by Ross Sidor
The terrorist inside likely heard or saw the grenade hit, panicked, and leapt behind the nearest cover he could find. Avery could hear the frantic movement and a shout in Uzbek. The stun grenade detonated a second later. A brilliant white flash lit up the interior of the living room, bright enough to immediately over-stimulate and temporarily blind the photoreceptors of the eyeball’s retinas, blinding anyone within several feet, accompanied by a resounding and deafening blast powerful enough to disturb the fluids inside the ear and disrupt a person’s balance and coordination, as well as induce nausea.
Avery bolted. He jumped over the first Uzbek corpse, and passed the threshold into the darkened house. He controlled his breathing, taking deep breaths in and out, so that a steady stream of oxygen supplied his brain. His eyes scanned, constantly moving around, side to side and up and down, taking in everything and never become fixated on one point, and he never stopped moving.
The furniture—two heavy, square tables and a double couch—were overturned and positioned across the floor, along with stacks of lumber, cinder blocks, and metal and wire cages taken in from outside, to create cover for firing positions as well as obstacles for the entry team. The house otherwise appeared to be sparsely furnished. Most Tajik households couldn’t afford much, and Tajiks generally opted to sit on the floor on rugs at low tables.
The terrorist was barely four feet away from Avery as he came through the doorway. Avery watched him stumble and trip over a table leg while his head spun frantically around, like he was inebriated. He was completely oblivious to Avery’s entry and anything else taking place around him. The effects of the stun grenade could last up to several seconds, more than enough time for a tactical unit to make a dynamic entry and clear a room of hostiles.
Moving left, his back to the wall, Avery aligned his sights, passed the aiming aperture over his target, and double tapped the trigger, drilling the terrorist through his head. Two little red puffs appeared in the air for a quick second, while little bits of skull and brain flew. The terrorist collapsed onto the floor in stages, first dropping onto his knees, simultaneously dropping his rifle, and finally plopping forward onto his face. As he stepped over the body, Avery kicked the submachine gun away from its hand and fired one more shot into the back of the man’s head.
Avery finished his sweep of the room. He never stopped moving. In close quarters combat, it was vital to never become stationary.
There were no other immediate targets. He tapped his throat mike and reported, “Carnivore for Sideshow, two crows, Green Six secure,” stating that he had two dead terrorists and the front of the house was cleared.
The sound of gunfire continued from the back of the house. Surprised that Poacher and Flounder apparently still hadn’t made entry, Avery reckoned that the IMU had a good position from which they were able to hold back attackers. These assholes had been expecting an assault.
Staying near and following the perimeter of the wall, Avery proceeded to the west-side doorway going into the hallway. He stopped there, hesitated and didn’t know why, staying within the living room and violating the vital rule about not becoming still.
Slowly and deliberately, he searched his surroundings. Left-right, up-down, taking in and processing every little detail. That’s when he spotted the ultra-thin cord running the gap between the sides of the doorframe across the hall, just inches off the floor. He looked directly down and saw a similar cord, inches away from his shins. He stepped high over it and into the hallway. He saw that the cord was taped to either side of the doorframe. On the right side, in the corner of the wall, near the jamb, the cord was tied through the pin of a hand grenade.
The door to the bedroom with the sole occupant—presumably Cramer, maybe not—was four feet away and closed. Avery tried the doorknob. It was locked. He wanted to continue through the house, and come up on the flank of the IMU holding back Poacher and Flounder, but he couldn’t just assume that it was Cramer in the room and not another IMU.
As if reading his thoughts, Avery suddenly heard Poacher’s voice over his earpiece, announcing that he was coming around the house through the front.
Avery swept his sights over the west-end entrance to the hallway, where the kitchen was, and found no targets, but heard the familiar crackle of AK fire from the back of the house. No immediate threats present, he carefully disabled both of the grenade-traps.
A second later, Poacher announced his arrival over the comms, entered the house through the front door, and crossed the living room, catching up with Avery, who indicated the traps. Poacher acknowledged and signaled Avery to cover his six. Avery acknowledged, and Poacher continued cautiously through the house, going across the kitchen and the dining room.
