by Ross Sidor
Over the next couple hours, as a result of that call, Benning’s team learned several things.
The caller’s number belonged to a phone in the name of Tom Wilson, paid for by a known cartel associate. La Orca was a medium-sized freighter belonging to a legitimate freight company. She was bound for San Diego, California. The cargo manifest Benning obtained listed coffee beans, tea, spices, sugar, and nuts.
But the cartels regularly smuggled cocaine and weapons aboard legitimate ships. Somewhere along the voyage, the drugs, placed in waterproof packaging with a GPS locator, would be dropped at a rendezvous point off the American coast for retrieval by clients aboard a small craft.
More important, however, Benning’s Geo Cell next pinpointed Nolan’s location.
Each surveillance van perused the streets while measuring the signal strength of Nolan’s cell phone. If the signal grew weaker, the van would circle around. When the signal grew stronger, they knew they had the right direction.
Once they had the location fixed, and were within proximity, a National Police surveillance unit with embedded DEA agents took over from there. They eventually observed Sean Nolan, who was accompanied by two Empresa enforcers, at a local café, meet a man later identified as a shipping agent. Thirty minutes later, Nolan left with his thugs in a red Chevrolet Tracker. They drove to a three-floor apartment building near the beach in the southern tip of Buenaventura, deep within La Empresa territory.
Nolan’s appearance had changed from the MI5 file. He now sported a shaved head, a neatly trimmed goatee, and a tan. But the FBI’s facial recognition software confirmed that the man tracked by the Geo Cell was in fact Sean Nolan. The human face has eighty distinctive nodal points, essentially the landmarks that make up the face, and the software matched sixteen between the face in the Geo Cell’s surveillance picture and the original MI5 file photo. Generally, a dozen matching nodal points is regarded as sufficient for positive identification by law enforcement agencies.
Overnight, a DEA squad with CIA security contractors took over surveillance of the apartment building. While Benning’s people continued to monitor local cell phone traffic, Daniel and Slayton discussed options to arrest Sean Nolan. They decided that FAST should do it rather than rely on Colombian police. Daniel warned that corruption was rampant in Buenaventura, and they’d risk Nolan being tipped off.
Avery advised Tom Layton’s agents on the takedown plan. They looked over the FalconView satellite imagery of the target building and the surrounding neighborhood, and planned the FAST team’s route into the city, their takedown of the target building, and their exfil route, in addition to discussing possible contingencies that may arise that needed to be taken into account. Thanks to 4-72, the private company responsible for mail delivery in Colombia, and a call to the apartment building’s property management, they knew the apartment Nolan stayed in. There was only one unit in the building leased under an Anglo-Saxon name, and he paid cash each month.
It was unusual for Avery to play a support and advisory role relegating him to the sidelines, but after Medellin, he was happy to sit this one out. His mind remained a thousand miles away. During the planning with the FAST agents, Slayton and Layton caught Avery zoning out more than once, and recognized the hollow, vacant stare in his eyes, but neither man asked questions.
Avery knew he was in no shape to run an op right now. The last time he felt anything like this was in the army during his first deployment to Afghanistan, after he’d seen two guys on his chalk cut to pieces in front of him by an RPG.
Avery tried to push those thoughts from his head. He had no problem with punishing himself for choices he made, and there were many that still stuck with him, but he needed to keep his mind focused and grounded for the sake of the agents who were getting ready to put their lives on the line.
The planned timeframe from leaving Gerardo Tobar López Airport to returning with Nolan in custody was approximately forty-five minutes. Daniel would arrange at the last minute for a National Police escort, since Culler’s security contractors were currently tied up with DEA doing surveillance of the apartment building.
Simultaneously, the Colombian coast guard, accompanied by the second half of Layton’s FAST unit, would hit La Orca. Rangel hoped to find the Viper’s missiles onboard the freighter, if not the Viper herself.
The Bogotá chief of station, eager to give a favorable, self-congratulatory report to the ambassador and D/CIA, expressed optimism that this entire affair could be brought to a close within the next twenty-four hours.
