The Enemy Inside

by William Christie

  Plastic explosives are not sensitive to heat or impact. Only a blasting cap, not fire or a bullet strike, will set them off. But when ignited they will burn. Very hot.

  When the grenade blew there was an orange flash of gasoline within the black cloud. A few seconds later, still inside the smoke, a pillar of fire shot up. Pure white, and it rose and spread out until it had completely consumed the SUV. High-pitched wailing shrieks that barely sounded human, cut off by the bangs of grenades and LAAW rockets cooking off and scattering chunks of metal outside that burning shroud.

  Storey dashed to his left to get enough of an angle to see the warehouse beyond the burning SUV. The last Chechen was going for the door, limping, carrying the machine gun. Storey took his time, not wanting that gun to get inside. He dropped the Chechen just short of the door. Changing to a fresh magazine, he ran back to the sedan, ducking every time another explosion rocked the Expedition. “Did you see how many made it back inside?” he shouted to Troy.

  “I saw three, but I’m sure more made it!”

  That was Troy the sniper, Storey thought. He was only going to report what he saw.

  Troy checked behind him for the first time. Sondra Dewberry was sitting on the road, where she’d been ever since they were all knocked down when he hit the Chechen’s explosive belt. She was shivering uncontrollably. Troy followed the path of her eyes. The Chechen’s scorched head had landed in the road about fifteen feet away from her. Troy grabbed her upper arm, shook her hard, and shouted, “Get in the car! Get in the car!”

  She didn’t even look up at him.

  Troy immediately dropped her arm and moved on, writing her out of the fight. Not angry, just done with her. She hadn’t been ready for it.

  Now Beth ran over. “Sondra! Sondra!”

  No reaction. Storey was yelling at her from inside the car. Beth jammed the M-16 into Dewberry’s lap and ran for the sedan, jumping into the open back door next to Troy.

  Amazed that the engine was still running, Storey threw it into reverse and backed up fast across the street.

  Beth crawled over the seat and grabbed for the radio mike. She flipped the switch from loudspeaker and tried to get a call through. Just as amazed as Storey had been about the engine when the radio crackled out a reply.

  Troy was passing Storey fresh magazines from the daypacks to replenish his vest.

  Beth recounted the situation and demanded that every local, state, and federal unit respond immediately, particularly SWAT.

  She’d thought that once they got across the street Storey would back them into cover. But he was shifting into drive. “Ed, what are you doing? We have to establish a perimeter and keep them inside that warehouse.”

  Storey said, “Beth, if they barricade themselves in there until the TV cameras show up, they’ll have the incident they came for. They won’t have to attack anything.”

  Beth digested that, realizing he was right.

  Then Storey added, “If they get their sniper or a machine gunner up on that roof, or someone with a LAAW, we’re pinned down. Nobody’s getting near them.”

  “What the fuck?” Troy shouted from the backseat. “Are we waiting for them to get dug in?”

  Sirens could already be heard in the distance. Of course, the substantial explosions might also have had something to do with it.

  Beth keyed the mike. “Be advised, three plainclothes officers inside the warehouse. Two male, one female. Repeat, three officers, in plainclothes, inside the warehouse.”

  “Better buckle up,” Storey advised as he stepped on the gas.

  They shot across the street and hit the gate dead center. The chain snapped and it flew open.

  The Expedition was still burning, and by now looked like a naked frame standing on wheel rims. Ammunition was still popping inside.

  Storey made a wide turn and put the sedan between the Expedition and the door the Chechens had run into. Troy was firing deliberately into the door to keep anyone from sticking their head out.

  Storey said, “Beth, would you lean out and grab that machine gun?”

  For an instant Beth was taken aback by his calm good manners, considering the circumstances. She went out her door and grabbed the machine gun off the ground. Another weapon that wasn’t taught at the FBI Academy. She passed it through the window into the backseat. Storey was speeding off before she even got her door closed.

  “Didn’t want them running back out to get it,” he explained.

