by Vince Milam
“The next phase.”
“What does that mean?” Catch threw his wadded-up napkin at Bo, who returned an angelic smile.
“Oh no. My Bo is leaving,” Willa said, standing. She passed behind Catch, rubbed his head, and positioned behind Bo, bent at the waist. She wrapped him in her arms, head nestled against his neck. “Leaving, leaving, and I feel it and sense the heartache.”
“No heartache,” Bo said. “Flow. A natural flow.”
“Heartache,” she insisted. “Barreling my way like a runaway train.”
“Where to?” Catch asked. We’d been together too long for wasted breath regarding Bo. He’d made up his mind, and that was all she wrote.
“Big earth, my brothers.”
“Stop the new age crap. Where you going?” Catch asked again.
“Don’t bark at my Bo,” Willa said. The bright blue of her forearm tats stood against the wild red hair she swam in.
“Plenty of room on the Ace,” I said. Futile, but you never knew with Bo. I’d love him with me, cruising the Ditch.
“Astringent environs call. Severe turf.”
“Arizona?” I asked. “Canyonlands desert?”
“Perhaps Mexico,” Bo said. “Perhaps other parcels of this grand blue ball.”
“You don’t want Mexico, dumbass,” Catch said, shaking his head. “You forgotten?”
“Don’t be mean to my Bo.”
“Catch is right,” I said. “You won’t blend down there. And certain parts of that place will sure remember you.”
Chapter 14
Mexico—the setting for one our Delta Force missions. Five young people, college students, kidnapped as part of a drug lord inter-rivalry in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Near Guatemala.
Delta Force excels at hostage rescue—one of our prime purposes. Hostage rescue is a tricky business. If a mission goes sideways, the hostages die. Pinpoint focus, stealth, and an executioner’s intent toward the hostage takers a primary requirement. Delta fits the bill.
One of the Chiapas drug lords—Manuel Ortiz—had kidnapped the five kids vacationing in Mexico with the plan of blame shift toward a rival drug lord. One Canadian, four Americans. The Canadian and one of the Americans had well-connected parents. Ortiz figured if his rival were fingered as the culprit, the US and Mexican governments would come down hard and remove his competition. Satellite surveillance had exposed his grand plan. We knew the location of the kids. Ortiz the idiot allowed them to meander outside, in his compound’s courtyard.
The well-connected part was a major irritant. Because two of the kids’ parents were politically connected, rescue options flared. A total BS driver for any ops. Innocent kids kidnapped should be the sole criteria. But the world doesn’t work like that.
Our Delta team arrived for a preliminary briefing at CIA headquarters in Langley. We wore civilian clothing—just a handful of normal guys. Pegged-out dangerous normal guys. Marcus Johnson, our team leader, provided Delta Force perspective. In attendance—the CIA and State Department.
“I’ll need twenty-four hours,” Marcus said. “Scour satellite data of the house and the area. Look for repeatable movement on the bad guys’ part. Floor plan if possible. We’ll develop an operational plan. Adjust the plan during transit if needed. What are our in-area assets?”
He referred to civilian, covert, and military assets either on the ground in Chiapas or nearby.
“Hold it,” State said. “Before we invade a sovereign country, our neighbor, there are considerations.”
“No, there aren’t,” Marcus said.
The blunt statement sat for a few seconds as Delta met Diplomacy.
“Well, there are,” State repeated.
Marcus eyeballed the three CIA resources. “You people haven’t explained to this gentleman what we do?”
“Oh, we understand exactly what you do,” State said. “Which is why we must consider the implications.”
“No, we don’t. You want us to rescue those kids, fine. But we don’t operate under anything but our ROE.” Rules of engagement. Delta formulates the plan and executes it. Our rules. We don’t go in burdened with “considerations and implications.” We accomplish the mission. The best in the world.
“First we require engagement with the Mexican government.”
“You’ll get those kids killed. And put my team in danger.”
“And the Canadian government,” State continued.
“No. We’ll deliver the Canadian. Engage the Canadian government after the fact.”