FIFTEEN
Tom Layton’s FAST team rolled out of Gerardo Tobar López Airport onto the Simón Bolívar Highway at 07:15 the next morning, crossing the bridge over the bay onto Cascara, an island that is barely three by five miles in size, just off the Colombian mainland.
The team rode in two armor-plated Chevy Suburbans, four agents per vehicle, doing sixty on the highway under a gray, overcast sky. They were accompanied by two marked Colombian police cars, one in front leading the way, one bringing up the rear, lights flashing, sirens silenced.
Federal law prohibited the Drug Enforcement Administration from making arrests in foreign countries, so officers of the Colombian National Police would accompany the FAST team into the building and put the cuffs on Nolan.
The FAST shooters were armed with Heckler & Koch MP7 compact submachine guns with laser aiming modules. For sidearms, they carried a mix of 9mm or .40 caliber Glocks and Smith & Wesson M&P (Military and Police) 9mm or .45 caliber pistols, depending upon personal preferences. The agents wore t-shirts or black DEA windbreakers with white lettering, jeans or khakis, and armored vests. Some wore DEA caps, or sunglasses, and their faces were taciturn and all-business.
Tom Layton personally led the mission. Thirty-six years old with a closely buzzed receding hairline and square jaw, he’d been with DEA for the past eight years after leaving the Marine Corps. He had experience on the streets of Bogotá and Mexico City, as well as in the ghettos of Chicago and Los Angeles, busting cartel agents, gangbangers, and drug smugglers. He’d also been in more than one firefight, remained calm under pressure, and was known for his reliable, independent decision making.
In the makeshift ops room at Gerardo Tobar López Airport, Avery and the others monitored the progress of the unfolding interdiction, as DEA missions were called, listening to the radio updates along the way. The mood was tense, but subdued. Despite the potential stakes, this was still a routine job for the FAST team, and Layton’s shooters were as professional as they came, but no one would be able to completely relax until the Suburbans safely returned with Sean Nolan in custody.
From the airport, the Geo Cell continued to monitor Sean Nolan’s cell phone, ensuring that he remained stationary until the takedown team arrived on target. Other than a phone call placed overnight to order a prostitute, who the CIA surveillance confirmed arrived at the apartment an hour later and left two hours after that, there’d been no activity. Nolan’s thugs were at the apartment, so Layton knew there were at least three people present.
Although the docks were busy, there was little activity this early in Buenaventura’s inner-city neighborhoods. The streets and sidewalks were mostly empty and quiet, and the gang members and paramilitaries were not yet out in force. This bought Layton’s team additional time, but it also made the small convoy stand out all the more on the quiet streets.
As the four vehicles turned off the highway and drove south on Carrera 20 Street, a spotter for La Empresa watched from a second floor window of a two-flat dwelling that served as a drug storage facility. He observed the direction in which the vehicles travelled, recognized the US diplomatic plates on the Suburbans, and produced his cell phone to make a call. He was able to think of only one target in that area that would warrant a convoy of vehicles this size.
At 07:43, the Suburbans rolled to a stop on the narrow front street outside of the apartment building. The Colombian police cruisers parked perpendicular with the street, seventy fe
et apart, to block traffic coming from either direction.
The FAST agents dismounted from the Suburbans and fanned out, four men stacking up outside the building’s front door to make entry, while the other two took up positions outside the apartment to cover the streets. Two Colombian police officers fell into line behind the entry team, pistols drawn.
The first agent in the line dropped to one knee near the front door and overcame the lock’s simple pin tumbler cylinder with an EZ Snap lock-pick gun.
The door swung open.
Weapons ready, the entry team poured past the threshold into the stuffy, musty smelling foyer. They crossed the soiled, worn out carpet, followed the creaky wooden stairs to the second floor, and stopped halfway down the dark hallway where they stacked up along the right wall. They moved cautiously and silently.
