Viper: A Thriller (23 page)

Meanwhile, the
Empresa attackers had far less difficulty making entry through the building’s
unobstructed rear door, blasting their way through to find Weaver and Tyson
positioned in the hallway, ready and waiting.

The two DEA
agents immediately opened up with their MP7s, taking out the first Empresa
shooter making entry, and then Weaver rolled a stun grenade down the hallway,
and both DEA agents shut their eyes tight and averted their faces to the side.

The flashbang
detonated, fully living up to its name, as the next two men entered the
building. After the flash cleared, the DEA agents opened his eyes, aimed
through the smoky haze, and double tapped each of the disorientated intruders.

Another attacker
was right behind the first three, partially concealed behind the exterior wall
directly left of the doorjamb. He flinched as a shot from Weaver drilled
through the wall inches from his face, throwing up a cloud of cement dust and
particles in his eyes, and then he fired two three-round bursts from his M16,
moving his muzzle in a wild figure-eight pattern.

Tyson grunted as
multiple shots smacked against his vest, hitting him in the sternum. It was
like taking fast, hard hits from a baseball bat or sledgehammer, because the
vest disperses the force of the tiny bullet into a larger surface area. The
blunt impacts knocked the wind out of the DEA agent, cracked his ribs, and
bruised his lungs. He stumbled back a couple steps and gasped, trying to suck air
into his lungs, but his breaths were cut painfully short.

With Tyson
disabled and left defenseless, the Empresa shooter fired another two bursts.
The agent took a round of 5.56mm NATO through his right hip, cracking the coxal
bone, and another round bore through his femur. As his body reeled, Tyson’s
mind made the unpleasant realization that he was finished.

Weaver had reacted
quicker, sidestepping left, turning, and flattening his back to the wall. He
felt the bullets whip past him, just inches away, and saw Tyson’s body jerk, give
out, and collapse.

Weaver fired
back at the attacker, forcing him back out of the doorway and further behind
the wall. With his MP7 nestled into his shoulder, Weaver stepped over the writhing
Tyson and advanced four steps down the narrow hallway. When the Empresa shooter
next swung back around the outside of the doorjamb, lower this time, having
dropped onto one knee, Weaver was ready. He dropped the MP7’s barrel five
degrees and tapped the trigger twice in rapid succession. The Empresa soldier’s
head flung back, blood misting in the air, and he fell over.

Fueled by
adrenaline and rage, Weaver held his position, his sights trained over the
center of the open space within the doorframe.

From where he
lay on the floor, Tyson lifted his head and shoulders from the floor, submachine
gun held in front of him, barrel aimed down the hallway. He held aim for
several seconds before the pain overcame him, and his head slumped against the
floor.

Two dozen more
seconds of silence passed.

There wasn’t a
second wave of attackers.

Up front, Layton
took a head count and assessed the team’s status.

Gray corrosive
smoke hung in the air, carrying the scent of burnt chemicals.

Spent brass, broken
glass, and blood covered the floor.

There were large
groupings of strike marks on sections of the walls.

Tyson was
unresponsive with feint heartbeat and losing blood quickly.

Layton and
Harris both suffered minor injuries.

Weaver was
somehow the only to come out of it completely unscathed. 

Even Nolan, who
had stayed hunkered down in the corner, had taken a hit, a ricochet to his arm,
and was bleeding, but it was a superficial wound, and none of the surviving DEA
agents could be pressed to dress it now.

They counted
their rounds and re-filled magazines. They’d expended a lot of precious ammo
and were down almost one magazine per man, but they’d also significantly
reduced La Empresa’s manpower.

Weaver retrieved
weapons and ammo from the dead Empresa at the back of the building. Their ammo
wasn’t compatible with the MP7’s specially designed round, but the agents now
had a few assault rifles with spare magazines to use once their submachine guns
ran empty.

