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An additional twelve men entered the passageway. They had been given orders to find out what happened to the first dozen men who had entered the tunnel. After that, their orders were to breach the tunnel’s other opening, move into the other home, and take it by force.
The first man found three bodies at the base of the ladder as soon as they entered the passageway. Two of the men he recognized as fellow police officers, but he had never seen the other man. The squadron spread throughout the tunnel, distancing themselves evenly along the earthen corridors: some headed toward the potting shed and others went in the direction of the home Kara occupied. The smell of gun smoke and burning debris hung in the air like a dense fog. Other unknown smells accompanied the indefinable odors, but the smell inside the tunnel was the last thing on the men’s minds. More disturbing was having now discovered the first dozen men indisputably dead and growing cold. The new breach team checked the dead men for injuries, finding most of them hadn’t been killed by gunfire. It appeared they had fallen and died soon afterward.
The lead man reported on his radio, “All the men down here are dead. Not sure why. We would like to request permission to come back up until we can figure this out.”
From above Zain responded, “Negative, you will continue toward the other house and breach its entrance from the tunnel. Is that understood?”
Reluctantly, the squad leader responded, “Affirmative. We will breach the entrance with whatever means necessary.”
By this time, the team in the tunnel were becoming disoriented. Vital oxygen was being deprived from their brains, and what little oxygen still existed in the tunnel would only keep them conscious for a short time. They withdrew and hunkered down at the right turn in the tunnel next to the ladder under the first home. Meanwhile, the squad leader walked quickly toward the ladder that terminated at a secured trapdoor. A shaped charge of plastic explosives was stuck to the bottom of the trapdoor and armed with a detonator. He inadvertently activated the electrical detonator.
Suddenly it was like a gas main had erupted. The entire tunnel convulsed in a single earthshaking explosion—shooting fire and debris out all three openings. Above ground, the tunnel puffed up in the yards as if a giant groundhog had gnawed a path between the homes. A second after the explosion, the tunnel collapsed in on itself, leaving a shallow ditch running between the properties.
Hearing the subterranean blast and feeling the ground shake, Zain stole a glance out the window. He watched, astounded as the tunnel caved in, burying his men. In the time it took to register what had just happened, he had already done the math. Now twenty-four of his men were dead and buried. He didn’t know how many more had been shot during the initial attack at the house, but it had to be dozens more, and they still hadn’t gotten past the front door.
Zain got back on his radio and asked his squad leaders to give him a headcount and report back to him. He needed to know the actual number of men he still had onsite for the all-out assault. From Zain’s experience, the more men present to fight increased the chances of a successful outcome. If the men that comprised his paid militia believed the outcome of the skirmish would likely result in either death or dismemberment, they would turn tail and run. In that scenario, the money he shelled out for the militia was worthless. Zain needed to solidify his force because the next attack would be an all-out assault.