Scorpion: A Covert Ops Novel (Second Edition) (11 page)

The IMU terrorist
took the hits against his body armor. He grunted and stumbled back a few steps,
his finger letting up on the trigger of his own weapon. Avery raised his aim a
couple degrees and placed two rounds through the IMU’s face. Blood splashed
into the air as his head snapped back, and his body went instantly limp and
dropped like a ragdoll. Face first, head down he sprawled over the dusty
ground.

 On his feet,
Avery tracked his rifle for threats. From the crumpled heap in which the downed
terrorist lay, Avery was certain he was dead, but he discharged a single round into
the side of the man’s head to make sure, and kicked the submachine gun away
from his hands.

Another burst of
automatic fire came from the doorway.

Avery reacted,
dropped to one knee, and kept his head low, to present a smaller target, and
fired back, forcing the gunman back inside the house, behind the doorjamb for
cover. With his partner down, this one would be more cautious now.

Without any more
muzzle flashes or other sources of ambient light, Avery’s night optics
automatically engaged again, casting his world into shades of green. He ripped
the M84 from his vest and pulled the pin as he stood up, commencing the
grenade’s three second fuse. He took a step forward, released the grenade in
the air through the open doorway and into the black, open space of the living
room, and fired another couple shots to keep the gunman back.

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 the 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.