By the time everyone was off of the Mayberry property and positioned in the street, behind the cover of a pair of armored ERT trucks, the glow from the patio had finally died down.
There was concern for a moment as to whether the home itself might have caught fire, but when no evidence of either flame or smoke presented itself after five minutes, the ERT team leader called again into his microphone, “On me! We’re going back in!”
—
The second breach of the basement apartment went much better than the first. The apartment was empty; that was determined quickly, but only after they entered to find a rolling propane tank with a toy airsoft gun mounted on top of it. A triggering mechanism with an electric lighter and a length of bungee cord completed the improvised automatic flamethrower.
The plastic gun had melted into the top of the tank, but the booby trap had proved effective in delaying entry. The propane expelled was primarily vapor, but the compressed gas in the airsoft gun had propelled it outward. The ERT leader couldn’t figure out how the suspect could have left the apartment after having set the trap, but he didn’t spend too much time thinking about it.
Instead he said, “He’s not here. Let’s clear upstairs.”
—
Two teams of eight men each hit the house. Alpha came through the front door and Bravo came through the back near the kitchen.
After Alpha cleared the living room and dining room, they left a man in position to cover this area. Bravo cleared the kitchen, a laundry room, and then the basement. They left one of their officers to cover here. The rest of Bravo rallied at the bottom of the stairs with Alpha, who then left an officer here in the hall so he could cover the bottom of the stairs and remain in visual contact with both the man in the front of the house and the man in the back of the house. In this manner they formed a rear guard, in case an attacker had been missed in the cleared area or else found some way to double back past the main stack of ERT officers.
The remaining members of the two teams moved in a tight train up the stairwell, slowly and carefully, guns high.
—
The Bravo rear guard officer stood on the threshold in the kitchen that led down the stairs to the basement area. The lights were off all over the house, but he used his NODs to see around the space down at the bottom of the stairs. The full eight-man Bravo team had checked the basement, so he wasn’t worried about anyone being down there. Instead he just turned away and kept his eyes up the hallway that led from the kitchen to the stairs, ready to train his rifle on any “squirters,” or suspects trying to flee past the ERT officers still clearing upstairs.
This, as it turned out, was a mistake.
He never heard the man in stocking feet come up the basement stairs; he only knew someone was there when the pistol’s barrel touched his left temple.
In a soft whisper he heard, “You make a sound into your mic and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
The ERT officer made no sound. As he stood there, still looking up the hallway, he saw the two officers positioned with him on the ground floor look up the hall in his direction, as they checked to make sure he was covering his territory. The three men shared eye contact, but soon enough the others turned around and moved a few feet into the living room. They were unable to see the tip of the pistol barrel sticking out of the open basement doorway and pressing against the side of their teammate’s head.
The Bravo officer was pulled by the neck into the basement, then stripped of his rifle, NODs, and communications gear. In the dark the terrified man heard the door next to him shut softly and a bolt slide into place, then he was directed by the barrel of the gun against the back of his neck to move down the steps. He followed the whispered instructions, walking all the way back in the direction of the furnace.
In the middle of the basement the suspect pulled the Bravo officer’s pistol out of his drop leg holster. He then heard, “You have forty-five seconds to get everything off. Go.”
—
It was impossible for the ERT officer to get all his gear, his armor, his tunic, his boots, and his pants off in forty-five seconds, but he did his best. Court knew he couldn’t do it, but he also knew he’d work faster with an impossible timeline.
While the man stripped, Court dressed, but he put the man’s radio headset in his ear first so he could listen in.
Soon in a soft voice he heard, “This is Alpha One. Hold all positions. We’ve got a closed closet door in the master bedroom with movement indicated under the door.”
Court now had a tunic, body armor, a balaclava, and night vision goggles on.
“Speed it up,” Court whispered to the man as the cop fought to get his belt off.
A new call from upstairs came over the radio, asking all elements to report status before they confronted whatever was hiding in the closet. Court spoke to his hostage, who by now was down to his underwear. “Quick . . . what’s your call sign? Think before you answer. If you’re wrong, I drop you right here.”