They made themselves as comfortable as they could, sitting and kneeling in the gloomy woods, and they began to wait. Tony took off his NVGs and passed them to Carson to let him take a look, in order to familiarize him with the details of the house and property. Carson passed them in turn to Brad and Ranya; they held them against their faces because they were already wearing their black helmets.
Wheeler didn’t need to look through the NVGs; he could use the scope on the top of his rifle. Wheeler’s rifle, one of the “gifts” packed inside the cooler which Brad and Ranya had delivered (along with the MAC-10s) had a suppressor the size of a paper towel tube screwed onto the end of the barrel. If he had to shoot it, the crack of his supersonic 5.56mm rifle bullets in flight would be almost as loud as an unsuppressed .22 rifle, but this sound would not give their location away. And with the dense growth of trees surrounding Malvone’s property, the sound would not reach very far.
At 12:15 AM, when they had been in position for less than ten minutes, a figure came walking down the sidewalk along the near side of the house, downhill toward the backyard. Brad was taking a turn with the NVGs, and saw him clearly, a green figure who was also wearing night goggles over his face, with a compact submachine gun slung over his shoulder and hanging by his right side.
Brad tapped Carson who was to his left; Carson had already seen this approaching shadow with his night adapted eyes. The man never even looked into the woods where they crouched hidden, never imaged their presence thirty feet away. He turned at the back of the house and walked under the balcony toward the door at the far end, pulling off his NVGs as he went. The man rapped loudly on the door with the familiar cadence of “shave and a haircut:” tap-tappatap-tap…tap-tap. His knocking was clearly audible to the attack team waiting hidden fifty yards away. Evidently, it had to be loud enough to be heard over the raucous music playing inside the party room.
After knocking, the sentry stood looking at the door, waiting. A few seconds later the door opened inward, the man disappeared inside, and the door closed. The five raiders lurking behind the brush all thought the same thing, how corny can you get? How unoriginal! Despite the deadly seriousness of their mission and the proximity of danger, all of them began to snicker, suppressing their laughter with difficulty, the silliness of the door knocking “code” breaking their tension. These Special Training Unit guys didn’t seem very bright, and this made the attack team even more hopeful.
This sentry behavior, which was just as Tony had described it, was close to one of the scenarios they had planned for. Carson signaled them to huddle close together, and he whispered his modified plan to them.
****
Poker was finished. The cards were scattered across the green felt top of the round table amidst ashtrays full of cigar and cigarette butts and half-finished drinks. Malvone was in the bathroom under the stairs; Bullard was standing up and stretching, absently looking at the television. Joe Silvari was still sitting at the poker table. He had the 17 round magazine of his 9mm SIG pistol out. Silvari was showing Michael Shanks the latest in ‘law-enforcement-only’ ammunition.
These were composite tungsten-iridium micro-frangible bullets, which easily penetrated armored glass or kevlar vests, but then virtually exploded when they contacted human flesh or bone. One single shot from the new TIMF ammo, even in an extremity, was reputed to cause instant incapacitation from shock, and then death within seconds from massive hemorrhaging.
Bullard thought it was a damned good thing that ordinary civilians weren’t allowed to buy such dangerous stuff. The TIMF bullets were best left only to responsible and well-trained government agents like themselves. Even at seven dollars a bullet (government cost) Bullard knew that there were rich gun nuts who would obtain the bullets if they were legal to purchase. The manufacturer of the devastating new ammunition didn’t mind the law enforcement-only restrictions; the government was buying it up just as fast as they could produce it.
On the big-screen TV, a pair of familiar cable news talking heads were yelling at each other with the sound turned down. The Doors were playing on the stereo; the volume was turned up loud with Jim Morrison singing “Light My Fire.” The “crawl” at the bottom of the television screen read “Film producer Norbert Nottingham assassinated in Manhattan eatery.”
Bullard had mixed feelings about this news. On the one hand, filmmaker Nottingham had been a long-time bitter enemy of the gun culture in America, and therefore he was a natural ally of the ATF. On the other hand, the morbidly obese Nottingham was a disgusting mega-slug of a human being, repulsive both in his physical appearance and his personal mannerisms.
Bullard imagined Nottingham’s enormous body sprawled across a table loaded with enough food to feed Somalia, his fat arms splayed out, his meaty hands still clutching greasy Polish sausages, his face planted in a colander-sized bowl of spaghetti. After he was shot, his vast bulk would probably have driven the table right to the floor, when he crashed down against it like a breaching Moby Dick splintering an unlucky whaleboat.
****
They were waiting and watching the house from the darker gloom inside the tree line, when another sentry came out of the door fifteen minutes later. There were no windows on their side of the house at the basement level, where the ground sloped upward away from the river. Some faint orange-red light escaped from the club room through a pair of heavily curtained windows facing the river beneath the balcony. From their vantage point, they couldn’t quite see the door on the far side open inward, but they knew it had opened again when more light and music escaped from inside. The light from within briefly lit the area around the door and the dark figure of a man could be seen even with the unassisted naked eye. After the door closed and most of the light disappeared, the man’s shape was still indistinctly visible in the dim light escaping through the window nearest the door.
