Baghdad, Iraq 0000 hr Zulu/1900 hr EST

            Stone and the SIX ensign crept through the dark narrow alley stealthily towards one of the many doors. Only their AN/PVS-7 Night Vision Goggles (NVGs) aided their ability to see. The eerie greenish-yellow vision of the night vision gear showed the alley as if lights were blaring. Stone moved closer hand signaling the SEAL to cover him. The darkness of the alley worked in his favor masking his activity.

His asset lived in the apartment building they were stalking around. Air raid sirens blared to life. The staccato fire of anti-aircraft fire rang through the night air. Distant booms and tremors can be heard and felt from Tomahawks and bombs rained on the city. Stone placed his back against the doorway and glanced around the alley. On the ends were SEALs covering his approach, a few would be on the roof, those he couldn’t see.

This would be the last agent his team would grab tonight. They’d already extracted four agents and sixteen family members to a safe location awaiting his rendezvous.

This agent was an Iraqi counter Intelligence operative, the CIA had planted him in the seventies when Saddam was still an ally. The CIA from UCLA recruited Ali El Radim. His father was one of the first officers to back Saddam when he took power and still one of the most loyalists. The CIA recruited him with the information that his father had killed his mother when he was a young boy. They’d stretched that bit of information into a twenty-year grudge. The counter intelligence unit he worked for checked on the military with impunity. He was a murderer of hundreds of soldiers and civilians, but he remained an asset to the US Intelligence even to the point of getting released two American Intelligence Officers during Desert Storm. They didn’t tell him they were extracting him today, they were going to surprise him. No matter how reliable an asset is, never stop coving your ass. Stone had initiated a contact code that would require Radim to be home at this time waiting for call that would send him to a location that would inevitably lead to his control officer that would bring him out of Iraq. No call would come.

Stone cupped his ear the door. He heard nothing after a few seconds of listening. He twisted the doorknob, to his surprise it clicked open, not many burglars in Iraq he guessed. He replaced his H&K submachinegun under his jacket and removed his silenced .45 pistol. He moved into the doorway he heard the deadly whisper of a silenced round being shot, adrenaline flowed, he knelt to one knee and brought his weapon to the ready continually scanning down the hallway. Human reaction dictated that he look towards the danger, but years of training and the trust of the men behind him kept his eye on his assigned sector in case of more perpetrators. Through his earpiece he received a double click signifying all clear. He responded in like. Within in a few seconds he detected slight movement behind him, he continued scanning his front, until he felt a hand on his shoulder then it moved to his back. He knew it was the petty officer that was watching his back outside, and behind him would be an ensign for rear cover. “Cat.” Was all the petty officer said. Stone understood the reasons for shooting the cat they were unpredictable, they or any animal could be a detriment to a silent entry. Removal was the only option.

Stealthful entries, dynamic entries, or any other type of entry required constant practice and choreography as would any part of military engagement more so in the Specops world. They practiced their craft like a football team did. Everyone needed to be in certain spots at certain times in a given situation. If you’re a wide receiver you don’t run a bomb pattern when your suppose to run a screen and he also has to be able to pick up a rush by the defense and run a slightly different pattern to adjust to that situation. The difference between football and the military are obvious, if a tightend doesn’t pick up the rush or he runs the wrong pattern, the quarterback gets sacked or the defense gets an interception. If a soldier isn’t at a specific spot at a certain time he could be killed accidentally or have some else killed. Everything is repeated to the point that you move on instinct correctly. The military spends lots of money to make sure their soldiers are trained to do the right things at the right time. During the Gulf War less soldiers died than the previous year in peacetime. They trained so hard for years that at that time the military fielded the best army ever before, that was why Iraq was such a push over. Stone made it his point to get together with Six and Delta many times to rehearse different scenarios and situations.           

