Chapter 8
At 10 pm, the Hit Wizards and the SAS began gearing up for the raid that was becoming increasingly more likely. Everyone was quiet and methodical as they donned their equipment and checked their weapons. The SAS troops noticed that as the Hit Wizards secured their body armour, they each disappeared. All that was left of them was a shadow, as if a cloud had obscured the sun. Even Harry couldn’t see the rest of his team. Once he had finished getting ready, a crackle of static burst through his radio headset.
“Whiskey Team, Radio check. Raise your hands for the Muggles” Perry’s voice was clear in Harry’s ears.
As Harry heard Perry shout “Whiskey One-Alpha!” he appeared in a blink as the modified Fidelius charm fell away once Harry knew where he was.
“Whiskey Two” Deano appeared.
“Whiskey Three” from Noodle.
“Whiskey Four” shouted Smoggy
“Whiskey Five” Half-Pint called out.
“Whiskey Six” Smudge waved.
Finally, Harry’s turn “Whiskey Seven” Perry gave him the thumbs up as he reappeared in front of everyone.
“Can everyone see us?” Perry called out to the rest of the SAS teams, who all nodded.
“Excellent! Let's rock and roll!”
Once the midnight deadline passed, Harry felt the excitement build up in his stomach as Colonel Pierce’s voice came over the radio “Green light. Green light. Berlin Zoo. Berlin Zoo” Under the cover of darkness, the SAS had moved to the building next door to the Embassy where they were to wait with their ladders for the ‘Go’. The Hit Wizards had made their way on to the roof opposite the Embassy with their Firebolts. They had all agreed on using street names and landmarks of Berlin as codewords in case the terrorists had a way of listening in. As the teams were ready to move, they called in their codewords.
“Blue. Alexzanderplatz”
“Red. Carl Marx Straße”
“Whiskey. Checkpoint Charlie”
“Standby” came the Colonel’s reply.
The teams all waited in silence for a few hours. As the sky began to light up with the first light of dawn, the radio crackled into life.
“All teams. All teams. Brandenburg Gate”
That was the ‘Go’ code. The Hit Wizards watched as the SAS moved from the next-door buildings in near silence and set up their ladders next to the Embassy windows. Red team set up short ladders to get to the ground floor and Blue team had longer ladders that would reach the second floor. As the SAS began to climb, Perry signalled to the Hit Wizards to mount their brooms. They all sat side-saddle as they had been rehearsing. Harry was teamed up with Noodle, they would be assaulting the left-hand roof window that lead into a large office. The last intel report placed 4 hostages and one terrorist in this room for the night. They would probably still be asleep, or just waking up by now. Oh they’ll be awake soon! Harry thought to himself with a smile. He watched the SAS teams slowly placing large wooden frames covered in explosives on their windows before the radio crackled again.
“Breaching in 3...2...” on two, the Hit Wizards kicked off from the roof and flew fast towards the windows. Harry was just behind Noodle; he fired a blasting hex over his teammate’s shoulder that shattered the glass in the window and blew the frame out of the wall. Every single window on the front of the building exploded at exactly the same time, as the Hit Wizard’s blasting hexes impacted as the SAS detonated their breaching charges. Noodle flew straight through the hole that Harry had made and slipped off his broom, before the terrorist had a chance to notice that there was another wizard in the room, Noodle dropped him with a Killing Curse. Harry had dropped in a split second after Noodle, just in time to watch the green magic dissipate from the terrorist crumpled on the floor. Harry automatically moved to the office door as Noodle’s voice came over the radio.
“Room One-Charlie, clear. One X-ray dead. No Hostages”
Harry could hear a cacophony of sound as the SAS cleared the floors below him. Quick burst of automatic weapons fire and bangs from flash grenades echoed through the building. Noodle stood close to Harry’s back and tapped him on the shoulder. Harry stepped out into the corridor just as the other members of the Hit Wizards did. As they saw each other they all nodded to each other as they began clearing other rooms.
