The Rescue(101)

Thermal imagery from the drone indicated that the master bedroom’s ambient temperature was higher than the rest of the house, suggesting a concentration of computer equipment and warm bodies. If the team reached the master bedroom before Mackenzie and her partners panicked, Gunther could defuse the situation with hostages.

“Thirty seconds!” yelled the copilot.

Gunther triggered his tactical radio. “Remember your ROE. We need Mackenzie alive.”

The operators nodded and checked their weapons while Gunther requested a final situational report from Ramirez, who sat in an SUV down the street from the Summit Estates entrance gate, controlling the drone high above.

“WATCHTOWER. We’re twenty seconds out,” said Gunther. “Request final SITREP.”

“This is WATCHTOWER,” said Ramirez. “Blinds are drawn, so I have no visible contact. Still showing a significant heat signature from the master bedroom. I’m getting a little more heat from the two-story great room, so you may have targets gathered in that space. Happy hunting.”

“Keep an eye on the neighborhood for us,” said Gunther.

He grabbed the door latch and nodded at the operative on the other side to do the same. All of the men shifted their bodies, pointing toward the door they would use to exit the helicopter. Gunther would be the first out of the starboard-side door, leading BRAVO team to the patio slider, where they would breach the house and take a hard right into the great room.

“Doors open!” barked the copilot.

Gunther lifted the latch with one hand and pushed the heavy door outward with the other, using both of them to slide it toward the back of the helicopter. Warm wind rushed into the cabin as house lights from the hillside neighborhood rose to meet them. They passed over a lighted tennis court on the right, Gunther able to read the shocked expressions on the players’ faces before they vanished in the dust storm raised by the helicopter’s powerful rotor wash.

The tennis court disappeared, momentarily replaced by a steep rise of wind-scattered bushes until a glowing blue pool rushed into view. When the helicopter’s wheels gently impacted the ground, Gunther jumped onto the lawn, never hearing the copilot give them the green light to disembark.

Gunther sprinted across the short stretch of tightly mowed grass, hitting the well-lit patio and heading straight for the wide slider underneath the deep pergola attached to the house. He slowed his pace to let the team’s breacher get in front of him as they closed the remaining twenty feet to their entry point.

“BRAVO Three. Shotgun the glass,” said Gunther, not wanting anything slowing their momentum.

The operator tasked with forcing an entry raised his semiautomatic shotgun while running and fired repeatedly at the glass in front of him. Designed specifically to shatter glass, the shotgun slugs instantly disintegrated the massive glass plate, a cascade of broken fragments showering the hardwood inside the house.

“BRAVO team is in,” said Gunther. “No sign of resistance. We caught them with their pants down.”





CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Harry Bernstein gently tugged the yoke left, nudging the ancient aircraft back on course. A glance at the flip-down computer monitor installed above the center control panel showed them flying down the center of the drop corridor, on target to pass directly over the drop zone. The digital readout underneath the glide-path image indicated a distance of one and a half miles to the drop.

Bernie had been doing this for so long, he didn’t have to read the time to drop zone to know that the thirty-second warning wasn’t far away. Before he took his eyes off the screen, the readout flashed “30SEC.” He reached above his head and flipped the parachute warning light switch to “STBY,” which activated a small red light next to the rear cargo ramp, alerting his flight crew that the aircraft was on final approach to the drop zone.

He had to keep playing with the yoke to keep the C-123 centered over the drop corridor, the Vietnam-era aircraft giving him a little more hassle than usual tonight. Nothing out of the ordinary for a fifty-two-year-old hunk of flying metal that had changed hands more than a dozen times in her lifetime.

He’d owned the retired military transport for close to a decade, having purchased her from a flying club in Arizona that couldn’t afford her maintenance. On top of its significant cargo-carrying capacity and a rear-loading ramp, the costly purchase had added a unique capability to his sky fleet, which his client had specifically requested tonight.

Bernie checked the screen again, correctly guessing that five seconds remained until they crossed a three-dimensional point five thousand feet directly over the drop zone. Keeping the yoke steady with his left hand, he raised the other and toggled the standby switch, flashing the red light next to the ramp until his internal stopwatch told him five seconds had expired. Instinctively, his finger flipped the adjacent switch.

A few seconds later, his headset activated. “Three packages delivered. Setting up for recovery.”

“I’m going to climb to ten thousand feet and start a lazy circle,” said Bernie.

“How long can we circle around up here?” said his flight crew leader.

“I really don’t know,” said Bernie. “We’re well outside DC’s updated air defense identification zone, but all it will take is one jumpy air traffic controller to ruin our night.”