Chapter 22 Calling an Audible

Chapter 22

Calling an Audible

Shawn and I descended the main staircase and paused inside the foyer. Our open channel comms gave us the ability to speak to every team member as if we were all in the same room. The system is a remarkable tool, but like all tools, it has its limitations. Gunfire, hand-to-hand fighting, and extremely loud environments led to communications chaos using the system. As I took a knee just inside the door of the Barbour’s house, I wished our comms would allow me to hear the thoughts of the rest of the team and not just their words.

No battle plan survives first contact, and that statement never rang truer than it did that night in East Texas. Instead of the simple mission to enter the house, subdue the occupants, and interrogate Sidney Barbour, the operation turned into a two-pronged assault without intel on the interior of the second structure. As daunting as that challenge would be, we also had an innocent bystander tranquilized upstairs and no plan to deal with her after we rolled up her husband.

The combat information center aboard the Lori Danielle was the brain of our existence and the clearinghouse for the massive collection of intelligence we gathered in the field. However, the minute-by-minute operational decisions were made by the tentacles of the beast my team had become. Ultimately, those decisions were mine, and I alone bore the responsibility for their results and consequences.

I took a knee and announced the revised plan. “Attention all Sierra elements. Our target has changed. We have one secondary target subdued, but our primary is inside the structure to the north of the house. I need Anya and Mongo to close on the structure on foot. Gator and Kodiak, I need you to prep the secondary target for helo transport. Disco, stand by for two targets and two operators back to the ship. Acknowledge.”

Gator said, “Roger. Packing for shipping.”

Mongo said, “Closing on new objective.”

Anya echoed, and Disco said, “I’ll need two minutes to be airborne, so a heads-up call would be great.”

“Expect it,” I said.

The new plan fell together like pieces of a puzzle in my mind, and the clarity reinforced my confidence.

I mentally ran through the team, ensuring everyone knew their assignment. When I came to our sniper on my mental checklist, I said, “Singer, hold position and cover squirters.”

His calm, confident tone added to my comfort level in calling an audible in the middle of the operation. “Roger. Holding position.”

Shawn and I reached the barn just before Mongo and Anya and took a knee near the east entrance. When the others arrived, I said, “Gator and Kodiak are now the quick reaction force. Shawn and I will make entry through the west entrance. The two of you will enter here, and we’ll work inward and upward depending on what we find inside. Noise and light discipline are key. We want to catch Sidney sleeping or at least lying in bed. We have no reason to believe he’ll offer much resistance, so don’t hurt him beyond what is necessary. Got it?”

Mongo and Anya nodded, and I said, “Skipper, how quickly can you get a floor plan for the barn?”

She said, “I’ve been working that, but there’s no record of a building permit, so that probably means they built the barn without a permit and maybe without floorplans.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re still going in.”

Anya pulled her pick kit and went to work on the doorknob.

I said, “It may turn backward. The lock on the house did.”

She nodded without a word and kept working. Shawn and I sprinted for the opposite end of the building, and I had the lock open seconds after we arrived at the door.

“We’re in,” I said, and Anya replied, “Same.”

I checked the area for prying eyes and gave the order. “Execute.”

Our night-vision devices made the interior of the barn look like an operating room. The few dim lights were enough to give us perfect visibility. The ground floor of the barn was a collection of horse stalls, but they all appeared to be empty. The floor was clean, and a set of stairs appeared on the north wall.

We could see Mongo and Anya moving like cats toward the stairs at their end of the barn, so I timed our ascent with theirs. Reaching the top, the collection of dim lights on the ground floor no longer gave us the clear visibility we had before climbing the stairs. The infrared floodlights mounted on our rifles replaced the light we’d enjoyed downstairs, and we slowed our pace to match the new environment, planting each foot as gently as possible as we progressed toward the center of the barn.

Mongo and Anya pressed inward at the same pace Shawn and I made until we met at a pair of double doors near the center of the barn. If we expected armed resistance beyond the doors, we’d form a column and burst through the opening in a dynamic entry designed to overwhelm the fighting force inside, but we had no reason to believe we’d encounter anything other than a snoring multi-millionaire.

I turned the knob and lifted as I pulled the door toward us. It swung open, and Anya led the silent penetration into the interior room. Shawn followed, and I took third position through the door. Mongo always played the anchor man because of his size. Although he’d make a great shield, it was impossible to see over or around the monster.

The lighting conditions changed again when we cleared the door, and it took our nods and eyes a few seconds to adjust. A pair of doors appeared out of the fog to our left and right with a single door straight ahead. A slice of light bloomed from beneath the single door.

