was close.
The assaulters followed Edo across the room, their movements smooth, natural; man-hunters in their natural environment.
Focused on the door at the far corner of the room, Reece subconsciously noted the animals that adorned the walls. He shot past a tiger rug in front of the fireplace, moving between a South American jaguar looking down from its perch across from a snow leopard on the opposite wall doing the same. A full-body polar bear guarded the doorway through which Edo led the team. A walrus was mounted just across from the majestic white artic beast.
Does this guy hunt anything that’s not endangered? Reece thought. What an asshole.
They followed Edo through the door and into a narrow stone staircase leading into darkness.
Reece gave the squeeze and the foursome started to descend, Chavez leading the way, Edo right behind. Reece was last in line, keeping his rifle pointed up toward the door behind them.
The stairs terminated in a locked steel door. Edo had clearly alerted on it and Reece prayed that Hanna was with her brother on the other side.
Reece gave Chavez the signal to breach. Ordinarily they would explosively breach it from the top of the stairs, using the thick walls as protection from the overpressure. In this case, breaching charges were conspicuously missing from the load-out. Chavez slung his weapon and reached behind him for the hooligan tool. Studying the inward-opening door, he cursed to himself, wishing he’d brought along the sledge, but when a small band of operators invade a country from thirty-five thousand feet, you can only bring so much.
Reece, Edo, and Devan backed up a couple of steps to give Chavez room. Whoever was on the other side would know well in advance that they were coming. In a hostage scenario, that was the last thing you wanted. They were giving up the advantage of surprise. Once the door was ajar, they’d double down on violence of action.
Chavez inserted the “hoolie” into the jam and, using its claw, started to pry. The door was solid. The rock wall into which it was built was not. Identifying the weakness, Chavez attacked the area where the locking mechanism met the wall. The stone began to crumble. After a minute, the entrance began to give way. Chavez seized the opportunity and turned the tool around, slamming the duckbill, designed to ram, into the lock again and again. The noise reverberated up the stairway, steel meeting steel, Chavez grunting with exertion as he gave the effort everything he had.
One final swing, and the door flew open on its hinges. Chavez flattened himself against the wall, making room for Devan, Reece, and Edo to make entry. Devan went left and Reece hooked around to the right, clearing his corner and sweeping back past the center of the room.
Silence.
“Clear, right,” Reece whispered.
“Clear, left,” Devan confirmed.
“Wait, what the…?” Reece said aloud. “Belay that.”
Edo had sprinted to the end of the room and was barking at the wall. Only it wasn’t. What had at first appeared to be a wall under the alien illumination of the NODs was, in fact, a series of bars, and not just bars: prison cells.
The three operators read the room as a professor of literature would a classic novel. They pushed down the left wall, covering the cells with their weapons, sweeping back and forth across the uncleared area.
Movement.
“Hold fire,” Reece commanded. “I’m hitting the light; stand by. Moving.”
“Move,” Chavez said.
Reece took a few steps into the center of the room, flipped up his NODs, and pulled down on a string attached to a single lightbulb.
The room was sparse, rock floor and walls, solid wood beams across the ceiling.
Eight prison cells were built against the opposite side of the room. The three commandos kept their weapons trained on the unknown, quickly processing the scene. Eight cells. Six occupied. Two unoccupied. No Raife. No Hanna.
The prisoners all huddled in the back corners of their cells, trying to determine if the new intruders were friends or foes.
“Chavez, Devan, clear the rest of the house with Edo. I think it’s empty but make sure. Then, Devan, you switch out with Eli. I need him in here ASAP. Take up security with Edo. I’m going to see what intel I can get from these guys. Eli and I will prep them to move. We can’t leave them here. We have to assume reinforcements are inbound. This time it’s not going to be a few contractors, it’s going to be a full-on Russian military response.