Tony was wearing the night vision goggles again, so he was able to watch without any difficulty as the sentry fitted his own NVGs over his face. The plan was to wait for this guard to circle the house as the last one had, and then ambush him on his way back downhill, on the path between where they lay in wait and the side of Malvone’s house.
The sentry, however, did not cooperate with their plan, and instead he walked away from the house, down toward the creek. Tony had to stand and move slightly, just to keep him in his view. Dealing with this man was now Tony’s primary task, wherever he decided to go. The plan was that this sentry was not going back into the house again tonight.
The man walked to the edge of the bank and stood very still. By his posture, Tony could tell that the sentry was relieving his bladder over the side. Near the steeply eroded bank was a wide seat like a park bench, constructed of wooden slats that looked like green stripes through Tony’s goggles. Carson borrowed Wheeler’s rifle, and was observing through its starlight scope. The man sat in the center of the bench, unslung his submachine gun, and laid it down beside him. Then he removed his own NVGs; they briefly showed a green light from the back until he turned them off. The park bench was about fifty yards from their ambush position in the woods. The man sat facing the river, presenting them with an angled view from the rear, diagonally across Malvone’s backyard.
A brilliant light flared up like a yellow strobe, and illuminated the man’s face so that even those without night observation devices could see readily that he was lighting a cigarette. Obviously, the man didn’t take his assignment to watch over the house very seriously, a positive indication that the STU leaders were not particularly worried about their security tonight. The sentry had apparently decided earlier in the evening that there was no threat afoot on this peaceful night, and decided to have a smoke while enjoying the view across Tanaccaway Creek and out to the Potomac.
If the sentry finished his cigarette and stood up, he might decide to head straight back into the house. There probably wouldn’t be a better chance to take him than now. Tony crouched next to Carson, their faces inches apart, and gestured with his he
ad toward the sentry. He held up Hammet’s MP-5 to signify the weapon he would use, pointed to his own chest, made “man walking” signals with two fingers, and then pointed out toward the sitting sentry.
Wheeler’s rifle had a night sight, but the sound suppressor was homemade and not especially effective, and even the crack of the super-sonic bullet might alert the others inside. Worse still, it had never been adequately sighted-in with Hammet’s night scope, not sufficiently well to be one-hundred percent certain of a one-shot kill at a range of fifty yards. If the bullet missed, or if it only wounded or grazed the sentry, he would scream to raise the dead and the mission would be compromised.
And there was another reason to use the MP-5, besides the fact that Hammet had loaded it with subsonic ammunition for the silent murder of Joe Bardiwell. (They had verified this important fact when test firing their quiet weapons at the halfway house.) If it became necessary to shoot any of the STU thugs, they wanted to leave 10mm slugs in them, and 10mm brass nearby.
The markings on the slugs and the brass would show that they had been fired from a rare 10mm MP-5 submachine gun, which was exclusively a federal agents’ weapon. The use of the 10mm weapon was planned to be an intentionally ironic twist, a red herring designed to mislead the forensic investigators. Carson and Wheeler wanted to confound and confuse the CSIs, wanted them to suspect treacherous back-stabbing among the feds and, hopefully, lead them to undertake a much wider investigation. Or engage in a fratricidal war among themselves.
Carson nodded his assent. Tony stood, moved to an opening in the concealing brush, and planned his movement. Then he scurried in a wide arc to get behind the sitting sentry, moving silently from tree to bush to conceal himself in case the sentry turned around. The sentry just kept puffing on his cigarette, the ember growing bright as he took long drags, relaxing, staring out across the half-mile-wide creek to the unlit opposite shore.
Tony quickly disappeared from their view, hidden behind some low shrubs fifteen yards directly behind the unsuspecting guard. They all strained their senses to listen and watch. The faint smell of smoke drifted across to them, not tobacco, something else, something sweeter, and the reason for the sentry’s solitary pause to enjoy the river view became clear.
He was getting high. The jackbooted thug was a secret stoner!
Carson’s Thompson submachine gun was aimed to the left at the back of the house, in case help for the doomed sentry came suddenly from that direction. At the other end of their little ambush line, Wheeler was standing full height now, with his rifle aimed at the sitting sentry in case Tony missed, or the guard moved unexpectedly or threatened to give the alert. Wheeler’s rifle was not needed, however. From across the backyard they heard a sound like an air tool’s pressurized hose snapping off, rapidly twice in succession, and they saw the sentry’s lit cigarette fall to the ground.
Five minutes later, Tony returned with the dead sentry’s compact 9mm MP-5SD. The sentry’s night goggles, walkie-talkie, Glock pistol and wallet were all carried in a cloth bundle made from an Army woodland pattern camouflage blouse, the shirt which the sentry had been wearing as a light jacket.
****
Malvone stood behind his bar on the right side of the room, dropping ice cubes into a fresh highball glass. “Joe, you’re welcome to crash here tonight. You can stay in the guest bedroom.”