The mindset of stepping through a door with no idea what waits on the other side is the core of close-quarters combat, but combining the psychology of stepping into an arena of potential gunfire doesn’t leave a lot of mental bandwidth to study the architecture. When I was convinced there was no immediate danger of incoming fire, I tried to picture what lay behind each door. The single door straight ahead was most likely a bathroom. People tend to leave dim lights on in bathrooms to make midnight stumbles to the head less treacherous.

With the point of a finger, I dispatched Anya to clear the small room, and she moved as if she were part of the environment. Every stride landed silently, and the building seemed to absorb her rather than resist her advance. A few feet from the opening, she placed one hand on the floor and lowered herself until she could see through the sliver of space beneath the door. Searching for feet beyond a door when given the opportunity is an invaluable piece of early intel about what awaits on the other side.

She rose back to her feet, lowered her rifle against her chest, and drew her pistol. In one fluid motion, she grasped the knob, swung the door outward, and stepped inside. Silence continued, so I had my answer before she emerged. The small room was unquestionably clear.

The instant Anya stepped from the room, Singer’s voice filled my head. “I hear Anya moving directly beneath me. The previous movement was northwest.”

I clicked my tongue against my teeth twice to let our super-hearing sniper on the roof know I heard and understood. Anya, Shawn, and Mongo all made eye contact with me, and I held up two fingers and pointed toward the doors to the northeast. They cleared the empty room almost as quickly as Anya cleared the bathroom, and they rejoined the SEAL and me.

Still determined to remain silent until we made our entry, I signaled toward the target door where Singer heard the footsteps. Each member of my team nodded, and I formed a fist. We were going dynamic.

We formed the same column we’d used to enter the enclosed section of the second floor, and Mongo squeezed my shoulder. I laid my left hand on Shawn’s shoulder and gave him a squeeze. He did the same to Anya, and everyone in the column knew we were a second and a half away from scaring the religion out of Sidney Barbour, who was no doubt sleeping like a baby on the other side.

Anya turned the knob and yanked open the right door. She exploded through the opening, turned right, and scanned for targets. Shawn powered through one step behind her and turned left, establishing an intersecting fan of fire with Anya. Mongo and I cleared the opening and joined our teammates with practiced speed and precision.

I focused on the bed with the headboard centered on the exterior wall and yelled, “Hands! Hands! Hands! Show me those hands!”

The form beneath the blanket never moved, so I lunged forward, grabbed the cover, and yanked it from the bed. To my horror, a pair of pillows lay end to end, giving the appearance of a body, and the air left the room.

We had just stepped into an ambush.

The realization hit my teammates at the same instant, and each spun, covering the room with their muzzles. I dropped to the floor and sent my infrared light cascading beneath the bed. Nothing was there.

“Find him!” I ordered.

Looking straight up as if I could see through the roof, I said, “Singer, report movement or squirters.”

The sniper said, “Roger. There’s no exterior movement.”

Our situation was bad, but we were still alive, and no one was shooting at us.

“Gator, Kodiak, get out here and cover the exits from the barn.”

“Moving,” came their one-word reply.

I backed to the corner of the room as my mind churned trying to piece together what I’d missed. “Disco. Spool it up and get in here.”

No matter what scenario would unfold in the coming minutes, our cover was blown, and our advantage of silence was in the wind.

Two sounds hit me simultaneously.

Singer said, “Movement interior. Are you running?”

The second sound was the thud of an object striking the floor a few feet in front of me.

I didn’t answer my sniper. Instead, I yelled, “Grenade!”

I threw myself to the floor, praying the shrapnel cone would miss me, but I was close enough for the concussion alone to rip me apart. To my horror, Shawn dived directly toward the grenade with both arms outstretched.

The SEAL had been with our team only a few months, but he was making the ultimate sacrifice to keep the rest of us alive. Every fiber of my being cried out for him to run and let me absorb the blow, but even though the scene played out in ultra-slow motion, there was no time for either of us to survive the coming blast.

Shawn’s left hand landed squarely over the grenade, and he rolled, hurling the killing device through the air and open door. Through my nods, I watched the black, baseball-sized orb sail over the railing and fall toward the first floor.

The blast came, and it felt like thunder from within my chest. Shrapnel filled the interior of the barn, and the world around me waved in and out of focus for a long second.

Singer yelled, “Interior, report!”

I could barely make out the words he’d shouted, but I shook off the ringing in my head and said, “We’re alive. He’s in the attic.”