The Persian Gamble

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  69

  At Berenger’s order, Marcus moved into the empty street.

  He mimicked every nuance of the SEAL team commander’s pace and gait, but his body was stiff, tense, as if any moment he’d hear the crack of a sniper bullet from a Russian-made rifle. The neighborhood was quiet. Eerily so. Heavy clouds were rolling in. A slight breeze was coming from the east. The early morning air was brisk, and Marcus could see his breath.

  Making it to the other side of the street without incident, he took a deep breath, stepped inside the target building, and brought his weapon back up to the ready position. Hwang arrived ten seconds later. Callaghan, the Red Team leader, had positioned two men at the doors to each of the stairwells, one on the north side of the building, the other on the south. Four more men, Marcus knew, had already taken the stairwell to the ninth floor and were holding their positions. That was the entirety of Red Team.

  “Angel Five, what’s the status of those vehicles?”

  “Still coming, Charlie Bravo,” Vinetti responded. “Now one klick away.”

  One kilometer. Six-tenths of a mile. Marcus felt his pulse quicken.

  Berenger checked in with the rest of his snipers. They had nothing to report, so the commander told them to maintain radio silence—everyone except Vinetti. Berenger wanted to know the instant those vehicles turned off their current trajectory or when they were within two blocks. Next he asked for a status check from each of the men waiting in the stairwells on the ninth floor. They had nothing to report. The hallway was dark but clear.

  With that, Berenger strode through the lobby, bypassing the bank of four elevators—useless in the power outage shrouding the city—and opened the door to the stairwell. He stepped in. Ryker and Hwang followed suit. The door closed behind them.

  Marcus paused before beginning his ascent. He could feel the adrenaline surging through his system and began counting to fifty. All stress is self-induced, he reminded himself. It’s in your mind. You don’t need it. Lay it down. Panic is contagious. But so is calm. Stay calm. Do your work. Slow is smooth. Smooth is smart. Smart is straight. Straight is deadly.

  Oleg Kraskin stood at a window biting his lip and stared without seeing.

  In the naval yard three stories below were hundreds of eighteen-, nineteen-, and twenty-year-olds servicing any number of destroyers, battleships, and other surface vessels. They were driving fuel trucks and repainting hulls and firing up blowtorches and shouting to each other over the noise. But none of this registered for the Russian. His thoughts were seven hundred miles away.

  Oleg had heard nothing from General Yoon in nearly an hour. Nor had he heard anything from Ryker, Hwang, or Vinetti. The radio silence imposed on the SEAL teams was killing him. He had no idea what was happening. Nor could he help in any way. And his resentment at being left behind—along with his anxiety—was growing by the minute.

  Marcus saw Berenger switch on his night vision goggles and did the same.

  The SEAL commander had a submachine gun strapped to his back, but he wasn’t using it. Instead, he had his silencer-fitted Sig Sauer pistol at the ready as he arrived at the ninth-floor landing. He nodded to the two SEALs waiting there, then motioned the two Marines to follow him into the hallway. Sticking with his H&K MP7A1, Marcus pivoted out the door to the right but saw no one. Simultaneously Hwang did the same, pivoting left, his MK18 at the ready.

  Berenger was already heading for apartment 91. Marcus remained at his side, weapon pointed forward. Hwang again brought up the rear, watching their six. When they got close to the door, Berenger held up a fist. Marcus stopped immediately. Hwang backed into them and stopped as well. Berenger then used another hand signal, and two SEALs emerged from the stairwells—one from each end—and quickly, quietly moved to their side. One carried a steel battering ram. Another, a backpack full of explosive charges.

  The other two operators emerged from the stairwells and took up positions in the hallway, with direct lines of sight to the door of apartment 91. When everyone was in place, providing cover in every direction, Berenger clicked his microphone twice, signaling they were going in, then strode up to the door and knocked twice.

  No one answered.

  Berenger knocked again. Still, there was no reply.

