by Ryan Stygar
“What do you want to do, Sarge?”
Ramirez aimed his MP5 submachine at the damaged door and slowly pushed it open to get a clean view of the stairwell that led below. “We get what we came for… look alive Zebras. Something weird is going on up here.”
54
Downstairs
L ukas Petrov and the other commandos had once conducted a similar operation while serving in the Spetsnaz, and their experience showed.
Like a well-rehearsed dance, the team separated into two groups of three, with Peter leading one squad and Lukas Petrov leading the other. The idea was simple; use small blasts to breach the doors and cause confusion, kill all the enemies they encountered, then sabotage the load-bearing members on the top floor with a second round of detonations. If all went to plan then the resulting collapse would kill any survivors.
It worked against the anti-Russian separatists on the other side of the globe, and it was certain to work against Dimitri Jordan and his Lieutenants. Even if Jordan somehow survived, his precious Sumatra would be reduced nothing more than a towering inferno.
Lukas kept his compact assault rifle aimed down the hallway while his team planted Semtex on the elevators. Several yards to his rear, Peter had his semi-automatic shotgun ready for close-quarters combat while his team hopscotched into the nooks in the hall that led to the Lieutenant’s living quarters.
Designed to accommodate a fully equipped housekeeping cart without obstructing the walkway, each nook was about six feet long and three feet deep, making every doorway a potential defensive zone for the Spetsnaz commandos. As they planted the first round of explosives, they took note of the potential field of fire provided by each nook in the hallway.
“Round one is complete,” Peter’s voice rang in Lukas Petrov’s ear.
Lukas activated his throat-mic. “Deploy smoke grenades now. Commence assault in T-minus twenty seconds.”
About the size and shape of large soup cans, two olive-green smoke grenades were rolled down each end of the hall, pumping out thick white smoke as the timer ticked down. The powerful Russian smoke grenades filled the entire hallway with opaque-white clouds in seconds.
Lukas racked the slide on his AKS-74U and jogged back to rejoin his team, limping only slightly when he did.
“You sure you’re ok?” Peter whispered. “I can see a limp in your step.”
“It is only pain, nothing more,” Lukas answered as he took cover. He looked at his watch and called twelve seconds to impact. “Peter, your team will clear the villas on right side, my team will clear the left. We will meet at Jordan’s villa at the end of the hall.”
Ten… Nine…
Peter said, “Use smoke grenades to conceal our movements, but save one to signal our evacuation helicopter.”
Eight… Seven…
“For Mikhail!” Lukas growled to his team. “And for our fallen brothers!”
Six… Five….
Adam Friend jumped the entire flight of stairs down to the second floor of the Nataraja Club. With Watson Lafayette and Ty Marcus hot on his tail, he pummeled through the crowd like a madman – pushing, shoving, and outright tackling anything that got in his way.
The hallway that extended to the exit felt like a nightmare-scape. Adam punched through the wall of mist and sprinted past the long rows of stone columns. The dark caverns flashed with colored lights while the Lieutenants chased after him.
Light from the Sumatra casino glared at the end of the hall. Adam’s heart was racing from the run, but fear and determination to get Lily back gave him superhuman endurance.
Two hulking black shadows blocked the way out. Only ten feet wide, the entrance was easily covered by the pair of massive Samoans when they saw Adam sprinting down the hall.
“Seize him! Seize him!” Watson screamed. Tua and Natano held out their arms to block Adam’s escape.
Adam peeked over his shoulder and saw he was only fifteen yards ahead of his pursuers; slowing down or stopping for even a second would have him captured and killed. Snapping his head forward, he eyed the narrow gap between Tua and Natano. At three hundred pounds each, the Samoans made an imposing wall, but they were slow.
Adam ducked his head and sprinted toward Natano on the left. Tua kept his arms wide and shuffled over to help his brother capture the fugitive. It was exactly what Adam wanted.
Like an NFL wide-receiver hooking to center field for a pass, he changed his trajectory at the last second and sprinted toward the three foot gap between Tua and the wall to his right. Tua caught on to the move but was too heavy and too slow to do anything about it – Adam blew right past him a whole second before he was able to react.
