Another MFD automatically displayed the proper malfunction procedures checklist. The copilot accomplished the first four items-checking other engine indications, turning on auxiliary pumps, and inspecting the engine visually for signs of fire — then got to step number five: “Next item 15 ENGINE SHUTDOWN INFLIGHT checklist, Ken.”
“Flag it,” the pilot replied. “We’ve still got a few minutes before it seizes up. We’ll finish the infiltration, then head for the embassy. Give Jurgensen a holler and tell him to make a ready deck.” On interphone, he said, “Jumpmaster, get your boys on the roof. We’ve got maybe two minutes before we have to bug out.”
Once over the building, the first MV-22 hovered just twenty feet above the rooftop. Four thick ropes were tossed out — two from the cargo ramp between the door gunner just inside the cargo door and one from each port and starboard entry door — and within ten seconds all eighteen Marines had fastroped down to the rooftop. Rappelling was usually too slow for this kind of work — fastroping used no carabiners or lowering devices. It was more akin to sliding down a fire pole; the descent was controlled by hands and feet only, usually resulting in faster descents.
It was soon obvious that the OMON defenders had no night-vision equipment — the troops on the roof were stumbling around blindly, searching for the aircraft overhead, and the Marines now on the roof were able to literally walk right up to the OMON troops. The Marine Building Clearing Team’s MP5 submachine guns made quick work of any surviving OMON soldiers on the rooftop, but not before one Marine was hit in the leg as he slid down his rope.
The MV-22 pilot was about to peel away from the roof and head for the U.S. Embassy when he heard on the assault channeclass="underline" “Marine down! Marine down! Stand by to medevac!”
But the pilot had his own problems. The oil pressure on the right engine was definitely dropping, and now a fuel-pressure problem was developing on the same engine. “Christ, I knew it!” the pilot cursed. “He might be safer on the roof than with us.” But he clicked on the interphone and yelled, “Guide me down, door gunners, and let’s make it snappy. I didn’t bring my American Express card.”
With the Marine door gunners acting as spotters, the MV-22 settled down to within two feet of the roof, and the wounded Marine was helped up onto the cargo ramp and pulled inside. Thirty seconds after that radio call, the wounded man was being treated by a medical-trained door gunner. The pilot immediately climbed to five thousand feet, as far from any threat of ground fire as he could. By then the oil pressure had dropped to the red line. “Okay, Jim, give me the shutdown checklist,” the pilot said. Following the checklist, the pilot put the MV-22 in full helicopter mode and manually crossed over power from the portside engine to both rotors, allowing the SEA HAMMER to fly on only one engine. Once they were sure that both rotors were under control, they shut down the starboard engine seconds before all oil bled out.
Back on the roof of the Fisikous security building, four Marines set up machine-gun nests and scanned for any sign of counterattack, and Captain Snyder and his executive officer set up a communications link with the Embassy and the other MV-22 orbiting safely over the city. The other eleven Marines disabled the elevator from the roof, then blew the door to the stairwell open and rushed inside.
Floor by floor, the Marine Assault and Building Clearing Team members swept down the stairwell. Stealth and speed were important, so no heavy explosives were used. At each floor, a subsonic round from their suppressed MP5 submachine gun took out the stairwell lights and any guards in the stairwell. In sixty seconds the stairwell on the four above-ground floors was controlled by Marines. With three Marines acting as guards on the stairwell, four two-member Marine clearing teams were poised at each aboveground-floor doorway ready to enter each floor.
With five radio beeps over the whispermikes, the teams on each floor simultaneously began their attack.
The doors on each floor leading from the stairwell were all steel-sheathed fire doors, locked on the inside, so the Marines went in the easy way — two rapid-fire rounds from the Hydra rotary-drum grenade launcher punched man-sized holes in the doors and walls, shorting out most of the lights and creating enough smoke, noise, and debris on each floor to make the OMON soldiers and KGB officers inside bolt in confusion. Several carefully placed shots destroyed the battery-powered emergency lights, and using their night-vision goggles the Marines operated in total darkness.
The target floor was the fourth floor, the floor which had been converted into some sort of bizarre facsimile of an apartment complex. A reception area with couches and solid wood desks was in front, with two pine-paneled hallways left and right. Upon inspection, only one room had actually been converted into an apartment — the rest of the rooms had monitoring equipment, a medical facility, an interrogation center, and a control room. Whoever came up the elevator would see only this reception area and would never know that he was in a military detention facility — it appeared just like a standard Soviet apartment building, right down to the little “floor mother” room down the hall. The prisoner could be kept in this same floor for years and be made to think that he was transported to many different places.
The apartment had a small kitchenette, a small living room, and an even smaller bedroom with a lavatory. It very closely resembled a standard government-built apartment — small, sparsely furnished, cramped but comfortable.
The apartment was empty. It had obviously been empty for some time. The assault-team leader clicked open the radio channel in his VADER helmet: “Hammer Three, this is Assault. Target area empty. Continuing search.” The target was not where intelligence said he would be. Although that was normal — it was too much to expect everything to be where you expected — it only meant more danger for the assault team because now the entire building, including the two below-ground floors, had to be searched.
The third floor, the one below the “apartment-complex” floor, was an office area for the KGB contingent that controlled security at the design center, with only a graveyard shift of workers and perhaps a small Black Beret guard unit expected there. The entire floor had to be sealed as quickly as possible to allow the Marines free access to and from the roof. With one security-team member guarding the stairway door, one assault member would blow a wall or door apart with a grenade round, and the other used his suppressed MP5 submachine gun to neutralize anyone left standing in the room. Using an infrared flashlight, the third team member quickly searched each room, tossed a sleeping-gas canister inside to disable anyone hiding inside, closed and jammed the door shut with a jamming spike, marked it with infrared tape-visible only with night-vision goggles-and the team would move on to the next office. Each room would take about five seconds to search and clear. When an assault-team member would encounter someone in the room or hallways, he would study his face for about two seconds in the light of their infrared flashlights before shooting. Anyone that looked even remotely like Luger was searched more carefully — after he was down.
The OMON security force’s arsenal was on the second floor, which was arranged differently than the other floors. The offices of the officer in charge of the arsenal, his NCOIC, and his clerks flanked the hallway as they entered, but the rest of the floor was divided by a long steel counter-top, with sand-filled weapon-clearing barrels, cleaning-solvent tanks, and gun-cleaning benches along the windows. Beyond the countertop was a brick wall with a single vaultlike door, and beyond that was the arsenal. After leaving two Marines to guard the stairwell in case any enemy soldiers straggled out, seven Marines congregated on the securely locked door to the arsenal and began their assault on this important floor.