Joe Silvari was nodding off, slumping back against the end of the black leather couch where he had been watching television, his SIG pistol lying on the cushion next to him. Bob Bullard was sitting at the closer end of the sofa, holding the remote control. Michael Shanks was playing solitaire at the poker table in the middle of the room, listening to the Doors, and occasionally looking up and paying attention to what was on the television.
Bob Bullard’s cell phone rang on his belt. He grabbed it, flipped it open, and read the number. “Oh, Christ, it’s my ex. I forgot, I’ve got custody this weekend. Can you believe that shit? Kid’s almost old enough to join the Army, but Martha wants to go to Atlantic City, so I gotta take him. Martha’s all freaked out because her house—my house!—is on that damn Fed List.”
“Maybe you’ll get lucky and somebody will shoot her?” offered Shanks, helpfully.
“Yeah, maybe somebody like me. Hey, you know, that’s not a bad idea, Michael…come to think of it. Wally, I’m going to take this call upstairs, okay?”
“Fine by me.”
****
Brad stood outside the door, under the balcony at the far side of the house. There was a point of light at eye-level in the door, a peephole. He could hear an old song by The Doors playing inside. Jim Morrison was singing, “This is the end, my only friend, the end.” He had once heard that song in a movie about Vietnam. “Apocalypse Now.” He cleared his mind of the extraneous thoughts and concentrated on his task.
A yard to the left of the door was a square window. Even without the night vision goggles, enough light to see by filtered out through its thick curtains. Brad left the goggles on anyway. They were a critical part of his disguise. He was bare-headed like the dead sentry had been, and he was wearing the sentry’s night vision goggles to hide his face. The dead sentry’s smaller MP-5SD, with it’s integral suppressor, was hanging across his chest by its sling placed around his neck.
He had never fired this type of weapon before but, at Carson’s insistence, they had all handled Hammet’s MP-5 at the halfway house. Carson was determined that they should all be able to use any of the weapons. Crouching in the trees, Tony had checked the dead sentry’s weapon and made it ready for Brad to fire, and had showed him how to activate the gun light with its pressure switch. The collapsing stock was fully extended. The weapon was cocked with a round chambered, and set to fire single shots. The only safety he needed to concern himself with was keeping his finger away from the trigger until he was ready to fire.
He was wearing the dead sentry’s camouflage blouse; his MAC-10 and fanny pack were still on him beneath it. They had wiped most of the fresh blood off of the shirt on the grass; there were two bullet holes, one in the back of the collar, and one lower. In their last-minute huddle in the trees, Tony had whispered to Carson that the sentry was tall and blondish, like Brad, and so he had been pressed into service as the dead man’s stand-in. The logic of the new plan was unassailable, and he had not refused to play the role of the returning sentry.
Now Brad’s mind was focused on the door, and what lay on the other side. They had changed the plan because the door opened inward, hinged on the right, and one of their enemies was going to open it for them. Carson decided they were not going to use their Suffolk SWAT team flash-bang grenade. The two-second delay would not be worth the risk, not with their wide-awake enemy opening the door for them. A trained agent could draw and fire several shots point-blank in two seconds; he might even open the door with his pistol in his hand.
Brad was simply going to push as hard as he could against the door the instant it opened, drive it all the way to the right, and then cover his sector on the right side of the room. The other three members of the entry team were waiting six feet away against the wall, around the side of the house, out of sight of the window and the peep hole and, hopefully, any unseen camera. They would follow him in as soon as he pushed open the door.
He tried to imagine where the three or four remaining STU Team leaders would be. He hoped they would be shocked into momentary in-action by the sudden surprise attack. His sector was still going to be the right side of the room, especially behind the wet bar. But he had not practiced at being the door puller or, in this case, the door pusher. Ranya had. How would the changed entry order affect their well-practiced charge into the room? His brain refused to process the added possibilities. There was nothing left to do except to knock on the door, the same way the previous sentry had.
Keep it simple. Knock on the door. The door opens, ram it all the way over to let the others charge in behind me, and go hard to the right. Nothing to it. Just do it.
Brad reached out toward the door with his left hand in a fist, his knuckles poised, and his arm shaking.
50
Michael Shanks, playing solitaire seated at the poker table, was thinking about where he and Jaeger would go after leaving Malvone’s. They’d already put in enough social time with the boss, and now it was time to split and get on with their night. Eventually, he was going to return to crash in his camper parked in Malvone’s driveway, but the night was young and he might get lucky yet. A hookup with a young hottie in one of the Adams Morgan clubs they frequented was not out of the question.
Who knows where he might wake up, if he got lucky? And if he knew his friend Hollywood, he’d be ready to go out partying. The downside was that Tim usually picked up the hot looking babe, leaving him with her skanky girlfriend. But getting laid was getting laid…
He heard Tim’s familiar knock above the music, and got up to unlock the door. He skipped making his peek through the curtains; he knew who it was. They’d be leaving shortly and Malvone could handle his own damn security anyway. He put his right hand on the brass doorknob and grabbed the dead bolt’s inside lever and turned it.
Enemies Foreign And Domestic Page 75
