by Chase Austin
For the first time in his life, Blake felt helpless. The enemy was fast and agile. There was no time to reorganize the team against the assault.
“Grenades, throw grenades,” Blake shouted.
However, the terrorists acted first. A hand grenade sailed out from the bend and landed in the lobby near the dead bodies of the first line of commandos. The rest of the men had less than 3 seconds to react. They all moved back, but the retreat was not fast enough. The grenade exploded with an ear-splitting blast. It peppered the two first-in-line commandos with steel ball bearings. Blood, flesh, smoke, and dust.
The four terrorists holed up in the room suddenly sprang into action, leaving their safety nets. They felt the waves of the blast in their rooms and a balloon of dust rising. Their guns aimed at the broken door.
Blake and his men were now jammed in between the two shooting teams. The tables had turned, and Blake was acutely aware that his team’s chances had dropped severely. Seven commandos were still alive but one of them was badly hurt. Six men against six terrorists. The commandos had to regroup quickly if they were to survive. Blake spoke into his lip-mic and his men quickly re-organized in two teams, of four and two, facing opposite directions.
Blake led the team of four who would be taking on the terrorists in the room. The second team, that had two Marines, faced the other side. After a pause of a couple of minutes, Blake fired four tear gas canisters into the room. At the other side of the lobby, two grenades flew in the direction of the shooters. The two terrorists behind the bend had already expected this and had taken cover. Inside the room, amidst the bullets and tear gas, the four terrorists felt the noose tightening. The 3,000 square feet room had suddenly started to shrink. Death seemed very real. They all looked at each other and found the fear each of them felt reflecting on the other faces as well.
Two Marines decided to flank the room from the other side. They paused at the edge of the open door and then quickly jumped the space to get to the safety of the wall.
The militants saw shadows in the smoke and pressed their triggers. Bullets raced to the door to meet flesh and blood.
The commandos heard the crackling assault rifles and tried to speed up, but a couple of stray bullets still found their way into one Marine’s calf muscle. The other one just got lucky.
The Marine duo covering the opposite side of the hallway slowly moved towards the bend. They could not wait for the two shooters to disappear into the building.
They rapidly moved forwards in the dust and smoke, taking up positions. Crossing the bend, they found another straight hallway at the end of which stood a shadow. As soon as the silhouette spotted the Marines, he started firing. They took cover and retaliated. The silhouette took advantage of this momentary break and disappeared again. When the Marine duo checked the hallway, it was vacant. They signaled each other and the two of them rushed towards the spot.
Visibility was still low. Fifty yards in the corridor, the first Marine had to stop. He had accidentally tripped a booby trap with his foot and it only meant one thing.
One of the Marines had thrown two grenades in the hotel room when the blast in the adjacent corridor shook the floor.
Blake was two men down. His own situation wasn’t good either. His ears were ringing and his brain was numb.
In the room, the four terrorists were now three. The two grenade blasts in the room had taken the life of one. These three had to now find a way to get out of the mess. They decided to shoot their way out of it.
In the hallway, three distinct gunshots came from the room. And two distinct footsteps from across the bend, coming for them. Blake looked at his men. There was no way they were going to get out of there alive.
“Cap, we will fight to the death.” Blake saw one of the injured Marines trying to get up. The other injured Marine had decided to step up too. Including Blake, they were a total of five men still standing amidst the massacre.
Chapter 49
Onyx Hotel, The Marina, Houston
Mac was glued to his laptop’s screen. He saw four bright dots, one over another. The team had landed on the roof.
“Everything good?” Mac hissed in the earpiece.
“Yes, what next?” Jessica asked.
“You will find a door somewhere to your left. That’s your entry.” Mac’s job as a guide had begun.
“What’s happening?” Wick asked as he heard the sound of bullets in the building.
“As per the internet live feeds, there is a battle going on at the second floor. A MARSOC team was seen to be going in thirty minutes earlier.”
“You can watch this on the Internet?” Wick was surprised.
“Yes, people with mobile cameras are live feeding this on their social media channels.”
“I thought there was a media blanket on covering this.”
“Yes, but on social media, people post all kind of shit.”
“Bloody hell. If we can see it, then the terrorist handlers can also watch it and alert their men in the building. Can you check if there is any live feed about us landing on the roof?”
“Okay, but it will take some time.”
“Do it fast, I need to know if the enemy knows that we are here.”
Twenty minutes later, Mac came back with an answer. No one had expected anyone to land at the burning floor, so no camera was pointed at it after it was done burning for several hours.
Chapter 50
Onyx Hotel, The Marina, Houston
Blake and his men now stood in the hallway facing both sides. Let the enemy come for them rather than the other way around.