The first agent in line un-slung a short barreled shotgun and shouldered the stock. Aiming down at a forty-five degree angle, he held the barrel five inches away from the narrow space between the doorjamb and the doorknob and lock. After Layton gave the “go” signal by nodding three times, the agent fired the shotgun.
The specially designed TESAR door-breaching copper slug decimated the locks and subsequently dispersed into a harmless powder on the opposite side of the door. To ensure the lock was defeated, the agent immediately cocked the shotgun and gave the door a second blast. Then he kicked the door in, lifted the shotgun up, and sidestepped clear of the doorjamb, making space for Layton, who charged through the smoky doorway, MP7 held in the ready position, with his teammates close behind him.
As he entered the sparsely furnished apartment with warped wooden floors, Layton turned immediately left. Staying along the perimeter of the wall, his feet and his eyes never stopped moving as he scanned for threats.
The first one appeared when a shirtless, well-muscled African man with a shaved head stepped out of a bedroom with a pistol in his hands. Ignoring the DEA agent’s command to drop the weapon, his one and only warning, Layton broke the trigger on his MP7 without a second’s hesitation, drilling the man twice with Heckler & Koch’s special 4.6mm high velocity, armor piercing rounds. The man managed two more steps before falling over flat onto his face, emptying blood over the dirty, scratched hardwood floor.
Another man, a native Colombian, came out of the bedroom directly behind the fallen black man. He managed to fire a single shot from his Glock, which punched a hole harmlessly through the drywall behind Layton, before two DEA agents simultaneously opened up with their submachine guns, riddling him with bullets.
The agents stepped over the bodies into the short hallway and split off into two elements to simultaneously clear each bedroom. The first bedroom, from which Nolan’s two goons had emerged, was now clear.
The second bedroom door was locked, and as the agents stacked up outside of it, they heard furniture scraping across the floor and footsteps on the other side.
The FAST team repeated the process of blasting the lock and kicking the door in.
But the door stopped a third of the way into the room when it struck a heavy wooden desk that had been pushed in its path.
Following his MP7 through the narrow gap and turning sharply around the obstructed door into the room, Layton spotted a barefooted Sean Nolan in the process of squeezing through an open window.
Nolan heard and ignored Layton’s command to stop, which only encouraged him to move faster as he slipped a leg out the window.
Two more DEA agents, with the Colombian cops, pushed their way through the door, moving the obstructing desk out of the way.
Layton and the Colombians, covered by DEA agents, closed the gap across the floor. They latched onto Nolan, hauled him roughly back inside through the window, body slammed him against the floor, disarmed him of the pistol snugged in the waistband of his pants, and flipped him over. The Colombians put the cuffs around his wrists. The whole time Nolan thrashed, kicked, and spat, until one Colombian gave him a face full of mace and punched him hard and low in the kidney.
Escorted by the FAST shooters, the Colombian cops hauled Nolan onto his feet and dragged him out of the apartment unit, down the stairs, and out the front door as he kicked and threw his weight around.
One DEA agent opened the rear passenger door on one of the Suburbans to accommodate Nolan as the Colombian police officers steered him toward the vehicle. The agent jumped at the distinctive whoosh of an incoming projectile. His mind didn’t even have time to register Layton’s cry of “RPG!”
The 72mm rocket propelled grenade travelled at 115 meters per second and connected broadside with the Suburban. Unlike Hollywood’s dramatic depiction, the Suburban remained completely stationary upon impact without flipping over in the air. The RPG’s impact fuse detonated, and a large orange explosion blossomed around the Suburban, surrounded by a plume of thick, black smoke. Designed to bust NATO tanks, the RPG easily decimated the Suburban. The windows were blown out. The light armor panels designed to repel small arms were easily overcome. Errant shrapnel and debris flew through the air. The nearest DEA agent and one of the Colombian cops were likewise eviscerated; their bloody remains tossed through the air and over the pavement. The surviving Colombian police officer grabbed onto Nolan, pushed him onto the ground, and covered him.
The shockwave blew over a couple more DEA agents, including Layton. Two more agents took multiple shrapnel hits, one critically, but the other’s vest caught the lethal hits and saved his life. The agents able to do so were quickly on their feet with weapons up.
