Al Qaeda extremists based out of Hamburg. Both of these suspected operatives had attended Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg (TUHH) with Mazari, and one of them had even completed the same computer information technology degree. Dubbed "Terrorist U" by the CIA's Middle East analysts, former TUHH students could be found at the top of every "known terrorist" watch list around the world. A claim to fame that did not appear as a selling point on any of the university's marketing brochures.
Hamburg continued to serve as a hotbed of Muslim extremist activity, long after the infamous "Hamburg Cell" had changed the world on 9/11 under the leadership of Mohamed Atta. Atta had also been a "student" at TUHH, disappearing from Germany for extended periods of time to travel to Afghanistan. He continued his studies at leisure, while plotting the most diabolical terrorist attack in history. The CIA had no intention of letting any more TUHH "graduates" conduct attacks against the United States. Mazari's web of connections in Hamburg barred him from entering the United States and put him on a growing list of "likely terrorists."
Farrington approached the door marked 2F, and the rest of the team fanned out along the walls of the cramped stairway vestibule. Each apartment had its own small landing. Two old, rusted bicycles were stacked against the far wall, causing Petrovich to squeeze by to get behind Farrington. They all withdrew HK P2000 SK (subcompact) pistols from their waistline holsters and stood silent, taking in any noise from the apartment and stairway. Laughter vibrated from 2F. They would soon put an end to that.
Petrovich took a six-inch suppressor out of an inside pocket on his jacket and started screwing it onto the custom-threaded barrel. He would be first in the door, tasked with neutralizing any threat that stood in the way of abducting Mazari. They didn't have a wealth of information about his roommates, but couldn't discount the possibility that this could be a den of extremism.
Farrington tapped his right ear and nodded at Hubner, who quickly gave him a thumbs-up. Hubner was the only member of the group wearing an earpiece, connecting the assault group with the mobile surveillance team. Luke and his group were scanning local police channels, searching for any indication that the team might have unwelcome visitors. Apparently, the police channels were still clear. Farrington pointed at the door, which put Klinkman into action.
Klinkman placed a small electronic device at the top right corner of the door, next to the frame, and slid the device down to the doorknob. The device displayed a green LED, which turned red about halfway down the door. He pressed a small button on the device with his thumb as it turned red, leaving a small black dot on the white door. He repeated the process under the doorknob, moving the device to the floor without a break in the green LED color.
He reached down into a small bag attached to his waist and pulled out a small thumb-sized charge called a "popper." He placed the malleable charge over the small black dot and pressed it against the frame. If affixed correctly, the low-grade plastic explosive would "pop" the deadbolt identified by Klinkman's device. The noise level created by the small explosion would sound like a very angry husband slamming the door to an apartment. He pushed a small, preset timer into the charge and started to work on the doorknob with his toolkit.
Seven seconds later, he glanced up at Farrington. A quick nod was all it took to start the countdown. Klinkman flipped a small switch on the side of the timer and pressed the single button on its face before clearing to the side of the door.
Immediately following the sudden, explosive crack, Petrovich delivered a strong frontal kick to the weakened door. Klinkman turned the doorknob just in time to ensure that the kick knocked the door open with enough force to embed the inner doorknob into the drywall. Petrovich raced into the apartment with his gun raised, followed by Farrington. Within a second they had identified their target, who was holding an Xbox controller in his hand, flanked on a small green couch by two dark-skinned men, each holding a paper plate containing a partially eaten slice of pizza. One of the young men held an amber beer bottle frozen to his lips. A fourth roommate stood frozen over an open cardboard pizza box on a table behind the couch. All of them had frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at the men holding pistols aimed at their heads. Klinkman yanked the door out of the wall and slammed it shut. A science-fiction fantasy game displayed on the forty-inch flat-screen TV mounted on the wall behind Farrington made the only sound in the room. Mazari paused the game, and the room quieted. Hubner broke the deathly silence with a calm, authoritative voice.
"Sahil Mazari. Drop the controller and place your hands high above your head. If anyone moves, they will be shot in the head," he said in German.
"We don't really speak much German," Mazari said in broken German.
"Do you speak Russian?" Petrovich asked.