Golf
The garage door was closed when they arrived back at the warehouse just after sunset. It was open when they left. Wilson drove by the warehouse, which had no vehicles in its parking lot. They had the key to the back door, the front door, and the garage code, provided by Valerie Butler.
Wilson circled the block and parked in the gravel parking lot of the warehouse directly behind the target building. There were a dozen cars parked in the lot around them. The sign said, A to Z Auto. All the garage bays were closed.
“We approach the target warehouse from here. Moe, is there any way we’ll get in through the back door?”
“Not unless someone inside removed what I put in place,” Tessman answered.
“So we go in the front,” Wilson said.
“There was that ground-level office window halfway down the north side of the building,” Burke reminded him.
Wilson nodded. “We breach from there and the front door simultaneously.”
“Someone’s buttoned the building up,” Burke said. “The garage door was open when we left. My guess would be the three men who were trying to break into the back and the two occupants of the blue cargo van.”
“The question is, are they still inside,” Rogers posed. “They could even have moved the rifles by now.”
“Only one way to find out,” Wilson said, opening his car door. The five men donned their bulletproof vests, attaching no agency designations to them. He dialed Ops on his phone. “Yes, we’re getting ready to go in.”
“Stay on comms,” Jackson said.
Dupont’s voice came through their comms. “I’m on and will stay on until you tell me to drop off,” he said.
The five men got out of the vehicle. They walked around the building and through the backyard areas, making it to the target warehouse without seeing anyone. Jackson, Rogers, and Wilson proceeded to the south side of the building. Burke and Tessman veered to the north side.
Peering through the window, they saw that the door was still closed, and no one was within the office, as before.
Burke removed the glass-cutting tool from his pocket.
At the lock on the window, he cut a half-circle in the glass, reached in, and unlocked the window.
He lifted the window. It easily slid up.
“Entering now,” Burke transmitted.
The two men hoisted themselves up and into the building, drawing their weapons as soon as their feet hit the floor. Burke went to the door and listened. He heard nothing.
At the front of the building, the three men crossed in front of the garage door to the door that led into the front office.
The lights were off within. They didn’t know if Stacy Ramsey had turned them off when she went to get her purse or if someone else had.
Wilson tried the door. It was locked. Again, they didn’t know if she’d locked up, though they doubted it.
“Door’s locked,” Wilson broadcast. “Unlocking it and entering. Hold position.”
“Roger that,” Burke acknowledged in a whisper.
The two men waited, listening at the door for any sounds of movement or anything that would indicate someone was within. They heard nothing while they waited.
“Computer’s here. We’ll get the files after we clear the warehouse,” Wilson transmitted. He was now at the door that led into the warehouse area. “Move in,” he ordered.
Burke cracked the door open and peered through the four-inch crack.
The interior of the warehouse was mostly dark.
Someone had turned all the lights off. There were a few dim lights coming from somewhere.
They didn’t really illuminate the room; they just caused long shadows throughout the space.
It didn’t take long for their eyes to adjust to the lack of light.
In front of them, where the white SUV had been, the dented blue cargo van with the flattened front tire was now parked, backed in.
Burke pulled his small, tactical flashlight out and held it up alongside his weapon, leaving it off for now.
He dropped to his belly and trained his eyes beneath the van, looking for feet and legs on the far side.
He saw nothing but shadows and darkness.
Burke didn’t want to give their presence and position away by turning on the light, yet.
He came to his feet and signaled Tessman.
Burke counted down on the fingers of his left hand: three, two, one.
Then he threw the door open and thrust himself out into the space towards the rear of the warehouse, his Glock leading the way.
At the same time, Tessman did the same, his aim in the other direction.
“Clear,” both men whispered into comms.
“Got eyes on you,” Jackson’s soft voice came through comms. Tessman could see him as well, as Jackson hugged the wall, moving deeper into the warehouse.
“Far side of the van, clear,” Wilson’s voice whispered.
“Front of warehouse, clear,” Rogers said just as softly.
The warehouse was silent. Not even their footfalls were heard on the concrete floor. Deep shadows filled every corner. Burke wished he had NVGs on. A Tango could be in any corner, and they wouldn’t see him until they were upon him.
