Chapter 54
The Oregon’s tilt-rotor approached Fierro’s mountain estate with Gomez on the stick and Cabrillo in the copilot’s seat. Both men wore white phosphor goggles to eliminate visible light in the cockpit and avoid being seen from the ground or in the air, no matter how marginal the possibility.
Murphy and Stone wore the same, sitting at their respective stations behind the cockpit and eager to begin their phase of the operation.
Eddie Seng, MacD, and Linda Ross were farther back, each kitted out for the ground mission. Ross wasn’t an official Gundog, but she was a trusted backup when the team needed an extra pair of boots on the ground.
“Thirty seconds,” Juan whispered in the onboard comms.
The Oregon had raced to the west coast of Panama to get as near to Colombia as they could.
Passing through the Panama Canal to get close to Fierro’s place was out of the question.
Under the best of circumstances it would have taken at least eight hours to traverse the canal in one direction and only if they had made prior arrangements.
Stone had made quick work figuring out where Fierro was based.
He accessed old DEA files on Fierro’s father, Colombian property records, purchase orders, and even delivery schedules from high-end gourmet food and beverage vendors.
They all pointed to Amador Fierro’s current location.
Further scouring local open-source intelligence confirmed the head of La Liga was ensconced on the compound at this very moment, but there was no telling how long he would stay on the property. They needed to get there, fast.
The AW tilt-rotor had a thousand-mile range with external fuel tanks.
That was the calculated distance for the round trip from the Oregon’s deck to Fierro’s villa in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
Cabrillo checked the fuel gauges. They’d be touching back down on the Oregon’s decks on fumes instead of fuel, but that would be Gomez’s problem, not his.
Assuming they all survived this half of the mission.
Juan and his team put together an assault plan based on Fierro’s location.
The lightly guarded, remote mountain estate was set in the middle of a working coffee plantation.
That meant in addition to the armed guards there were also innocent civilian farmers in the area who didn’t deserve to get caught in the cross fire.
If their mission went as planned, there shouldn’t be any civilian casualties.
But what mission ever went according to plan?
Fierro’s defenses were light because his place was surrounded by a deep moat of abject fear and high walls of bribe money. Local police, national army units, and even the Colombian government itself would provide sufficient defense should either of those fail. So far, they had proven to be enough.
Tonight’s objective was the big man himself.
Cabrillo didn’t believe in the ladder of escalation or tit-for-tat exchanges.
Juan’s formula for tactical victory was simple: surprise, speed, and violence of action.
And the best way to win a war was to cut off the head of the snake—and in this case, drag it back to the Oregon.
Tonight’s mission was designed with both in mind.
Whatever happened to Fierro after tonight was still up in the air, but no matter the outcome, La Liga would get the message: nobody in their organization was safe from capture.
Cabrillo admitted to his team he was coloring way outside the lines.
But since no government would or could deal with La Liga, it was up to the Oregon to do something about it.
Otherwise, Olmedo’s ticket would eventually get punched.
Cabrillo didn’t bother asking for permission from Overholt.
If the old man told him he couldn’t do it, he’d do it anyway.
And if the old man approved the mission and it failed, Overholt would get the blame for it and no doubt be punished for Cabrillo’s mistakes.
“We’re in position,” Gomez said.
The tilt-rotor hovered in high-altitude darkness a mile from the target like a predatory night bird, its noise-reducing rotors thrumming the air. Downrange, Fierro’s sprawling compound was bathed in the faint glow of security floodlights.
“Stand by,” Gomez said over the intercom.
He engaged the AW’s advanced sensor suite and began sweeping the compound with a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera, synthetic aperture radar, and low-light optics.
The resulting images flashed on the cockpit’s panoramic heads-up display, the station monitors, and the wristband displays each of the operators carried.
The team saw the scattered heat signatures of human bodies, the bright white-phosphor outlines of the main house, outbuildings, parked vehicles, and even the bright flare of lit cigarettes.
“I count two tangos north of the main house, four in the tree line to the east, three outside the guard shack, and four inside,” Gomez said.
“They’ve got beaucoup security cameras, which means motion sensors, too,” Murphy added.
“So we confirm nine tangos in the open, four inside the shack. That it?” Cabrillo asked.
“Confirmed,” Eddie said.
“Those security cameras and motion detectors won’t do us any favors. Nuke ’em.”
“On it,” Eric said as his fingers touched the EMP cannon controls.
