CHAVEZ WAITED the requisite four minutes, then led his team down the steps and to the head of the alley. As Clark had requested, the Libyans had turned off the streetlights for a block around the embassy, something they all hoped the bad guys wouldn’t notice, since the compound’s pole lights were still on and pointing inward. Also by request, a trio of Army trucks had been parked single file down the middle of the street between the command-post apartment and the east side of the compound.
Using hand signals, he sent each man down the sidewalk, using the shadows and the trucks as cover until they reached the next alley, where a line of hedges ran in front of the next building, a private medical practice, Ding had been told, cleared of civilians earlier that day.
Once the team was safely behind the hedges, he followed at a walking pace, half hunched over, MP5 at ready-low, his eyes scanning ahead and to the right and over the top of the embassy compound’s wall. No movement. Good. Nothing to see here, tango.
Chavez reached the hedges and stopped in a crouch. Over his headset he heard Weber’s voice: “Command, Red Actual, over.”
“Go, Red Actual.”
“In position. Setting up Gatecrasher.”
Chavez half wished he had Weber’s job. Though he’d used Rainbow’s newest toy in training, he’d yet to see it in live action.
Developed by Alford Technologies in Great Britain, the Gatecrasher-which Loiselle had dubbed the “magic door maker”-reminded Ding of one of those tall, rounded rectangular shields the Spartans carried in 300, but a more accurate analogy would be that of a quarter-scale rubber raft. Instead of air in the outside ring of tubes, there was water, and opposite them, on the hollow side of the Gatecrasher, a sunken strip into which strands of PETN detonator cord were packed. The det cord, backed by the water jacket, created what was known as a tamping effect, essentially turning the det cord into a shaped charge-a focused explosive cutting ring that could cut through a foot and a half of solid brick.
The Gatecrasher addressed a number of issues that had long plagued special operators and hostage rescue teams: one, booby-trapped entry points, and two, the “fatal funnel.” Terrorists, knowing the good guys had to come through either doors or windows, often rigged them with explosives-as they did during the Breslan school massacre in Russia-and/or concentrated their firepower and attention on likely entry points.
With the Gatecrasher, Weber and his team would be through the front west wall of the building about three seconds after detonation.
“Roger,” Clark replied to Weber. “Blue Actual?”
“Three minutes to wall,” Chavez reported.
He scanned the compound one last time through his night vision, saw nothing, then moved out.
For getting over the wall, they’d chosen a decidedly low-tech method: a four-foot stepladder and a Kevlar flak jacket. Among the many axioms special operators lived by, KISS was one of the most important: Keep it simple, stupid. Don’t over-think a simple problem, or as Clark often put it, “You don’t use a shotgun on a cockroach.” In this case, the stepladder would get them level with the top of the wall; the flak jacket, draped over the glass shards jutting from the top of the wall, would keep Chavez and his team from losing some fluid while going over.
Chavez slipped out from behind the hedges, dashed to the wall, crouched down. He keyed his headset: “Command, Blue Actual. At the wall.”
“Roger.” Stanley’s voice.
A few seconds later a red laser dot appeared on the wall three feet to Chavez’s right. Having already mapped out the surveillance camera’s blind spots, Alistair was using his MK23’s LAM to show Ding the way.
Chavez sidestepped until the laser dot was resting on his chest. The dot disappeared. He quickly and quietly set up the ladder, then gave the move up signal to the rest of his team.
Showalter went first. Chavez handed him the flak jacket, and he mounted the ladder. Ten seconds later he was up, over, and out of sight. One by one, the rest of the team followed suit until it was Ding’s turn.
Once on the other side, he found himself standing on a plush green lawn bordered by hibiscus bushes. The Swedes’ monthly sprinkler bills must be a bitch, he thought absently. To his right lay the front of the building, and directly ahead, twenty feet away, the east wall. Showalter and Bianco had taken up over-watch at each corner of the building. Ybarra sat crouched beneath the balcony. Ding started toward him.
“Hold.” Loiselle’s voice. “Movement, south side.”
Ding froze.
Ten seconds later. “Clear. Just a cat.”
Chavez crossed over to Ybarra, slung his MP5, then climbed on the stout Spaniard’s back. The balcony’s lowermost rail was just beyond finger reach. Chavez stretched. Ybarra steadied himself and stood a little straighter. Chavez caught the railing, first with his right hand, then with his left, then chinned himself up. Five seconds later he was crouched on the balcony. He un-clipped a section of knotted rope from his harness, clipped the D ring to the rope railing, and dropped the end over the side.
He turned to face the door. Like the windows, it was shuttered and, of course, locked. Behind him he heard a faint creaking as Ybarra came over the railing, then felt an “I’m here” pat on his shoulder.
Chavez keyed his headset. “Command, Blue Actual, at the door.”
“Roger.”
