by Ross Sidor
“We’ve got choppers en route, with back up,” Weaver reported, having just gotten off the phone with the ops room. He shoved the phone back into his pocket. There was a collective sense of relief among the other agents, and Weaver waited a second before delivering the bad news. “ETA is sixteen minutes.”
Sixteen minutes may just as well have been an hour. A hell of a lot could happen in that time, very little of it good. More important, Layton knew that Foster didn’t have sixteen minutes.
There were groans and murmurs of disappointment.
“We’ll just have to hold out,” Layton said.
“I don’t think they’re gonna give us that chance, Tom,” Tyson called out from down the hallway. He stood up on his feet, staying low in a half crouch, to present a smaller target, and took a couple steps back from the door. “I’m hearing voices and a lot of a noise out here. We’re going to have visitors.”
Almost immediately the sound of gunfire started up from the front street, along with commands shouted in Spanish.
Harris ducked his head low and stayed behind the brick wall as 5.56mm and 7.62mm streamed in through the window.
A second later, a barrage of shots splintered the front door. The Empresa shooters fired from about a dozen feet away, crouched behind and firing over the hoods of cars, covering the approach of five more gunmen as they advanced toward the front door of the apartment building.
“Front contact!” Harris called out.
“Weaver, cover Tyson,” Layton instructed. “We’ll take the front. These fuckers do not get through, you hear me!”
Weaver promptly obeyed, treading carefully down the hallway, with his shoulders packed and upper body leaning in, MP7 held forward in the ready position. He announced his presence to Tyson and lightly tapped the agent’s shoulder as he came up from behind. Standing side by side with a foot between them, the two men filled the width of the hallway.
In the foyer, Foster, looking white as snow, with almost lifeless eyes, and on the verge of unconsciousness, sat up, taking his leg off the chair, and leaned against the wall. He heaved his MP7 to his shoulder and put his sights on the front door. He tried to hold the weapon steady, but his hands wavered and felt numb. There was no pain—there was at this point no longer any need for his body to transmit pain, and it instead released endorphins to minimize the body’s discomfort—but he felt weak and soft. He concentrated on taking deep breaths, oxygenating his blood and brain. He still had some life left in him, and he was sure as hell going to cover his teammates’ backs while he was still here.
Six feet away, Layton moved in closer to the front entrance on the right side of the couch barricading the door. He dropped onto one knee, near the side of the couch, and plucked a stun grenade from the clip on his vest.
Harris maintained position seven feet away, left of the door and the couch, near the blown-out window. He flipped his selector switch to single-shot to conserve ammo. He peered through the window frame, then sprung up on his feet, aimed, and tapped his trigger twice, dropping one of the approaching Empresa shooters. Harris immediately dived back down below the window as the enemy opened up and directed a fusillade of bullets in his direction.
Seconds later, Layton heard the oncoming attackers smashing the butt-stocks of their rifles through the front door, wood splintering and snapping against the heavy blows.
Almost simultaneously, Tyson shouted out from his position that he also had enemy contact.
Layton pulled the pin on the stun grenade and maintained a tight grip around the safety lever. The barrage against the door continued, and finally the upper half of the flimsy door split apart above the couch and collapsed inward. But the Empresa shooters were unable to push past the couch barricading the remaining lower half of the door.
As the attacker’s torso and face filled the space of the hole, Layton drilled him three times. The body dropped, revealing two more gunmen behind him. Layton managed to take out another one, and the remaining attacker sidestepped left, out of the way of Layton’s bullets and out of sight.
Layton tossed the stun grenade outside and waited for its blast before swinging his MP7 to bear through the mangled hole in the door. He drew his sights over a target and dropped the startled Empresa attacker, striking him in the back and ass as he attempted to run away.
Before ducking out of the way of incoming fire, Layton caught a glimpse of another pair of attackers running left, after realizing that coming through the door was no longer a viable option.
Layton sprung up onto his feet and ran around the couch to Harris’ position. “They’re going to try for the window!”
