“Concur,” she answered.
Barron drove her bird at seventy knots and eighty feet above the ground and focused on where she’d pull into a fifty-foot hover over the exact spot above the roof the CIRG team leader had pointed to. Kim turned around and duck-walked into the bird’s cabin. He grabbed the shoulder of the team leader and led him to the open cabin door. Kim pointed to the flat roof where he and his team would fast-rope onto the farmhouse.
The team leader gave him a thumbs-up.
As they approached the spot Sandee was aiming for, everyone in the aircraft felt the bird shudder as Sandee pulled the nose up—first ten, then twenty, then thirty degrees above the horizon. Soon all they could see was sky. The helo decelerated rapidly, and when all its forward motion had stopped and she could see the flat roof in her bird’s chin bubble, she dumped the nose of the helo forward and leveled her aircraft. Then she worked every control in the cockpit to coax the Blackhawk over the exact spot. Once she was in a steady hover, she called to Kim over the intercom, “Now, Allen.”
Kim kicked two 40-millimeter-diameter ropes out of the bird, their one end made fast inside the bird and the other descending toward the roof. A nod from Kim, and the assault team leader slid down one rope like an oil drop on a string, landing hard on the flat roof. He was followed seconds later by the rest of the team.
“Dash-Two, I’ve got five on target now. Pushing off. You’ll see a flat roof above a second-story porch. That’s your aim point.”
“Dash-Two, roger.”
* * *
Inside the farmhouse, the kidnappers heard the unmistakable sound of an approaching helicopter. Several of the men ran to windows on the east side of the house to try to see exactly where the noise was coming from. They wrestled with the blankets they’d securely taped down over the windows with duct tape, trying to pull them off.
Masood had the presence of mind to shout out, “Amer, run up to the second floor and see what’s happening! Take your weapon!”
Instincts took over for Jay Bruner. He needed to buy time for those he hoped were his rescuers.
Bruner rolled onto his side and swept his legs violently, toppling Masood over. The terrorist fell hard and hit his head on the wood floor. The blow momentarily stunned Masood and gave Bruner a small opening. He managed to get himself up onto his hands and knees and got ready to push up and run from the house.
But that was as far as he got. The kidnapper operating the camera had no weapon, but rushed at Bruner and tackled him. Both men went down hard as Bruner grappled with his attacker, buying precious seconds.
* * *
While it was chaos on the first floor of the farmhouse, on the second floor, it was precise choreography. The five HRT assaulters had simply swung down from the roof and onto the porch.
They entered the house through two open, second-story windows and methodically, but quickly, cleared each room on the second floor. Then they moved toward the stairway.
A man had just reached the top of the stairway and saw the assault team. He shot wildly at the HRT men closest to him.
The lead HRT man fired his MP5 submachine gun and put two bullets in Amer’s head. He dropped like a sack and tumbled back down the stairs.
* * *
As Bruner and one of the kidnappers grappled on the floor, Masood had recovered, drew his knife and stood over the two men. “Let him go! Let him go! I’ll kill him right now!” he shouted.
Bruner grasped the man he was grappling with as tightly as he could, knowing his survival depended on Martin not getting a clean angle on him.
Just then, there was a blinding flash and thunderous sound as a flash-bang grenade went off near the bottom of the stairway. Seconds later, a second flash-bang went off, and the HRT assaulters ran down the stairs onto the first floor.
* * *
Above the farmhouse at five hundred feet, Sandee Barron drove her helo in tight circles. She could see Dash-Two coming into view from the west, screaming toward the farmhouse at two hundred feet.
“Allen, look, two squirters,” Barron shouted over the intercom. “They’re headed toward the garage. Do you want Dash-Two to drop its team there and intercept them?”
“Not until I hear from my lead assaulter that the admiral’s secure.”
* * *
It was over quickly on the first floor of the farmhouse. The flash-bang grenades had stunned and disoriented the kidnappers. No hero, Masood had dropped his knife and stood with his hands in the air.