The movement down the hall by the trio was deliberate and careful, they traversed the basement hallway quickly and stopped at the stairway landing. At the top shined an uncovered lightbulb and to the right a shut door. Stone sited the lightbulb with his pistol and fired extinguishing its brilliance. Stone and the SEALs moved up the stairs to the top. This was a four-story apartment building, which had all the luxuries of any American condominium, including a doorman. They knew that he lived on the fourth floor on the south side of the building. Once through the door they’d go left down a hallway towards the foyer leading from the main entrance, where the doorman would be seated. Once past him they’d hit the stairs leading upwards. There the problem was that the stairs were not enclosed. Anyone that might be in the hallway on any floor would see them as they pass. Stone had a contingency for that. He removed a small pistol from his left shoulder holster and returned his silenced pistol to its holster on his hip. The pistol fired darts, laced with a fast acting knockout drug, using compressed air. For a bit more accuracy a laser siting was mounted. The weapon was in effect as silent as the silenced gun Stone carried. The range for the dart gun was twenty yards. The darts fired were similar to the sutures used in hospital that dissolved after a few days but only these were stiffened to penetrate clothes. Only in extreme circumstances would Stone employ lethal methods against non-combatants.

Stone gave the signal to move in three, he placed left hand on the doorknob, two, one.

“First floor.” Stone whispered into the reed thin microphone in front of his lips. The trio moved swiftly down the hall towards the foyer and main entrance. Once into the foyer Stone’s peripheral vision caught the movement of the doorman. Stone quickly sited the doorman, who at the same time looked up at the trio, his eyes opened wide as everything registered. He felt a sharp pain in his neck, which he grabbed at, he knew the man pointing at him fired the gun but he didn’t see a flash or hear anything, all of a sudden everything spun on him and he lost control of his body. He dropped to the floor face first before his next thought. The whole episode took one second. The last SEAL quickly dragged the doorman to a closet; he’d be knocked out for awhile. Stone and the SEALs were already at the second floor landing when the last SEAL caught up.

“Second floor.”

They moved the final two stories unnoticed. Stone stopped upon reaching the fourth floor landing. He listened to his surroundings.

“Echo-Five sitrep.” Stone whispered. Echo-Five was a SEAL a block down on a rooftop facing the south side of the building Stone was in. He was observing the building through a thermal-imaging scope mounted on a Benelli .50 bolt-action sniper rifle. With the scope he could see the whole apartment in the infrared spectrum. All the heat registered white, the lighter the shade the hotter the item. On the opposite end the colder the item the darker it became until it was black. It could be reversed depending on the user and what they were looking at. Certain things were clearer under black-hot than white-hot.

“Target is in a bed room to your left once you enter the door. He is packing a bag and talking on a phone.” Echo-Five responded.

“Ok, tell me if he comes any where near the front door.” Stone moved down the hall to the last door. The petty officer and the second SEAL stopped a few feet behind Stone and watched their rear. Stone checked the doorknob, finding the door locked he removed a small lock-pick gun from his pocket and made quick work of it. He returned the lock-pick gun to its placed and stepped to the side of the door his back up against the door sill. He snapped his fingers getting the attention of the petty officer who then moved to the opposite side of the door.

“Echo-Five sitrep.” Stone asked.

  “Target is in the room about twenty feet straight in front of you. If you open the door he’ll see you.” Echo-Five was peering through normal binocular since Radim was near an uncovered window.

“Okay then give me a diversion in,” Stone looked at his watch. “Ten seconds.”

Echo-Five grabbed his M-4 silenced carbine and sited the kitchen window to the right of the target. The weapon was enough for what he had in mind; he would never try this if it were a critical target. When his mental count reached nine he fingered a tri-burst at the window.

Stone entered as the glass shattered catching Radim looking the opposite way and was upon him before Radim could flinch. The petty officer quickly secured each room, Echo-Five had said that the target was alone but nothing was fact until confirmation.

“All clear,” the petty officer yelled from the other room.

Radim stood visibly tense in front of Stone, rightly so since Stone had a pistol to the back of his head. To Stone, who had an innate sense of human behavior, it seemed that Radim had a different type of tenseness closer to anxious. Stone senses heightened.

“Casablanca.” Stone said the contact word that told Radim that the person saying it would be his extractor. Radim physically loosened but to Stone the release didn’t seem complete. Stone searched Radim carefully coming up empty.

“You have thirty seconds to grab whatever you’re taking that you can carry.” Stone put the weapon away signaling Radim to commence. Stone grabbed Radim’s arm turning him around looking him in the eye. “Oh by the way. If you take any weapons and I find it I’ll kill you myself, you’ve just received your only warning,” he said coldly.