On cue, a perfectly-pitched grenade was hurled through the window. It bounced off a wall, hit the floor, and rolled. Layton’s and Harris’s eyes followed the lethal egg-shaped bomb, now six feet away in the middle of the open space.
So did Foster, in whose direction the grenade rolled. Time froze, and suddenly Foster was no longer cognizant of anything else. Fueled by adrenaline and the primordial urge to save the lives of his teammates at all costs, or at least prolong their lives for another couple minutes, Foster threw his weight on top of the grenade, grabbing it and curling himself around it.
The explosion lifted his body a couple inches off the floor as he absorbed the brunt of the shrapnel. His blood suddenly materialized against the nearest wall and the low ceiling. More blood seeped out through numerous holes and lacerations across his body, and a gray smoke cloud expanded in the air over him. His eyes were open and stared vacantly at nothing.
For a second, Layton was left in a state of shock, his mind catching up with what he just saw. But he heard the supersonic crack in the air of bullets whizzing past his head, and he put his mind back in the game.
Believing they’d incapacitated the besieged DEA agents inside the apartment building’s foyer, the Empresa soldiers converged on the window. One, a West African in his early twenties with a glazed-over look to his bloodshot eyes, stuck the barrel of his AK into the foyer through the window frame and fired a wild spray on full automatic from left to right. Harris took two hits against his vest and was knocked back. Layton stepped up from the side and fired back through the window into the attacker’s unprotected chest and neck. The gangbanger dropped straight down and never moved again.
Four feet back from where the first one died, another gunman fired his AK-47 into the foyer. Layton and Harris, who regained his bearings, fired back simultaneously and eliminated the threat.
Meanwhile, the Empresa attackers had far less difficulty making entry through the building’s unobstructed rear door, blasting their way through to find Weaver and Tyson positioned in the hallway, ready and waiting.
The two DEA agents immediately opened up with their MP7s, taking out the first Empresa shooter making entry, and then Weaver rolled a stun grenade down the hallway, and both DEA agents shut their eyes tight and averted their faces to the side.
The flashbang detonated, fully living up to its name, as the next two men entered the building. After the flash cleared, the DEA agents opened his eyes, aimed through the smoky haze, and double tapped each of the disorientated intruders.
Another attacker was right behind the first three, partially concealed behind the exterior wall directly left of the doorjamb. He flinched as a shot from Weaver drilled through the wall inches from his face, throwing up a cloud of cement dust and particles in his eyes, and then he fired two three-round bursts from his M16, moving his muzzle in a wild figure-eight pattern.
Tyson grunted as multiple shots smacked against his vest, hitting him in the sternum. It was like taking fast, hard hits from a baseball bat or sledgehammer, because the vest disperses the force of the tiny bullet into a larger surface area. The blunt impacts knocked the wind out of the DEA agent, cracked his ribs, and bruised his lungs. He stumbled back a couple steps and gasped, trying to suck air into his lungs, but his breaths were cut painfully short.
With Tyson disabled and left defenseless, the Empresa shoot
er fired another two bursts. The agent took a round of 5.56mm NATO through his right hip, cracking the coxal bone, and another round bore through his femur. As his body reeled, Tyson’s mind made the unpleasant realization that he was finished.
Weaver had reacted quicker, sidestepping left, turning, and flattening his back to the wall. He felt the bullets whip past him, just inches away, and saw Tyson’s body jerk, give out, and collapse.
Weaver fired back at the attacker, forcing him back out of the doorway and further behind the wall. With his MP7 nestled into his shoulder, Weaver stepped over the writhing Tyson and advanced four steps down the narrow hallway. When the Empresa shooter next swung back around the outside of the doorjamb, lower this time, having dropped onto one knee, Weaver was ready. He dropped the MP7’s barrel five degrees and tapped the trigger twice in rapid succession. The Empresa soldier’s head flung back, blood misting in the air, and he fell over.