  As they circled around the burning Expedition, Troy put down his AK and took up the machine gun. Only about twenty rounds left on the belt. He stuck the gun through the window and hammered those twenty rounds at knee height across the front of the warehouse. When he was done he pressed the butt catch, lifted the butt up, and pulled out the return spring and bolt. Dropping those parts on the floorboard, he tossed the now-disabled gun out the window.

  Beth was retrieving the Remington 870 twelve-gauge pump shotgun from under her seat.

  “Why the hell did you give her the M-16?” Troy demanded.

  “There were only ten rounds left in the magazine,” Beth replied, still under the seat trying to get ahold of the extra box of shotgun shells she’d crammed in there.

  Storey went around the side of the warehouse at high speed. Then he saw it, three quarters of the way down. The warehouse was so old there were no back-in loading docks. Just the big barn-like doors in the front, and probably the back. But on the side here was a ramp leading up to a smaller loading door. A better idea than parking and standing around out in the open trying to breach a door.

  He swung wide and turned to take the ramp, giving the sedan more gas after straightening it out.

  Troy said evenly, “You crazy motherfucker. What if there’s something heavy behind that door?”

  Beth braced her feet on the floorboards.

  The sedan shot up the ramp and hit the door squarely.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Abdallah Karim Nimri threw himself on the floor as the bullets came through the walls. A medium machine gun, just like theirs. And grenades. American police were not armed with machine guns and hand grenades. He could not understand it. American special forces hunting them? But they carried the M-16. He had heard one, but the other fire against them was Kalashnikov. How could that be?

  But that was a puzzle that had to be set aside for the moment. His heart sank as he took stock. There was himself, and Temiraev. Two more of the Chechens. And Osman the agent, who was armed only with a pistol. All that remained of his force. All but Osman with rifles, and one sniper rifle had been saved, God be praised. No machine guns. Only one of the LAAW rockets one of the Chechens had picked up. And only the ammunition and grenades they carried on their bodies. Nimri knew he should give thanks to God for what they did have, and prayed for forgiveness.

  He could see that the other Chechens, and Osman, were totally dejected. Only Temiraev looked animated, as if the opportunity to fire a rifle, whatever the circumstances, had raised his spirits.

  Nimri said, “Well, my brother. I am open to any suggestions.”

  “We hold this place against them, for all the world to see,” Temiraev replied, making Nimri understand why men followed him. “Then die like heroes. What else can we do before the eyes of God?”

  “And how do you propose we do this?” said Nimri, feeling his own spirits rise, however slightly.

  Temiraev lifted his eyes up. “We must have the high ground, or else we can never keep them away.”

  Nimri’s thinking it over was interrupted by a tremendous crash from the back of the warehouse. The whole building shook. “By God, what was that?” he heard himself say out loud.

  “The Americans have blasted their way inside!” Temiraev exclaimed. “We do not have the strength to keep them out down here.” He grabbed Nimri by the arm. “Up, my brother! We must go up! Quickly, we must reach the upper floor first or all is lost!”

  When the FBI sedan hit the door, Storey was blinded by the immediate
shift from sunlight to darkness. He thought it would be a good idea to use the brakes.

  But even with the brakes applied the sedan skidded across the wooden warehouse floor until it slammed into a thick timber support post.

  At least the airbags didn’t deploy, Storey thought. He got out fast, rifle at the ready. Seeing no immediate threats, he said, “Everyone all right?”

  “Crazy motherfucker,” came Lee Troy’s voice, quietly, from the darkness on the other side of the car. “Fucking door was probably unlocked.”

  “I’m okay,” said Beth, pulling out the shotgun she’d secured in anticipation of the impact.

  Troy handed Storey the daypack with his extra ammo. Storey put it on, cinching the shoulder straps tight and hopping up and down once to make sure nothing inside would rattle.

  His eyes slowly adjusted. There were no lights on, but there were sizable gaps in the planks of the outer wall. Probably for ventilation in the days before air-conditioning, Storey thought. They also admitted a good deal of sunlight. All the dust thrown up by their violent entry had turned it into beams projecting wild patterns all over the cavernous space. And just as deep shadows in the places they didn’t reach.

