Hardy and Natasha crouched in the quiet kitchen, waiting and listening. The room, the whole house was still. Twenty seconds turned into thirty and the only thing they heard was their breathing. He motioned for her to follow. Two steps later, he planted a hand on her chest and they both stopped. Natasha’s tense muscles told him she had heard it, too—the heels of a man’s shoe, crossing over carpeting or a rug. The heels transitioned to hardwood flooring and the sound grew louder.
A man rounded the corner, and seeing the intruders, he froze for a split-second before scrambling for his weapon. Hardy had his rifle leveled on the man’s chest. Raising it a little more, he peered through the rifle’s scope, put the red dot on the man’s nose and pressed the trigger. Natasha aimed for center of mass. Their bullets killed him instantly.
Everything would have gone perfectly had the man’s lifeless body not sent a serving tray—resting on the counter—crashing to the floor. The breaking glass sounded a cymbal. Hardy lunged forward and dragged the body into the kitchen.
Seconds later, a second guard appeared. Hardy and Natasha dispatched him in the same manner then switched from defense to offense.
Leaving the kitchen, they came to the underside of a staircase, leading to the second floor. Hardy motioned for Natasha to go right, while he went left. He swept the living room on his side of the staircase before starting down a short hallway. A man leaned out from the first room to Hardy’s right; the gaping hole at the end of a gun barrel stared back at him. He took cover at the corner a moment before a volley of bullets zipped past his left ear. He heard Natasha—through his earpiece—commanding all teams to storm the house. Having lost the element of surprise, speed was now paramount.
Hardy took a step backward and raked the wall he was using for cover. His shots hit the target. The man groaned and fell with a heavy thud. Hardy advanced and cleared the rest of the rooms without incident. Backtracking, he heard two loud bangs—two seconds apart—followed by several muffled shots. The noise was coming from the other side of the staircase. “Wolf, this is Shepherd. Do you copy?”
Wolf and Shepherd were Natasha and Hardy’s call signs, respectively. Her teammates had given her the name, because whenever she sunk her teeth into something, she never let go. Coincidentally, her last name comes from the word ‘volk,’ which means ‘wolf.’ Hardy had chosen his call sign, because of his fondness for the German shepherd breed of dog.
“Wolf,” he repeated, “this is Shepherd. What’s your sitrep—over?” Sitrep was short for situational report.
Hardy double-timed it to the end of the hallway, banked left and headed toward the staircase. Shots rang out from behind and he spun around and dropped to one knee. He trained his eyes on the kitchen, but no one was there. The door was open. We shut that. A shadow moved on the ground beyond the archway. Hardy pointed his rifle toward the wall to the left and fired two three-round bursts. A man fell sideways, crashing into the partially open door before landing on his face. Hardy yanked the partially spent magazine from his rifle and inserted a fresh one, stood and darted for the stairs.
One minute earlier…
Natasha veered right and cleared the right side of the living room before proceeding toward a lone door. She heard gunfire coming from the other side of the staircase and ordered the FSB teams to storm the house. She advanced toward the half open door. The room was dark, but light was coming from it only a few seconds ago. She took a position with her back to the wall on the left side of the door. Letting the rifle hang in front of her body, she plucked two stun grenades from her vest, pulled the pin on the first one and threw it into the room. She waited two seconds and tossed in the second. Closing her eyes and covering her ears, she opened her mouth—to avoid the effects of the grenades—and waited. After the second grenade exploded, she shouldered the rifle, hit the switch on the weapon-mounted flashlight and charged into the room.
To Natasha’s right, a man covered his ears, repeatedly blinking his eyes. She lit him up and sent a three-round burst into his face. Whipping the MP5 left, she located a second man in the far corner. He had recovered from the blinding light and deafening noise, but he was a second behind. Natasha centered the man’s torso in the beam of light. Three bullets escaped the weapon’s muzzle and the man tumbled forward over a couch. He came to rest looking as if he was taking a nap. She did a quick search of the rest of the room and exited. Creeping for the stairs in a low crouch, she met Hardy.
“Are you okay? Why didn’t you respond?”
Natasha tapped her earpiece and nodded at him.
“Wolf, this is Shepherd. Do you copy?”
She nodded again. “I must have shut off my earpiece when I tossed those flash bangs and covered my ears. Coms are back up. Let’s move.”
Hardy took the steps three at a time and made it to the top a few seconds ahead of Natasha. Straight ahead, the door to a corner bedroom was open.
Wearing only a matching red bra and panties with high-heeled shoes, Romana was on her knees by the bed, facing away from him, her hands tied behind her back. A large man in a black suit stood behind her, holding a pistol to the base of her skull.
From his viewpoint, Hardy did not have a clear kill shot. Even the ear was not at an optimal angle. Hardy could take aim at the same spot where the man was pointing his weapon at Romana, but from this distance, he was not guaranteed a one shot kill. Any twitch of the man’s trigger finger would send a bullet into her spinal cord, killing her. He could not take that chance. He had to get the man’s attention, draw his fire. Hardy opened his mouth to shout, but before he could call out, Romana collapsed.