Bruner had disengaged from the man he was grappling with, and two HRT assaulters rushed to him. One subdued the kidnapper while the other one grabbed the admiral and lifted him to his feet. “Sir, are you okay?”
“I think so, fellas. You got here just in time.”
“Let’s get you outside, sir.”
“If you don’t mind, could you get me to a toilet first? I’ve got some business to attend to.”
* * *
Kim, Barron, and her copilot heard the call at the same time they saw the two HRT men on the ground outside the farmhouse surrounding the admiral and giving them a thumbs-up.
“We’ve got him. Package is secure. He’s a little worse for wear, but otherwise okay,” the assault team leader said.
“Got it,” Kim replied. Then on the net to the second bird, “Dash-Two, Kim. Go after the squirters; they’re inside the garage.”
Seconds later, six figures slid down ropes and landed on the ground between the farmhouse and the garage. They deployed in blocking and oversight positions ready to assault the garage and drag out those inside.
Just then, the garage door opened, and a van leapt out. Well-aimed shots took out the driver and the passenger, and the vehicle careened wildly and crashed into a tree.
* * *
Moments later, Barron landed her bird in the front yard of the farmhouse, and Kim emerged and headed straight for Bruner. “Sir, I’m Allen Kim. I’m team leader for this CIRG HRT team. We’re FBI, but we’re seconded to an organization called Op-Center—”
Bruner listened—after a fashion—his ears still ringing from the flash-bangs. But he had a broad smile on his face.
“Admiral, we need to get you out of here and debriefed. We’re gonna jump into this bird and fly to BWI; it’s just a short distance away. Then we’ll get you reunited with your family just as soon as we can.”
Minutes later, as Barron and her copilot lifted off with Kim, Bruner, and a few of the HRT team, Kim called Wright, “Jim, we’ve got the package and he’s okay. No casualties for our team. We have all the people who were holding him. Three enemy KIA and three enemy POW. More when we land.”
“Roger, Allen, great work. I’ll call Op-Center.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Op-Center Headquarters, Fort Belvoir North: Springfield, Virginia
July 22, 1845 Eastern Daylight Time
“Jim, that’s wonderful news,” Chase Williams replied. Wright had given him a complete debrief of the operation and the Op-Center director had listened without interrupting him. “Well done to you and to Allen and his team. I’ll contact the FBI director and have him fly a team to BWI to debrief the admiral. If we hurry, we can complete the debrief, get him cleaned up, and return him to his family tonight.”
“Roger that, boss,” Wright replied. “He’s pretty wrung out. They’ve had him for almost five days, and Allen says it doesn’t look like they fed him—plus he was moments from having his throat slit. We’ll get him a change of clothes and some chow while we’re waiting for the debrief team.”
“Good idea. I’ll let the president know.”
* * *
The call between Chase Williams and President Midkiff was brief. The two men discussed who should call Meagan Bruner with the news and settled on Admiral Eric Oldham. Williams would make the call to the VCNO.
But that wasn’t all the two men discussed. The president told Williams that once a new FBI director was in place, he wanted the three of them to sit down and hash out which organi
zation would lead domestic counterterrorism efforts.
* * *
Eric Oldham was grateful the president and Williams picked him to deliver the good news to Meagan Bruner and her three children. He had borne up as well as he could when he had gone to their home days ago to deliver the bad news about his kidnapping, and he had left their home with a huge lump in his throat.
“Admiral Oldham, hello. I saw your number pop up. Do you have news?” Meagan Bruner began, hoping for positive news but girding herself for the worst.
“Meagan, it’s the best possible news. We found Jay. He’s a little worse for wear, but unhurt.”
Tears—tears of joy—welled up in her eyes as she processed what Oldham was saying. “Oh, Eric, I’m so thankful. Where is he, and when can we see him?”
Williams and Oldham had discussed just how much to tell Meagan Bruner in this initial call, and Oldham had also consulted with the on-call psychologist at the Navy’s Bethesda Medical Center.