The remaining IMU tango was crouched behind a large, sturdy couch that had been flipped over onto its back and positioned to offer the defenders a clear line-of-sight on the backdoor. Beside him, another IMU body lay sprawled over the floor, with massive quantities of blood draining from his collapsed skull. Thick pieces of wood and sheets of metal were laid out against the couch, to reinforce it. The IMU popped up from behind the couch and let off a burst of automatic fire in Flounder’s direction.
Flounder was still outside, in the back. He’d taken cover behind the tapchan, a free-standing, porch-like structure in the backyards of Tajik houses.
Poacher radioed Flounder and ordered the ex-SEAL to hold fire.
Keeping his MP5 sighted over the oblivious terrorist’s back, Poacher stepped up behind him and put a single 9mm round through his rear left deltoid, which wasn’t covered by his armored vest. The terrorist’s whole body jerked. He screamed out and dropped the weight of the rifle, holding onto it with one hand. Poacher stepped up behind the wounded terrorist, yanked the rifle out of his hand, whacked him over the top of the head with the stock of his MP5, and called in Flounder.
Simultaneously, Avery aimed low and blasted the lock of the bedroom door with two shots and kicked the door in on its hinges. With heavy wooden boards over the two windows and no light sources, the room was even darker than the rest of the house.
Avery stepped forward and allowed the M4 to lead him past the threshold, into the darkness. He held the rifle in the low ready position, with the barrel angled toward the floor ahead of him and the stock nestled comfortably against his right shoulder.
The air inside this room was heavy, warm, and smelled of human excrement and old sweat. The stench was so overpowering Avery could taste it in the back of his throat, and nearly gagged on it. A man lay on a kurpacha—a Tajik-style mattress—on the floor, underneath a heavy duvet. He was on his stomach, his head facing the wall, away from Avery. Avery could make out large splotches that appeared to be old, dried blood on the mattress. He swept his sights across the room, from one side to the other, and came back around to check his six. Then he kept his aim trained on the unmoving form on the mattress and slowly stepped closer.
“Bob?” Avery called out.
The body stirred, a weak and muffled voice murmured something incomprehensible. The head lifted slightly, as if the man tried to look back over his shoulder at the intruder. But the movement seemed to require too much exertion. The head dropped back against the mattress with a defeated groan.
“Can you speak?” Avery called out. “Bob, if that’s you, give me some kind of sign.”
The head, face pressed halfway into the mattress, bobbed up and down twice, the movement barely noticeable and seeming to cause the man great pain.
“We’re going to get you out of here.” Even as he said it, Avery’s senses told him something was wrong.
Poacher announced his presence to Avery’s back as he entered the room.
Avery nodded once, not taking his eyes off the shape on the mattress. He took his left hand away from his M4 to motion for Poacher to stay where he was.
Flounder remained standing in the hallway, covering them, keeping his eyes and ears open.
Avery motioned to Poacher that he was going to approach t
he captive, and Poacher shouldered his MP5, keeping it trained on the subject.
Avery closed the distance to the mattress in four steps. Closer, he could at once tell from the mangy, curly dark hair that this was definitely not Cramer. Cramer was balding and kept the remaining hair on his sides closely buzzed. Avery reached down, ripped the blanket away, grabbed hold of the man by the shoulder, flipped him over, and stepped back, barreling his M4 down on him.
The man was wide awake and thickly bearded, Islamic fundamentalist style, his eyes wild, staring up at Avery with fear and bewilderment. He wore a homemade martyr’s vest fastened around his torso. His fist clenched around a black remote connected by wire to the vest. His thumb, trembling and twitching, was poised over a switch.
Avery’s guts churned inside out.
Poacher saw it, too. He and Avery reacted the same second and opened up, firing into the terrorist’s head, pulverizing it, blasting it apart and spilling its contents all over the wooden floor and mattress. The hand carrying the detonator went limp and dropped, hanging over the side of the mattress but still holding onto the device, the thumb relaxed now.
