As the four vehicles turned off the highway and drove south on Carrera 20 Street, a spotter for La Empresa watched from a second floor window of a two-flat dwelling that served as a drug storage facility. He observed the direction in which the vehicles travelled, recognized the US diplomatic plates on the Suburbans, and produced his cell phone to make a call. He was able to think of only one target in that area that would warrant a convoy of vehicles this size.
At 07:43, the Suburbans rolled to a stop on the narrow front street outside of the apartment building. The Colombian police cruisers parked perpendicular with the street, seventy feet apart, to block traffic coming from either direction.
The FAST agents dismounted from the Suburbans and fanned out, four men stacking up outside the building’s front door to make entry, while the other two took up positions outside the apartment to cover the streets. Two Colombian police officers fell into line behind the entry team, pistols drawn.
The first agent in the line dropped to one knee near the front door and overcame the lock’s simple pin tumbler cylinder with an EZ Snap lock-pick gun.
The door swung open.
Weapons ready, the entry team poured past the threshold into the stuffy, musty smelling foyer. They crossed the soiled, worn out carpet, followed the creaky wooden stairs to the second floor, and stopped halfway down the dark hallway where they stacked up along the right wall. They moved cautiously and silently.
The first agent in line un-slung a short barreled shotgun and shouldered the stock. Aiming down at a forty-five degree angle, he held the barrel five inches away from the narrow space between the doorjamb and the doorknob and lock. After Layton gave the “go” signal by nodding three times, the agent fired the shotgun.
The specially designed TESAR door-breaching copper slug decimated the locks and subsequently dispersed into a harmless powder on the opposite side of the door. To ensure the lock was defeated, the agent immediately cocked the shotgun and gave the door a second blast. Then he kicked the door in, lifted the shotgun up, and sidestepped clear of the doorjamb, making space for Layton, who charged through the smoky doorway, MP7 held in the ready position, with his teammates close behind him.
As he entered the sparsely furnished apartment with warped wooden floors, Layton turned immediately left. Staying along the perimeter of the wall, his feet and his eyes never stopped moving as he scanned for threats.
The first one appeared when a shirtless, well-muscled African man with a shaved head stepped out of a bedroom with a pistol in his hands. Ignoring the DEA agent’s command to drop the weapon, his one and only warning, Layton broke the trigger on his MP7 without a second’s hesitation, drilling the man twice with Heckler & Koch’s special 4.6mm high velocity, armor piercing rounds. The man managed two more steps before falling over flat onto his face, emptying blood over the dirty, scratched hardwood floor.
Another man, a native Colombian, came out of the bedroom directly behind the fallen black man. He managed to fire a single shot from his Glock, which punched a hole harmlessly through the drywall behind Layton, before two DEA agents simultaneously opened up with their submachine guns, riddling him with bullets.
The agents stepped over the bodies into the short hallway and split off into two elements to simultaneously clear each bedroom. The first bedroom, from which Nolan’s two goons had emerged, was now clear.
The second bedroom door was locked, and as the agents stacked up outside of it, they heard furniture scraping across the floor and footsteps on the other side.
The FAST team repeated the process of blasting the lock and kicking the door in.
But the door stopped a third of the way into the room when it struck a heavy wooden desk that had been pushed in its path.
Following his MP7 through the narrow gap and turning sharply around the obstructed door into the room, Layton spotted a barefooted Sean Nolan in the process of squeezing through an open window.
Nolan heard and ignored Layton’s command to stop, which only encouraged him to move faster as he slipped a leg out the window.
Two more DEA agents, with the Colombian cops, pushed their way through the door, moving the obstructing desk out of the way.
Layton and the Colombians, covered by DEA agents, closed the gap across the floor. They latched onto Nolan, hauled him roughly back inside through the window, body slammed him against the floor, disarmed him of the pistol snugged in the waistband of his pants, and flipped him over. The Colombians put the cuffs around his wrists. The whole time Nolan thrashed, kicked, and spat, until one Colombian gave him a face full of mace and punched him hard and low in the kidney.
Escorted by the FAST shooters, the Colombian cops hauled Nolan onto his feet and dragged him out of the apartment unit, down the stairs, and out the front door as he kicked and threw his weight around.
One DEA agent opened the rear passenger door on one of the Suburbans to accommodate Nolan as the Colombian police officers steered him toward the vehicle. The agent jumped at the distinctive whoosh of an incoming projectile. His mind didn’t even have time to register Layton’s cry of “RPG!”
The 72mm rocket propelled grenade travelled at 115 meters per second and connected broadside with the Suburban. Unlike Hollywood’s dramatic depiction, the Suburban remained completely stationary upon impact without flipping over in the air. The RPG’s impact fuse detonated, and a large orange explosion blossomed around the Suburban, surrounded by a plume of thick, black smoke. Designed to bust NATO tanks, the RPG easily decimated the Suburban. The windows were blown out. The light armor panels designed to repel small arms were easily overcome. Errant shrapnel and debris flew through the air. The nearest DEA agent and one of the Colombian cops were likewise eviscerated; their bloody remains tossed through the air and over the pavement. The surviving Colombian police officer grabbed onto Nolan, pushed him onto the ground, and covered him.
The shockwave blew over a couple more DEA agents, including Layton. Two more agents took multiple shrapnel hits, one critically, but the other’s vest caught the lethal hits and saved his life. The agents able to do so were quickly on their feet with weapons up.
Layton shouldered his MP7. He was stooped over in a half crouch with his head low. He swept his sights along the upper windows and rooftops of the buildings across the street. He spotted movement; two figures in the process of reloading the RPG launcher. One man held the launcher over his shoulder, while the other screwed the projectile in. A third man came into view on the rooftop, aiming an assault rifle into the street below and firing shots on semi-automatic.
A DEA agent behind Layton grunted as his vest caught multiple 7.62mms. Then the rooftop shooter raised his aim and sent the next series of rounds through the soft space between the bottom of the American’s throat and the top of his chest. He fell over, gurgling blood and clutching his neck.
Layton raised his aim, though he knew he was pushing the MP7’s short range of 656 feet. The weapon was lethal in close quarters, but it simply wasn’t suited for this type of combat. He sighted his target and was about to press the trigger when a voice to his left called out and was cut off by incoming automatic fire pelting the remaining Suburban.
The gunfire chopped down another agent while he was in the process of making a move for the driver’s door. Then another RPG whooshed in from above and plowed through the Suburban’s engine block, rocking the heavy vehicle against its suspension and turning the Suburban into a smoking, pulverized wreck. Heavy clouds of black smoke billowed into the air, obstructing everyone’s line of sight to the rooftop attackers.