One by One (Роберт Хантер 5 Поодиночке) - Carter Chris (2) (читать книги бесплатно полные версии txt) 📗

Luke moved forward, readying the weapon. From a distance of about six inches, he aimed it at the door’s top hinge. A very subtle head nod told Captain Fallon that he was ready.

‘OK, Beta,’ the captain said into the microphone. ‘Avon Call on my three count . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .’

BOOM.

One Hundred and Three

The shots exploded through the otherwise quiet morning, echoing off the other houses. At the front door, Luke had blasted off two hinges and the deadbolt lock in less than three seconds. As soon as the last shot was fired, Captain Fallon kicked the door hard, throwing it flying into the living room.

At the rear of the house, Johnson had also blasted the hinges and the deadbolt lock off the door in just as many seconds. Davis was the one who kicked the door in.

All eight SWAT agents were carrying Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns – a 9mm compact weapon exceptionally powerful and accurate in close-quarters combat. All eight of them had been expertly trained for such situations.

Still crouch-running, all three teams moved forward into the house with immense agility, their MP5s’ red laser target sights bouncing around the room like disco lights.

The front door led directly into a small, rectangular-shaped living room. With the curtains shut, all the light came from the now wide-open door. Plumes of smoke and dust danced in the air, spotlighted by uneven streaks of sunlight.

In a three-man wedge-shaped assault formation, Alpha team stormed into the living room, checking every corner and possible hiding place with incredible speed and accuracy. There were two armchairs, a couch, a television on a wooden module and a low coffee table. The walls were bare, save for a single, stiffly posed wedding photo.

It took Alpha team four seconds flat to take control of the room.

‘Living room is clear,’ Captain Fallon announced through his microphone before crossing the room and exiting it through the door at the other side.

Gamma team simply followed them in.

At the rear of the house, Beta team took no time to clear the small kitchen, made even smaller by the square wooden table pushed up against the east wall.

‘Kitchen is clear,’ agent Davis called through his mike.

He and the two other agents in Beta team proceeded fast across the kitchen and through its door, which took them to a hallway, leading to the front of the house and the stairs that would give them access to the second floor of the property. As they reached the top of the staircase, Alpha team came through the door at the opposite end of that same hallway.

Alpha team immediately turned left into the dining room. The door was already open. This room was smaller than the living room, and most of it was taken by a square, four-seat, glass and steel dining table and two large bookshelves. More bare walls. The room was empty, and there was no place for someone as tall and as well built as Graham Fisher to hide.

‘Dining room is clear,’ the captain announced.

Morris, one of the two other agents in Alpha team, had already kicked open the door to the downstairs washroom, smashing it against the white-tiled wall. Two of the tiles cracked with the impact. The room was empty.

‘Downstairs washroom is clear,’ he called.

The staircase had taken Beta team onto a twenty-three-foot-long hallway upstairs. There were five doors – two on the right, two on the left and one at the far end of the corridor. From the house schematics, all three agents knew that the first door on the right gave them access to a small storage room. That door was closed. The second door on the right would lead them into the first of the three bedrooms, a medium-sized one, probably the one that used to belong to Brandon Fisher. That door was also closed. The first door on the left was the first bathroom. That door was open. The second door on the left would take them into a smaller bedroom. Door closed. The one at the far end would lead them into the master bedroom, inside which they would find the second bathroom. That final door was also open.

The team moved lightning fast, clearing the first room on the left – the bathroom – and the first room on the right – the small storage room – in two seconds. Both empty.

While Davis and Lewis pushed open the second door on the left side of the corridor, the one that led into the smallest of the three bedrooms, Johnson held fast on the hallway, covering their backs.

The room had been transformed into a simple study. It was a barren space – a pressed wood desk with a computer and a printer, a black-leather desk chair, a crammed bookcase and a beige-metal filing cabinet, nothing else. The room was empty.

‘Bedroom one clear.’

Both agents exited the study and moved on to the second room on the right – bedroom number two. Johnson tried the door – locked. The lock didn’t look too strong.

‘Breach it,’ Johnson said, stepping back.

Launching his body forward, Lewis rammed the heel of his boot against the door lock. That was all that was needed. The door slammed back hard, splintering the frame. The room was dark and smelled of age and disuse.

Johnson immediately reached for the light switch. As the light came on, he and Lewis entered the room, leaving Davis to cover their backs this time.

They’d been right. This was the room that had belonged to Brandon Fisher, and it looked like not a single thing had been touched since his suicide. The walls were covered with posters of music groups, cars, sport stars and girls in tiny bikinis. There was a large chest of drawers with a black stereo on it to the right of the door. Next to it, a two-door wardrobe. An old and scratched desk with a laptop computer and a printer was positioned by the window. A nicely made up twin bed had its headboard pushed up against one of the walls. Everything was covered by a thick layer of dust, as if the room hadn’t been entered in years.

The agents quickly checked everywhere, including the wardrobe.

No one.

‘Second bedroom is clear,’ Johnson radioed it on.

From there Beta team moved with purpose toward the end of the corridor and the last bedroom. This one was much larger than the previous two, with a king bed, an ottoman, a leather armchair in one corner, an old-fashioned wooden dresser with a rectangular mirror by the window and a sliding-door wardrobe taking the whole of the west wall. There was a sweaty smell lingering in the air, as if the room hadn’t been cleaned and the bedding hadn’t been washed in months.

They checked every corner, under the bed and inside the wardrobe.

No one.

The en suite bathroom door was ajar, and it was hastily kicked fully open by agent Davis.

The bathroom was empty.

They had cleared the whole second floor of the house in less than twenty-two seconds.

‘We’re all clear up here, Captain,’ Davis called down. ‘The psycho ain’t upstairs.’

One Hundred and Four

Team Gamma had followed team Alpha into the house, crossed the living room, and as team Alpha turned left into the dining room once they reached the corridor downstairs, team Gamma veered right. The door that led down into the basement was locked with a military-grade padlock.

‘We need to blast the basement door open,’ agent Turkowski said into his mike, alerting the other teams that a loud blast was coming.