Someone grabbed his shoulder and turned him around to face the machine-gun position next to the gate. He could barely hear what the frenzied man was yelling at him over the ear-shattering sound of the heavy-caliber machine gun's continuous blasts. Why the fuck was she firing? Tracers showered the distance, skipping skyward when they struck the ground. Still in shock, he stared at the light show for a brief second, before he regained enough sense to assess the situation. The woman he had just patted on the shoulder was missing the top of her head.
"Jesus. Get her off the gun!"
Nobody moved toward her, so he lurched forward and yanked the woman off the gun, splattering his face with blood and sticky matter when the rest of her head snapped backward. The gun fell silent, but he still heard machine-gun fire. The other rooftop gun must have engaged targets that he couldn't see. Had the sensors missed an earlier convoy? Maybe the one he saw on camera was a backup team. Bishop had no idea what was happening. He remained upright as the rest of the recruits instinctively lowered their bodies in response to the gunfire. He saw a few of them stagger backward and fall to the ground, but couldn't tell what had happened to them. The moonlight permitted him to see detailed shapes, but the rest of the picture remained washed out by the darkness. None of this made much sense to him.
Finally, the familiar snap and hiss of incoming small-arms fire reached his ears, propelling him back into his role as camp commander. He saw their situation with full clarity, as machine-gun fire raked the defenders stationed along the front fence. Controlled, staccato bursts of gunfire echoed across the small valley, making it perfectly clear to Bishop that they weren't under attack by the FBI. This was something bigger. He could see flashes in the forested hillside. They were barely visible due to flash suppressors, but he could see them. He'd teach these federal sons-of-bitches a hard lesson about combat firepower.
Bishop tossed his rifle to the ground and swung the barrel of the emplaced heavy machine gun toward the forest. He perched his thumbs over the trigger and waited for another flash to appear. His wait was interrupted by the simultaneous arrival of three M982 Excalibur artillery rounds, one of which landed six feet away from his position.
Master Sergeant Ethan McDonald heard the second series of explosions and waited a few seconds for any shrapnel to pass. The Excalibur rounds had landed nearly 200 meters away, which was well outside of the typical 155mm high-explosive shell's casualty radius, but he'd seen too many anomalies in his twenty-two-year career to discount the possibility of taking a wild fragment from any artillery strike. While waiting, he received a quick radio transmission confirming that all targets had been destroyed.
He passed a hand signal back to his team, transmitting the order to advance to the other team leaders through his helmet microphone. From this point forward, each team would work independently to clear structures and provide their own security. If they encountered any unusual resistance, he would consolidate teams into a larger group to handle the threat. Given the distinctive echo of .50-caliber sniper rifle fire, combined with uninterrupted bursts of machine-gun fire from their Delta brethren in the forest, he doubted very much that their work would be interrupted. He tapped the operator in front of him on the shoulder, and the entire team moved in unison through the gap between the buildings, shifting their weapons to cover every conceivable angle that posed a threat to them.
The troops' plan had been hastily rehearsed at Dover Air Force base, on a cluster of buildings sharing a similarity with the compound layout. Hundreds of airmen had been evacuated from an isolated grouping of two-story barracks buildings, while McDonald's team practiced the mechanics of the operation they would now execute. Based on details provided by DEVGRU surveillance teams, the five buildings situated along the rear fence should be empty of compound personnel. The center-most building, which McDonald brushed against rushing forward, had been identified as the armory. If the door was locked and couldn't be breached by shotgun blasts, they would rig a claymore mine to detonate if the door was opened from the inside. A similar procedure would be followed by the teams flanking McDonald's. Each of those teams was responsible for either clearing or booby-trapping the rest of the structures.
McDonald's team would move to the next row of buildings as soon as the armory was neutralized. The headquarters building lay just ahead of the armory, and the SEALS hadn't detected any side or rear doors. His team would have to go in through the front door, exposing themselves to the vast parade field. They would be exposed to fire from a 180-degree arc while crossing the front of the building to reach the entrance. He heard the deep thumping of rotor blades in the distance, which signified the arrival of two MH-53J Pave Low III helicopters, carrying twenty-four DEVGRU operators. The helicopters should be overhead in a matter of seconds and would present a serious problem for anyone trying to fire on his Delta troop.
He flipped down the AN/PVS-14 night vision scope mounted behind his EOTech holographic sight and stacked up with three members of his team on the armory door. Another operator rushed forward and fired three Hatton breaching rounds from a short-barrel, pistol-grip shotgun into the door handle. The soldier in front of McDonald kicked the door with the bottom of his boot, smashing the door inward on its hinges before rushing inside.
McDonald entered behind him and peeled off to the right, immediately clearing the "fatal funnel" created by the doorway. In room-clearing situations, most bullets funneled into the breach as defenders instinctively tried to plug the gap. Normally, they used a diversionary device to briefly incapacitate defenders and allow the team to clear the "fatal funnel" unhampered. They had decided against the use of flashbangs in the armory for one primary reason: mission intelligence suggested the presence of recreational muzzle-loading rifles and cartridge reloading equipment in the armory. Gunpowder and the magnesium-based pyrotechnic substance used by the M84 stun grenade didn't play well together, especially within confined spaces. He had been nervous enough about the limited amount of kinetic sparking created by the Hatton rounds upon hitting metal.
They activated powerful rifle-mounted flashlights upon entry and scanned the armory. Most of the racks stood empty. He quickly spotted several flintlock rifles and a variety of bolt-action World War II-era rifles. A shorter rack held at least twenty submachine guns, mostly Uzi's and MP-5 variants. Upon initial visual inspection, he didn't see any conceivable hiding place for an adult. The racks sat flush against the wall, and the oversized wooden workbenches stood tall enough to easily scan underneath. He swept the darkened room one more time with his flashlight.
"Form up," he said to the team, taking a moment to pass on a situation report through his headset.
"Armory secure. No sign of 60 mike-mike."
"This is Overlord. 60 mike-mike neutralized by Overwatch."
"Understood. Proceeding to Hotel-Quebec," McDonald said.
"Front door is open. No movement detected inside. All rooftop threats neutralized," replied Overlord, one of the SEAL surveillance teams in the forest.
"Three-one controls access to armory," another voice reported over the digitally encrypted radio feed.
Three-one was one of the Delta sniper teams located to the west of the compound. The first number determined the team designation and location. "Three" represented one of two teams firing laterally across the compound. The second number indicated the type of support. "One" signified that they were snipers. If any non-friendlies approached the armory, they would be taken down by .50-caliber sniper fire. Apparently, the snipers had run out of high-value targets. He wasn't sure if this was a good or bad sign.