  Marcus’s pulse was pounding. He was once again counting to fifty in his head, but it wasn’t working. His heart rate wasn’t slowing, nor was his breathing. He was thankful he was wearing gloves. He’d never perspired this much. Not on an operation. Yet his hands were moist, and without the traction the gloves provided, he thought his weapon might very well have slipped out of his hands.

  Marcus was tempted to look back but forced himself to maintain discipline and focus on the doors he’d been assigned. The rules of engagement Berenger had set were ironclad. Anyone emerging from any of these doors would be warned once. Any residents who didn’t disappear back inside immediately would be shot instantly and without hesitation.

  Berenger knocked again. Again there was no response. That’s when Marcus heard the battering ram. He heard the door ripping off its frame and Berenger and both of his operators storming into the apartment. That’s when the gunfire began.

  The sound of the first shot was unmistakable. It came from the Russian sniper rifle, the VSS “thread cutter” known as the Vintorez. Marcus recognized it immediately because he’d used one himself less than two weeks before. There was an almost-imperceptible pause, and then came three more shots in rapid succession. They were all from the Vintorez.

  Marcus pressed himself to the left-side wall of the hallway and dropped to one knee. He expected to hear return fire and Berenger’s voice barking orders. But the orders never came. What did come, almost immediately but not from the same direction, was the crack of another rifle. An American rifle. A TAC-338 bolt-action sniper rifle.

  Vinetti had the approaching vehicles in his sights.

  That’s when he heard the first shot.

  His eyes instinctively came away from his scope. He needed a broader view. He saw successive flashes coming from an open window on the ninth floor of the building directly across from him.

  Vinetti cursed. He’d checked and double-checked all those windows not three minutes earlier. They had all been closed. Then he’d gotten distracted by the oncoming vehicles. But there was no time to dwell on it. No one had a clearer view of the sniper’s nest than he did, so he redirected his weapon and fired three times into that open window and three times into the closed window two feet to its left.

  70

  Three vans screeched to a halt in front of the building.

  Three more were now approaching at high speeds from the northeast.

  Doors flung open. Twelve heavily armed men piled out and began sprinting for the front door. Héctor Sanchez ordered Blue Team to open fire. They did and almost instantly dropped eight men and clipped a ninth. The moment the survivors rushed into the lobby, Callaghan and a colleague cut them down from inside.

  Men were shouting updates over the radio.

  But Marcus could barely hear them above the cacophony of gunfire in the streets.

  Suddenly a door opened. A large man stepped into the hallway. He was holding a gun. Marcus fired two shots to his head and one to the chest, felling him instantly.

  When another door opened behind him, Hwang opened fire. Marcus heard the second gunman crash to the floor. For the moment, the hallway was secure. But despite repeated attempts to raise him, there was still nothing from Berenger.

  The attack was over in a matter of seconds. Marcus blinked hard and tried to reconstruct the chain of events and picture what had happened. It seemed clear the first shots had come from the adjacent building, not from inside the apartment. Yet an instant later, Marcus had heard multiple rounds from an American rifle. That had to be Vinetti or one of the members of Blue Team. Since then, the only gunfire he’d heard was coming from the ground floor. The North Korean sniper had either been taken out or was in retreat. The fact that neither Beren
ger nor his colleagues had returned fire, however, could mean only one thing.

  Knowing his end of the hallway was covered by other members of Red Team, Marcus turned and stormed into the apartment before anyone could order him not to. He instantly aimed at the window and depressed his trigger, unleashing a long burst of fire through the windows of the facing apartment—just in case—until his magazine was empty. Then, diving right, he moved away from the windows and into the relative safety of the hallway. With a fluidity he could only attribute to the muscle memory he’d obtained in the Secret Service, he ejected the spent mag, replaced it with another, and chambered a round.

  Moving down the hallway, he reached the first door on his right, pivoted into the kitchen, and swept the area with his weapon at the ready. It was clear. Moving back into the hallway, Marcus next cleared a bathroom, then carefully stepped into a bedroom. There was no one immediately visible, so he cautiously opened the closet, then checked under the bed. Nothing.