Ding pulled the flexi-cam from his right-thigh cargo pocket, linked it to his goggles, then slipped the lens beneath the door, slowly, gently, going almost as much by touch as he was by sight. Like everything they did, each Rainbow member had trained and retrained, then trained some more, with every tool in their arsenal, the flexi-cam included. If the door was wired, Chavez was just as likely to feel it as he was to see it.
He scanned first the bottom threshold, then, finding nothing, he moved on to the hinges before finishing with the doorknob and striker plate. Clear. There was nothing. He withdrew the cam. Behind him, Showalter and Bianco had made it over the railing. Ding pointed at Bianco, then at the doorknob. The Italian nodded and went to work with his pick set. Thirty seconds later the lock snicked open.
Using hand signals, Ding gave them final instructions: He and Bianco would take point and clear the rooms on the right; Showalter and Ybarra the left.
Ding gently turned the knob, opened the door a crack. He waited for ten beats, then swung the door open another foot and peeked his head through. The hall was clear. Three doors, two on the right, one on the left. In the distance he heard murmured voices, then silence. A sneeze. He withdrew his head and swung the door open all the way, letting Showalter catch it and hold it.
MP5 at ready-low, Ding stepped into the hall. Bianco followed two paces behind and to his left, taking the hall’s centerline. On the south wall, Showalter reached the left-hand doorway and stopped. The door was partially closed. “At south-hall door,” Showalter radioed.
“Looking,” Loiselle replied. “No movement.”
Showalter squared himself with the door, swung it open, and went in. He emerged twenty seconds later and gave a thumbs-up. Chavez crept down the north wall.
Johnston’s voice: “Hold.”
Ding held up a closed fist, and the other three stopped, dropped into a crouch.
“Movement,” Johnston said. “North wall, second window from east corner.”
The next room, Ding thought. Twenty seconds passed. Tempted as he was to press Johnston for an update, he resisted. The sniper would respond when he had something.
“Window’s covered in mini-blinds,” Johnston radioed. “Half open. I see one body moving.”
“Weapon?”
“Can’t tell. Stand by. Moving to the door. Three seconds.”
Chavez slung his MP5, drew his suppressed MK23, stood up, and slid down the wall until he was within arm’s reach of the door.
“At door,” Johnston called.
It swung open, and a figure stepped out. Chavez took a half-second, saw the AK-47 slung across the man’s chest, then put a round above his right ear. Ding pivoted on his heel, brought his left arm up, and grabbed the man across the chest as he fell. Bianco was already moving up, going through the door, looking for more targets. Chavez eased his man to the ground.
“Clear,” he radioed five seconds later, then came out and helped Chavez drag the body into the room. They closed the door behind them, got themselves restacked, and crouched down to wait. If his shot had attracted any attention, they’d know in short order. Nothing moved. “At second door, north wall,” he radioed.
“Don’t see any more movement,” Johnston replied.
Ding and Bianco cleared the room and came back out.
“Command, Blue Actual. Upstairs clear,” Ding called. “Heading to main floor.”
“Roger,” Stanley replied.
Twenty feet down the hall lay an arch and a sharp right turn to what Chavez knew was the stairway to the first floor. The stairs were open, twenty feet wide, bordered on the right by a wall, and open on the left, overlooking what they’d decided was probably the embassy’s main work area-and the most likely place the terrorists had bunched the hostages.
This had advantages and disadvantages, Ding knew. If the hostages were bunched together, there was a good chance most of the bad guys were as well. This would make Rainbow’s job easier, having targets concentrated like that, but it also meant the hostages, sitting cheek by jowl, were fish in a barrel should the terrorists open fire.
Then we just don’t give ’em that chance, mano.
He crept forward, moving slowly on flat feet until he reached the arch. A quick glance around the corner revealed the ground floor. Down the stairs and to the right was the front wall, windows still shuttered. At the bottom of the stairway would be that short hall and the four unknown rooms.
Chavez tracked his eyes back to the northwest corner of the room, then mentally measured four feet down the wall. Give or take half a foot, that’s where Weber would be coming through. Farther to the left, just visible over the railing, he could see two figures standing together. Each held a compact submachine gun, but not up and ready. Dangling at their sides. Fine by me, he thought. A few feet away on a desk, a green-shaded banker’s lamp cast a pool of light on the wall.
Chavez pulled back and returned to where the rest of the team was waiting. He gestured: Layout confirmed; move as planned. Chavez and Bianco, joined by Weber and his team once they were through the wall, would take the heavy side of the main room. Showalter and Ybarra would go right at the bottom of the stairs, taking the hallway. He got nods from each man.
“Command, Blue Actual, over.”
“Go, Blue.”
“In position.”
“Roger.”
From Weber: “Red Actual, roger.”
“Moving in ninety seconds,” Chavez said.
