In the cab of the GMC, Avery and the two DEA agents ducked as bullets flew through the space of the windshield.
Nolan took a hit through his shoulder and cried out.
Layton swore out loud. As much as he personally wanted to pull the trigger on Nolan, if the Irishman died here, then his agents gave their lives for nothing. Layton covered Nolan with his own body as incoming bullets struck the truck.
Diego opened up on the NG7 and panned left to right, steadily cutting down the Empresa shooters and racking their truck full of holes, blowing out tires, perforating the panels, blowing out glass, and demolishing the engine block. The truck, what was left of it, came to a complete stop, but Diego continued firing until he expended the remaining fifty-seven rounds on the ammunition belt and the machine gun clicked empty.
It looked like a massacre, with bloody bodies strewn around the perforated, smoking wreck of the dismantled truck. Nothing moved. Smoke coiled into the air, steam poured from the destroyed engine block, and fuel poured from the ruptured tank.
Avery reversed the rest of the way out of the alley and started heading north toward the landing zone, hoping to find Warner’s Blackhawk sitting there and intact. If not, he’d drive the rest of the fucking way to López Airport, and kill anyone who tried to stop them.
It was a rocky and slow ride, with the right wheel scraping and grinding across the pavement, sparks flying out, and the passengers on the bed bouncing along, holding on tight. Avery sped through intersections, punching the horn and forcing other drivers to clear the way. He wasn’t about to stop for anyone, not even the paramilitary checkpoint he shot through without slowing, while Aguilar and Diego kept their weapons trained on the gangbangers, who, wisely, didn’t challenge them. Avery kept a tight grip on the steering wheel the whole way, concentrating on keeping the vehicle under control and going straight, and cursing like a maniac when presented with a right turn.
The landing zone lay almost straight ahead, but the streets presented constant detours and obstructions or, worse, came to abrupt dead ends. At almost 9:00AM, there were more people out now, but nobody paid a second glance to the fucked-up GMC half-ton negotiating its way through the city.
Along the way, Layton applied QuickClot sponges to Nolan’s shoulder to stem the bleeding. The 7.62mm had shattered his scapula. He was in intense pain, and his right arm was rendered immobile. Nolan bled heavily from torn blood vessels, but Layton didn’t think there was enough blood to fear that his subclavian artery may have been cut. Still, he needed medical help immediately.
“Keep your eyes open. You’re not going to die on us after all this, you piece of shit!” Layton shouted in Nolan’s face, trying to keep him awake.
When Avery glanced back, he saw tears streaming down the DEA agent’s face, and Layton shouted back at Avery, urging him to go faster.
They crossed the Simón Bolívar highway and found the Blackhawk sitting idle on its wheels in a grassy clearing roughly 300x250 feet. The helicopter’s mini-guns faced out with a helmeted head behind them.
Major Warner jumped down from the cabin as the truck tore across the grass and braked alongside the helicopter. Overcome with relief and emotion that Avery made it back with the DEA agents, Warner helped Layton and the Colombian soldiers load the wounded aboard the helicopter.
Harris and Diego carried Nolan. The Irishman was unresponsive now, and his heartbeat and pulse grew gradually fainter.
Aguilar noticed for the first time that his pants were ripped, and he had a bleeding gash across his calf. He examined the wound and determined he’d taken a ricochet at some point.
With the adrenaline and excitement wearing off and everything slowing down to real time, Avery became aware once more of his own aches and pains throughout his body, plus several new ones.
The DEA agents likewise looked like hell. They were bloody, dirty, hurt, and exhausted, pushed beyond their physical and mental limits, and they were leaving behind a lot of dead friends and teammates.
The Empresa may have pulled the triggers, but as far as Avery was concerned, those agents’ deaths were on the Viper.
With everyone strapped in, Warner slipped into the cockpit, powered up the Blackhawk, and took to the sky.
A collective cheer broke out at Gerardo Tobar López Airport when Warner radioed the ops room that she was returning to base with the surviving DEA agents and Sean Nolan. But the jubilation died quickly when she reported Nolan’s condition. The Colombians diverted the Blackhawk to the coast guard’s Buenaventura station, which had a modern military treatment facility.
Watching the streets of Buenaventura pass by below, anger and hate swelled within Avery, and the walls were back in place in his mind, keeping everything where it belonged. He was determined now more than ever, and whatever he felt after Medellin was replaced by absolute resolution. Whatever it took, he’d find the Viper and break her neck, and nothing was going to stop him.
SIXTEEN
Despite her size, seven hundred feet long above the waterline, La Orca wasn’t much to look at, and nobody who caught sight of her would waste a second glance at the Feedermax container ship’s rusted and weathered hull. She carried up to 2,500 TEU of cargo, or twenty-foot equivalent units, in reference to the standard-sized twenty foot long, eight foot wide intermodal containers used in shipping. Presently, her deck was packed nearly to capacity with stacked multi-colored containers.
DEA and the Colombian customs and port authorities originally planned to board and seize the ship while she was still moored, but then the police received the heads up from a paid informant at the docks that La Orca was underway twenty-five minutes ahead of schedule, likely alerted to the unfolding battle in Buenaventura.
The Coast Guard Command, a small but well-trained branch of the National Armada of Colombia, the official name for the Colombian navy, was notified and launched from their nearby Buenaventura station.
The container ship barely cleared the bay before two Bell UH-1H Hueys caught up with her. One helicopter hovered low over La Orca’s aft, while the pilot of the second was forced to make another pass before finding a suitable drop zone at the stern of the ship’s crowded deck. The pilots matched the ship’s ten knot speed.
Each helicopter carried a squad of ten men, each wearing dark blue t-shirts, utility pants, Kevlar helmets, and ballistic vests. They were armed with M16 rifles, door-breaching shotguns, and smoke grenades.
Two ropes dropped from either side of each Huey’s open cabin, and the coast guard troops expertly zip-lined onto the ship’s deck. The helicopters immediately broke off and kept their machine guns trained on the ship.
A marine AH-60L Arpia gunship hovered two hundred feet overhead, carrying sharpshooters providing sniper cover. There was good reason to believe that the Viper was onboard, armed with SA-24, making this raid something more than routine visit, board, search, and seizure (VBSS), so the Colombians took no chances.
The first squad swiftly and expertly swept the ship, fanning across the deck and proceeding to the crew cabins and compartments below. The second squad simultaneously scaled the superstructure, seized the bridge and ordered the captain to turn the ship around and return to port.
The helicopters stayed on the ship as the captain steered her back to the harbor, and the newly arrived Colombian coast guard cutters escorted her in. DEA agents and Colombian police and customs officers awaited the ship’s return.