فصل 55

CHAPTER 55

At that moment, over the southern tip of Lake Michigan, a twenty-four-passenger business jet with civilian markings came off maximum cruise and began the long curve down to Calumet City, Illinois.

The twelve men of the Hostage Rescue Team felt the lift in their stomachs. There were a few elaborately casual tension yawns up and down the aisle.

Team commander Joel Randall, at the front of the passenger compartment, took off the headset and glanced over his notes before he got up to talk. He believed he had the best-trained SWAT team in the world, and he may have been right. Several of them had never been shot at, but as far as simulations and tests could tell, these were the best of the best.

Randall had spent a lot of time in airplane aisles, and kept his balance easily in the bumpy descent.

“Gentlemen, our ground transportation’s courtesy of DEA undercover. They’ve got a florist’s truck and a plumbing van. So Vernon, Eddie, into your long handles and your civvies. If we go in behind stun grenades, remember you’ve got no flash protection on your faces.” Vernon muttered to Eddie, “Make sure you cover up your cheeks.”

“Did he say don’t moon? I thought he said don’t flash,” Eddie murmured back.

Vernon and Eddie, who would make the initial approach to the door, had to wear thin ballistic armor beneath civilian clothes. The rest could go in hardshell armor, proof against rifle fire.

“Bobby, make sure and put one of your handsets in each van for the driver, so we don’t get fucked up talking to those DEA guys,” Randall said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration uses UHF radios in raids, while the FBI has VHF. There had been problems in the past.

They were equipped for most eventualities, day or night: for walls they had basic rappelling equipment, to listen they had Wolf’s Ears and a VanSleek Farfoon, to see they had night-vision devices. The weapons with night scopes looked like band instruments in their bulging cases.

This was to be a precise surgical operation and the weapons reflected it—there was nothing that fired from an open bolt.

The team shrugged into their web gear as the flaps went down.

Randall got news from Calumet on his headset. He covered the microphone and spoke to the team again. “Guys, they got it down to two addresses. We take the best one and Chicago SWAT’s on the other.” The field was Lansing Municipal, the closest to Calumet on the southeast side of Chicago. The plane was cleared straight in. The pilot brought it to a stop in a stink of brakes beside two vehicles idling at the end of the field farthest from the terminal.

There were quick greetings beside the florist’s truck. The DEA commander handed Randall what looked like a tall flower arrangement. It was a twelve-pound door-buster sledgehammer, the head wrapped in colored foil like a flowerpot, foliage attached to the handle.

“You might want to deliver this,” he said. “Welcome to Chicago.”