“Come on, Skeet! You’re going to give me a concussion before we even leave the van,” Scott said, rubbing the back of his head.
Skeeter feinted like he was going to hit again, causing Scott to flinch. Everyone laughed and then started rechecking their gear.
Like the Predator team, each man carried a P90 submachine gun and a Heckler & Koch handgun. The only additional weapon the Mustang team members had was a Taser X26 holstered to their hips.
It was six o’clock; dawn would break in about fifty minutes. The time had come.
The house they now entered had been chosen because its front was on Via Nazareth and its rear was on Via Agostino Samuelli. It was a long two-story house inhabited by one man in his late fifties and two women whose ages seemed to fall on either side of his. The team had never seen anyone entering or leaving the home before 9 a.m.
Logan, Li, and Scott crept up the stairs to the bedrooms while Riley, Posada, and Skeeter looked around downstairs.
There was some rustling upstairs followed by the sound of glass or ceramic breaking. Then all was quiet again. Riley finished sweeping the first level, then went upstairs. There he found that the three occupants had been bound and gagged and brought into one bedroom. They lay scrunched together on a bed.
“Nice work, guys,” he said. “Scott, do your thing. And be nice.”
“You got it, Pach.”
Scott went over to the three and said, “Mi dispiace. (I’m sorry.)”
The three didn’t seem to accept his sincerity.
“Non vi faremo del male. (We’re not going to hurt you.)”
Again their eyes expressed fear and doubt.
Scott reached over to the fabric that had been used to gag the man and gently pulled it down. The man looked like he wanted to scream but thought better of it when he saw Li fingering his P90. Scott asked him, “C’è qualcun’altro in casa? (Is there anyone else in the house?)”
In response, the man let out a flood of angry, fearful words, and Scott quickly replaced the gag.
“What’d he say?” Riley asked.
“He doesn’t like your mom.”
Riley affected a hurt expression. “He’s never even met her.”
“Okay, let’s try this again,” Scott said. “C’è qualcun’altro in casa?” He nodded his head up and down and then shook it side to side.
The man shook his head side to side.
“I’d call that a no.”
“Good job. Logan, Li, make sure they’re secure, then meet us downstairs.”
“Shouldn’t we bring them down with us? Be a whole lot safer,” Logan said.
“No, I don’t want them caught in the cross fire in case we have bad guys chasing us. You secure them well enough, and we won’t have anything to worry about.”
“You got it, Pach,” Logan acquiesced.
Downstairs, Skeeter and Posada had taken chairs from the kitchen table and placed them by the front windows. There they settled in for the long waiting game. At one point, there was a flurry of excitement as al-’Aqran and his entourage passed by on their way to the mosque. Riley watched their prey through a slight part in the curtains. This was the man who was ultimately responsible for what had happened at the Mall of America and at Platte River Stadium.
It was all Riley could do to keep himself from putting a bullet in the man’s head right then. All in good time.
Khadi looked up the street from her rooftop perch to see if she could spot Murphy. She couldn’t, which was good. If she couldn’t see him, then chances were the bad guys couldn’t either.
From her vantage point, she watched two of these soon-to-be-dead men. Her target was eating breakfast-some kind of nasty-looking sprout sandwich that had been wrapped in wax paper.
She wished things would start soon. The longer she looked at this guy, the more real he was becoming. It was hard to think that this man would shortly be violently killed, and that she would be the one pulling the trigger. No matter what the man had been involved in, stopping a beating heart was not a concept she took lightly.
In spite of her contemplations, she had no doubt that she would go through with it. First of all, the man would not give a second thought about doing the same to her. And most important, her team was counting on her. If she missed her shot, it was very likely that this man would kill one or more of her friends. She was determined that this would not happen. She would not let her team down. She would not let Riley down.
Her attention turned back to the mosque across the street. Suddenly the doors opened and people began filing out. There they were-al-’Aqran and his henchmen.
Henchmen, she thought. Sounds like a word from Batman. Scott must be rubbing off on me.
The group of men walked slowly down the street, joking back and forth. Al-’Aqran obviously put a lot of confidence in his snipers.
When they were three houses from the detonation point, Khadi stole a glance at her target. She saw that he had picked up his rifle and was watching the group. There you go, genius. Keep your eyes on your boss instead of your surroundings.
Two houses away now. Khadi saw the slightest of movements on a rooftop down the street. As she watched, the barrel of Murphy’s M24 slowly slid into view.
One house. Khadi’s whole body was tense. Her thumb was poised over the detonator button.
Now! Her thumb went down. Up the street a fireball mushroomed into the air, followed by a thunderous noise.
Khadi didn’t take time to watch the fireworks. She dropped the detonator, picked up her rifle, and got her target in the sights. Just as they had planned, his attention was on the explosion. Khadi drew in her breath and depressed the trigger. Three hundred fifty feet away, her target dropped out of sight as her bullet found its mark. She dropped the rifle and made her escape toward the vans.
Hakeem had been eating breakfast when the windows of the kitchen blew in. He ran out the front door, his face and bare feet bleeding from the glass. Across the street, a car was engulfed in flames. Hakeem thought of the snipers and looked up in time to see the head of one of them all but disappear from his body.
He ran back into the house and threw his body against the doors of the cabinet that held al-’Aqran’s guns. The wood shattered against the blow. Hakeem reached in and grabbed an AK-47. As he did, he heard the sound of gunfire outside. He inserted a clip into the automatic weapon and stuffed three more into the waistband of his loose pants. Then he ran back through the broken glass and into the street.
Riley and Skeeter stood right behind the door so as not to get hit by flying glass. Posada and Scott were outside on the north side of the house, and Li and Logan were on the south side. When the car blew, they all rushed at once. The eyes of the bodyguards were turned toward the explosion, so they never saw the men who put the short bursts of 28 mm rounds into their bodies.
Riley and Skeeter went right for al-’Aqran. The jolt from Riley’s Taser dropped the terrorist immediately. Skeeter snatched the man off the pavement and threw him over his shoulder. Quickly, the team scanned the street and saw no one coming toward them. They turned and ran around the house to the vans out back.
As they reached the vehicles, they heard the distinctive clatter of an AK-47. Just then Khadi arrived out of breath from up Via Agostino Samuelli. Skeeter threw al-’Aqran into the rear of the first van, and Khadi and Scott scrambled in with their captive. Logan jumped in the driver’s seat as Posada circled around to the other side. Riley, Skeeter, and Li stood outside the van while Riley did a mental head count.
“Murph,” Riley said. “Where’s Murphy? He should have been here by now!”
They waited for thirty seconds, guns at the ready, watching for Murphy to come between the houses. Finally Riley said, “I’m going after him. Skeeter, Li, you two go with Scott and Khadi. I’ll follow you with Murphy in the second van.”