“We have,” Warner replied, her gaze wavering, “and I should mention that I don’t exactly have proper clearance or rules of engagement from my chain of command to do what you’re asking.”
“You’re assigned temporary duty to this DEA task force. Right now, we have agents under fire, and we have flight clearance from the Colombians.”
Daniel had pulled some strings to arrange for that, much to Rangel’s chagrin.
“Roger that, Carnivore, but you guys don’t look like DEA, and… the thing is this is still way outside of my mission profile.”
Exasperated, unable to tolerate more rear echelon bureaucratic mêlées searching for any reason to justify inaction, Avery started to react, but the pilot sharply cut him off.
“So I’ve sent a message up my chain of command stating that unless otherwise directed, I’m taking my birds up to the Colombian coast to bring out some DEA shooters, and that while going to all possible lengths to avoid enemy contact, I will take whatever action is necessary to defend my aircraft and crew. Unfortunately, I’ve been having radio trouble, so they may have difficult time getting back to me.”
For the first time in over a week, the barest vestige of a smile parted Avery’s lips.
“So I reckon we should be on our way,” Warner said.
They were in the air three minutes later at 08:04.
“What do you see out there?” Layton asked Harris, who was crouched low near the building’s front window.
It was quiet now. The shooting had let up a couple minutes ago.
Tyson was positioned at the end of the rear hallway covering the back entrance into the apartment’s ground floor. So far, he’d reported no activity from the attackers on his end, but no one expected that to last — if the Empresa was going to make entry, they’d flank the building. Plus Tyson’s only view into the outside world came through a small, dirty, dusty window. He rested on one knee, his MP7 held at the ready in front of him.
Layton kept inside the foyer, pacing the floor space and the length of the hallway, keeping tabs on all of his men, burning pent-up energy.
Weaver watched over Sean Nolan and Foster in the foyer. Foster, despite the crude tourniquet applied to his left thigh, which he kept elevated above his heart with his leg leaning upright against a chair, continued to rapidly lose blood. Layton talked to Foster, told him to keep his eyes open, trying to keep him awake, but he knew they were losing him.
Nolan sat cross-legged on the floor with his head resting back against the wall. He hadn’t said a word. He appeared bored and disinterested with how events unfolded, confident that he would soon be a free man, or at least transferred into the hands of La Empresa, at which point he could simply buy his freedom.
Weaver was on the Globalstar satellite phone again with the ops room at the airport, struggling to hide his frustration with those who were three dozen miles away and trying to tell his team what to do. Weaver held his MP7 in his right hand and kept his attention focused on Nolan the entire time.
“They’ve got reinforcements coming,” Harris called out. “A van just pulled up. Seven guys getting out. One has an RPG. I count thirteen… no, fourteen tangos total on the street, plus an unknown number on the rooftops; I can’t see too high up from here. A couple of them are standing around smoking joints.”
“Well, at least they don’t seem intent on attacking us at the moment,” Layton observed. And his team didn’t have the firepower or numbers to repel them and make an escape on foot. Not with their wounded. Not in a city where the neighborhoods that weren’t controlled by La Empresa were occupied by Los Urabeños.
“Oh fuck, boss,” Harris’s voice cracked. “The cocksuckers are dragging Rob and Dwight’s bodies into the middle of the street. They’re pouring a bottle of something over them… Christ; those fucks are lighting them up! I’ve got clear line of fire, boss. I can take them out right now.”
“Negative,” Layton ordered. “Hold your fire, Paul. Conserve ammo. They’re trying to provoke us.”
“Roger that, boss,” Harris affirmed, but his voice indicated his displeasure.
A couple minutes later, the stench of burning flesh carried through the open space of the window frames and into the foyer. Through the shattered glass, Layton saw the smoke rising into the sky from outside. At that moment, Layton wanted to kill those fuckers more than he ever wanted anything else in his life.
“They’re forming in a half a circle around the building now,” Harris said three minutes later. “They’ve got some cars spread out all over the street for cover. It looks like the mother-fuckers-in-charge are huddling, trying to put something together.”
Harris was quiet for a couple minutes as he observed the scene outside.
“They’re spreading out now, moving in different directions. Eight of them are staying out front. Looks like four others are slipping around to the back.”
“Roger that,” Tyson called out from thirty-five feet away, not taking his eyes away from the backdoor.
Layton had been waiting for this. The Empresa soldiers were obviously moving into position to make entry. They’d run out of patience and knew they couldn’t stand around in the streets much longer before the Colombian army arrived in armored vehicles and gunships.
Layton opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by the sudden, loud popping of Harris’ MP7 as he fired a three-round burst out the window. In response came the distinctive crackle of an AK-47 from outside, hammering the wall.
“It’s okay, boss,” Harris assured Layton. He let off another burst. “Two of the fuckers tried sneaking up on us from behind the Suburbans. I smoked one, and scared his friend off.”
“They’re probing our defenses,” Layton said.
“You may be right. They’re falling back now, and the mother-fucker-in-charge just pulled out his cell phone, talking to his buddies up on the roof maybe.”
“We’ve got choppers en route, with back up,” Weaver reported, having just gotten off the phone with the ops room. He shoved the phone back into his pocket. There was a collective sense of relief among the other agents, and Weaver waited a second before delivering the bad news. “ETA is sixteen minutes.”
Sixteen minutes may just as well have been an hour. A hell of a lot could happen in that time, very little of it good. More important, Layton knew that Foster didn’t have sixteen minutes.
There were groans and murmurs of disappointment.
“We’ll just have to hold out,” Layton said.
“I don’t think they’re gonna give us that chance, Tom,” Tyson called out from down the hallway. He stood up on his feet, staying low in a half crouch, to present a smaller target, and took a couple steps back from the door. “I’m hearing voices and a lot of a noise out here. We’re going to have visitors.”
Almost immediately the sound of gunfire started up from the front street, along with commands shouted in Spanish.
Harris ducked his head low and stayed behind the brick wall as 5.56mm and 7.62mm streamed in through the window.
A second later, a barrage of shots splintered the front door. The Empresa shooters fired from about a dozen feet away, crouched behind and firing over the hoods of cars, covering the approach of five more gunmen as they advanced toward the front door of the apartment building.
“Front contact!” Harris called out.
“Weaver, cover Tyson,” Layton instructed. “We’ll take the front. These fuckers do not get through, you hear me!”
Weaver promptly obeyed, treading carefully down the hallway, with his shoulders packed and upper body leaning in, MP7 held forward in the ready position. He announced his presence to Tyson and lightly tapped the agent’s shoulder as he came up from behind. Standing side by side with a foot between them, the two men filled the width of the hallway.