Eyes of the Hammer (The Green Berets) (24 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SATURDAY, 31 AUGUST

VICINITY OF MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA

12:15 A.M.

Alexander looked up in surprise. Four hundred meters downslope from his location, the dark night sky was split as arc lights clicked on at the lab site. He glanced over at Vaughn, who returned his puzzled look. They watched for a few minutes as activity burgeoned in the camp, then Alexander edged away from the recon site and slid into some bushes where the radio was set up. Colden was there watching over Paulson. The sliding ride down the mountainside from the drop zone to the recon site had entailed a few spills for the unfortunate weapons man, and Colden was monitoring Paulson to make sure shock didn't set in.

Vaughn slid in behind Alexander, having left Atwaters and Haley continuing the surveillance. The captain looked uncertain. "What do you think is going on down there?"

Alexander looked at the young team leader in the darkness. "I think they're either moving or getting a shipment ready to go."

"What do you think we should do?"

Alexander picked up the handset for the SATCOM. "Let's see if we can get the Hammer down here a little earlier. Not much else we can do by ourselves."

1:30 A.M.

Suarez swore to himself as the jeep lurched along the unpaved mountain road. The lights from the truck following him wavered crazily in the cool night air as the truck negotiated the trail. Suarez was tired and hungover, but he was also very angry. Angry that he had received word so late.

Only an hour ago one of his informers had reported receiving the warning phone call. The caller claimed that Ramirez's people were going to raid Suarez's main lab in the mountains outside Medellin the next morning.

Unable to confirm the report with his own sources, Suarez had reacted. He couldn't afford not to. He had quickly gathered together all the guards he could find and, after radioing the camp to warn it, had led them out on the narrow trail through the mountains to where the lab was located. Suarez had a well-earned reputation as a man who led his men by example, always putting himself in the middle of any activity.

Suarez blinked as a figure stepped out of the dark in front of him onto the dirt road. He relaxed as he recognized one of the lab's guards. The man waved at him.

"Buenos dias, Senor Suarez."

Suarez ignored the greeting. "Is the camp prepared?"

"Si, senor. We have two machine guns here guarding the road. It is the only way someone can get in. We have mountains on all other sides. If someone comes we will kill them before they realize the mistake they have made."

Suarez looked around. It was a good location for an ambush. Good fields of fire on a narrow bend of the road. The camp was another three kilometers away, higher up on the mountainside. But the guard was right. The road was the only way someone could come and attack. Unless of course they used helicopters, but Suarez knew that The Shark didn't have access to enough helicopters to get a sizable force up here, unless he used the military's—in which case Suarez's informants in the air force would have given him ample warning. Besides, the military wouldn't dare. Furthermore, there was still more than enough firepower up at the lab to beat off an airmobile assault. There was only one cleared place flat enough for a helicopter to land within two kilometers of the lab, and that was the lab's own pad. A helicopter attempting to land there would be easily destroyed by ground fire.

"Good. I will leave the men in the truck here. I am going up to the main camp." Suarez signaled his driver to keep going.

In fifteen minutes, they pulled into the lab cut into the side of the mountain. Arc lights blazed as men labored to load processed cocaine into three panel vans. Cocaine worth over $800 million in street value was presently in this camp. Enough to keep Suarez's operation going for the next four months. He also had his best lab equipment and technicians at this site. If the location of this lab was no longer secret, as the anonymous phone call had clearly indicated, then it was time to move everything.

1:50 A.M.

Alexander glanced up as Atwaters squirmed into their little base camp.

"There's a jeep pulling into the camp. Looks like they're done loading all that stuff into the vans."

Alexander looked at his watch and swore. All they needed was a little more time.

1:56 A.M.

Suarez glanced at his watch. Another five minutes and they'd be ready to roll.

One of the men came out of the barracks. "Senor Suarez! A radio call for you."

Suarez swaggered across the clearing to the shack, where the radio operator handed him the mike.

"Suarez here."

"This is Jesus. We found your pilot. He just took off and should be there in five minutes."

"Good. I will meet him at the landing field."

Suarez smiled for the first time that evening. He'd been furious when they couldn't track down the pilot for the brand-new helicopter he had bought last month. With the helicopter now en route, things were changed. Suarez wouldn't have to entrust all his wealth to the vans. He'd take some of the cocaine to the landing zone next to the lab and fly it out with him. Saved time and trouble. The chances of the convoy getting ambushed and all the cocaine lost had now disappeared. In a better mood, Suarez walked out of the shack to give the new orders.

1:59 A.M.

"We've got a lot of activity here. Definitely looks like they're packing up to move out. Over."

Chief Warrant Officer Straker curled his finger over the front of his cyclic and pressed his send button. "Roger. I've got your laser designator on the screen. Wait one while I check with upstairs. Break." The last word indicated that Straker was going to talk to another station on the net. "Moonbeam, this is Viper One. Over."

"This is Moonbeam. You've got a slow-mover inbound your location out of Medellin. Looks like it might be a helicopter by the way it's flying. ETA two minutes. Over."

Damn! Straker thought rapidly. They weren't paying him enough to make these decisions. The orders had said blast everything. If that was so, then the helicopter was fair game, too. Whoever was flying at two in the morning wasn't on a mission of mercy. Probably coming in to help outload the lab below.

The entire mission time sequence had been rushed ever since the ground surveillance had initially reported the activity at the lab. They were already forty-five minutes ahead of planned schedule.

