Free Rainbow Six (1997) by Tom - Jack Ryan 09 Clancy

shooting house, a hard run, not the fast jog of daily exercises. Johnston and Weber were already on the scene, on opposite corners of the rectangular structure.
    “Command to Rifle Two-Two,” Ding said into his helmet-mounted microphone, “anything to report?”
    “Negative, Two-Six. Nothing at all,” Weber reported.
    “Rifle Two-One?”
    “Six,” Johnston replied, “I saw a curtain move, but nothing else. Instruments show four to six voices inside, speaking English. Nothing else to report.”
    “Roger,” Ding responded, the remainder of his team concealed behind a truck. He took a final look at the layout of the inside of the building. The raid had been fully briefed. The shooters knew the inside of the structure well enough to see it with their eyes closed. With that knowledge, Ding waved for the team to move.
    Paddy Connolly took the lead, racing to the door. Just as he got there, he let go of his H&K and let it dangle on the sling while he pulled the Primacord from the fanny-pack hanging down from his body armor. He stuck the explosive to the door frame by its adhesive and pushed the blasting cap into the top-right corner. A second later, he moved right ten feet, holding the detonator control up in his left hand, while his right grabbed the pistol grip of his SMG and brought it up to point at the sky.
    Okay, Ding thought. Time to move. “Let’s go!” he shouted at the team.
    As the first of them bolted around the truck, Connolly thumbed the switch, and the door frame disintegrated, sending the door flying inward. The first shooter, Sergeant Mike Pierce, was less than a second behind it, disappearing into the smoking hole with Chavez right behind him.
    The inside was dark, the only light coming through the shattered doorway. Pierce scanned the room, found it empty, and then lodged himself by the doorway into the next room. Ding ran into that first, leading his team—
    —there they were, four targets and four hostages—
    Chavez brought his MP-10 up and fired two silenced rounds into the left-most target’s head. He saw the rounds hit, dead-center in the head, right between the blue-painted eyes, then traversed right to see that Steve Lincoln had gotten his man just as planned. In less than a second, the overhead lights came on. It was all over, elapsed time from the Primacord explosion, seven seconds. Eight seconds had been programmed for the exercise. Ding safed his weapon.
    “Goddamnit, John!” he said to the Rainbow commander.
    Clark stood, smiling at the target to his left, less than two feet away, the two holes drilled well enough to ensure certain, instant death. He wasn’t wearing any protective gear. Neither was Stanley, at the far end of the line, also trying to show off, though Mrs. Foorgate and Mrs. Montgomery were, in their center seats. The presence of the women surprised Chavez until he reminded himself that they were team members, too, and probably eager to show that they, too, belonged with the boys. He had to admire their spirit, if not their good sense.
    “Seven seconds. That’ll do, I guess. Five would be better,” John observed, but the dimensions of the building pretty much determined the speed with which the team could cover the distance. He walked across, checking all the targets. McTyler’s target showed one hole only, though its irregular shape proved that he’d fired both rounds as per the exercise parameters. Any one of these men would have earned a secure place in 3rd SOG, and every one was as good as he’d ever been, John Clark thought to himself. Well, training methods had improved markedly since his time in Vietnam, hadn’t they? He helped Helen Montgomery to her feet. She seemed just a little shaky. Hardly a surprise. Being on the receiving end of bullets wasn’t exactly what secretaries were paid for.
    “You okay?” John asked.
    “Oh, quite, thank you. It was rather exciting. My first time, you see.”
    “My third,” Alice Foorgate said, rising herself.