Half a second after that, Ty Marcus and Watson Lafayette slammed into the Samoan’s heavy bodies like a pair of comets. Watson tumbled and fell flat on his face several feet outside the gateway, Ty collapsed like a ragdoll at Natano’s feet.
“He’s getting away!” Watson screamed, scrambling to his feet to get after Adam.
“Weapon!” Ty screamed at the Samoans, who quickly brushed off their embarrassment at letting Adam escape and tossed Ty his silver pistol.
Ty yelled his orders, “Alert the other Lieutenants and have them meet me out front – go!” He chambered a round and ran off.
Adam exploded out the front doors of the Sumatra Hotel and ran right into the middle of the valet line. He had to get away from Watson and Ty as fast as possible and, even more importantly, he had to get to the Venetian before anything bad could happen to Lily.
He was looking for any trace of Chad’s lifted F350 when his fat, beady-eyed former boss waddled out from the valet booth and gaped at him.
“Adam!?” Keith gasped. “What are you…?”
Adam glared at the fat little man. He knew it was wrong, but there was still a strong fiber in his belly that blamed this entire shitty series events on Keith for selling him out to Lukas Petrov in the first place.
“You are so lucky I’m in a hurry Keith!” Adam yelled, totally indifferent to the curious eyes drawn to him. “Where the hell is the truck?”
“Where’s the… w-what are you talking about?” Keith stuttered.
Adam snatched up two thick fistfuls of Keith’s vest and snarled at the boy’s wide-face. “The truck dammit! I dropped off a big-ass Ford truck when I got here, where is it!?”
Shouting at the front entrance caught Adam’s attention. Watson Lafayette was pushing through the doors less than forty feet away.
“F-Ford? I reported it!” Keith shouted as he tried to wriggle away. “It was stolen! Now let go of me or I’m calling the police!”
“Reported?” Adam repeated angrily. He was about to punch Keith right in the nose when he spotted a pair of keys in the kid’s pudgy pink hand.
“Don’t hurt me!” Keith screamed. Adam snatched the keys from him.
“You owe me this one!” Adam said as he held up the key and pressed the unlock button. A brand new, iridium-silver Mercedes AMG GT supercar chirped several paces behind him. That will do. Adam shoved Keith away and made for the car.
“Car thief!” Keith yelled. “Car thief! Car thief! Somebody stop him!”
Watson Lafayette blew past him right on cue.
“That’s right! Go get him!” Keith yelled after the gangster, but Watson was only fast enough to catch a lungful of exhaust as Adam stomped on the accelerator and sent the AMG rocketing onto the Strip.
“Down!” Ty screamed with his silver pistol raised high. From the entrance he drew a bead on the silver AMG and squeezed the trigger.
“Holy crap!” Keith yelled. He dove to the ground for cover, landing flat on his belly as Ty’s bullets sparked against the Mercedes racing down the road. He pressed his chubby hands over his ears as Ty’s weapon barked.
“Dammit!” Ty grumbled as he reloaded his weapon. Watson was cursing under his breath as he jogged back to meet him.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Watson asked. Ty handed him his Sig Saue
r.
“He’s gotta be running back to Viktoriya Petrov.”
“That doesn’t make sense. If Adam killed Mikhail then…”
“I didn’t say it made sense! I just said that’s what I think is happening. Who else would want you dead?”
Four Lieutenants wielding their silver 1911s came pouring out of the main entrance behind them. “We came as fast as we could!” the man in the lead called. “What happened?”
“Adam Friend betrayed us!” Watson yelled. “He tried to assassinate me in the Nataraja.”
“That little shit!” one of the men growled.
“I’m going after him.” Ty said, holstering his weapon. “Who’s with me?”
Every Lieutenant raised his hand. Watson chambered a round into his Sig Sauer. “We’re going to the Venetian; first we kill Viktoriya Petrov and then we kill her little puppet –
Sirens and flashing blue lights cut off Watson’s words. Six black GMC Yukons revved up from the Strip and accelerated to the front entrance with the towering armored personnel carriers following from behind.