Avery fired until his weapon clicked empty. Then he held up a hand to signal Poacher to cease fire and bent forward and pulled the detonator out of the terrorist’s dead hand and disconnected it from the vest.
He examined the vest.
It was fitted with cut thin, metallic pipes filled with TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, an easily made explosive compound often utilized by Palestinians. It is also highly unstable, which accounted for why so many Palestinian bomb makers have burn scars and missing fingers. The pipe bombs were surrounded by a fragmentation jacket. These are simply cloth pouches loaded with screws, nails, marbles, or any other item that can serve as shrapnel. The detonator was a household light bulb, with the glass broken and removed and the wire coated with flammable material so that when the light bulb is turned on, the wire is heated, detonating the explosives and dispersing the shrapnel.
“Clear,” Avery said quietly.
He ejected the spent magazine from his rifle, pulled a new one from his vest, gently slapped it into place, and chambered a round. Then he examined his vest where he’d caught a bullet earlier. The fabric was torn, but the armor didn’t appear to be penetrated. He slid a hand under his vest and felt for holes and blood, but there were none.
One hundred and seventeen seconds had elapsed since Flounder blew the doors to the house.
“All right, let’s move quickly,” Avery said. “We don’t know how long we have before some local militia or whoever the fuck show up.”
They entered the next bedroom.
White sheets hung from the wall, with the flag of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan prominently displayed in the middle. A single wood chair sat in the middle of the room, in front of the flag. A video-recorder mounted on a tripod faced the chair and flag. Tiny blood stains speckled the floor. There was a wide roll of clear plastic sheeting. They always laid out plastic over the floor when they were going to cut through someone’s throat.
The video appeared on the Internet less than two days ago, so Cramer had been here recently. Avery swore out loud. Wherever Cramer was now, if he was still alive, once his captors heard word of the takedown here, they’d surely execute him.
“We have a live one,” Poacher announced.
Avery stormed across the house to the back.
Otabek Babayev lay on the floor, with his wrists and ankles flex-cuffed, and a piece of duct tape over his mouth, muffling his cries. He was shirtless, and there were blood-soaked bandages and gauze over his right shoulder.
The SAD operators were right behind Avery. He instructed Flounder to get in the van and be ready to leave in a hurry. He told Poacher to search the bodies and rooms for anything of potential intelligence value. They acknowledged and left Avery alone with the prisoner.
He ripped the tape off Babayev’s mouth in one fast, hard motion. “Where’s the American?”
The Uzbek stared contemptuously up at Avery. It was the same look of pride, hate, and defiance Avery saw on the face of Gurgakov’s prisoner.
There wasn’t time for this shit. Avery raised his rifle, barrel pointed up, and smashed the stock down against Babayev’s head, splitting skin, scraping bone, and drawing blood. Babayev bit into his lower lip and struggled to mute any scream or verbal reaction. He did not want to give the American the satisfaction of seeing him suffer and wither in pain.
Avery repeated the inquiry, which was again met with silence.
Avery took two steps back, shouldered the M4 and drilled Babayev straight through his left kneecap. That got a reaction out of him. Babayev twisted and turned on the floor, screamed and howled like a deranged animal. Blood poured rapidly out from the hole through the destroyed bone and cartilage. Then, just to show he was completely serious, Avery blasted apart Babayev’s other knee.
“Where is he, you son of a bitch?” Avery shouted. He battered Babayev once more with the rifle’s stock.
“He’s dead,” Babayev finally shouted in English. “He had a heart attack, during interrogation, but it is no big thing. He was to die soon anyway.”
Avery examined Babayev’s face closely and said, “I don’t believe you.” He shot the Uzbek through the foot and waited for him to stop screaming. “I know he was here. When did he leave?”
Silence.
Avery angled his rifle toward Babayev’s crotch and was about to tap the trigger again.
“No, don’t! Yesterday morning, they took him out of here.”
“Then what are you assholes still doing here?”
Babayev smiled. Blood streamed down his face from the gashes and scrapes in his forehead and his split lip. “We were waiting for you to come.”
“Where did they take him?”
No response.
