Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

One street to the south of the target residence was parked a tractor trailer-an Allied moving van-containing eight Special Ops officers, a six-foot battering ram and enough armament to start and finish a small war.

In the evacuated homes to either side, four ERT officers, all medal-winning sharpshooters, sat behind darkened windows at the ready, communications devices hissing in their ears.

Mulwright, his field dispatcher and a lieutenant of Narcotics manned the department’s Mobile Command Vehicle, a confiscated steam-cleaning van, parked with a view of the vacant house.

Boldt technically was not involved, even though he had helped plan the operation. He waited impatiently in his car along with SID’s Bernie Lofgrin, a handheld radio listening in on a Special Ops frequency.

There was no idle chatter.

Amet Amali Ustad, squad leader of Mulwright’s Special Ops unit, waited inside the Allied moving van along with seven ERT officers. Egyptian and Indian by heritage, his parents had moved as children to the Northwest following World War II and had met in Seattle in the Eisenhower era. A fierce fighter tagged the Warrior by his fellow officers, Ustad was darkly handsome with unexpected green eyes. He wore a tight-fitting charcoal gray uniform that distinguished itself from ERT’s all-black. Across the back of every Special Ops field agent the word POLICE was printed in bold yellow letters. Amet Ustad looked over his men, worried only for Devon Long, whose personal problems with an invalid mother made him more of a burden than an asset to the team. Ustad made it his business to hear about any problems with his officers; he had consulted Lou Boldt’s Intelligence unit more than once about rumors concerning members of his elite team.

The radio traffic delivered no surprises. Three separate surveillance teams tracked any and all movement surrounding the target while six unmarked patrol cars worked the surrounding blocks alert for the arrival of the meth lab cookers.

“Stay loose,” Ustad said, addressing Devon Long, worried about him. More than any other, his squad-“the ramrods”-worked with precision timing, striking a target with a fierce intensity and heavy firepower. There was no room for a straggler, no room for error.

The regular radio reporting of the various units rolled through predictably. There were good raids and bad raids, and Ustad expected the current one to fall in the latter category because it had been conceived hastily by a group of desk jockeys in desperate need of “warm ink”-favorable publicity to feed the media monster. He knew all the warning signs, multiple command being at the top. A woman captain and an admitted drunk were running this one. Ustad needed little more than this to fuel his concern. “Stay alert, people,” he told his troops. “I think we’ve got a live fish.” He pressed the earpiece farther into his ear and listened.

In proper order, each unit responded, Ustad taking his turn. His elite unit looked up at him as he spoke into the small microphone positioned by a flexible boom in front of his lips.

Besides the various shooters in the Trojan Horse and adjacent buildings, ERT had a six-man unit in a black panel van two blocks away, ready to strike within one minute of a summons. Ustad knew the ERT leader unit well and respected him. Together, their squads would constitute the advance strike. Ustad to the rear, the ERT boys at the front door. If all went well, a swarm of Narcotics officers would follow and actually lead the hit behind the protection of the two squads. The choreography and timing were rehearsed regularly in a police-confiscated warehouse on the south end of Boeing Field, inside of which stage sets of house and apartment interiors had been constructed. Amet Ustad was a believer in such mock exercises, and his team was so well trained that they were the advance unit of Washington State’s elite Quick Response Police Squad. QueRPS, consisting of various units from a variety of state and city law enforcement agencies, traveled to crisis scenes-terrorism, hostage or armored drug raids-and put out the fire.

SURVEILLANCE 2: We’ve got Joy.

SURVEILLANCE 3: Tally-ho. I count four going in through the back door.

SURVEILLANCE 2: Roger that count.

OPERATIONS: We’ve got four birds, people. Vehicle’s tag number does not check as the owner of the house. We’ve got a green light from the top.

SURVEILLANCE 3: Door is shut. They’re inside.

OPERATIONS: This is it, people. Let’s look alive and end up that way. Okay? Allied, it’s your lead.

USTAD: Copy that. Our lead.

Ustad looked to each of his rangers-his nickname for them-and silently made contact. Each of his boys nodded in return. They knew the drill. They had heard the words “our lead,” and understood it was time. Training had its rewards. Devon Long’s eyes were dead, void of the fear his squad leader wanted to see there. If a person didn’t find some form of terror in the prospect of ramming down a door and charging into a darkened house filled with bad guys, then Ustad didn’t want him along. Ustad told him softly, “Long, you’re doorman here.”

The rest of the squad glanced at the man, knowing it meant he was being left behind, and obviously curious as to why. Long, for all his personal problems, was one of Ustad’s two or three natural leaders.

“Yes, sir, Squad Leader,” Long returned in a hushed voice in true spirit and form, although Ustad saw something else entirely in his eyes, something he didn’t like.

Ustad told his team, “We go on three. I want this done smart. We’ve got a lot of firepower out there so watch what the hell you’re doing, verify targets and don’t shoot any yellow letters. We’ve got four birds in the roost,” he said, lifting his right hand and holding up four fingers. “Four!” he repeated. “Give it back.”

“FOUR in the roost, sir, Squad Leader!” the squad whispered in unison.

“On the count of?”

“THREE, sir, Squad Leader!”

“Radio check,” he demanded.

Each of his men counted down into their headsets.

“Ram up,” he ordered.

Four of the men took hold of the heavy device termed “the big dick” by his squad. It was a steel battering ram with rubber-padded handles on the side and a wedgelike tip carrying four one-foot stripes of luminescent paint that sharpened to its point like an arrow. It was scuffed and scarred from its many operations, both practice and real-life. The four men on the handles had the weight and size to deliver the big dick with the force of a small truck. Ustad’s squad was anything but dainty.

Officer Devon Long moved past Ustad to the back of the trailer to take care of the trailer’s large door.

Ustad turned around, away from his other men, and switched off his mike at his belt. “You okay, son?” he asked Long.

“Roger that, sir,” the boy answered in a hushed voice.

“Stay alert,” Ustad ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

Ustad switched on his radio and contacted operations. Blood pulsed loudly in his ears as his remaining men came up off the steel bench behind him. He counted down in rehearsed rhythm, “One … two … three …”

Long threw the two halves of the trailer’s reinforced doors open and the squad disembarked as silently as a snake. Ustad took the lead, followed by the big dick and then the remaining two rangers. Ustad turned sharply left, having memorized the route: straight down the driveway into an overgrown backyard, up the steps and right through that door. No turns, no tricks. Surveillance reported his squad’s actions, the only other sound the uniform rhythmic crunching of gravel beneath his team’s feet. Halfway there and closing, he lifted the shotgun he carried, silently reminding himself he had five rounds to use before abandoning it for his side-arm. He mentally rehearsed his every footstep as he gained on the house ahead of him. Seconds to go.