Page 85 of Keeping Laryn
The rest of the flight was spent going over the layout of the hangar, at least from what Tex had been able to uncover. He wasn’t sure of the number of employees who’d be at the warehouse at this time of night, but they were all hoping the number at two in the morning would be less than if they went in during the day or even closer to sunrise.
Before they knew it, Buck and Obi-Wan were hovering over the LZ and the Night Stalkers began to fast rope to the ground below.
When Casper was the only one left in the back, Buck turned around and said, “We’ll be waiting for word to come in for extraction. Bring her home, Casper.”
“I plan on it,” he told his friend with a firm nod, before grabbing the rope and stepping out of the back of the chopper. It didn’t take long for him to be on the ground next to his friends. No one said a word as they adjusted their small packs and began jogging toward the city. It was likely the chopper had been seen, but no one would know that it hadn’t simply been off course.That it had been dropping off four operatives intent on stealing back what was theirs.
Casper wasn’t interested in what excuses the captain might give the Turkish government for their chopper being in their airspace. His only concern was Laryn.
The couple klicks to the city didn’t take long, and soon the four men were weaving in and out of streets that had seen better days. Expensive homes and cars parked along the roadway had given way to the poorer section, which was their destination. The hangar that held the military’s brand-new MH-60 choppers was in a run-down part of the city. Casper supposed that was done deliberately. To try to disguise exactly what was inside.
As they neared their objective, the four men slowed. The building loomed tall in front of them, in stark contrast to the two-story run-down apartment buildings and shacks that had been assembled nearby. Casper’s heart was racing, adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream as he crouched under one of the many windows along the east side, just as Tex had suggested.
He could enable comms with the former SEAL with a simple press of a button on his radio, but Casper was done planning. He was ready for action. The first place they’d look for Laryn was the basement. Tex had let them know there was a huge room under the floor of the hangar. It could be storage, but Tex’s intel said it was a dungeon of sorts. Full of cells reserved for men who’d been accused of treason or other high-level crimes. The thought of Laryn being down there made Casper want to puke, but it was the most logical place for Osman to stash her.
Tex had warned if she was down there, it wouldn’t be easy to break her out. There were no windows on that level and the only way out was up one of two narrow staircases. It would be easy for them to be trapped down there, so they had to be very careful not to get caught.
The hangar where the choppers were located was much like any other. A large, open space with a few offices along the northand south walls. There was a catwalk around the entire area, likely so guards could keep watch over what was happening on the floor below.
Above that was an entire floor of rooms. Tex had guessed they housed the men who worked on the helicopters and airplanes stored in the building. If Laryn was in one of those rooms, Casper and his team would be hard-pressed to find her without raising alarm bells. It wasn’t as if they could knock on every door and ask politely for an American woman.
It seemed getting into the country was the easy part of this mission. Casper wasn’t above killing every single person who stood between him and Laryn, despite promising the captain that bloodshed would be kept to a minimum.
Taking out a snake camera—a tiny lens at the end of a flexible piece of metal, much like a snake tool used back home to clean clogs from toilets—Casper lifted it to the window nearest him and pointed it at the glass.
Watching the video being transmitted on the small screen on his wrist, Casper held his breath, not sure what they’d find.
To his surprise, the hangar was fairly busy. Lights shone in the middle of the cavernous space, making it easy to see what was going on. He spotted two MH-60 helicopters, with men walking around, under, and inside them. It was three-thirty in the morning, and it seemed as if the government wasn’t wasting any time getting their new acquisitions battle ready.
“Pbsst.”
Looking to his right, Casper saw Edge motioning him toward him.
“This window’s open,” Edge whispered.
What the hell?
“Open?” Chaos asked quietly.
“Yeah. I figured I might as well try to see if we could get in the easy way. I pushed up on the glass and the fucking thing opened,” Edge said, clearly as surprised as the rest of them.
Casper shook his head in disbelief. So much for national security. But he supposed most people in this area knew better than to go into this building. Especially if the intel about working conditions Tex had passed along was any indication.
Lifting the camera once more, Casper stuck it into the open window, pleased at how much clearer the picture on the small screen became.
He took several precious minutes to look around carefully, racking his brain for a clue on how they were going to enter. While there weren’t nearly as many people as Tex had estimated were working during the day, there were still way more than their four-man team had expected for the middle of the night. They’d been hoping to sneak in and stay in the shadows while they went to the staircase that led down to the cells beneath the hangar floor.
Then something caught his eye. He stopped the camera and panned back.
There!
One of the workers crouched under the nose of the chopper had long hair. It was pulled up into a bun, but now that he was focusing on the person, it was obviously a woman.
It was Laryn!
“She’s there!” he exclaimed softly, with immense relief.
“Where?” Pyro asked.