“All this for a stolen car?!” Keith yelled with his hands pressed against his ears.
Watson cursed at the sight of the heavy MRAPs and all the GMCs. “Feds!”
Squads of tactical officers poured out of the vehicles and started charging up at the Sumatra in assault formations.
“Change of plans!” Watson shouted. “You men should go to the Venetian and take care of the Russians once and for all. I’m going upstairs to protect Mr. Jordan. Go!”
Ty and the other four Lieutenants sprinted off to the fleet of Range Rovers in the opposite direction of the advancing SWAT teams while Watson spun on his heel and charged back into the hotel to warn Dimitri Jordan.
“Damn!” Keith gasped, wiping the dust from his vest as he got to his feet. “Security at this place is intense!”
55
S ergeant Adrian Ramirez took point for the six-member SWAT team. They expected to find resistance on the top floor, but they didn’t expect was to find three dead security guards with their throats sliced open. To make matters worse, someone had already breached the emergency exits before them. Something fishy was going on, and Ramirez didn’t like it.
One of the critical characteristics of a good SWAT officer is the ability to quickly adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Ramirez knew this, and as they worked their way down the stairwell, every Zebra under his command was on high alert for new threats.
“Smoke!” Ramirez called back to his team.
“Fire?” Zebra Two asked, keeping a tight grip on his Mossberg.
“Standby,” Ramirez said, removing one of his gloves. Pressing his bare hand to the door, he noted that the steel was cold; if there was fire on the other side then it would have scalded his hand. “Negative. No fire on the other side.”
“What the hell is going on?” Zebra Three asked from behind. Ramirez pressed his body against the wall to the right of the door and grasped the handle.
“We’re about to find out. Don’t hesitate to defend yourselves, but remember; we’re the good guys. We’re here to arrest Dimitri Jordan and bring him to justice, not to exact revenge. I want precision and accountability for every shot fired.”
All nodded that they understood their mission. After giving a countdown from three, Ramirez threw open the door.
A wave of white smoke poured out from the hallway and instantly engulfed Ramirez and his team as they advanced inside.
On the opposite end of the hall, unseen behind the thick clouds of white smoke, Lukas Petrov’s watch ticked down to zero.
The first blast devastated the elevator lobby – blowing a crater through the doors and sending a wall of fire down the elevator shaft. Like a chain reaction, six more explosions ripped through the hallway in half-second intervals, blowing open the doors to the villas and throwing fire balls down the hall.
In preparation for the blasts, Lukas Petrov and his team sheltered in place behind the exit door at their end of the hall. After the sixth explosion blasted open the door to Dimitri Jordan’s villa, the Spetsnaz team emerged from cover and charged into the Lieutenant’s quarters on each side of the hallway to begin their sweep.
Ramirez and his SWAT team were caught completely by surprise. The chain of explosions hurled all six of them back against the steel doors of the northern stairwell. The earsplitting detonations left Adrian dizzy with memories of the Taliban ambush that nearly killed him so many years ago, but real terror didn’t grip him until he heard the tell-tale rattle of Russian-made assault rifles chattering down the hall.
“What the fuck was that?!” one of the Zebras cried out as he jumped back to his feet. Another blast shook the tower like an earthquake as a delayed Semtex explosion destroyed what was left of the doors to Dimitri Jordan’s villa.
“Get low!” Ramirez ordered over the sound of automatic gunfire. Not even a tenth of a second before the six-man team hit the ground, a hair-singing wall of heat roared over their heads.
The explosive force cleared away enough of the thick white smoke for Ramirez to spot two groups of men wearing dark green camouflage and red berets on the opposite end of the hallway.
“LVMPD! Drop your weapons now!” Ramirez yelled. He raised his MP5 while the other Zebras hunkered down around him and took aim.
Lukas Petrov looked up in disbelief at the sight of six heavily armed figures in full tactical gear staring him down.
“Final warning! Drop your weapons!” Ramirez screamed. His commands were answered by a cluster of bright orange muzzle blasts as the Russians unloaded their magazines at him.