  He heard movement in what he assumed was the master bedroom. He quickly glanced into the hallway. It was empty. He waited and heard nothing more but the firefight nine floors below. Abruptly he noticed that his heart was not beating so hard. His pulse was slowing. His breathing was growing steady.

  “Clear—coming out,” he shouted, then tossed his backpack down the hall.

  The moment it crashed to the floor, the door of the master bedroom flew open and a spray of bullets spewed forth. The deception had worked, flushing out the killer lying in wait. Marcus soon heard the distinctive sound of an empty magazine and made his move. Pivoting into the hallway, he unleashed two bursts of return fire—waited a beat—then fired a third. Then he grabbed a grenade from his vest, pulled the pin, and hurled it forward. Ducking back into the bedroom, he braced for impact behind a dresser.

  The explosion blew a hole in the wall between the bedrooms. Pieces of Sheetrock rained down on him, but he was fine. The two men who’d been waiting for him were not. Blood and bits of human flesh were everywhere. The stench of gunpowder was unreal.

  Only then did Marcus double back and survey the carnage in the living room. Berenger was dead, shot in the head. Both of the SEALs who’d followed their commander into the apartment were dead too. They were lying in large and growing pools of crimson. But that wasn’t all.

  General Yoon, his pregnant wife, and her elderly mother were all slumped over on the couch. Each had received a single shot to the head, but as Marcus examined them more closely, it was clear they had not been killed by a sniper rifle. The holes were too small. They had come from a smaller caliber—a 9mm—almost certainly a pistol. Their eyes were frozen open in horror. Blood had trickled down their faces from their wounds, but it was not fresh. It was coagulated. The three had been shot at least an hour earlier, and whoever had done it had created a kill box for the SEALs coming to collect them.

  Clearly someone had known the general and his family were trying to defect. Moreover, they’d known Americans were coming. Who, Marcus didn’t know or care. It wasn’t relevant. Only three things were: determining whether there was any useful intelligence in the apartment, removing the bodies of these three brave Americans, and getting the team safely back to the river and back to international waters.

  Marcus called for Hwang, who entered and surveyed the grisly scene. Hwang quickly checked the pulse of each man. It was just a formality, tinged perhaps with no small measure of disbelief. Berenger and his two men were gone. Marcus radioed to tell the team their status. No one reacted. They were still fighting for their lives.

  As the gun battle raged in the streets, Marcus told Hwang to help him search for any shred of intelligence, starting with the thumb drive the general had sent via his wife. It was unlikely at this point they’d find anything, Marcus knew. Whoever had come to kill them all had to have been known to General Yoon. The man had been sitting on the couch, after all. There were no signs of a struggle. Rather, all signs indicated the general had been blindsided by a friend or colleague. Surely whoever had pulled the trigger had taken whatever intel there was—and Marcus imagined there had been a lot.

  The two men carefully checked every inch of clothing worn by both the general’s wife and his mother-in-law. They found nothing. Marcus checked Yoon himself, inch by inch. Together, he and Hwang checked the couch, drawers, the refrigerator, behind picture frames, and inside pillowcases but came up dry. Hwang then remembered to pull out a camera from his backpack and take photos of everything.

  Marcus checked his watch. It was 5:51. The sun would be up soon. They had to move. Marcus called for help, and more members of Red Team arrived. They put the body of Commander Berenger into a body bag, then zipped the bag up. They did the same for the other two SEALs. Then Marcus, Hwang, and one of the other men each took a bag and slung it over their shoulders in a fireman’s carry. They moved to the southern stairwell while their colleagues covered them, front and back.

  As they spilled into the parking garage, Donny Callaghan and his colleague were waiting for them. The firefight out in the streets had grown exponentially louder—so loud Marcus was having trouble hearing all the radio traffic in his earpiece. What he was catching, though, was terrifying. Bodies of DPRK soldiers were piling up in the street. And the power had come back on. Lights were coming on throughout every apartment building for blocks, and headlights of vehicles no doubt bringing reinforcements were visible and approaching from every direction.