“What if people get hurt?”
“People will get hurt. Guaranteed. Our job is to make sure it’s not those kids.”
One of the CIA case officers cleared his throat. “Let’s look at alternative action.”
The three spooks clearly devised additional possibilities outside the core mission if we were sent. They have a word for it—mission creep. And Marcus would have none of it.
“No alternative action.” He looked at his Delta teammates and back to the cadre of CIA case officers. “You want us to leave until you people and State decide what you want?”
State cleared his throat and took a sip of water. “We want to rescue those young people. With a minimal amount of fuss.”
“Fuss?” Marcus asked.
“Dead bodies,” State said.
“Still one too many qualifiers.”
One of the CIA case officers sighed, hands spread on the conference table. “We have to rescue those young people. Lots of upstairs pressure.”
The translation, not required in that room, was applied pressure from connected people. The well-off American and Canadian’s parents. Political connections. The rich folks had called in political fund-raising chits. I couldn’t blame them. Whatever it took. Still, the well-connected bit grated.
“Then make it clean,” Marcus said. Have one objective, one defined goal. These extractions were challenging enough without added political interference. He and the CIA case officer locked eyes, silent. Several seconds later, the CIA nodded the affirmative.
“Well, we need coordination . . .” State started, cut off by the CIA case officer.
“Go get them. Period,” CIA said, eyes still locked with Marcus.
“He on board with that?” Marcus asked, pointing at State.
“He’s on board.” CIA shifted his gaze and raised an eyebrow at State. State made a big deal of wiping his hands against each other. Wiping his and the State Department’s hands of the whole deal.
We boarded an unmarked government jet the next afternoon. A four-hour flight to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of Chiapas. Land early evening. A night operation. Darkness would cover our approach, but action—hostage rescue—would take place inside a well-lit hacienda. The CIA feared the kids would be moved at any moment, so waiting for an optimum opportunity was off the table.
The CIA had a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter in neighboring Guatemala. Close enough—it would meet us at the Tuxtla airport and transport us to a landing zone thirty miles away in the highlands of Chiapas.
During the flight we checked and triple checked our equipment. Fully suppressed HK416 carbines. With suppressors they still “banged” when fired, but with a much smaller sound signature. We also carried fully silenced .45 semiautomatic pistols. With subsonic ammo, they made less noise than a finger snap. A tight “snick” in the night. Each of us carried night-vision goggles, although the half-moon—if it remained a clear night—would provide adequate lighting.
Satellite imagery had identified fifteen to twenty armed guards roaming the grounds of the palatial single-story hacienda. A large courtyard dominated the back of the house. Each of us absorbed the photos of the five kids as well as the drug lord, Ortiz, and his lieutenants. One of them was known as the Butcher. Well deserved, no doubt. Ortiz wasn’t married, no children, and surrounded himself with his muscle. Good. Family, young children, added an element of complication we could do without.
There was no intel, no insights on the whe
reabouts of the hostages inside the hacienda. Five of us would go in. Bo, as always, the spear point. I followed Bo. Marcus, close behind, led and coordinated. Angel would cover our flanks. Catch would linger and greet any surprises with finality.
The jet landed at Tuxtla early evening and taxied near the Sikorsky helicopter. As we walked toward the chopper, game on, several Mexican officials approached. As four of us boarded the chopper, Bo turned toward the officials, stopped, and displayed his assault weapon. With a discernable metallic click, he chambered a round and grinned. The officials shared glances and opted for short-term blindness as five well-armed men transferred from a just-landed jet to a waiting helicopter.
We flew low, lights out. Worked the steep valleys, our rotor and engine noise muffled from the surrounding plateaus. A small field, a half mile away from our target and well below its elevation, became the drop-off and pick-up point. We hunkered as the chopper departed. Then alone in the still of a Chiapas highlands night, we covered the uphill half mile at a jog and stopped at the edge of the hacienda’s well-groomed grounds. Stationed, hidden, we assessed. The pre-engagement adrenaline edged up and the mind cleared of white noise and irrelevant thoughts. Focus—keen and remorseless—ruled the night.