A moment later, a silent river of electromagnetic waves washed over the area.
In an instant, the compound was thrown into utter darkness as floodlights snapped off, and every other light-emitting diode, LED and incandescent bulb was snuffed out of existence.
For just a second, Fierro’s emergency backup diesel generator roared to life, but just as quickly died when hit by a surging wave pulse.
Stone swept the compound with electromagnetic pulse radiation for another thirty seconds.
Anything not wrapped in a Faraday cage or otherwise hard-shielded was dead.
The outside guards bolted from their positions as they snatched up dead radios, phones, and flashlights, trying to figure out what was going on. Unless they were complete idiots, it wouldn’t take them long to determine what had just happened. The Oregon team needed to move fast.
“I think we’re good to go, Chairman.”
“Wepps, your turn at bat.”
Murphy grinned ear to ear. “Launching recon drones.”
A hatch in the tilt-rotor’s belly released four fast-moving quadcopters optimized for silent running. Each surveillance drone deployed infrared sensors, low-light optics, and directional acoustic microphones.
Within moments, thermal and optical imagery tagged and auto-tracked each guard.
“Launching attack drones,” Murph said.
A second compartment on the AW released thirteen smaller drones, each carrying a large but nonlethal flash-bang canister.
Onboard AI-guidance processed the recon drones’ real-time data, assigning attack drones to cover all of the guards.
The thirteen kamikaze attack drones raced low just above the treetops, each pursuing their assigned targets.
The first flash-bangs erupted in the trees, their brief flashes of blistering light whiting out the infrared screens.
The microphones on the recon drones broadcast the noise of the blasts, as well as the panicked shouts and curses of the remaining guards, now alerted to the surprise attack from out of the sky.
Seconds later, the other perimeter guards were splayed on the ground, their unconscious forms gray and still on the tilt-rotor’s displays.
One of the shack guards raised his CZ Scorpion submachine gun skyward and ripped off a mag at one of the drones zipping past. The staccato light from his weapon flared on the AW monitors.
“Good luck with that,” Stone said, chuckling. “Dipwad.”
Four more flash-bang kamikazes crashed into the guard shack—one straight through the front door.
The windows shattered. Three limp bodies smashed hard into the concrete walls before tumbling to the floor.
The fourth guard staggered a few steps outside, clutching his head and screaming before he face-planted into the dirt.
“Get that man an Excedrin,” Stone said.
“All clear,” Murph said. “Perimeter secure.”
“Good work, Wepps,” Cabrillo said. He checked the digital countdown clock.
The guards had been neutralized in just eight seconds.
But all of that commotion must have alerted Fierro and whoever else was inside the main house.
Cabrillo unbuckled himself to head back into the cabin, clapping Gomez on the shoulder and telling him, “Time to get our groove on, boyo.”
“Yup.” Gomez eased the controls forward and mashed the throttle.
The tilt-rotor raced toward the compound.
Moments later the tilt-rotor slowed as it descended to the landing zone, but Juan and the three operators in back bolted out of the AW before it touched the ground.
They dashed in a crouch toward the front door of the estate.
Gomez lofted away to a safe distance nearby, activating the tilt-rotor’s remote-controlled overwatch machine gun while Murph and Eddie retrieved the recon drones.
All four operators stacked up at the front entrance.
Eddie breached the heavy door with shaped charges along the hinges, blasting it inward.
The Gundogs dashed in with their night vision goggles down and weapons up, clearing rooms as they went.
They had trained this way together for years, practicing for countless hours in the Oregon’s onboard shoot house.
More important, they had executed dozens of live-fire missions with faultless success.
Ten minutes later, the vast house was secured.
A terrified live-in housekeeper and a bearded, bare-chested chef were the only people they encountered.
Since neither offered any resistance they were handled gently, though their hands were flex-cuffed behind their backs and mouths gagged for security.
The unconscious guards outside would wake up within the hour and could free them when they came to.
“No Fierro, boss. Now what?” MacD asked.
“We’ll spread out and pick up whatever intel looks interesting—calendars, laptops, thumb drives, you name it. But time’s a-wastin’. No telling who might have called this in, so put some scoot in your boot.”
“Aye,” Eddie said. The operators split up.
“You catch that, Gomez?” Cabrillo asked.
“Your cab will be waiting at the curb in ten, hoss.”
“Perfecto.”
Ten minutes later, the team scrambled on board the tilt-rotor and Gomez lofted the bird into the starry sky, and headed for home.