 The enemy
contact barely lasted two minutes, leaving the rescue team still over ten
minutes out. Layton knew his men wouldn’t survive another assault, but he outwardly
encouraged his men. No matter how bleak the situation, they’d never succumb to
defeatism.

___

The Blackhawks flew east, one hundred
fifty miles per hour, a thousand feet off the rural landscape. The titanium
blades chopped the moist, humid air in a fifty-three foot diameter. Due to the
high density of the air and the low atmospheric pressure, the pilots were
forced to increase the blades’ angles of attack, which in turn increased rotor
drag and required greater throttle and engine power, burning more fuel faster. This
was enough to noticeably hinder aircraft performance, costing precious seconds
that quickly added up.

Seven minutes
into the flight, the ops room reported that the Colombian army was organizing a
quick reaction force with armored vehicles, but their ETA was over thirty
minutes as army forces were still responding to the mortar attacks across the
city.

Looking out
through the open cabin door, past the gunner’s shoulder, Avery felt the blast
of air whipping against him from the circling rotor disc four feet above. The
air smelled pleasantly of sea salt and rain, and there was a light mist spray
against his face.

He watched the
grassy fields whipping by below eventually shift into the marshy swampland of
the muddy coastal lagoons, which then soon receded into the clear, rippling
surface of Buenaventura Bay. In the distance, he saw the bridge that crossed
the bay to connect Cascara to the continental mainland, its lanes in both directions
congested with traffic. Moments later, rundown, shanty slums and concrete
buildings came into view, with the large port facilities visible on the far end
of the island. Ships dotted the bay, plowing through the waves as they headed
out to sea. Thick curtains of black diesel smoke hung in the air from the
trailer-trucks travelling to or from the ports.

Over the city,
the pilots reduced collective input, gradually decreasing their altitudes,
taking the helicopters just a couple hundred feet above rooftop level.

___

The four Empresa shooters on the rooftop
heard the rotor wash when the inbound Blackhawks were just over a mile out.
Helicopters were an irregular sound over Buenaventura, and the Empresa men diverted
their attention from the street below and searched the sky, soon finding the
black shapes fluttering across the sky like flies.

The Empresa
squad leader shouted instructions to his men, and then radioed the commander on
the street outside the besieged apartment building.

An Empresa
lifted an RPG, and set it on his shoulder, angling it into the sky. He tracked
one of the approaching helicopters through the launcher’s rail-mounted sight. The
other Empresa scattered across the surface of the roof to take up firing
positions. One was armed with an M60 machine gun with ball ammunition, enough firepower
to damage a small, low-flying aircraft.

The RPG gunner
held the launcher steady, intent on keeping the sight’s red dot aligned with
his target. He squeezed the trigger, felt the launcher kick, and the searing
heat of the back blast. His eyes followed the rocket as it cut a path through
the sky, leaving behind a long, gray smoke contrail in its wake. He saw the
helicopter begin to turn out of the projectile’s path,
and knew he’d
fired too soon, just twenty-five hundred feet from the helicopter. The pilot
saw the launch and was already evading. The unguided rocket continued through
the air, below and past its intended target until its motor burned out past
three thousand feet and the warhead exploded in the sky.

In the Blackhawk’s
cockpit, Warner yanked her cyclic hard and banked sharply out of the way of the
resultant spray of shrapnel, tossing her passengers against their safety restraints,
but saving the aircraft.

As the Empresa
man re-loaded the launcher, the Blackhawk whipped fast around in an arc, and
the door gunner opened up on the mini-gun, directing a stream of 5.56mm slugs
into the RPG gunner, ripping him apart. The launcher fell against the rooftop,
the hand of a severed arm still holding onto it.

The other
Empresa soldiers fired bursts from their AKs and the M60 at the helicopter as
it swept past. When the second Blackhawk passed, its gunner took apart another
Empresa shooter, reducing him to bits of red, pulpy gore splashed across the
rooftop.