  Someone had been storing their junk. The warehouse was full of rusting old machinery and wooden crates of various sizes scattered around according to a plan, based on the amount of dust, that had long since been abandoned.

  Storey felt his stomach tighten up. There were a million places to hide, to ambush from. It would be like fighting inside a haunted house.

  He cupped a hand behind his ear. The sirens were right on top of them now, but there was something else. Fainter, near the front of the warehouse, he could hear feet pounding on wooden stairs.

  Storey let his eyes follow the double rows of thick timber support posts upward. A dark board ceiling. A second floor. He thought about the height of the warehouse, and decided there could be only one other floor. Extra storage space for lighter items. Offices maybe.

  In one corner of the back wall was a wood-frame stairway.

  Beth was right beside him. A low whistle brought Troy over.

  “You hear the feet on the stairs?” Troy whispered.

  “We’re going up,” said Storey, pointing to the stairway. Just then he noticed that Beth had a SureFire light mounted on the pump handgrip of her shotgun. “No flashlights. No shooting unless there’s no choice. If you see someone we don’t, and you have time,” he said to Beth, “let us know and we’ll use grenades. Grenades first,” he said to Troy.

  Troy understood. When you fired a weapon you also let everyone know where you were. Making yourself a great target for the grenades Los Zetas had supposedly provided these assholes. Though maybe they’d all gone up in the SUV? He allowed himself to consider that.

  But a grenade thrown without shooting might have come from anywhere. And could be thrown right over all these obstacles and into the cover behind them.

  “Make your last radio call,” Storey was saying to Beth. “Make sure the place is sealed off, but tell them not to enter. No shooting into here, even if they take fire. Tell them to stay under cover—there could be a sniper around. And watch out for suicide bombers trying to surrender. Make ’em strip nekked a safe way away.”

  Troy smiled in the darkness. You could always tell his partner was fired up when the country came out in his voice.

  Storey finished up by saying, “Move slow and move quiet. No talking. These floors are going to creak, and the whole place is an echo chamber.”

  While Beth was whispering into her walkie-talkie, he said to Troy, “I’ll take point. You tailgun. Keep Beth between us.”

  Troy approved. He knew Beth could handle herself, but didn’t think she knew anything about grenades.

  Beth got her transmission acknowledged and turned off her radio.

  Storey started moving. Troy put his hand on Beth’s shoulder to hold her back, then released her when the right interval had opened up between her and Storey.

  Though Beth had graduated from the FBI SWAT course she thought, not for the first time, that a few hours’ instruction in basic infantry tactics would have been helpful.

  With his rifle aimed up at the hole in the ceiling, Storey glided up the stairway one silent step at a time. The whole thing was so flimsy it rocked back and forth at every step.

  Beth kept her shotgun at the high ready, away from Storey’s back. Troy was going up backward, his AK pointing down into the warehouse. Taking stairs, especially ones as open as these, was a point of particular vulnerability.

  Temiraev took charge, and Nimri was content to let him do so. It saved him from having to think of both immediate and future moves at the same time.

  Temiraev had spent the previous day nervously walking around the entire warehouse, so he knew the floor plan well. “Murat and Nur-Pahi go to the rear, and take the ladder to the roof,” he ordered the sniper and his spotter, passing the latter his binoculars. “Keep us informed of the situation outside, but be careful what you say on the radio. Your first priority is to keep them away from the building. Move frequently and do not expose yourself—they will have snipers. You have but the one rocket—use it well. In particular you must keep helicopters away, but do not waste your ammunition. Your next priority is to kill as many as possible—you may expend one third of your ammunition on this task. Seek out those in authority, as you have been taught.” To Osman the agent he said, “Go with them and watch the stairs on the far side. Keep the enemy off them. You know how to use grenades?”

  Osman nodded.

