toward the objective. The team’s second in command toggled to the leader’s vision screen and, not seeing anything in the vicinity of the objective, flashed the leader a thumbs-up.
The man known as Jonah retrieved his goggles, crept forward toward the corner of the roof, and gently raised himself to look over the parapet wall with his binoculars. The objective was perfectly quiet, not even anyone on its roof. These Fatah guys were either very confident or very stupid.
Crawling back to the trapdoor, Jonah put his night-vision goggles back on before signaling the team’s sniper that it was all clear. Squeezing through the tight opening, the muscular and deadly accurate twenty-five-year-old rolled onto the roof and prepped his weapon.
He carried a silenced Walther WA2000 sniping rifle, which fired a.300 Winchester Magnum cartridge. Even without its Leupold night-vision scope and laser range finder, there wasn’t much the sniper couldn’t hit. With the specially designed barrel clamped at the front and rear, the torque from the large bullet wouldn’t lift it away from its intended target. The barrel had also been fluted, further reducing the gun’s vibrations on firing. With its pistol- style grip and customized butt and cheek pads, this weapon would do very nicely if anybody chose to come snooping around while operation Rapid Return was in progress.
Jonah and his two remaining team members were to make the frontal assault. Exiting the house where they’d left their sniper, the men picked their way down the deserted street, breathing a little easier knowing they were under the watchful and protective eyes of one of the best long guns the SEALs had ever trained.
The key elements of the mission were speed, surprise, and overwhelming force. As Jonah and his men neared the target building, all of its shutters were drawn. Adjusting the fine tuning on his goggles, Jonah looked up toward the flat roof and noticed that there were indeed sheets of what looked like lead protruding along the edges, covered with plaster and mud. Confident that the right people back in D.C. had seen what he had and knew what it was, he and his men carefully scanned the perimeter. There were no signs of any intrusion devices, not even dogs.
“Ishmael, this is Jonah,” he whispered, his throat mike perfectly picking up every word. “It is very quiet. Do you detect any motion?”
“Negative, Jonah. You are all clear. Proceed when ready.”
By means of the arched courtyard, two Rapid Return members were able to scale the common wall to reach the adjoining roof next door undetected.
Resisting the urge to make a joke about what a great haircut he could give the two team members who had just climbed upon the roof, the sniper kept his communication to the bare minimum and said into his throat mike, “Alpha, this is Watchdog. I have you in my sights and you are all clear.”
“Affirmative,” responded Alpha’s leader.
Hearing that Alpha was on the next roof, Jonah said into his throat mike, “Alpha, the whale’s skin may be tougher than we thought. Get over and check it out. I want an assessment ASAP.”
“Roger,” came Alpha’s response.
Quietly, the two men picked their way across the roof of the adjoining house, wary of weak spots thanks to a training story of an operative who fell through a roof in Panama.
Jonah and his team members stayed concealed in the shadows just down from the front of the target building as the other team waited behind it.
Finally, Alpha checked back in. “Jonah, this is Alpha. It looks like the roof entry is metal, pretty thick, but the hinges are on the outside. With a little bit of give glue, I think we can breach it.” Give glue referred to the small tubes of specially formulated acid paste that the teams carried with them on missions where doors would need to be breached and hinges couldn’t simply be blown away. Once applied, it ate through almost any type of metal in only a matter of seconds.
“Hold on, Alpha,” said Jonah. “Bravo, are you in position?”
“Roger. Good to go,” came the voice of the Bravo leader.
“Okay then, Alpha. Start the glue, and let us know when you’re ready,” said Jonah.
Creeping beneath the windows of the house, Jonah and his men made their way to the old wooden front door. As he’d figured, it was locked, but it would be nothing for them.
“Watchdog, you got the door in case they don’t like Avon calling?” asked Jonah.
“Knock, knock, motherfucker. Just like when we did Qaddafi. I’ve gotcha covered,” replied Watchdog.
“Alpha, how are we doing?”
“Almost there.”
“Good, listen up. Just like we planned. Fast and furious. Flash bangs first. Does everyone copy?”
“Bravo. Roger.”
“Alpha. Roger…And it looks like we are ready to crash the party. On your command, Jonah. Over.”
The men in the sit room held their breath.
“Okay. On my command. Firemen, take your positions. Pitchers, ready your flash bangs. We go in five…four… three…two…one. Now!”
In sync, Jonah’s men breached their respective entry points, tossed in their flash bangs, and quickly followed once the concussions had detonated.
What Rapid Return’s recovery team never had a chance to see was the white-hot blaze that moments later appeared on Chaperone’s screen as the entire street, and the house they had entered, were reduced to dust. The SEALs, including their sniper, never saw it coming.
32
At the same moment Chaperone showed the building exploding, the night-vision images from the SEAL battle cams disappeared and were replaced on each monitor with a chilling two-word message: Off Line.
The shock and silence in the sit room were quickly replaced by a frenzy of activity. Glancing up at the monitor that fed a live picture from JSOC command, Harvath noticed it was chaotic there as well.
Every phone in the sit room was being used by people trying to figure out what had happened. Scot was closest to General Venrick, and he listened as Venrick tried to get a handle on things. “…We were able to figure that out from here. It looks like it was a very big one. At least one to two square blocks from what Chaperone is showing us right now…
“First things first. Can we confirm the status of the Rapid Return team?…What about the Israeli assets on- site?…My God. Only one? Have him get in there and get a better look… We have got to get confirmation. If there are injured men there, we need to get them out… I agree. We began to worry about it as well, but it’s a little late for that now… All right. Get on the Israelis, and get back to me as soon as you get an update. In the meantime, I want you to roll back the tape on the battle cams to one minute before they went off-line and feed it back here in slow mo… Negative. Until we know what the situation is, all teams are to stand by. That’s it. Get going.”
The general shook his head in disgust, feeling he should have pressed the vice president harder to postpone the recovery attempt until they had gathered more intelligence. Instead, a crack SEAL team had walked right into a trap. His increased dislike of the vice president was surpassed only by the shame he felt in losing men under his command. This had been a half-baked idea from the start and he should have stopped it.
As JSOC command fed back the battle cam images in slow mo, the general used his com link to give orders to freeze-frame certain images and rewind others. A team of military experts, aided by the ATF, would be poring over these pictures for months ascertaining whether there was one blast or several, where the blast or blasts originated, as well as what type of explosive device was used. But for now, the general needed to put together his own picture of what had happened.
The images showed that each of the assault teams was able to successfully breach its entry point and pitch in its flash bangs, hoping to stun any immediate targets with the blinding white light and concussion tremors they emitted. After the teams entered, the battle cams showed that they moved quickly and began to secure the rooms on their respective levels. The cams showed what appeared to be sleeping men in some of the rooms, but would the kidnappers actually booby-trap themselves?
Before any of the men could be secured with the plastic riot cuffs that the teams always carried, there was a bright flash and the cams went off-line. Because of the need for his vision to be unimpaired while he looked
