After Alpha cleared the living room and dining room, they left a man in position to cover this area. Bravo cleared the kitchen, a laundry room, and then the basement. They left one of their officers to cover here. The rest of Bravo rallied at the bottom of the stairs with Alpha, who then left an officer here in the hall so he could cover the bottom of the stairs and remain in visual contact with both the man in the front of the house and the man in the back of the house. In this manner they formed a rear guard, in case an attacker had been missed in the cleared area or else found some way to double back past the main stack of ERT officers.

The remaining members of the two teams moved in a tight train up the stairwell, slowly and carefully, guns high.

—

The Bravo rear guard officer stood on the threshold in the kitchen that led down the stairs to the basement area. The lights were off all over the house, but he used his NODs to see around the space down at the bottom of the stairs. The full eight-man Bravo team had checked the basement, so he wasn’t worried about anyone being down there. Instead he just turned away and kept his eyes up the hallway that led from the kitchen to the stairs, ready to train his rifle on any “squirters,” or suspects trying to flee past the ERT officers still clearing upstairs.

This, as it turned out, was a mistake.

He never heard the man in stocking feet come up the basement stairs; he only knew someone was there when the pistol’s barrel touched his left temple.

In a soft whisper he heard, “You make a sound into your mic and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

The ERT officer made no sound. As he stood there, still looking up the hallway, he saw the two officers positioned with him on the ground floor look up the hall in his direction, as they checked to make sure he was covering his territory. The three men shared eye contact, but soon enough the others turned around and moved a few feet into the living room. They were unable to see the tip of the pistol barrel sticking out of the open basement doorway and pressing against the side of their teammate’s head.

The Bravo officer was pulled by the neck into the basement, then stripped of his rifle, NODs, and communications gear. In the dark the terrified man heard the door next to him shut softly and a bolt slide into place, then he was directed by the barrel of the gun against the back of his neck to move down the steps. He followed the whispered instructions, walking all the way back in the direction of the furnace.