Fueled by adrenaline and rage, Weaver held his position, his sights trained over the center of the open space within the doorframe.
From where he lay on the floor, Tyson lifted his head and shoulders from the floor, submachine gun held in front of him, barrel aimed down the hallway. He held aim for several seconds before the pain overcame him, and his head slumped against the floor.
Two dozen more seconds of silence passed.
There wasn’t a second wave of attackers.
Up front, Layton took a head count and assessed the team’s status.
Gray corrosive smoke hung in the air, carrying the scent of burnt chemicals.
Spent brass, broken glass, and blood covered the floor.
There were large groupings of strike marks on sections of the walls.
Tyson was unresponsive with feint heartbeat and losing blood quickly.
Layton and Harris both suffered minor injuries.
Weaver was somehow the only to come out of it completely unscathed.
Even Nolan, who had stayed hunkered down in the corner, had taken a hit, a ricochet to his arm, and was bleeding, but it was a superficial wound, and none of the surviving DEA agents could be pressed to dress it now.
They counted their rounds and re-filled magazines. They’d expended a lot of precious ammo and were down almost one magazine per man, but they’d also significantly reduced La Empresa’s manpower.
Weaver retrieved weapons and ammo from the dead Empresa at the back of the building. Their ammo wasn’t compatible with the MP7’s specially designed round, but the agents now had a few assault rifles with spare magazines to use once their submachine guns ran empty.
The enemy contact barely lasted two minutes, leaving the rescue team still over ten minutes out. Layton knew his men wouldn’t survive another assault, but he outwardly encouraged his men. No matter how bleak the situation, they’d never succumb to defeatism.
___
The Blackhawks flew east, one hundred fifty miles per hour, a thousand feet off the rural landscape. The titanium blades chopped the moist, humid air in a fifty-three foot diameter. Due to the high density of the air and the low atmospheric pressure, the pilots were forced to increase the blades’ angles of attack, which in turn increased rotor drag and required greater throttle and engine power, burning more fuel faster. This was enough to noticeably hinder aircraft performance, costing precious seconds that quickly added up.
Seven minutes into the flight, the ops room reported that the Colombian army was organizing a quick reaction force with armored vehicles, but their ETA was over thirty minutes as army forces were still responding to the mortar attacks across the city.
Looking out through the open cabin door, past the gunner’s shoulder, Avery felt the blast of air whipping against him from the circling rotor disc four feet above. The air smelled pleasantly of sea salt and rain, and there was a light mist spray against his face.
He watched the grassy fields whipping by below eventually shift into the marshy swampland of the muddy coastal lagoons, which then soon receded into the clear, rippling surface of Buenaventura Bay. In the distance, he saw the bridge that crossed the bay to connect Cascara to the continental mainland, its lanes in both directions congested with traffic. Moments later, rundown, shanty slums and concrete buildings came into view, with the large port facilities visible on the far end of the island. Ships dotted the bay, plowing through the waves as they headed out to sea. Thick curtains of black diesel smoke hung in the air from the trailer-trucks travelling to or from the ports.
Over the city, the pilots reduced collective input, gradually decreasing their altitudes, taking the helicopters just a couple hundred feet above rooftop level.
___
The four Empresa shooters on the rooftop heard the rotor wash when the inbound Blackhawks were just over a mile out. Helicopters were an irregular sound over Buenaventura, and the Empresa men diverted their attention from the street below and searched the sky, soon finding the black shapes fluttering across the sky like flies.
The Empresa squad leader shouted instructions to his men, and then radioed the commander on the street outside the besieged apartment building.
An Empresa lifted an RPG, and set it on his shoulder, angling it into the sky. He tracked one of the approaching helicopters through the launcher’s rail-mounted sight. The other Empresa scattered across the surface of the roof to take up firing positions. One was armed with an M60 machine gun with ball ammunition, enough firepower to damage a small, low-flying aircraft.