Layton shouldered his MP7. He was stooped over in a half crouch with his head low. He swept his sights along the upper windows and rooftops of the buildings across the street. He spotted movement; two figures in the process of reloading the RPG launcher. One man held the launcher over his shoulder, while the other screwed the projectile in. A third man came into view on the rooftop, aiming an assault rifle into the street below and firing shots on semi-automatic.
A DEA agent behind Layton grunted as his vest caught multiple 7.62mms. Then the rooftop shooter raised his aim and sent the next series of rounds through the soft space between the bottom of the American’s throat and the top of his chest. He fell over, gurgling blood and clutching his neck.
Layton raised his aim, though he knew he was pushing the MP7’s short range of 656 feet. The weapon was lethal in close quarters, but it simply wasn’t suited for this type of combat. He sighted his target and was about to press the trigger when a voice to his left called out and was cut off by incoming automatic fire pelting the remaining Suburban.
The gunfire chopped down another agent while he was in the process of making a move for the driver’s door. Then another RPG whooshed in from above and plowed through the Suburban’s engine block, rocking the heavy vehicle against its suspension and turning the Suburban into a smoking, pulverized wreck. Heavy clouds of black smoke billowed into the air, obstructing everyone’s line of sight to the rooftop attackers.
Layton spun around at the sound of voices and movement in his left peripheral.
From forty feet away, five men, a mix of Latinos and Africans, armed with AKs and M16s appeared in the street from a nearby alleyway. The Colombian police car was parked some twenty feet behind them. The two officers inside were slumped over, riddled with bullets, the car’s windows blown out.
“Fall back!” Layton commanded his agents. His mind suddenly recalled a dozen flashbacks of the hellish urban combat of Fallujah, taking fire, dead and wounded marines in the streets, and his instincts kicked in. He became driven by the single-minded determination not to see another of his agents die. “Everybody back inside now!”
Two surviving FAST shooters retreated back into the apartment building, grabbing onto Nolan and dragging him along. The surviving Colombian cop, who covered them, took multiple hits from at least two directions and fell over.
Two more DEA agents laid down covering fire at the attackers in the street and on the rooftop, while Layton stopped to stoop over and grab o
nto a wounded agent lying on the street by the back of his vest. Bent over and leaning forward to keep a low target profile, Layton pushed his legs, taking wide steps backwards toward the door, and dragged the wounded man’s weight with him across the sidewalk.
Bullets continued to pepper the pavement and the cars around them, and the front of the apartment building. Layton flinched when he heard the crack in the air and felt the heat of a shot zipping by inches from his face. Then he watched helplessly as a barrage of rounds shredded the wounded agent’s legs. The Empresa shooter elevated his aim, stitching a line upward across the agent’s chest and face, and then moved his aim up to cover Layton.
Taking multiple hits across his vest, and one across his right arm, Layton cried out. As his arm suddenly went slack, and he reeled from the hit, he staggered back and involuntarily released his grip on his wounded teammate. He fell back, tripping over his own feet, but he managed to stay upright and regain his balance. He dodged another volley of bullets as he stumbled across the rest of the way to the front door, where a pair of hands grabbed onto him and hauled him the rest of the way inside, behind the safety of the sturdy brick wall.
Another agent, Paul Harris, was right behind Layton. The last man in, he turned around to pull the door shut and throw the latch.
“Radio HQ for help,” Layton, breathless, ordered Agent Chuck Weaver. “We need an emergency evac now! We’re fucking slaughtered if we go back out there.”
Weaver had already pulled out his encrypted Globalstar satellite phone and was patching it through to Gerardo Tobar López Airport.
Layton swept his eyes over the other agents, making an assessment of who was alive and what condition they were in.
Harris had his back planted against the wall near the shot-out front window, looking out, with his MP7 held in front of him, finger indexed over the trigger guard, barrel pointing up. There was the sound of bullets peppering the exterior wall.