Stray rounds
from the helicopters’ mini-guns punched effortlessly through the roof, riddling
the top-floor apartments, which had been safely vacated by the frightened residents
once the Empresa arrived and the first shots were fired.

The remaining
two Empresa on the rooftop fired their rifles ineffectively at the helicopters.

Atop a
neighboring building, a second, two-man RPG team emerged from the rooftop
access hatch. They’d been on the street below conferring with the assault
leader when they’d first heard the helicopters over the city.

One shooter took
up position to provide cover fire with his M60 for the RPG gunner, who tracked
the nearest Blackhawk eighteen hundred feet away. Aiming the RPG in the general
direction of his target, he squeezed the trigger, unconcerned with precision,
because he had shortened the time-fuses on his warheads from the default 3.5
seconds to 2.75 seconds. A tactic used effectively in Iraq against American
helicopters, this resulted in the warhead detonating early in an airburst
before it had a chance to hit its target.

The orange and
yellow explosion blossomed in the sky some sixty feet from the Blackhawk.

Metal shards
ripped across the side of the cabin and a portion of the underbelly. Shrapnel
just narrowly missed an auxiliary fuel tank, but this did not spare the
helicopter. One jagged, golf ball-sized fragment went through the tail rotor,
spewing sparks and throwing the Blackhawk out of control.

The helicopter
jerked and sputtered in the air. Safety restraints prevented crewmen and the
two Colombian Special Forces passengers from being thrown out the open cabin.

The pilot fought
to stabilize their flight and keep the Blackhawk in the air, while maneuvering
away from the incoming bullets now pelting the fuselage, punching the cabin
floor and walls full of holes.

One flight
engineer took a round of 7.62mm through his hand, blasting the appendage apart.
One of the Colombian soldiers, clutching the shrapnel wound that penetrated his
vest, took two bullets through his thigh and another to the side of his head.
He slumped forward, dead. 

Leaving a trail
of black smoke in its wake and suffering severe avionics damage, the pilot
radioed to Major Warner his intention to break off from the engagement and
directed his bird away from the battle. He was able to regain control and hold
the chopper somewhat steady, and was reasonably confident in his ability to get
her back to base intact.

___

“Find us a safe place to let us off and
then get out of here,” Avery instructed Major Warner over the cabin’s intercom.

Below, he saw
the wreckage of the FAST team’s Suburbans still smoking, bodies scattered
around them, and puddles of blood in the street. He saw the ragtag Empresa
shooters scattered along the street, behind cars and between buildings, firing
their weapons at the helicopters.

Avery glanced
back to see the crippled Blackhawk limp away through the sky. Its flight
sputtered and wavered, and it looked like the helicopter would go down any
second. That chopper carried two of Aguilar’s men, reducing the rescue force
almost by half, leaving Avery with just Aguilar and Diego.

When he looked
to them, Aguilar nodded, indicating they weren’t backing out.

The idea of abandoning
them did not sit well with Warner.  She started to object, but Avery cut her
off.

“You’re our only
ride out of here once we get the FAST team. We need to keep this bird intact.”

“Roger that,”
Warner reluctantly agreed. “There’s a park barely half a klick directly north of
here.”

“I know where
it’s at.” Avery recalled the park from the maps.

“I’ll set her
down there. It’s the only suitable LZ on the whole damn island.” Warner turned
the cyclic and put the Blackhawk into a sharp turn, steering them about half a
block from the target building, over the back alley, and cut their altitude by fifty
feet. “Just get our people out of there, okay?”

“Roger that.”

Avery didn’t
rate their chances well. He wasn’t being pessimistic, just realistic, but
however grim it looked, he wasn’t going to turn away now and abandon Layton’s
agents. He’d bring them out, or he’d die with them.

At least in the
meantime, the arrival of the helicopters seemed to have taken some of the heat
off Layton’s team as the Empresa forces became fixated on the more immediate
threat circling overhead.