One would use a blasting hex on the door, wait a moment, then the second would enter, killing any terrorists present or checking for hostages. Between the two pairs, and Perry’s trio, they had killed two terrorists and counted ten hostages before Perry announced, “Floor one, clear!”. On the outside, all that was above them was the roof, but the Hit Wizards moved quickly to a staircase at the end of the corridor. Noodle and Harry were at the front of the team as they began to climb the stairs. As Noodle reached the third step, a deafening burst of machine gun fire erupted as a terrorist blindly sprayed the stairs with bullets. Even though they were practically invisible to the terrorists, they could still be heard. Luckily for the rest of the team, this meant that the terrorist didn’t have anything to aim at. Noodle wasn’t that lucky as he was thrown back when a bullet hit him square in his Dwarven Steel armour and another tore through his right shoulder.
Harry fired off a Killing Curse, but the terrorist had run off just before Noodle hit the floor. Deano was quick to fire a Petrificus Totalus at Noodle, stopping his blood loss and keeping his injury completely preserved until he could be taken to a healer after the raid was over. Harry felt ill, but his training kicked in and he reached for the button on his radio.
“Man down, Man down. Whiskey Three down”
Harry was now the lead Wizard on the stairs. Perry had moved behind him to take Noodle’s place. As they reached the top of the stairs, Harry saw the door straight ahead open and the barrel of an AK-47 poke through. In a flash, Harry fired a blasting hex at the door, blowing it and the terrorist back into the room. Harry sprinted in after it, firing a killing curse at the man writhing on the ground with pieces of door stuck in his flesh. His eyes swept the room and found six pairs of terrified eyes staring at him. He pressed the button on his radio again “Room Two-Alpha, clear. One X-ray dead. Six hostages secure” Harry turned on his heel and headed back into the corridor with Perry right behind him. The rest of the Hit Wizards had begun clearing the other room as soon as they had set foot on the second floor of the Wizarding Embassy, Harry had a little bit of attention on his radio that crackled as each member of Whiskey team announced their kills and hostages found. By the time they had made it to the Ambassador’s office, the Hit wizards had stormed and cleared the other rooms, dispatching the terrorists with lethal precision. The only two terrorists left alive were one wizard and Drechenfeuer. The final room to clear was the Wizard Ambassador’s office. The two remaining terrorists could only be in there with the rest of the hostages.
The problem with the Ambassador’s Office was there was only one door. The terrorists knew that the Hit Wizards could only enter via that one door, and with the noise they had made getting to the office, they knew they were preparing to take the room, and they would be ready for it.
The Hit Wizards stacked up against the wall next to the large double doors to the office. They stood in silence for a few moments as Perry tried to figure out their next move.
Perry turned to Smoggy “Four, map the room”
Smoggy nodded and moved to the front of the group. He crouched down and pulled a small floor plan out of his pocket. He took one glove off and gently placed his bare palm on the door. With his other hand, he pointed his wand at the map. Slowly, marks began to form on the page, marking out the locations of the remaining hostages in the room. Finally, two red ‘X’s formed on the page, marking the terrorist and Drechenfeuer. Harry looked at Smoggy’s impressive display of magic and whispered “How?”
“Master Legillimens” Smoggy whispered back.
The team gathered round the map as Perry studied it for a way for them to come out on top. The Team’s collective stomachs dropped as the large cross representing Drechenfeuer moved behind a small circle of a hostage and the two overlapped.
“Shit!...human shield” Smudge muttered.
A faint voice with a thick German accent came from behind the door “You! Soldiers behind zee door. Come in viz your hands up or I will kill zee Ambassador”
The Hit Wizards looked at each other in fear, then at Perry. Their leader slid his eye protection up and pinched his nose in frustration, before his eyes flashed open. Perry reached inside his robes and pulled something small from his pocket.
“Hold on lads, I’ve got an idea!”