  They found the minibus parked right where it was supposed to be and loaded the body bags inside. Callaghan ordered the men to smash out every window and do it fast. They were going to get shot out anyway. There was no point getting their faces sliced up with flying shards of glass. Marcus took the butt of his weapon and began knocking out the front windshield. Then he unsheathed his knife and carved away all the jagged shards of glass that remained around the metal frame.

  The original plan had been that Berenger would drive them out, but Callaghan now ordered Marcus to take his place. The rest of them would provide covering fire. Marcus opened the driver’s door, brushed the seat clean of glass, got in, and turned the ignition. Nothing happened. He turned it again. The third time the diesel engine sputtered and coughed but still would not start.

  Marcus said a silent prayer. He could feel the eyes of the men boring into him. He pressed the accelerator a few times to inject some fuel, then turned the ignition a fourth time. Finally the engine roared to life, and Marcus, his face dripping with sweat, put the van in gear and gunned it.

  “Blue Team leader, this is Sierra One,” Callaghan said into his headset. “Be advised, we’re coming out.”

  71

  “All teams, Sierra One is rolling—provide cover, then move to vehicles.”

  The sun was just coming up behind the buildings when Vinetti heard Sanchez’s voice over his headset. Running low on ammunition, he was relieved they were about to evacuate. But then he heard an explosion and felt the roof shake under him.

  It was the first booby trap. Someone had triggered it and blown himself to kingdom come. That more were coming, he had no doubt.

  Grabbing his submachine gun, Vinetti lay down covering fire as he saw the minibus roar out of the parking garage. He was aghast when Marcus didn’t make a left turn and head toward the water, per the plan, but rather sped up the alley and disappeared.

  Nevertheless, his work here was done. It was time to link up with Blue Team and get back to the river. Tossing the nearly empty ammo box into his backpack, he threw the pack over his shoulder and raced to the far side of the building. He was putting on the harness when the second booby trap detonated. The force of the explosion nearly knocked him off his feet. Smoke began pouring out of the stairwell. But he wasn’t going to take any chances. He took two grenades from his vest, pulled the pin on the first, pitched it through the flaming doorframe, and then did the same with the second.

  Each explosion bought him a few more seconds. Vinetti finished strapping himself in, checked the ropes one las
t time, flung himself over the side of the building, and rappelled twelve stories to the pavement.

  There was only one problem. A DPRK sniper was tracking his every movement. The moment Vinetti’s feet hit the pavement, the sniper took the shot.

  A DPRK soldier in full combat gear rushed into the street.

  Marcus saw the blur of the man moving right to left, then the flash of automatic-weapons fire. He pressed the accelerator to the floor and shouted for everyone to get down. At the same moment, Hwang—sitting in the passenger’s seat beside him—unleashed a burst of return fire. The soldier dove onto the sidewalk at the last second and the minibus roared past him. Marcus heard a grunt from Hwang and looked over to see his friend’s arm covered in blood. He had been hit.

  Marcus suddenly heard shouts from the back. An armored personnel carrier had just pulled onto the street behind them. Mounted on top was a .50-caliber machine gun, and its operator opened fire. Marcus could hear rounds pinging off the sides of the vehicle and the engine block. He could hear, too, the SEALs laying down suppressive fire. One of them was hit. Blood sprayed everywhere. The man was shouting in pain. And now Marcus could see in his rearview mirror two more APCs coming toward them. Their gunners, too, began to fire. Marcus had to get off this road and fast.

  “Hold on!” he shouted as he hit the brakes and swerved left.

  He glanced in his side mirror, hoping the APCs hadn’t been able to make the turn, but no such luck. Worse, they were in an alley, and now a police car screeched to a halt at the next intersection, cutting off their path. Marcus shouted for everyone to brace for impact. As he did, he drew his Sig Sauer pistol with his right hand while steering with his left. He fired four shots at the two policemen exiting their cruiser, then reholstered the weapon and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. The minibus careened into the police cruiser, forcing it aside, though unfortunately to the right. That made it impossible for Marcus to turn right, toward the river.