Avery leaned in and shoved the tip of his suppressor against the hole in Babayev’s right knee. He forced the tip into the destroyed cartilage and twisted it around, sending waves of agonizing pain throughout Babayev’s body. The Uzbek squirmed and screamed.
Finally, after a couple excruciatingly long seconds, Avery stopped. He didn’t want Babayev to pass out. “Talk to me, fucker.”
“Ayni,” Babayev finally blurted out. He gasped for breath and writhed and squirmed on the floor. “They took him to Ayni, the airfield. A plane will be there for him. He leaves early Thursday morning.”
It was almost 4:00AM, Tuesday.
“Who’s taking him? Where?”
“I don’t know.” Speaking at barely a whisper, the Uzbek became harder to understand.
“Cramer, is he alive or dead?” Avery asked. “Who told you we were coming?”
Babayev stared up at his tormentor. He appeared calmer now, relaxed. His eyelids flickered as blood dripped into his eyes. Avery knew he wouldn’t get any more answers. Looking into Babayev’s eyes, unfocused and in a haze, Avery saw he was far gone now.
Poacher reappeared. “I couldn’t find anything of value, no computers, no USB drives, nothing, just a cell phone on one of the bodies. I took pictures and fingerprints of each of the crows. But there’s something you might want to see.”
Avery followed Poacher into the living room.
Poacher crouched over the body of the man Avery had smoked outside and shined a flashlight over the dead man’s face. This one stood out from the other tangos they’d just waxed. He was clearly not of Central Asian or Uzbek descent. He was Caucasian and sported Slavic features, at least from what could be ascertained from what remained of his face, and had a shaved head. Poacher pulled down the collar of the man’s shirt and shined the light on the left side of his neck, revealing a small tattoo of a spider with a bulbous body and short spindly legs.
“Look what he was packing.”
Poacher shined his light over a Russian-made SR-3 Veresk.
Avery picked up the submachine gun. He ejected the round from the breech and held it between his thumb and index finger. Clearly this
wasn’t the guy who’d hit him earlier. The SR-3’s 9mm SP armor piercing round would have bore right through the armor plate in his vest and then through his intestine. It gave him a sick feeling, and he didn’t dwell on it further.
He looked over the rest of the dead terrorist’s kit, which included a Kirasa Model-6 armored vest with ceramic plates over the chest and back, the type of vest used by Russian tactical units.
“Let’s clear out,” said Avery.
“What about him?” Poach asked pointing in the direction of Babayev. They heard him moaning and mumbling incoherently to himself in his native tongue. He sounded delirious.
Without a word, Avery strode back across the hallway. He stood over Babayev, looking down at him and hating him for what he was and what he’d done. Fuck it. Avery shouldered the rifle and shot Babayev once through the face, permanently silencing and stilling him. Then he looked back to Poacher and said, “Let’s move.”
TWELVE
Dayrabot
“So what are you thinking?” Poacher asked Avery as the latter walked out of the kitchen opening a bottle of orange Gatorade he’d taken from the fridge. Avery had so far excluded himself from the conversation and had barely said a word on the drive back from Yazgulam.
They’d returned to the Dayrabot safe house shortly after 11:30AM. Flounder immediately collapsed on his cot, shut his eyes, and drifted off, while Poacher filled in Reaper and Mockingbird. Both operators expressed disappointment to have sat out on the action, but Poacher said that it may have been for the best. With a larger assault team, they would have likely overpowered the IMU faster and someone may have tripped one of the traps in the haste.
“The same things you are.” Avery grabbed one of the empty chairs and joined the others at the table. His voice sounded strained, and his eyes were bloodshot. He was exhausted, mentally and physically. On the drive back, his mind had been too preoccupied to get any sleep. He always felt that way, coming down off the high of combat. “First off, it was a damn set-up. Babayev’s cell knew we were coming. That’s why we didn’t find any intelligence inside. They completely sanitized that place, and then they re-located Cramer. Then they sat quiet in the dark all night, just waiting for us to knock down the door. That’s what the phone call we overheard was all about. Remember, Babayev said he’d wait one more night and see if ‘they’ showed. The fuckers were expecting us.”