Tessman tapped Burke on the shoulder so he’d know he was there.
The two men advanced towards the space that was the treatment room.
Its high windows let some light in, which spilled out onto the warehouse floor.
Out of the corner of his eye, Burke saw Wilson and Jackson step out from behind the cover of the van on its far side.
When reaching the curtained entrance to the treatment room, the two men pressed their backs against the wall just before the curtain began.
With a nod to each other, they moved fast, propelling themselves into the room with speed, both of them illuminating their flashlights and sweeping the beams through the entire room.
No one was in the room.
“Clear,” Burke said softly.
They both clicked off their lights and turned to view the open space between the van and the hallway that led to the storerooms. Their eyes took a second to re-adjust to the darkness.
They saw their three partners cross the space.
Burke and Tessman returned to the van, taking up positions along each side’s rear quarter panel to keep watch of their six.
While they stood guard there, the van wobbled, just slightly. Someone was inside. Burke immediately withdrew to the very back of the van, as did Tessman. He’d felt it too.
“Got company inside the van,” Burke transmitted in a barely audible voice.
He dropped to one knee as he pivoted so he could see the driver’s door, which remained closed.
It was too dark to see anything or anyone in the side mirror.
“Taco, can you spare Powder?” He knew they had to confront whoever it was quickly.
Assuming it was a Tango with a phone, their presence in the warehouse had probably already been broadcast to the rest of his group.
They could have a lot more Tangos than they wanted to deal with, descending on them faster than they wanted.
“Roger,” Wilson’s hushed voice replied.
Within seconds, Rogers stood near the rear door of the van. “How do you want to play this?” he asked in a whisper.
Burke and Tessman both grinned. “Directly,” Burke said quietly. “Powder, you cover the driver’s door. Moe, what do you say we give this fucker no place to hide? We open these back doors and the side sliding door at the same time and flood the interior with light. Let’s see who’s inside.”
“I like it,” Tessman said.
“Aim to wound. We need to be able to question this fucker,” Burke reminded everyone.
Rogers slid around the side of the van. He took up a position halfway down the length of the van, dropping to one knee, his aim on the driver’s door. “In position.”
Burke slipped around the other side and kept his back pressed to the side of the van just before the sliding side door. His eyes were fixed in the mirror. He saw nothing. “In position.”
“Go on my mark,” Tessman said. “Three, two,” he said as he turned on his penlight. The weapon and the light were pointed at the floor. “One! Go!”
Burke had also turned on his flashlight and aimed it at the floor on the count of two. On one, his left hand took hold of the side door handle. On go, he heaved and slid the door open as he raised his weapon and light, illuminating the interior. “Freeze! Federal law enforcement!”
“Federal authorities!” Tessman’s voice overlapped his as the light from his powerful penlight joined Burke’s, brightly lighting the interior of the panel van and the lone man who sat crouched behind a small crate that didn’t completely cover him, an AR-13 in his grasp. “Put it down!”
“Drop the weapon!” Burke echoed.
The man looked startled, blinded, and undecided. He hadn’t raised the rifle into a firing position, but he didn’t drop it either.
“Come on, man, drop it. You don’t have to die here today.” Burke said.
“Drop it!” Tessman repeated.
The man held the weapon out to the side and dropped it to the floor of the van. Then he raised his hands into the air.
“Come towards me and drop to your stomach! Hands out in front of you!” Burke commanded.
The man complied. Rogers joined him at the side of the van.
His weapon was in his right hand, a zip tie in his left.
He holstered his weapon and then climbed into the van, and had the man secured with his hands behind his back within a few seconds.
Tessman climbed in the back, and Burke watched the two men haul the younger man out of the van through the side door in front of him.
Once he stood, facing Burke, Tessman asked him, “Do you have any weapons, knives, or needles on you?”
“No,” the man answered as the overhead lights switched on.
Burke saw that Wilson stood near the light switches on the wall near the treatment room.
Tessman searched him. He handed Burke the man’s wallet from his back pocket as he worked his way down the man’s body.