“The president wants to avoid a panic. We can stand here wasting time debating whether or not he’s right, but for now those are his orders. Which means those are your orders.”
Uzi pointed at the laptop at the far end of the room. “Maybe there’s something on that comp—”
A phone started ringing. Uzi and DeSantos glanced at each other, then began searching the room.
“Got it,” Vail said, holding up the device. “Caller ID, but it’s in Arabic. Uzi, don’t you speak—”
“Let me see.” Uzi took it, looked at Knox, and then reached over to a machine mounted on the table. He examined its steel casing, found a switch — and turned it on. It emitted a low groan and then he answered the call in the bomber’s native tongue. He kept his responses short, with a hint of anger and urgency — as best as Vail could tell from his demeanor and tone. She figured the noise from the machine gave him some cover for his voice not matching that of the dead man.
Seconds later, he hung up and pocketed the phone.
“What was that about?” Vail asked.
“We need to go.”
“Who was it?” DeSantos asked.
“Our bomber’s accomplice. He said he heard about an explosion around here but couldn’t get any verification, and wanted to know if everything was okay.”
“And you told him?”
“I told him I had a close call, it was nearby, that I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to stay here. He said I should go to a safe house they had. They’d regroup and figure out what to do. He gave me the address. Let’s move.”
“How do you know it’s not a trap?” Knox asked.
“We don’t. But if it’s legit, we may have a lead into one or more of his accomplices.”
“Take Team Seven.” Knox rapped his knuckles on the door and the OPSIG agent pulled it open. “Tell Team Seven to get ready to roll. Two minutes.”
“Yes sir.”
“You coming?” Uzi asked Vail as they headed back out to the street.
“Safer here,” DeSantos said. “Help them document the scene.”
“I don’t need you to protect me,” Vail said as she matched him stride for stride up the steps. “I’m a federal agent. And I was nearly blown up by a suicide bomber. I’m kinda pissed.”
“Revenge?”
“Justice. Besides, have you ever known me to shy away from a fight?”
“I’ve known you to start a few.”
“That’s not fair,” Vail said. “It’s accurate, but not fair.”
They emerged into the cold night air, which prickled her skin, awakening her senses as she looked out at the bomber’s carnage. “I take it you’re coming then?”
“I’m coming.”
One of the black cabover trucks pulled up to the curb down the block.
“That’s our ride,” Uzi said. “Grab a vest and a helmet.”
2
The driver of the tactical vehicle negotiated the streets of southeast DC swiftly but discreetly. “We’ll drop you two blocks from the target so they don’t see a big black truck pull up.”
“Roger that,” the team commander said over their headsets. He provided some operational details, then said, “We were only able to secure a crude blueprint of the building’s interior. A filing by the contractor when it was built. So be careful.”
Vail knew that SWAT teams spent days studying floorplans, architectural renderings, and surveillance photos of a facility before infiltrating it. Once you breached the door and stepped inside, you were at a tactical disadvantage to those bad actors inside who either modified the interior or hardened it against attack.
They had no time for reconnaissance, so it came down to getting some idea of the interior’s layout and then winging it based on their instincts, training, and best guesses. Your job was to do your best with what you had.
“All I know,” the commander said over the comms, “is that the property is a townhouse and part of a public development operated by the DC Housing Authority. There are over two hundred units, one to six bedrooms apiece.”
Great. Our tax dollars are paying for the terrorists to live in our country. Gotta love America. We don’t discriminate: give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, your radicalized terrorists—
“ETA one minute,” the driver said.
The men readied themselves, checking weapons and positioning their utility belts.
“Team members will lead,” the commander said to DeSantos, “and the three of you will bring up the rear.”
Neither DeSantos nor Uzi objected. Vail figured they knew their place because it made sense for a team accustomed to operating together to do their thing and secure the location. She, Uzi, and DeSantos were there for backup, investigative continuity, and support.
They came up 1st Street SW, hung a left on N Street and then a right on Half Street. The truck pulled to an abrupt stop and the rear doors opened. The operators spilled out and deployed swiftly and with relative stealth. Normally law enforcement would’ve been brought in to evacuate the surrounding buildings, block off neighboring streets, and clear the immediate area of innocents. But there was a substantial risk of tipping off the offenders, and with the onsite mix of suicide bombers and potential explosives, the danger was too great.
Time was of the essence: the element of surprise was all they had.
Had they been deploying in a business district, there would be little likelihood that on a weekend evening many people would be inside the adjacent buildings. But this was a residential neighborhood, densely populated with blocks of three-story brick tenements. “We still have our objectives,” the team leader said.
Vail knew those objectives were to apprehend the tangos alive so they could be questioned, in their apartment if possible — and given the location of the target — without discharging their weapons.
She also knew that bombers resided in this building, terrorists who were part of an organization which valued their ends more than the means they employed to achieve them. If a few people had to blow themselves up to make a statement and induce terror, so be it. The man who strapped the bomb to his chest had no regard for the loss of his own life. He was going to a higher place in the afterlife, with a host of virgins who would serve his every need for eternity.
Absurd as that sounded to an unindoctrinated person, these radicals believed it.
Problem is, none of the bombers come back from the dead to tell their buddies it’s all a load of bullshit.
The men arrayed themselves in three groups. Using hand signals, DeSantos assigned Vail and Uzi to the two teams he was not shadowing — Alpha and Charlie.
Vail adjusted her vest, which was heavy and uncomfortably tight against her breasts, but she stayed with the group as they snaked through the streets. The building, a block-long two-story masonry structure with an arched entryway, had barred first-floor windows and a PEPCO electrical access panel out front. The commanding officer nodded at the man to his left, who pulled a pair of bolt cutters from his utility belt and removed the lock securing the junction box, then slowly opened the gray metal doors and studied the circuits. A moment later, he signaled a thumbs-up to his CO, who keyed his mic. “Teams, check in.”
They each indicated they were in position.
The commander gave a thumbs-up to his breach officer, who in this case was going to use a lock pick rather than a battering ram. The farther they could get inside without the inhabitants realizing anything, the better.
The man removed his kit from the deadbolt mechanism and gave the CO another hand signal.