The shots from the bend had started again, hitting the concrete wall but this time Blake and his men had a different strategy. Their weapons were reloaded, and they waited patiently amidst the falling concrete, for the enemy to appear.
The absence of response from the Marines gave the two terrorist teams, in the hallway and inside the room, a false sense of security. And then they made their first two mistakes in quick succession.
The first mistake was that the two terrorists across the bend decided to venture away from their cover positions. In their over-confidence, one of the two in the hallway left his cover and ventured out, looking for the Marines. Behind him was his partner. The lobby still had almost no visibility.
From their crouched positions, the two Marines saw the two silhouettes appearing in the open and pressed their triggers. Headshots. Both. Two bodies hit the floor in quick successions. Silence followed.
The three terrorists in the room looked at each other, surprised at the sudden burst of firing. As if someone had pulled the plug from a heavy metal concert. They waited for any retaliatory fire.
In the ballroom, Shahrukh felt as if the tremors had stopped. He spoke to the terrorist holed up inside the room. “Nawaz, what’s the situation?”
“I don’t know. There isn’t any fire from the commandos.”
“Are they dead?”
“Not sure. We are inside the room. Outside visibility is almost non-existent.” Nawaz was telling the truth.
“What about Aslam and Mir?” Shahrukh asked, referring to the two terrorists who had been shooting from behind the bend.
“I’m not sure. They might be injured. Not able to contact them.”
“Wait for a few minutes, let the dust settle and then look out for them.”
“Okay.”
Ten more minutes. Nothing happened. No movement in the lobby. Blake and his men had now retreated into the hallway. If anyone ventured out, the first impression he would get would be a vacant hallway peppered with dead Marines all around. The terrorists didn’t know how many Marines were in the hallway initially, so Blake’s team had the element of surprise with them now. They waited.
Everyone in the Situation Room was waiting too.
Inside the room, the silence was turning unbearable for the three terrorists. Blake and his team were suddenly playing with the terrorist’s fear of inaction. Nawaz eventually signaled the othe
r two terrorists to check the lobby but not from the main door. Every suite in the Onyx had two doors. In the case of this room, both doors opened in the same lobby but were at two ends.
The terrorists were talking about taking the second exit. The three of them moved in tandem towards the door, two at the front and Nawaz at the back. The important thing was to open the door noiselessly. The doorknob rotated clockwise and freed the door.
Blake heard the click sound first and saw the wooden door moving. The surprise of finding another exit was soon overcome by the thought that the terrorists had decided to take this exit. He touched the shoulders of the Marine standing next to him to let him know about the new development. Slowly the five Marines positioned themselves around the door, their backs against the wall.
The door opened and the first terrorist ventured out, followed closely by the second. The first terrorist turned to his right and found a man in a black helmet staring at him, his MP5 pointing at his abdomen. The second terrorist saw it a second late and tried to get back into the room, but two MP5s roared and bullets pierced through the bodies of the two terrorists at supersonic speed. The two of them fumbled while trying to get back in the room but their bodies refused to go anywhere.
Nawaz, who was just behind the two, saw his people going down and started firing blindly. His AK-47 peppered the small entry point with bullets. The Marines had expected this and had already taken cover.
In his fearful rage Nawaz had forgotten that even the AK-47 needs a reload. As soon as he paused, Blake and his men stormed inside the room, their MP5s trained in Nawaz’s direction and firing. Nawaz was in the middle of reloading his weapon when the bullets met him. He was dead before he hit the floor. The three un-injured Marines quickly got in the suite to check for any other terrorists.
They found one more militant’s dead body near the bed.
“Mac, can you check the status on the second floor?” Wick asked.
“I’m not sure how. The CCTVs can only be navigated by getting into the control room that is somewhere on the first or second floor. Hacking it will take more time.”
“It’s better if we ask Helms to get the updates from the Situation Room.” Wick told Jessica.
“Okay, let me talk to him.” Jessica offered.
In the Situation Room, several eyes smiled as their best men finally won a hard-fought battle. But this victory came at the price of losing eleven of them. A medics team was on on the way, with Ted’s help, to tend to the injured Marines.
General Shelton and General Neller looked dumbfounded and angry at the same time. They had not expected the terrorists to be so well-trained. They were just mercenaries and against them were America’s best men. It was unprecedented in the history of the MARSOC teams. Never had they faced such an adversary where this team had to face this kind of resistance. But that day, many things had happened that no one had expected to happen.
Chapter 51
Onyx Hotel, The Marina, Houston
Helms’ source told him about the six dead terrorists on the second floor and about the eleven martyred Marines. Reinforcement would take time and a new strategy had to be formulated now.
