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.
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.
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.
"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.