Page 25 of The Fourth Option
Just as he had been trained, the breacher pivoted to the side of the door and the Zero Unit assaulter behind him put three suppressed rounds into the chest of the man with the AKM, immediately flowing into the structure, followed by the assaulters behind him.
The enemy had gotten their vote.
Had anyone heard? Suppressed weapons like the M4s carried by GB and the Zero Units were just that, suppressed, not silent.
Pashto language from the assaulters came over Walker’s headset, still measured and controlled, professional.
Walker knew they were pushing through the bottom floor of the two-story structure, just as they had done time and time again at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency, hunters searching for their prey.
Walker and Staub trailed.
Front room, clear.
Second room.
Clear. No movement.
From the third room, Walker heard the unmistakable sound of suppressed gunshots. The Zero Unit was stacking bodies.
More Pashto over the radio.
Walker did not need their interpreter to know what was being said.Ground level secure, moving to second floor.
Walker and Staub entered the room of the engagement, now being held by one of the Zero Unit shooters. They knelt and checked the faces of the dead men; military-age males with AKMs. They were all too young to be Abrar.
More suppressed shots from the upper deck.
As Walker and Staub turned to reenter the hallway, Ali came over the radio to let the Americans know that there were two more dead tangos upstairs. Target was secure. Negative on Abrar. It was a dry hole, but they had one prisoner. Both men knew what that meant. The Zero Unit would conduct a quick battlefield interrogation, something American units had been directed to call “tactical questioning.” This was the gray area in working with host nation forces in a sovereign country. Both Walker and Staub knew better than to insert themselves into the Zero Unit interrogation. Zero Units could be extremely persuasive when left to their own devices.
“What the fuck?” Staub said. “After all that, did we hit the wrong house? Abrar should be here.”
“Where’s the rug?” Walker asked.
“I didn’t see it,” Staub said. “Maybe upstairs?”
“It was delivered here, but the tracking device either died or couldn’t transmit inside. But it was here.”
“Let’s look upstairs.”
As they turned toward the staircase, Nate’s voice came through their headsets.
“Movement in the house across the alley.”
Walker paused and looked at Staub.
“Could just be neighbors,” Walker said.
“Then where did Abrar go? He didn’t just disappear.”
“Unless our recon team missed him leaving.”
“Possible, but unlikely.”
They stepped into the room with the prisoner and were not surprised to see that he was stripped naked and bleeding from the head. He was being held down by four Afghan operators while a fifth had a gloved hand around his genitals, a blade pressed into the soft flesh. The prisoner was talking.
“What’s he saying?” Walker asked Ali in a hushed voice. Walker did not want the prisoner to know that Americans were on target. He was more apt to talk if he thought he was solely in the hands of Afghans, who would not hesitate to separate his manhood from his body.
“There’s a tunnel connecting the two houses. Abrar is next door.”
