Tested by Fire by David Costa (the little red hen read aloud TXT) 📗

all was quiet. Middleton instructed the two soldiers at the rear of the house to move forward. This was part of the plan where they would quietly lift up one of the fence panels and slide into the garden before moving to the back door. The team had recognised the danger of being heard or seen from the target house, but it was a risk they had to take.

The silence from the house continued as the troopers moved through the fence panel, let it back down into its original position, and moved up to the rear door. There was still no sound or movement from inside the house as the soldiers at the front window removed the sucker mike and placed one of the framed charges up against the window while Middleton did the same at the front door.

The street was deathly quiet. Even the breathing of the SAS men was quiet and controlled behind the face masks. Middleton gave a thumbs up and the ten second fuses on the shaped frame charges were set and the troopers pulled back to the end of the garden path. The explosives were set in such a way that when the blast came the explosion was forced inwards. The flash, the bang, and the falling debris wouldn’t only waken the residents in the street but many people in the surrounding area but most definitely the people inside the house.

Before the last of the debris had hit the ground, Middleton’s voice came over the airwaves, ‘Go, Go, Go.’ In seconds, the SAS troopers were inside the building, two taking the stairs, two inside the living room, and two into the kitchen after shooting off the back-door hinges. Two more men covered the building from outside. Inside the house, the troopers hit darkness and smoke was hindering their vision, but the respirator masks protected their eyes and breathing. Calling out ‘Clear’ as they moved through the house. The two troopers who had entered the through the kitchen door took over covering the living room while the two troopers who had entered through the front living room window turned to join Middleton and the second trooper who had headed up the stairs through the blasted front door.

As they reached the main landing, Middleton turned right with a trooper behind him. He moved to the main bedroom and stood with his back to the wall and opening the door, he threw in a flashbang. At almost the same time the two troopers who had entered the house through the front window followed up the stairs, turned left on the landing, and executed the same procedure at the door to a front facing bedroom. Both flashbangs went off at almost the same time, brightly illuminating the bedrooms followed with a loud bang. The final two soldiers were now covering the open bathroom and the third bedroom door which were both at the rear of the house.

As Middleton and his men were to discover the front bedroom he attacked was empty. It had been Costello’s room but was now vacant. The second bedroom contained a very shaken Imtaz who only had time to stand beside his bed and fire blindly with his pistol where he thought the door was, the blast and light from the flashbang had done its job. When the first trooper entered the room, he recognised the Asian man who’d been photographed going for the local shopping trip.

The rounds he fired hit the bedroom wall to the left of the soldier. With his Heckler & Koch already levelled, he fired back with a burst of five rounds hitting the man who, afterwards, reminded him of a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights; eyes wide and scared. Three of the rounds hit Imtaz squarely in the chest and the other two hit his face and temple blowing his brains out the back of his head and spreading a halo of blood and gore over the wallpaper behind him.

Middleton’s voice came over the airwaves, ‘Contact, wait out.’ That was the signal to the SAS radio operator and Broad that contact had been made with the enemy and there would be no more communications with them until the operation was complete.

Waheed had been in the rear bedroom of the house.  His mind had been spinning about what the morning and daylight would bring. He and Imtaz had slept fully clothed to be prepared for all eventualities. The loud blasts had woken him from his light slumber, and he knew immediately what was happening. The enemy were here, and he was prepared to become the martyr he’d always known he would be one day.

That day was here.

He stood beside the bed facing the door as it opened. He could see for a split second the black gloved hand as the SAS Trooper threw in the flashbang. Waheed knew what to do he’d trained for this in the desert. As the flashbang sailed through the air, he dived behind the bed, closing his eyes and placing his hands over his ears. Even then the noise and flash that came burnt into his eyes and ears. He armed the small bomb he had beside the bed and tossed it towards the bedroom door as the first of the two troopers crept in.

The soldier saw the device flying through the air and instinctively dived to the left of the bedroom door when it exploded but the blast, in the confined space, killed him instantly. His body armour unable to provide protection at such close proximity to the explosion with the nails embedded into the Semtex doing most of the damage shredding his skin and penetrating deep into his body destroying the rear bedroom wall of the house. Waheed, still down beside the bed, had been protected although some of the nails tore through his back arms and legs.

He was still conscious and rose with his pistol in hand to continue his