The RPG gunner held the launcher steady, intent on keeping the sight’s red dot aligned with his target. He squeezed the trigger, felt the launcher kick, and the searing heat of the back blast. His eyes followed the rocket as it cut a path through the sky, leaving behind a long, gray smoke contrail in its wake. He saw the helicopter begin to turn out of the projectile’s path, and knew he’d fired too soon, just twenty-five hundred feet from the helicopter. The pilot saw the launch and was already evading. The unguided rocket continued through the air, below and past its intended target until its motor burned out past three thousand feet and the warhead exploded in the sky.
In the Blackhawk’s cockpit, Warner yanked her cyclic hard and banked sharply out of the way of the resultant spray of shrapnel, tossing her passengers against their safety restraints, but saving the aircraft.
As the Empresa man re-loaded the launcher, the Blackhawk whipped fast around in an arc, and the door gunner opened up on the mini-gun, directing a stream of 5.56mm slugs into the RPG gunner, ripping him apart. The launcher fell against the rooftop, the hand of a severed arm still holding onto it.
The other Empresa soldiers fired bursts from their AKs and the M60 at the helicopter as it swept past. When the second Blackhawk passed, its gunner took apart another Empresa shooter, reducing him to bits of red, pulpy gore splashed across the rooftop.
Stray rounds from the helicopters’ mini-guns punched effortlessly through the roof, riddling the top-floor apartments, which had been safely vacated by the frightened residents once the Empresa arrived and the first shots were fired.
The remaining two Empresa on the rooftop fired their rifles ineffectively at the helicopters.
Atop a neighboring building, a second, two-man RPG team emerged from the rooftop access hatch. They’d been on the street below conferring with the assault leader when they’d first heard the helicopters over the city.
One shooter took up position to provide cover fire with his M60 for the RPG gunner, who tracked the nearest Blackhawk eighteen hundred feet away. Aiming the RPG in the general direction of his target, he squeezed the trigger, unconcerned with precision, because he had shortened the time-fuses on his warheads from the default 3.5 seconds to 2.75 seconds. A tactic used effectively in Iraq against American helicopters, this resulted in the warhead detonating early in an airburst before it had a chance to hit its target.
The orange and yellow explosion blossomed in the sky some sixty feet from the Blackhawk.
Metal shards ripped across the side of the cabin and a portion
of the underbelly. Shrapnel just narrowly missed an auxiliary fuel tank, but this did not spare the helicopter. One jagged, golf ball-sized fragment went through the tail rotor, spewing sparks and throwing the Blackhawk out of control.
The helicopter jerked and sputtered in the air. Safety restraints prevented crewmen and the two Colombian Special Forces passengers from being thrown out the open cabin.
The pilot fought to stabilize their flight and keep the Blackhawk in the air, while maneuvering away from the incoming bullets now pelting the fuselage, punching the cabin floor and walls full of holes.
One flight engineer took a round of 7.62mm through his hand, blasting the appendage apart. One of the Colombian soldiers, clutching the shrapnel wound that penetrated his vest, took two bullets through his thigh and another to the side of his head. He slumped forward, dead.
Leaving a trail of black smoke in its wake and suffering severe avionics damage, the pilot radioed to Major Warner his intention to break off from the engagement and directed his bird away from the battle. He was able to regain control and hold the chopper somewhat steady, and was reasonably confident in his ability to get her back to base intact.
___
“Find us a safe place to let us off and then get out of here,” Avery instructed Major Warner over the cabin’s intercom.
Below, he saw the wreckage of the FAST team’s Suburbans still smoking, bodies scattered around them, and puddles of blood in the street. He saw the ragtag Empresa shooters scattered along the street, behind cars and between buildings, firing their weapons at the helicopters.
Avery glanced back to see the crippled Blackhawk limp away through the sky. Its flight sputtered and wavered, and it looked like the helicopter would go down any second. That chopper carried two of Aguilar’s men, reducing the rescue force almost by half, leaving Avery with just Aguilar and Diego.
When he looked to them, Aguilar nodded, indicating they weren’t backing out.