“Shit! Over here,” another SEAL hollered out. Both Comanche and the Chief were found together amidst a pile of bodies that were practically stacked up like cordwood. In what appeared to be a last ditch effort by about twenty ISIS troops, they had charged Comanche and the Chief, who, by this time, were down to their Glock 17s and were simply overwhelmed.
“Chaos, Viking Actual. We’re about to begin our assault. What’s your ETA?”
“Viking, we’re leaving now. We’re about two and half minutes out.”
“We’ll be assaulting through the north gate. Suggest you come in from the east gate that way we can catch them in a crossfire. The advance teams took care of everyone outside the walls but there’s absolutely no cover inside. I hope none of these guys have any night vision goggles.”
“Understood. We’re on the way and will attack from the east gate.” Chaos acknowledged.
“Archangel, Chaos. Odin-Seven is airborne with twenty-six bombs on board. Say again, two six, twenty-six weapons on board.”
“Chaos, understood. Any word on the hostages?”
“We’re on the way to help Viking. They’ve entered the compound but it sounds like it’s pretty well defended. We’ll hit them from the flank so we should get them in a cross fire. Chaos out.”
“Desert Hawk Two-Six, Archangel. Any word on that Raid-One flight?”
“Negative Archangel. We lost them a while ago.”
“Roger that, Desert Hawk. Keep an eye out for them. I’m reinstating the Raid-One designation. They just might be headed out on bombing mission, though at this point, we do not know the target.”
“Roger that, Archangel. I’m assuming since we don’t know the target we don’t know the route either. We’ll try and reacquire them, might be a long shot, though.”
“Understand, Desert Hawk. Keep me advised.”
“Viking, Chaos, we’re just outside the mosque and we’ll be attacking from both the east and the south gates so don’t light us up!” Jackson advised.
“Roger that, Chaos. We’ve lost one LAV — the cannon on this thing lights up your location so well you can’t miss with an RPG. Lost all three crew members plus a couple more guys. Once the LAV went up, the fireball lit up the entire area. These LAV’s might be a great recon vehicle but whoever thought about using these things here never heard of Mogadishu or Black Hawk Down! These things are nothing but RPG bait!”
“Hang in there Viking, we’re coming through now!”
Viking Four-Six’s LAV crashed through the east gate just as Chaos terminated his call with Viking Actual. The archway began about fifty feet from the east gate entrance and ran perpendicular to the east wall. As the LAV entered the gate, the driver came up behind the archway, giving the gunner a clear shot at what had to be at least an entire platoon hiding behind each of the columns supporting the archway. Within seconds, the archway and the courtyard had been cleared of all ISIS forces. However, the mosque itself, had yet to be cleared.
Arielle, Falcon & Stonewall joined Viking Two in clearing the mosque itself. The first stack of four SEALs lined up at one of the corner entrances. The flash-bang grenade went in first, followed in rapid succession by each of the SEALs. In seconds, five ISIS troops lay dead on the floor of what appeared to be a rather large office. Arielle, Falcon and Stonewall took a quick scan of the office while a couple SEALs secured two doorways at the rear of the office.
“Any idea where these doors lead?” Arielle asked.
“Let’s take a look,” Chief Conti said as he gently opened the door at the far side corner of the room. No sooner had he opened the door than a hail of gunfire came through the door. Everyone in the room took note, though, that none of the gunfire penetrated the office wall.
“Okay, what about door number two?” Stonewall asked.
“Well, what do we have here?” Falcon noted. “Looks like we have ourselves a basement.”
“Okay, that’s where everyone’s supposed to be. Chief, we need to secure that other door,” Stonewall ordered the SEAL team leader. “How do things look in there?” Stonewall asked.
“Give me a sec,” came the reply. “Grenades,” the SEAL team leader called out as he crouched beside the door. Another SEAL stood over him and, as soon as the chief opened the door, they each threw a grenade into the building’s interior. As soon as the grenades detonated, the SEAL team leader opened the door to get a quick read on the mosque’s interior.
“Looks like we’ve got a long hallway leading in each direction,” Chief Conti pointed out. “There’s a huge open area in the middle with this hallway surrounding it. There’s arches all over the place and it looks like a ton of bad guys. It looks like several more rooms like this one along the hallway.”
“Okay, I need you to hold the door while we get the hostages,” Stonewall advised. “How’s the basement look?”
“On it,” one of the SEALs replied as he quietly headed down the stairs. The sidewall for the stairs ended at the bottom where an entrance opened to the right. The SEAL stole a quick look around the corner and was met with a fusillade of automatic fire. Here again, the stone wall prevented the rounds from hitting the SEAL, though one of the rounds ricocheted and hit him just below the knee. The SEAL collapsed but managed to stay on the steps where he got hit but he still lay too close to the bottom landing of the stairway.
“Man down,” Falcon hollered as he raced down the stairs to check on the wounded SEAL. At the bottom, he threw a couple grenades into the room a few seconds apart. As soon as the second grenade detonated, he grabbed the SEAL and carried him up the stairs.
As soon as Falcon had the SEAL back in the office, Arielle ran down the stairs for a closer look. As she approached the landing, she could hear several people crying out in pain from the two grenades that had just detonated. However, instead of sticking her head out for a quick look, she grabbed her cell phone and stuck the camera lens portion just beyond the rock wall and grabbed several pictures and then retreated back up the steps.
“Okay, here’s what we’ve got,” she told the team as she pulled the photos up on her Toughbook laptop while everyone crouched around the small conference table in the middle of the room. “Looks like we’ve already taken out a few of them,” she began as they could all see three bodies lying on the floor. “It looks like we’ve got a main room….”
“Grenade!!!” one of the SEALs who was guarding the door leading to the interior of the mosque yelled out as a grenade came flying through the doorway, ricocheting off the wall and careening behind the office desk in the back of the room as everyone hit the deck before it detonated.
“Everyone okay?” Stonewall asked.
“I’m good, I’m good,” came the responses from everyone now getting back off of the floor, as the two SEALs guarding the door let off with several bursts from their HK 416 assault rifles.
“You guys okay?” Stonewall asked the two SEALs.
“Yeah, that guy got a little close. I think they’re working on a plan to assault this room. You’re going to need to hurry up.”
“Gotcha,” Chaos replied.
“Viking, Chaos. How are things out front?” Stonewall radioed to the SEAL commander.
“Chaos, Viking. We’ve cleared the entire courtyard out front. We’re getting ready to assault the building you’re in.”
“Excellent. We’re in an office in the southeast corner of the mosque. From what we can tell, there’s quite a few ISIS troops here in the building. We’ve secured a door that leads to the interior of the building but we’re concentrating on clearing the basement. The ground floor’s all yours, Viking.”