He paused for a long time, a neutral look on his face. “I’m doing this for you,” he said after the long silence. “Nobody else. And when I get back, we’re out of here. You need some serious downtime.”
“Thank you,” she said. “This is the right thing to do.”
“No, it isn’t, but it’s what I’m gonna do. For you,” he said, disappearing into the other room.
Munoz grabbed her arm. “I won’t let anything happen to him.”
Despite the fact that Munoz’s statement was one hundred percent, pre-mission pep-talk bullshit, it somehow made her feel better. She felt safe with these people. It was the one thing she would miss about this life.
Chapter 35
Daniel lay between two trees on the northern border of the gap between the farmhouse and the barn. He’d been here for close to thirty minutes, scanning the property with his binoculars for mobile sentries, finding none. Melendez had reported the same from the southern side. The woods were clear to the east. The entire team had confirmed that on the way in.
Graves had found a cul-de-sac connected to a trail that abutted the far eastern edge of the property. Jackson dropped them off at the trailhead and met the van in the parking lot of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax less than a quarter of a mile away. They’d lucked out with that spot. Berg was being held in the middle of an affluent D.C. suburb, where windowless vans parked on the side of the road tended to draw attention.
The western part of the property looked clean from Daniel’s position. Their only blind spot was the farmhouse’s front porch, a reasonable place to expect a sentry. Back far enough away from the road to avoid detection, with a commanding view of the only passable vehicle approach. A second sentry had emerged from the sliding glass door at the rear of the house and stepped out onto the sprawling covered deck to smoke a cigarette. He’d gone back inside as soon as he was finished.
That brought the likely total to six; five confirmed. The virus had behaved precisely like Graves had predicted. One of the original three targets had left the barn and gone inside the house, “infecting” another member of the team. It hadn’t been the man they observed smoking. The signal remained stationary inside the house when he’d passed along the observation. They now had three in the barn, two in the house, and one possibly on the front porch. All in all, a manageable number.
Security was minimal at the site, but he guessed the property’s present occupants hadn’t anticipated any kind of external threat. Why would they? Oakton, Virginia, was Anytown, U.S.A., if you had a sizeable bankroll. This place looked as sleepy and boring as a well-manicured suburb could get. They’d probably changed vehicles to something more family friendly on the way here and pulled in without raising an eyebrow. The house was owned by a corporation that Graves and Gupta would thoroughly investigate later.
“Overwatch report,” he heard through his ear mic.
Melendez reported all clear. Daniel took a final look around without the aid of binoculars.
“Oscar Two clear.”
“Copy,” said Munoz. “No change to the plan. Initiating assault. Three. Two. One. Assault team moving.”
Daniel limited his field of vision to the house, watching the structure over his scope. Any movement in the windows or doors would draw his undivided, scope-magnified attention. His job was to keep Munoz and his assault team undistracted from the team’s primary mission — securing Karl Berg. He didn’t envy Munoz’s job. They were headed into the unknown, the numbers stacked even. Three on three. The presence of a hostage tipped the scales against them. They had to be careful where they sent their bullets. Their adversaries would have no such concerns.
He caught a brush of movement in the far second-story window of the farmhouse. The assault team had been made. Maybe security was a little tighter than they’d guessed.
“Southwest corner. Oscar One engaging,” said Melendez.
A man with a rifle hopped over the front porch banister and landed with a thud in the grass on Daniel’s side of the house. This group didn’t waste time.
“Oscar Two has a target heading front to back, north side of the house,” said Daniel, shifting his rifle in the man’s direction.
He wasn’t in a big hurry. The scenario had played out in his head dozens of times since he’d arrived in the sniper’s nest. Repeated snaps echoed across the open backyard, followed by the sound of breaking glass and splintering wood. Melendez wasn’t taking any chances with the potential shooter in the far window.
Daniel stopped his scope’s crosshairs on the southeast corner of the house, about five feet above ground level. The gunman from the front porch appeared in the scope, stopping at the corner to peek into the backyard. The suppressed Mk 12 Special Purpose Rifle (SPR) bit into Daniel’s shoulder; a mottled red splotch exploding onto the white clapboard siding next to the man’s head.
He shifted his crosshairs to the center of the back door and started to apply pressure to the two-stage trigger. When the door opened less than a second later, he eased the trigger the rest of the way, sending an Mk 262, match-grade bullet toward the empty space. A body rushed into the void and collided with the bullet, instantly toppling to the deck under a fine red mist.
“Oscar Two has one tango down southeast corner, ground level, and one tango down at the back door.”
“Oscar One has one tango down far southwest window, second level. Confirming three total,” reported Melendez. “Continuing over watch.”
“Oscar Two continuing over watch.”
“Alpha team breaching,” said Munoz.
Now for the hard part — waiting for the rest of the team to do their job. A sharp crack sounded from the vicinity of the barn, followed a few seconds later by a long burst of gunfire erupting inside the barn. Three rapid, back-to-back gunshots answered the burst, and things got quiet. Their job had just gotten infinitely more complicated.
Chapter 36
Munoz simultaneously detonated the three charges spaced evenly against the barn’s locked side door, knocking it off its hinges. He pushed the door out of the way and burst into the sunlit space, panning rapidly from left to right with his M4 carbine while hugging the wall to the left of the door. An extended burst of gunfire exploded from the depths of the barn in his peripheral vision. He centered his EOTech sight center mass on a man partially visible on the opposite side of the barn and fired twice. A third bullet fired from one of Munoz’s teammates struck the gunman’s head, snapping it backward. The body dropped below the floor, indicating the possibility of a staircase.
A quick glance to his right revealed a pair of motionless, contorted legs protruding into the barn from the outside. Daly covered the staircase while Munoz backtracked a few steps and peeked through the door. Foley’s head was canted sideways, her eyes staring vacantly at nothing — a red dot visible just below her right eye. A ballistic helmet wouldn’t have made a difference.
“One tango down. Hostage is located below ground level. Alpha Three is down,” said Munoz.
He moved forward, searching the barn for a second shooter while Daly focused on what appeared to be a rectangular staircase-sized opening flanked by open trapdoors. Munoz signaled for Daly to stop. Any closer and someone in the basement could take a shallow-angled shot at them. He had a few other concerns too, having to do with the floor beneath them. It was solid earth, but he suspected that would transition to wood planks at some point closer to the suspected stairwell. If the planks weren’t tightly laid, it might be possible for the two remaining hostiles to track their approach using the natural sunlight entering through the windows.