“Meagan, Jay’s at BWI at a temporary command center being debriefed. But we hope to be able to reunite him with you and your three kids as soon as possible—tonight if all goes well.”
“Amber and Katherine will be so happy to see their father. But Dale has already returned to his unit in Coronado. We’ll want to fly him home as soon as possible. I’ll call him right now.”
* * *
At that moment, Dale Bruner was getting ready to sneak into the ISIL compound. It was 0200, and the streets were finally quiet. He left the light Mk17 assault rifle and the MP7 in the locked Humvee. He tucked all the gear he could carry into his combat pack and set off for the compound.
He was dressed in the gear Peters had insisted he wear, so he blended in—to a point. Only the Kevlar helmet, NVGs, and his weapon stood out as western military gear, but he had seen many ISIL fighters come and go wearing similar equipment—so that didn’t worry him. In deference to moving quickly and carrying a large cache of explosives and ammo, he wore no body armor. He placed a four-pound block of C-4 in an alley close to the compound and set the timer. Then he moved off again, moving easily through the sharp green landscape afforded him by the night vision goggles mounted on his helmet.
He knew he had to move quickly. In spite of his attempt to disguise himself and blend in, he had to bet on the fact that anyone sighting him would suspect he didn’t belong there. He had a mental map of the inside of the building burned on his brain.
* * *
Inside the building Dale Bruner was approaching, Mabad al-Dosari and his number two were having a heated discussion. “This should have happened over an hour ago,” al-Dosari snapped. “It’s past the evening news hour on the U.S. East Coast. Have you called Masood? What’s going on?”
“I’ve sent him texts and left several voice mails. He hasn’t replied to any of them.”
“But he assured us this would be on the evening news tonight. Didn’t he tell you he’d reached an agreement with a journalist who’d sell this to a cable channel?”
“Yes. Maybe there’s just some delay—”
“Enough. I knew we should have had Al Jazeera broadcast this. Contact the imam in Minneapolis and ask him how we get in touch with this Amer. I want to know where they have our hostage!”
His number two knew it was useless to argue and he left to make the calls. He was as perplexed as al-Dosari.
* * *
Meagan Bruner had texted and called her son and asked him to contact her. She was anxious to tell him the good news and get him back to Springfield as soon as possible so he could reunite with his father.
But when she got no reply, her eagerness to share the news caused her to take a step she’d never taken during her husband’s or her son’s careers. She called the duty office at the Naval Special Warfare Command.
“Naval Special Warfare Command duty office, Petty Officer Second Class Charles speaking. How may I help you sir or ma’am?”
“Petty Officer Charles, this is Meagan Bruner. My son, Lieutenant Dale Bruner, is an instructor with your training component. I hate to bother you like this, but it’s rather urgent. Can you put me in touch with his commanding officer?”
“Yes ma’am; wait one please,” Charles replied as he pulled up a command directory on his computer monitor.
Petty Officer Charles had been trained not to reveal information he shouldn’t share with unknown callers. Still, the woman sounded sincere—and worried. Rather than dismiss her as a crank caller—something the SEALs had to deal with more than they cared to think about—he took the extra step of calling Captain Pete Cummings.
“Cummings,” came the response.
“Sir, I’ve got a woman on the line who says her name is Meagan Bruner. She’s looking for her son and she wants to speak with his CO. I looked in the directory and saw there’s a Lieutenant Bruner in your training unit. Do you want to speak with her, sir?”
“Yes, absolutely. Put her through.” After a short pause, “Mrs. Bruner, hello. It’s Pete Cummings, Dale’s CO.”
“Oh, Captain Cummings,” Meagan began. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m having trouble reaching Dale. I have wonderful news to share with him, and I’m afraid it can’t wait—”
“Can I ask you if this is about Admiral Bruner, ma’am? Is he … has he been rescued?”
“Yes! But please don’t tell Dale; I want to tell him myself. But he’s not replying to my texts or phone calls. When he left here to return to Coronado he was so worried his dad would never be found, but now he has!”