Jessica relayed this information to everyone else.
As per the estimate, Onyx housed eight to ten terrorists. Jessica and Wick’s were sure that the remaining terrorists would try to fortify their positions, maybe by using hostages.
Onyx had thirty numbered floors but in reality, it only had twenty-nine floors. This was because like most hotels, Onyx didn’t have a thirteenth floor. The building had three entry or exit points. These were at the lobby level, at the pool level, and a route that not many knew – from the second basement all up to the thirtieth floor, used for maintenance. The team hoped that the terrorists were only aware of the lobby and the pool stairs and not the one used for maintenance. If that was the case, then this was the only route to find them and kill them.
“What’s the plan?” Landon asked. They were on the twenty-eighth floor right then.
“We need to get to the floor where the remaining terrorists are holding up.” Jessica said.
“That means checking each room on each floor,” said Wick. There wasn’t any other option.
Jessica, MP5 in her right hand, gingerly opened the door of the faintly lit stairwell. The hotel’s emergency fire exit spiraled down to the second basement. Behind her was Wick. Landon and Eddie followed.
They were still not sure if they would find any terrorist on this route, but it was the best option they had. They had switched off their earphones for the time being to do away with any distractions.
Jessica and Wick moved down, holding one side of the stairs, and covering the corridor with their weapons. Then, Landon and Eddie leapfrogged them.
The fire-escape door on the twenty-seventh floor had push bars, which meant that it could be opened only from the hotel corridor, and not from the fire escape. A force sneaking up the fire escape would have no option but to break the door down and give itself away. They decided to try the next floor.
Finally, on the twentieth floor, they saw a crack in the fire escape door. It was slightly ajar, wide enough to stick a knife blade in.
In the lobby, a macabre trail led them to the spot of a fresh slaughter. Scattered bullet holes on the ceiling of the stairs. Then, a pair of broken spectacles. A shoe. A lady’s slipper. A silk scarf leading them upstairs. The four of them slowed down, then stopped altogether when they looked up. A bloodied hand hung limply from the staircase.
The twentieth floor also opened to a two-level elevator machinery room. The stairs telescoped into an iron ladder barely four feet wide and six feet long. There were rivulets of blood running down from the stairs above. Six bodies were heaped on top of each other. The terrorists had executed their hostages at point-blank range. There were bullet holes on the wall, and bullets had knocked the light bulb out. The door was locked. There was no point in blasting the door down. It was a dead end.
They decided to try another route. Finally, they found the spot from where they could see the complete cavernous polygonal atrium of the Onyx. Over thirty rooms per floor were wrapped around this vertiginous space. The fiberglass skylight was letting the moonlight into the atrium. Standing there, the layout of the hotel became clearer to the team. If you treated the atrium as the face of a clock, there were three entry points onto each floor: fire exit stairs at five and ten o’clock and a set of service stairs behind the elevators at eight o’clock. They had entered on to the twentieth floor from the fire escape. Now they moved clockwise around the corridor and circled the atrium as they headed for the service stairs at eight o’clock that led straight to the next floor.
There was an eerie, muffled silence in the atrium, the silence that terror and the fear of death will bring. Nothing else was out of place. All the polished brown doors that led to the rooms were shut. Each floor had a three-foot-high wall that ran around the central space, made alternately of brick and glass partitions, the latter having tubular brass balustrades.
They four of them looked across the floor where they could see most of the rooms on their level and below. In a tactical situation, such a commanding view leveled the playing field between them and the terrorists. The black figures filed quietly along the red-carpeted floor, briefly merging with the black granite cladding of the elevator area.
And then Wick saw Shahrukh, hastily walking near the pool with an AK-47 in his hand. He was looking up.
“Fall back,” Wick hissed and all of them simultaneously reacted.
Shahrukh pushed the two hostages inside the room. Yakub checked the lobby on the seventh floor and closed the door from inside.
“Sit!” Yakub ordered the two Americans who were already too scared to protest.
They had chosen two people from the ballroom hostages whom they felt could be easily handled and were less of a flight risk. One was a young girl of roughly the same age as Shahrukh and Yakub, in her early twenties, and other was a middle-aged man.
Both were injured and that was why they were not a flight risk and posed a lesser threat to Yakub and Shahrukh. They had found the girl in the second floor’s ballroom, hiding among the dead. Her name was Olivia and she was a hotel employee. The other hostage was Peter Jacob, who worked for a multinational firm and was staying in the hotel for the last two days for business meetings. They both looked shell-shocked.
The death of six of their colleagues had shaken Shahrukh and Yakub too. The two of them now had to stay together to remain alive.