"Eyes Two, this is Viper One. We've got an unknown helicopter inbound. I'm going to let it touch down and then start the Hammer. Over."

"This is Eyes Two. We copied Moonbeam. Roger."

Straker had a headache. That wasn't unusual. He had a headache every time he flew the Apache. The advanced attack helicopter was almost too much machine for the pilot to handle. The main source of his headache was flying with his right eye and simultaneously reading the essential telemetry off the tiny display flipped down over his left eye. The need to focus each eye independently caused a spike of pain to bisect his forehead.

Straker occupied the rear seat of the two-seat helicopter. From that position, he flew the bird. Directly in front of and offset below him, the gunner, Martin, controlled the gunship's firepower: eight Hellfire missiles, a 30mm chain gun, and thirty-eight 2.5-inch rockets. Martin wore a helmet that had the sighting system for the 30mm gun built in; wherever Martin turned his head, the barrel of the gun, nestled under the nose of the helicopter, followed.

The Hellfires and rockets were mounted on pods that hung below pylons protruding from the side of the aircraft. The rockets were aimed by maneuvering the entire aircraft. The Hellfire was a fire-and-forget weapon designed to destroy tanks. Fire-and-forget meant that the missile was locked onto the target with a laser designator by the gunner. He then transferred the lock-on to the missile's own internal guidance system and fired it. The missile's computer kept it on track with the target and guided it in, even if the target was moving. This was a tremendous advantage over the old TOW system, which had required the gunner to keep the target in his sights the entire flight time of the missile.

Straker keyed his external radio. "Viper Two, Three, and Four, this is One. Move when I do. Remember to stick to your fields of fire. I'll take out the helicopter. Also remember that those friendly grunts are upslope when you open up. You should have their location on IR. Over."

"Two here. Roger. Over."

"Three here. Roger. Over."

"Four here. Why do you get all the fun? Over."

Straker smiled briefly at the gibe. He could see the inbound helicopter now through his night-vision equipment. It was also displayed on his forward-looking infrared radar, coming out of the northwest, to his left front. The Apaches were hovering in a valley five kilometers to the south of the target. Straker's was peaking just over the edge; the other three were below the crest of the ridgeline. Not that anyone from the camp could see or hear them at this distance, but it didn't pay to be careless.

He watched the collision lights of the inbound helicopter settle down into the lit landing field. They could have easily spotted this camp without the aid of the ground surveillance. But it was a good thing the surveillance had been there or else they would have hit the camp too late.

The four attack helicopters had lifted off on schedule from the Raleigh thirty kilometers off the west coast of Colombia. But when the ground surveillance had called Moonbeam—the AWACS surveillance plane circling off the coast—with the report of unusual activity, they had opened their throttles wide. Straker had pushed the Apaches in his strike force to almost maximum speed, arriving only three minutes ago. Just in time it now appeared.

Whatever and whomever the Colombians were going to load onto the helicopter were probably on board, Straker decided. Time to party. He pulled in collective and leaned the cyclic forward. The other three Apaches spread out on either side of him.

Straker talked over his intercom to his gunner in the front seat. "Like I told the other guys, Martin: You take out the chopper first, then our designated sector."

"Roger that. This is working out real well. That bird will cover up the noise of us approaching."

Straker nodded to himself and concentrated on flying. They were less than three kilometers away. He keyed the mike. "Open up on my firing. I'm waiting till one klick."

The formation spread farther apart as each gunship gave itself room to fire and maneuver. At a thousand meters from the camp, Straker flared his aircraft into a hover just over the treetops. The helicopter from the camp was just lifting off. "Now," he hissed over the intercom.

A flame exploded on the right side of the gunship as a Hellfire missile leapt forward. Martin had locked in the Apache's laser target designator, and the beam of invisible light was automatically tracking the helicopter, aiming the Hellfire. As the missile roared away, the 30mm cannon under the nose of the helicopter started spitting death into the camp.

The Hellfire impacted on the hapless helicopter, tearing halfway through the aircraft's turbine engine before exploding. The charge, designed to penetrate a tank's armor, devastated the fragile helicopter. Flaming pieces littered the trees below.

Straker rocked in his seat as the aircraft shuddered with the recoil of the automatic cannon. Pencils of light streaked from the pods on the side of the helicopter. Martin had started firing the 2.5-inch rockets.

Flanking Viper One, the other three Apaches were releasing their loads. Through his optics, Straker could see bodies littering the camp, and the buildings in ruin. An explosion sent a tongue of flame curling into the night sky. That explosion initiated a rapid sequence of smaller, secondary detonations. Straker blinked for a second as his night-vision equipment strained to adjust to the light differences.

Death reigned in the camp. Straker knew that the Special Forces team was somewhere off to the east watching this destruction. He heard the radio crackle. "Viper One, this is Eyes Two. Over."

"Viper One. Over."

"You've got everything in the camp as far as we can see. One of the vans made it to the road and is heading south. We think it's carrying some of the cocaine. We're ready to move forward and verify the kill and get picked up. Over."

"Roger that, Eyes Two. Break. Viper Three and Four, go after that van and take it out. Two, move forward with me and cover the pickup zone. Break. Moonbeam, did you copy Eyes Two? Over."

"This is Moonbeam. Roger that." The voice continued. "Stork is two minutes out coming in from the west, to your left front."

Straker edged his aircraft forward as he watched Three and Four break off his right and head for the trail out of the camp. Straker took up a position covering the camp from the northwest, while Two covered it from the northeast. He watched as an infrared strobe light started flashing in his night sight.