“Echo-Six the ball is yours. We’re out in one minute.” The SEAL who was in the hallway came in and with the door ajar continued his vigil.

“Copy Alpha-One. Echo-Six actual has the ball. Your ride is pulling up. Echo-Six out.”

The petty officer came from the bedroom with stern look and a stack of photos. He pointed to the top one. It was Saddam on a couch next to him an Arab woman dressed western business like and seated next to her was Jabril el Jabbra.

 He was considered class one of the primary organizers for Osam bin Ladin when they attacked the American embassies in Africa in 98. He was also responsible for the death of countless American tourist around the world since the seventies. Three incidents made him a Class One A Target for the American intelligence community. Which meant that he was to be brought in dead or alive at any cost. Jabril had the distinction of being designated COAT first in 1989. He personally killed General Jenson of NATO in 83 and CIA Station Chief Franks while both were hostages in the Middle East. In 89 he killed Anthony Terranova, Stone’s friend and architect of SOAG, along with two hundred other civilians on Flight 378. Tony was in Greece tracking down leads to Jabril’s organization and had found information that would have crippled Jabril. He was on a commercial flight because that was the earliest flight back to England to meet with ICE and DELTA. Jabril placed a bomb on that flight that exploded while the plane was within one mile of Heathrow Airport. Tony’s new wife Aricelous Jacqueline Terranova a.k.a. Dazzler and ICE witnessed the explosion. Within a day Jabril sent a message to the DCI that acknowledged his part in the bombing and a threat for him to be left alone. The DCI enraged, and with permission from the President, created the COAT designation. That propelled Ari from a naval analyst to a CIA operative and the first female SpecOps warrior.

“Sweep for intel,” Stone stated. He handed the photos back.

“Echo-Six.” Stone said into his mike.

“Go for Echo-Six” came the reply.

“Echo-Six time extension by one minute. Copy?”

“Copy Alpha-Six time extension one minute.

The petty officer quickly gathered anything that he could find that might be intelligence. When he finished he nodded to Stone.

“You’re rear guard,” Stone said to the petty officer. Stone put Radim between himself and the SEAL at the door. “Whenever you’re ready Two. Let’s move quickly.” The SEAL nodded, opened the door and moved down the hall.

“Coming down Echo-Six.”

“Copy Alpha-Six.” Stone and his entourage swiftly made their way down the stairs and out the front entrance into a waiting vehicle. The Lieutenant that was leading this group saw Stone’s stolid face as he jumped in the van and knew that something was afoot, but since Castle didn’t mention anything so it wasn’t something to discuss now. The anti-aircraft fire from numerous buildings lit up the night sky along with the sounds of the air raid sirens. Explosions were closer this time.

“Beta, Charlie, and Delta-Six rollup we’re mobile.” The Lieutenant ordered. Each group leader acknowledged and commenced departure plans. A block down the van stopped and picked up their sniper Echo-Five. In would take them twenty minutes to get to the safe house, with the type of license plates on the van and the empty streets it insured a relatively boring ride.

Stone was the first to walk in the apartment. The safe house was an apartment building that one of the Iraqi agents owned, it was primary rendezvous of the sweep up team then from here they’d move everyone by trucks to SECOND BASE to meet Dazzler and the rest of Six to extricate the whole group by Pavelow helicopters. Stone walked towards the SIX field CO Lieutenant Commander Randy Andrews. He tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

“We have a situation,” Stone began.

 “I would like you to round up your senior staff and get me a Sat-link when you’re ready.” Stone walked into the other room while the Lieutenant did as instructed. There Stone found Peter Ramos his partner from SOAG. Peter was a very light sleeper so as Stone entered Ramos’ head was up off the pillow and his weapon at the ready, seeing Stone he relaxed placing his head back on the pillow

“I need you to debrief Radim,” Stone handed Ramos a few photos.  Peter upon seeing the photos sat up on the bed and turned the light on, and looked more closely at the photos again. Ramos dry washed his face and jumped from the bed. “I’m on it,” he said in passing Stone out the room. Stone found the Lieutenant Commander and briefed him on the situation. Together they made their way to where the senior staff was waiting. In the room were two lieutenants, an ensign and a chief petty officer.