The conversation between Nolan and the cartel lieutenant was terse and innocuous, concerning shipment of unspecified cargo aboard a freighter called La Orca that was set to leave the Buenaventura docks early the next morning.
Over the next couple hours, as a result of that call, Benning’s team learned several things.
The caller’s number belonged to a phone in the name of Tom Wilson, paid for by a known cartel associate. La Orca was a medium-sized freighter belonging to a legitimate freight company. She was bound for San Diego, California. The cargo manifest Benning obtained listed coffee beans, tea, spices, sugar, and nuts.
But the cartels regularly smuggled cocaine and weapons aboard legitimate ships. Somewhere along the voyage, the drugs, placed in waterproof packaging with a GPS locator, would be dropped at a rendezvous point off the American coast for retrieval by clients aboard a small craft.
More important, however, Benning’s Geo Cell next pinpointed Nolan’s location.
Each surveillance van perused the streets while measuring the signal strength of Nolan’s cell phone. If the signal grew weaker, the van would circle around. When the signal grew stronger, they knew they had the right direction.
Once they had the location fixed, and were within proximity, a National Police surveillance unit with embedded DEA agents took over from there. They eventually observed Sean Nolan, who was accompanied by two Empresa enforcers, at a local café, meet a man later identified as a shipping agent. Thirty minutes later, Nolan left with his thugs in a red Chevrolet Tracker. They drove to a three-floor apartment building near the beach in the southern tip of Buenaventura, deep within La Empresa territory.
Nolan’s appearance had changed from the MI5 file. He now sported a shaved head, a neatly trimmed goatee, and a tan. But the FBI’s facial recognition software confirmed that the man tracked by the Geo Cell was in fact Sean Nolan. The human face has eighty distinctive nodal points, essentially the landmarks that make up the face, and the software matched sixteen between the face in the Geo Cell’s surveillance picture and the original MI5 file photo. Generally, a dozen matching nodal points is regarded as sufficient for positive identification by law enforcement agencies.
Overnight, a DEA squad with CIA security contractors took over surveillance of the apartment building. While Benning’s people continued to monitor local cell phone traffic, Daniel and Slayton discussed options to arrest Sean Nolan. They decided that FAST should do it rather than rely on Colombian police. Daniel warned that corruption was rampant in Buenaventura, and they’d risk Nolan being tipped off.
Avery advised Tom Layton’s agents on the takedown plan. They looked over the FalconView satellite imagery of the target building and the surrounding neighborhood, and planned the FAST team’s route into the city, their takedown of the target building, and their exfil route, in addition to discussing possible contingencies that may arise that needed to be taken into account. Thanks to 4-72, the private company responsible for mail delivery in Colombia, and a call to the apartment building’s property management, they knew the apartment Nolan stayed in. There was only one unit in the building leased under an Anglo-Saxon name, and he paid cash each month.
It was unusual for Avery to play a support and advisory role relegating him to the sidelines, but after Medellin, he was happy to sit this one out. His mind remained a thousand miles away. During the planning with the FAST agents, Slayton and Layton caught Avery zoning out more than once, and recognized the hollow, vacant stare in his eyes, but neither man asked questions.
Avery knew he was in no shape to run an op right now. The last time he felt anything like this was in the army during his first deployment to Afghanistan, after he’d seen two guys on his chalk cut to pieces in front of him by an RPG.
Avery tried to push those thoughts from his head. He had no problem with punishing himself for choices he made, and there were many that still stuck with him, but he needed to keep his mind focused and grounded for the sake of the agents who were getting ready to put their lives on the line.
The planned timeframe from leaving Gerardo Tobar López Airport to returning with Nolan in custody was approximately forty-five minutes. Daniel would arrange at the last minute for a National Police escort, since Culler’s security contractors were currently tied up with DEA doing surveillance of the apartment building.
Simultaneously, the Colombian coast guard, accompanied by the second half of Layton’s FAST unit, would hit La Orca. Rangel hoped to find the Viper’s missiles onboard the freighter, if not the Viper herself.
The Bogotá chief of station, eager to give a favorable, self-congratulatory report to the ambassador and D/CIA, expressed optimism that this entire affair could be brought to a close within the next twenty-four hours.
FIFTEEN
Tom Layton’s FAST team rolled out of Gerardo Tobar López Airport onto the Simón Bolívar Highway at 07:15 the next morning, crossing the bridge over the bay onto Cascara, an island that is barely three by five miles in size, just off the Colombian mainland.
The team rode in two armor-plated Chevy Suburbans, four agents per vehicle, doing sixty on the highway under a gray, overcast sky. They were accompanied by two marked Colombian police cars, one in front leading the way, one bringing up the rear, lights flashing, sirens silenced.
Federal law prohibited the Drug Enforcement Administration from making arrests in foreign countries, so officers of the Colombian National Police would accompany the FAST team into the building and put the cuffs on Nolan.
The FAST shooters were armed with Heckler & Koch MP7 compact submachine guns with laser aiming modules. For sidearms, they carried a mix of 9mm or .40 caliber Glocks and Smith & Wesson M&P (Military and Police) 9mm or .45 caliber pistols, depending upon personal preferences. The agents wore t-shirts or black DEA windbreakers with white lettering, jeans or khakis, and armored vests. Some wore DEA caps, or sunglasses, and their faces were taciturn and all-business.
Tom Layton personally led the mission. Thirty-six years old with a closely buzzed receding hairline and square jaw, he’d been with DEA for the past eight years after leaving the Marine Corps. He had experience on the streets of Bogotá and Mexico City, as well as in the ghettos of Chicago and Los Angeles, busting cartel agents, gangbangers, and drug smugglers. He’d also been in more than one firefight, remained calm under pressure, and was known for his reliable, independent decision making.
In the makeshift ops room at Gerardo Tobar López Airport, Avery and the others monitored the progress of the unfolding interdiction, as DEA missions were called, listening to the radio updates along the way. The mood was tense, but subdued. Despite the potential stakes, this was still a routine job for the FAST team, and Layton’s shooters were as professional as they came, but no one would be able to completely relax until the Suburbans safely returned with Sean Nolan in custody.
From the airport, the Geo Cell continued to monitor Sean Nolan’s cell phone, ensuring that he remained stationary until the takedown team arrived on target. Other than a phone call placed overnight to order a prostitute, who the CIA surveillance confirmed arrived at the apartment an hour later and left two hours after that, there’d been no activity. Nolan’s thugs were at the apartment, so Layton knew there were at least three people present.
Although the docks were busy, there was little activity this early in Buenaventura’s inner-city neighborhoods. The streets and sidewalks were mostly empty and quiet, and the gang members and paramilitaries were not yet out in force. This bought Layton’s team additional time, but it also made the small convoy stand out all the more on the quiet streets.