  “Everyone give him one grenade,” Temiraev ordered. They were handed over. “Go now, and God be with you.”

  Storey stuck his head up through the stairwell. He’d thought it might be a little brighter higher up, but he’d been wrong. The lower ceiling made it even gloomier. And the smell of musty wood and mold was even stronger.

  He was looking at a big storage space, stacked high with all kinds of old-fashioned wood office furniture. To the left was a ladder that seemed to go up to the roof.

  Storey moved off the stairway and into cover behind the nearest stack of furniture, motioning with his left hand for the others to follow. Once Beth and Troy were up he stayed still to let their eyes adjust to the new light level. And listen, something experience had always taught him was crucial.

  In the darkness, running feet coming toward them. Like a cat, Storey made a silent dash to find a place with a vantage point.

  He moved so fast and so quiet that, even though she’d been watching him carefully, Beth almost lost him in the shadows. She had to hurry to keep him in sight.

  Whoever stacked the furniture had left a narrow avenue down the middle of the space. Storey was on one knee, exposing only one eye around the corner. He felt Beth coming near, and without looking pointed to where he wanted her to be. Troy was facing the other way, still covering their rear.

  Storey removed a grenade from his vest, peeling off the piece of electrical tape he and Troy had applied to keep the pins from rattling. He silently eased the pin out. As long as he continued to hold the metal spoon down with the palm of his hand the grenade was safe.

  The footsteps were coming closer, and Storey instinctively made the time and distance calculations. He was going to use a technique that had been taught to him by one of the original Delta operators who, during Vietnam, had run recon into Laos with Command and Control North.

  He held the grenade up to his right ear. Then he removed the spoon with his left hand, keeping hold of it. This way there would be no metallic ping of the spoon flying off or hitting the floor. The grenade was up to his ear because when the spoon came off he had to hear the faint pop of the striker hitting the cap to start the fuse burning. Hang on too long after the spoon came off, and there would be a nasty accident.

  He gave the grenade an arcing lob to clear the obstructions. The fuse only had a couple of seconds left from the original 4.5-second delay.

  Wh-WHAP! The grenade ble
w just before it hit the ground, right in front of the first Chechen, who absorbed the brunt of the blast. He died instantly. Behind him the sniper was wounded by fragments. And Osman, who had been behind them both, was untouched.

  The scream came right behind the blast, telling Storey he’d gotten someone. He wasn’t about to move down or across that central passageway. Instead he backed up and headed for the side wall.

  Deafened by the blast, Murat the sniper crawled over to the nearest cover. He wiped off the blood burning his eyes. His cousin Nur-Pahi was dead, lying facedown in a spreading lake of blood. The long G-3 sniper rifle would be a hindrance in such a confined space. Nur-Pahi’s AK was on the floor out in the open. He drew the pistol from his belt. The Americans would try to flank him. And he could not hear a thing. He had to move.

  Storey was stalking forward one careful step at a time. Beth had her shotgun aimed toward the opposite wall. Troy was still walking backward.

  Murat thought he saw something near the wall. He kept his eyes fixed upon the spot. There it was again. A new shadow forming as something broke the path of a beam of light. They were trying to flank him. He could do the same.

  Peeking from behind the boxes where he’d taken refuge, Osman saw Nur-Pahi’s body on the floor. He’d lost touch with Murat after the explosion, and now felt more frightened about being left alone than he did about moving forward. But as he did, his foot hit a loose floorboard that creaked loudly.

  Storey heard it. He stopped, crouched down, and began readying another grenade.

  Murat saw the shadow stop and drop down. All he had to do was move one or two meters more, without making a sound, and as soon as the American moved again he would have him.

  When Storey crouched down Beth remained upright. She squinted, trying to see through the gloom. Off to her right front were three desks, piled one on top of the other. Something moved between the legs.

  As she swung the shotgun over, she pushed the light switch on the slide with her thumb. The SureFire popped on and Beth centered Murat’s head in the beam, blinding him. She pulled the trigger and blew the left side of his face off.