Ten minutes later, the speaker overhead came on. “SEALs, we’re over Bogotá and about two minutes away from the objective. Do good work out there, and we’ll be ready for a pickup on your call. The crew chief will get the hatch opened for you.”
They made last-minute checks, chambered rounds into weapons, and stood ready to charge out. There was no plan. They would have to play it as it came. First objective was to suppress any guards on the site. Then to find the hostages if they were still on the embassy grounds. Then get the hell out of there.
“We’re almost down, Commander. We’re landing in the parking lot of the embassy. The gate has been smashed down, and we see two military vehicles out front. We saw no soldiers coming in. Ready, we’re down. Opening the hatch.”
Murdock was the first man out of the chopper. He hit the pavement and ran flat-out for the first cover he could see: a military half-track parked thirty yards from the embassy front door. He took in the scene in a second. Two-story building that looked like concrete block. Windows along the front mostly broken out. A fire smudge at the front door and through one window. That would be the flamethrower.
He looked behind and saw the last man, Dobler, exit the chopper, and it lifted off. He dove behind the half-track just as he heard the first sound of gunfire. Small arms coming from the embassy. There were some bad guys at home.
“DeWitt, where are you?”
“I’ve got four of my guys at the near end of the embassy. I saw you head to the front. Want me to swing around to the back door and see who’s home?”
“Go. We have some shooters up here. Let me know if you get inside.”
“Roger that.”
Two more SEALs slid into the paving in back of the half-track. Murdock lifted his weapon over the front of the rig and put three rounds from his submachine gun into the nearest window. He thought he saw movement there.
A weapon fired out a window on the second floor halfway down the building. It was made like a southern plantation mansion with pillars in front. Two cammy-clad figures darted from the front door, heading for a civilian car forty yards down the lot. Two SEAL guns nailed the runners before they made their haven.
More firing came from the front windows. It was thirty yards from the half-track to the mansion. Murdock looked beside him.
“Ostercamp. Can you make this thing run? If you can, we can stay behind it all the way to the front door. Give it a shot.”
Ostercamp opened the half-track door and crawled inside.
“No keys, Cap,” he said on the radio.
“So jump it, like you used to do in El Cajon.”
That brought a laugh. After two minutes of sniping and return fire with the windows the main target, Murdock heard the engine crank over, then roar into life.
“Hooooyah!” Ostercamp bellowed. “Let’s roll.” He got the rig in gear, and it rolled and clanked along over the paving. The half-track took fire from the building, but Ostercamp was on the floor, steering with one hand over his head.
A minute later, the front bumped into the embassy’s side wall.
“Big window,” Murdock said. Behind him, Harry Ronson agreed. Murdock put six rounds through the six-foot-square window, smashing the glass. Then he and Ronson ran forward and jumped through the shattered window into the embassy.
It was a conference room. A long table with fancy chairs sat around it in the middle of the room. Oil paintings decorated the walls, and at the far door, two uniformed men stared in surprise at Murdock. Both went down in one burst from Murdock’s MP-5. Two more SEALs charged through the broken window, and Murdock used his radio.
“DeWitt, we’re inside, through a window. Watch out who you shoot if you come in.”
“Will do, Cap. We’ve found some stubborn ones back here. About ready to use some grenades on them. Busy. Out.”
Murdock had checked through the door. He pushed the bodies aside and peered out. It was a hallway that evidently led to the near end of the corridor with two more room doors showing.
“Clear them,” Murdock said. Ronson used his machine gun to cover the hall the other way. Lampedusa, Ostercamp, and Holt ran with Murdock to the first door. Lam had it low. Murdock reached across and turned the knob and rammed the door inward, then leaned back away from the opening.
Lam had a perfect view of the room from the floor level. Three men crouched at the window, looking into the front parking lot. All had rifles. Lam riddled all three with his Colt carbine on full auto, and they slammed against the wall and went down. One tried to sit up, and Lam hit him with three more rounds.
Holt ran into the room and cleared it.
Murdock hit the radio. “Ching, Bradford, Jaybird, and Dobler. Where are you? Get in the south wing at the broken six-foot window. We’re clearing rooms. Move now. Sound off when you’re inside.”
Holt edged down the hall to the next door. He took the floor position, and Lam pushed open the door. The room was empty. Behind them, Ronson sent a five-round burst down the hall as two Colombian soldiers appeared twenty yards down the way. They darted back out of sight.
Murdock and his charges went down the hall the other way. Ronson stayed ahead of them, covering the hall.
Murdock rammed open the next door and leaped back as six rounds jolted through the opening. Lam was at the floor level and sprayed a dozen rounds into the room, chewing up four men who had been at the windows. They went down, and two tried to roll over to fire back. Murdock slammed them into hell with three-round bursts.
Someone made a noise at the other side of the room. Murdock looked over and saw a small man in uniform holding both hands over his head.
“¡Me rindo! ¡No dispare!”
Holt swung around, surprised at the man, and fired six times with his submachine gun. The small man’s eyes went wide, then he crumpled against the wall and slid down it, dead by the time he hit the floor.
“What the hell did he say?” Lam asked.
“Probably that he wanted to surrender,” Murdock said. “Any more of them?”
“Room clear,” Lam said after a quick look. This had been an office, with big leather chairs, a huge desk, and fancy lighting.
“Dobler, Ching, Jaybird, and Bradford inside,” Murdock’s radio said.
“Down the hall,” Murdock radioed. “You’ll see Ronson in the hall.”
In back of the embassy, DeWitt knew he had a fight on his hands. He’d spotted six soldiers just getting out of a truck when he and his squad rounded the corner. They fired on the Colombians at once and took cover wherever they could find it.
That was the trouble; there wasn’t much: one car in the lot, a low stone wall, and two stacks of wooden boxes.
Jefferson had pitched three grenades so far, and two of them had been short. The six soldiers couldn’t get in the back door since Mahanani had it covered with his Colt Commander carbine.
“Franklin, try a forty-mike. Use it almost point-blank, bouncing it off the wall behind them.”
Franklin waved and loaded a grenade and aimed. The round exploded at what seemed the same second he fired it. The deadly grenade splattered shrapnel over three of the defenders. Two of them went down dead before they could run. The other four took off around some boxes and two parked cars and ran flat-out for the far corner of the building.
Ed’s men had no targets.
“Move up,” Ed said in the radio. “Let’s see what they were so keen on defending.”
It was a truck behind another truck. The second one was loaded with furniture, TV sets, computers, everything of value they must have found inside the embassy.
They kept to cover and stared at the back door. They had seen no one firing from the rear windows. The place was bigger than it looked at first. There was a wide one-floor section back here before it went two stories.