“Mrs. Bruner, that’s wonderful news,” he replied. But Cummings’s antenna went up. “Ma’am, how long ago did you say Dale left home to come back here?”
“Well, it was several days ago. He wanted to stay with us, but he said he didn’t have much leave on the books. Do you have a way of reaching him quickly?”
Cummings was confused. Bruner hadn’t returned to the command, and he didn’t think he’d flown back to Coronado. He framed his reply carefully. “Mrs. Bruner. There must be some confusion—but I’m sure we can clear it up. Dale hasn’t returned to the command yet. Are you certain he said he was coming back here?”
“Why yes, Captain; quite certain,” Meagan replied emphatically.
Cummings recalled something his chief in his first team had told him when he was a young LTJG, If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it must be a duck. Something was wrong.
“Mrs. Bruner, I’ll see what I can find out and get back to you as soon as I can. And Mrs. Bruner, would you mind if I ask you how Admiral Bruner was rescued and who gave you the news that he had been freed?”
“The vice chief of naval operations, Admiral Oldham, told us the good news. He said an organization called Op-Center—I have to confess I don’t know who they are or what they do—rescued him.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I promise I’ll call you as soon as I learn anything, anything at all.”
Shortly after finishing the call with Meagan Bruner, Cummings was in his exec’s office. “XO, I think we have a problem.”
* * *
“That’s great news, boss,” Brian Dawson said as soon as Chase Williams told him about Admiral Bruner’s rescue. “And no casualties. That’s remarkable under the circumstances.”
“You’re right: that’s the best part. But I have to tell you, you and Hector were missed during this operation. It all worked out in the end, but it would have worked more smoothly if you all were here during this crisis.”
“Thanks sir, but you’ve got a good team there. No surprise it all went well.”
“I know that Major Volner and his squad wanted to get their beaks wet, but there’ll be other opportunities. And I know you all are tired of cooling your heels in Baghdad. Duncan’s working on getting a C-17 to you ASAP. It will be good to have you all back.”
“We’ll call this one a good practice session, boss. See you soon.”
* * *
“Someone’s trying to track Masood down. He’s gotten e-mails and texts
from Mosul. I think it’s pretty clear who he was taking orders from,” Fred Morton said as he stood in front of Aaron Bleich’s desk.
“You’ve got that right. I think we’ll know more after we find out what else he says after he’s fully interrogated, but Jim says he started spilling his guts as soon as they got him to BWI.”
“You think we’ll go hard after al-Dosari now that he’s taken the fight to us here?”
“Way above my pay grade, that’s for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me,” Bleich replied.
* * *
Pressed up against a back door on the ISIL compound, Dale Bruner figured he would have just a short time to find and rescue his dad once he put the first part of his plan in motion. The building’s layout suggested there were multiple rooms his dad could be held in, but some rooms were far more likely than others.
While he’d never had second thoughts about embarking on this mission, it did give him pause and reminded him just what the SEAL brotherhood meant to him. Having a comrade next to you who would literally give his life to save yours was something he had always valued, but he’d never thought about it that deeply. Now he did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ISIS Compound: Mosul, Iraq
July 23, 0330 Arabia Standard Time
An explosion some two blocks from the compound shattered the early morning quiet. A moment later, a second explosive device detonated in the street between the building Bruner had left and the building where ISIS was encamped.
Moments later, a blast from the breeching charge stuck to the front door of the compound rocked the building. The door held, but windows all along the front of the structure shattered. As debris rained down along the front of the building’s facade, Bruner entered through a back door. Unexpectedly, the door yielded to his shoulder, so he entered with little noise.
* * *
The first explosion awakened a few of the fighters sleeping inside the ISIS compound, and the second one had roused more. But when the breeching charge exploded, every one of the dozens of fighters living in the main building—as well as their family members—were shocked out of their sleep. Babies and toddlers started crying and women rushed to protect their children as fighters grabbed their weapons and rushed toward the front of the building. Except for a few flashlights, they were in total darkness. Bruner had set his second explosive device at the base of the power pole that served the compound.
Scorched Earth Page 18
