Page 60 of Volt
“This one’s a lot trickier,” I say, feeling a sudden flutter of nerves.
Adam is crouched down beside me and nods. “Yeah, we haven’t hit one inside a neighborhood before.”
“The plan’s solid.”
“I sure hope so.”
I cut a glance behind me and see the rest of the guys. They’re anxious to get it on. Over the past week or so, Zavala’s stopped using some of his warehouses. The losses he’s been suffering have apparently been too great—a fact that we’re all enjoying. But he reasoned that if his product isn’t safe at his warehouses, it’ll be safe at a stash house in a nice middle-class neighborhood. He reasoned we wouldn’t have the balls to hit him there. He obviously doesn’t know us very well.
I’m particularly satisfied with how things have gone since we planted the bugs. We’ve not only gotten the location of some of his warehouses and stash houses, but we’ve also kept him on his heels. He’s been so busy trying to regroup—and recoup his losses—that he hasn’t been able to mount an effective response. We’ve been delivering body blow after body blow, and all he’s been able to do is take it and absorb the shots. It’s been working out well so far. Knock on wood.
Making things even better is that we haven’t lost a single guy. Again, knock on wood. We’ve had a few close scrapes and guys have gotten a little bit dinged here and there, but on the whole, it’s been nothing too serious. But tonight’s raid could change that statistic, and I’m worried as hell about it. Raiding a warehouse or jacking a convoy is one thing. Busting into a house in the dead of night is something else entirely.
“It’s time,” Adam says.
I nod and turn back to my crew of six. “Okay, this is it. Remember, we don’t know what’s beyond those doors. For all we know, there’s a battalion of guys with automatic weapons in there waiting for us,” I tell them. “So, keep your heads on a swivel and watch each other’s backs. Neutralize any you come across and grab any product you find. I want us in and out of that house in three minutes or less. Everybody got it?”
“Let’s do it,” Spyder says, his voice tight with excitement.
“Okay, let’s go,” I say.
All of us are decked out in black tactical gear, are wearing night vision goggles, and are carrying AR-15s equipped with sound suppressors. I swear to God, this feels like a nighttime raid I took part in when I was stationed near Kabul. The nerves battering my insides certainly feel the same.
We break cover and tread the distance from our position to the house across the street. I gesture for team two to head to the back. They’ll breach through the rear door as we make entry through the front. Moving deliberately, my team climbs the stairs to the porch, doing our best to avoid making any noise. And when we get to the front door, we wait. It only takes a moment for Spyder’s voice to crackle through my earpiece.
“Team two in position,” he reports.
“Make entry in three… two… one. Breach!” I hiss into the comm.
I rear my foot back then drive it forward. The front door of the house bursts inward, slamming into the wall behind it with a bang louder than a cannon going off. I’m first through the door and feel my arm erupt in pain. I’m thrown backward into the door as a lance of pure fire cuts through my arm. Adam moves in past me, and I see the muzzle flash of his weapon. Two men go down in a bloody heap, bullets riddling their bodies.
“Are you all right?” Adam asks me.
I nod even though my arm feels like it’s been filled with liquid fire as blood spills from my wound. I grit my teeth and get back to my feet though. I can move so I need to complete the mission. Quickly, we clear the house, dispatching half a dozen more men with shots that sound barely louder than a cough.
Once the house was cleared of hostiles, we searched for Zavala’s product. We found nothing in the house, and I started to think we were set up. With eight armed men in the place, maybe Zavala tried to take us out. In his place, that’s what I would do. But that would mean he’d found our bugs. And that was something I didn’t want to contemplate because if he found our bugs, he’d have ample time to put together a plan aimed at wiping us out. I said a silent prayer that our luck would hold and that Zavala hadn’t found our bugs.
“Fuck, there’s nothing here,” Adam growls.
I glance at my wrist and see it’s been two minutes, so I call it out. Dope in hand or not, we need to be out of here in a minute. That’s when my eyes fall upon the trapdoor in the ceiling.
“Attic,” I say.
I rush over and grab the rope handle, giving it a hard yank. The trapdoor opens and a ladder descends. I lock it into place, quickly climb it, and step into the attic.
“Bingo,” I say.
I walk back to the trapdoor to find half a dozen nervous faces looking back up at me. I give them all a wide smile.
“We got it. Get ready to start catching bags,” I say.
I grab the first and toss it down. Then the second, third, and fourth. By the time I’m done, we’ve got eight duffle bags filled with bricks of heroin. I’ve also scooped up all the cash I could find—which was a lot. I stuffed it into another duffel and tossed that down too. And when I was done, I took one more look around, searching for anything I might have missed. But we’re good so I move back to the ladder and quickly descend.
When I hit the floor, Spyder is there grinning at me. “What?” I ask.
He shrugs. “For not being the leadership type, you certainly seemed like a leader to me tonight. You were smooth and in command. Made good decisions.”
“Yeah, good decisions that got me shot,” I mutter.
