Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [69]
At 0130 hours Clark told Johnston and Loiselle to get ready, then gave the nod to Richards, who in turn gave it to Lieutenant Masudi. Five minutes and an extended walkie-talkie discussion later, the Libyan reported back: the perimeter guards were ready. Clark didn’t want some nervous grunt taking a pot-shot at his snipers as they moved into position. Similarly, he had Stanley and Chavez on the binoculars, keeping a close watch. However unlikely, there was always the possibility that someone—a sympathizer or just some asshole private who hated Americans—might try to signal the terrorists that the game was about to start. If this happened, there wouldn’t be much Clark could do except recall Johnston and Loiselle and try again later.
With Johnston and Loiselle geared up, M110s draped across their shoulders, Clark waited five minutes, then whispered to Stanley and Chavez, “How’re we doing?”
“No change,” Ding reported. “Some walkie-talkie action, but that’s probably the word getting passed.”
At 0140 Clark turned to Johnston and Loiselle and nodded. The two snipers slipped out the door and disappeared into the darkness. Clark donned his headset.
Five minutes passed. Ten minutes.
Over the radio came Loiselle’s voice: “Omega One, in position.” Followed ten seconds later by Johnston: “Omega Two, in position.”
“Roger,” Clark replied, checking his watch. “Stand by. Assault teams moving in ten.”
He could hear a pair of “Roger” double-clicks in reply.
“Alistair … Ding?”
“No movement. All quiet.”
“Same here, boss.”
“Okay, get ready.”
At this, Chavez handed his binoculars to Clark and joined his team at the door. Weber and his team, who were tasked with the ground-floor breach on the front/west corner wall, had farther to go to get into position, so they would go first, followed four minutes later by Chavez and his shooters.
Clark scanned the embassy compound one more time, looking for movement, changes—anything that didn’t pass his k-check, or kinesthetic check. Do this kind of thing long enough, he’d learned, and you develop something akin to a sixth sense. Does it feel right? Any nagging voices in the back of your head? Any unchecked boxes or overlooked details? Clark had seen too many otherwise good operators ignore the k-check—more often than not to their detriment.
Clark lowered his binoculars and turned to his teams, poised in the doorway. “Go,” he whispered.
20
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