The police reacted instantly by squeezing the triggers of their MP5s and scattering for cover within the recessed nooks in the hallway.
Bullets flew down the hall. The Russians split into two equal squads and took cover on both sides of the hall. Determined to retain the offensive initiative, the Spetsnaz team began leap-frogging from nook to nook.
The gunfire raged on. Adrian Ramirez looked around at his team. Five tan-clad Zebras assumed the combat-firing stance while taking cover in the smoldering nooks. Even as bullets peppered their position, they were doing a damn good job holding back whoever was attacking them. Ramirez dropped an empty magazine from his MP5 and slammed in a fresh one while he assessed the situation.
That’s when he noticed the bullet holes. A shudder went down his spine.
“Those aren’t gangsters!” he called to his team. He poked his head out from behind the nook and fired ten rounds at the enemy.
“How do you know they aren’t Jordan’s guys?” Zebra Two asked. He was pinning himself against the wall while keeping his MP5 raised and ready for more fighting.
“The clusters behind us!” Ramirez yelled over the noise of battle. He pointed at the wall behind them. “Gangsters spray and pray, these guys are doing controlled bursts – look!”
Zebra Two turned his head and noted with a chill that all the bullet holes behind him were grouped in tightly aimed clusters of three.
“Are we shooting at friendlies?” Zebra Three asked. He adjusted his identity-concealing facemask to improve his field of vision.
Ramirez radioed Special Agent Patricia Klein. “Zebra One to command, we’re engaged with six heavily armed and highly trained unknowns on the top floor. They’re clearly paramilitary – any idea what we’re dealing with here?”
Down in the Sumatra Casino, Agent Patricia Klein had traded in her pantsuit and power-heels for fully protective tactical gear and combat boots. Two columns of DHS SWAT officers were advancing ahead of her. Like a wedge they forced a gap through the screaming stampede of tourists. Strobes flashed in intervals while the loud wail of the fire alarm warned the Sumatra’s guests to evacuate the building. Klein held her radio to her lips.
“Command to Zebra One, that’s a negative – you’re on your own up there. We heard explosions, are you okay?”
“We’re fine at the moment.” Ramirez answered. Klein cringed
when speaker-shattering gunfire crackled over her radio.
“Zebra One to command.” Ramirez’s voice echoed when the firing stopped. “The top floor is a full-scale combat zone – I would advise your team to stay clear.”
Klein shook her head and squeezed her mic hard. “Negative – this isn’t a time for heroics! I’m sending friendlies up to support you. Can you get a description of the hostiles?”
“Affirmative. Green camouflage, red berets. They seem to be working their way through the villas and executing suspects.”
Klein looked around the glittering Casino as if looking for an answer. “What the hell is going on up there?” she asked no one in particular. It took a moment for her to shake off her confusion.
“Roger Zebra One.” Klein answered after a few seconds. She was shoving her way past a pair of screaming elderly women who were scurrying for the exit. “If it gets too hot up there I want you to bail, understand?” she added. She then looked behind her and barked at a DHS officer wearing an identity-concealing facemask and tactical gear. “Go outside to the command vehicle and see if you can find out what the Hell Las Vegas SWAT is up against.”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Zebra One, did you copy my last?” Klein asked after a long period of radio silence.
“Understood,” Ramirez’s voice answered over the sporadic cracks of gunfire. “I’ll alert you if we make the call to withdraw.”
A gut-shaking boom rumbled down from the upper floors and seemed to rattle all the walls and slot machines in the casino.
“Jesus,” Klein whispered, looking up. “You be careful up there Zebra One.”
She tucked her radio back onto her hip and looked to her team. “I want a sit-rep from every team covering the exits ASAP. Bravo Squad, I want you to head upstairs and reinforce Las Vegas SWAT immediately.”
“Roger that!” one of the squad leaders replied, his voice muffled by his face-mask. He raised a black-gloved hand and tapped the top of his helmet. “Bravo Squad, on my six! We’re going upstairs to reinforce Las Vegas SWAT – be on the lookout for hostiles with red berets! ”