“Standing by,” Weber replied.
Start the count,” Ding radioed.
“Five and counting.” This from Weber. Five seconds to Gatecrasher.
Each of Chavez’s men had a flashbang in hand, pin pulled.
Four… three… two…
In unison, Ding and Bianco tossed the flashbangs over the railing and started down, MP5s up and tracking, looking for targets. Ding heard the first flashbang skitter across the floor below, followed a quarter-second later by the Gatecrasher going off. A gout of smoke and debris whooshed across the room. Chavez and Bianco kept moving, Ybarra and Showalter passing them on the right, moving fast for the right-hand hallway that led to the east side of the building.
The second flashbang exploded. Bright light bounced off the ceiling and over the walls. Ding ignored it.
Target.
Over the railing a figure was turning toward them. Ding laid the MP5’s sight over the man’s chest and fired twice. He dropped, and Ding kept moving. To his left he saw another figure but knew Bianco was covering it, and as if on cue, he heard a pop-pop. To Chavez’s right he saw the first of Weber’s team coming through the four-foot-tall oval hole created by the Gatecrasher, followed by a second, third, and fourth.
Ding veered left, moving toward the center of the room. Screams now. A mass of huddled bodies on the floor. Target. He fired twice and kept moving, MP5 tracking. Behind him he heard Showalter call, “Target, left,” followed by a series of overlapping pops.
Weber and his team had caught up with Chavez and Bianco now and were fanning out, each man covering a sector.
“Down, down, down! Everybody down!” Ding shouted.
To the right: pop, pop, pop.
Chavez kept moving, pushing through the center of the room, Bianco on his left doing the same, looking for movement…
“Clear,” he heard Weber call out, followed by two more.
“Clear on the left!” Bianco answered.
“Hall clear!” This from Showalter. “Checking the rooms.”
“On my way,” Ybarra called.
From Showalter’s hallway came a woman’s scream. Chavez spun. Ybarra, who had reached the entrance to the hallway, sidestepped right and pressed himself against the left wall. “Target.” Chavez sprinted to the hall and took position opposite Ybarra. Down the hall, a figure had emerged from the last room, dragging a woman along with him. The man had a pistol pressed to her neck. Ding peeked out. The man spotted him and turned the woman a bit, shielding himself. He shouted something in panicked Arabic. Ding pulled back. “Showalter, say position,” he whispered.
“Second room.”
“Target’s just outside the third door. Ten, twelve feet. He’s got a hostage.”
“I hear her. How’s my angle?”
“Half a head shot open.”
“Roger, say when.”
Chavez peeked out again. The man turned ever so slightly, squaring off with Chavez. Showalter, his MP5 shoulder-tucked, stepped up to the threshold of his door and fired. The bullet entered the man’s right eye. He crumpled, and the woman started screaming. Showalter stepped out and moved toward her.
Chavez let out a breath, then slung his MP5 and turned to scan the main room. Done and done. Twenty seconds, no more. Not bad. He keyed his radio. “Command, this is Blue Actual, over.”
“Go.”
“We’re secure.”
Once Chavez did his final walk-through and judged the embassy to be fully locked down, he radioed Clark and Stanley a firm “all clear.” From there, events moved rapidly as the report went from Tad Richards to his People’s Militia liaison, Lieutenant Masudi, then up the Libyan chain of command to a major who insisted that Chavez and his team exit the front door and escort the hostages out the main gate. In Rainbow’s temporary command center, Clark and Stanley, misunderstanding the demand, balked until Masudi explained in broken English that there would be no television cameras. The Libyan people simply wanted to express their gratitude. Clark considered this and gave his shrugged approval.
“International goodwill,” he muttered to Alistair Stanley.
Ten minutes later Chavez, his team, and the hostages emerged from the embassy’s main entrance amid the glare of klieg lights and applause. They were met at the gate by a contingent of Swedish Security Service (Säkerhetspolisen) and Criminal Investigation Department (Rikskriminalpolisen) officers, who took custody of the hostages. After two solid minutes of handshaking and hugs, Chavez and his team moved out onto the street, where a gauntlet of People’s Militia brass and soldiers offered yet more backslapping.
Richards appeared at Chavez’s side as they pushed through the crowd toward the command center. “What the hell’s going on?” Chavez shouted.
“Hard to catch the words,” Richards replied, “but they’re just impressed. No, amazed would be a better description.”
Behind Chavez, Showalter yelled, “At what, for Christ sake? What the fuck were they expecting?”
“Casualties! Lots of dead people! They didn’t expect any of the hostages to make it out, let alone all of them. They’re celebrating!”
“No shit?” Bianco called. “What’re we, amateurs?”
Richards replied over his shoulder, “They haven’t got the best track record with hostage rescue.”
Chavez smiled at this. “Yeah, well, we’re Rainbow.”