Multiple rooms displayed lights. Each window was scoped, investigated. No sign of the hostages. We’d enter with a fifty-fifty shot picking the correct side of the sprawling house. The entry goal—find the hostages without alerting the guards or Ortiz. A razor’s-edge approach, with silence and stealth and fatal intensity the means. Our noise-suppressed weapons would remove entrance obstacles. Armed guards. If one of them fired, alerting others—everything changed. Stealth would shift to full-bore Delta assault. The core mission—find, protect, extract the hostages—wouldn’t change. But our approach, modified on a second’s notice, would. Hot lead would fill the night, and Delta doesn’t miss what it aims for.
Marcus made the call and hand-signaled instructions. We’d enter the east side. Angel to the west, cover our flanks. Catch held back to intercept the unexpected. Three of the drug lord’s armed guards meandered near our entry point. They wielded full-automatic weapons. The west side, with a cavalcade of parked luxury cars, held half a dozen more guards. There would be others at the back of the house.
The grass held a sheen of evening dampness. The smell of rich highland earth mingled with the sweet scent of nearby landscape roses. We waited two minutes for Angel’s positioning. Movement of people showed through several of the open room windows. Still no discernable faces, identities. Voices from within the hacienda drifted across the manicured grounds, mixed with insect calls. Marcus nodded toward Bo. Do it.
Bo possessed an innate skill the rest of us could never match. We were all trained on the art of approach. Quiet, stealth, sunlight or shadow—the ability to move close by an individual without their awareness. Tap them on the shoulder in benign settings. A bullet to their head during operations. But Bo was remarkable. Do a slow and continuous turn, aware and mindful of your immediate environs. On high alert. Yet somehow Bo would find a way. Approach without you spotting him. We’d kid him about it and ask where he kept his cloak of invisibility. He’d return a secret smile.
And now the three guards near our entry point collapsed, one after the other. Poleaxed. Bo’s silenced .45 remained unheard. Marcus signaled. Go. We dashed after Bo, dragged the bodies away from the house, and nestled among the landscape plants at the corner of the east side, under an open window. Bo rose, scoped the room, and indicated it empty. Marcus signaled we’d use it as our insertion point. Again, go.
Voices. Two more armed guards turned the back corner of the house and approached our position. We hid, prepared to eliminate them as they neared. Seven paces from us, both collapsed, haloed mists of blood evident in the moonlit night. Head shots. Catch.
Bo entered. Marcus and I followed. The room’s door cracked, voices drifted along hallways. We covered Bo’s movements as he entered the next room, and the next. He signaled empty. Silent steps led toward a third room. We were running out of options, left with two choices. Continue toward the center of the hacienda, deeper into enemy turf. Continue relying on stealth. Move farther from our planned entry and exit point. Or withdraw, circle to the west side of the house, reenter. We paused and awaited Marcus’s instructions. The gurgle of the large courtyard fountain drifted through open doors and windows.
The third and now only option roared its choice. Cacophonous bangs of automatic gunfire rang across the grounds, voices yelled. Someone had stumbled across one, or all, of the five dead guards sprawled across the grounds and fired warning shots. We were made. And retreat wasn’t an option.
Marcus chose a back hallway toward the center of the house. Bo attacked. We followed. Five guards flew through the double doors from the courtyard, weapons at the ready. Bo took out two, Marcus one. I raised my rifle and, while dashing toward them, delivered double taps to the other two. Chest shots. Two bullets for each man in rapid succession. To be sure.
The kitchen staff screamed and dishes dropped as Bo entered, assessed, and signaled “no threats.” The smell of cumin entered the arena. We dashed forward, the tiled floor reflecting our footfalls. Outside, a shooting gallery, with Angel and Catch eliminating threats before they could enter the house. Past the kitchen, running footsteps, moving away. We followed.
We infiltrated the west side of the house. Another guard turned a corner and sprayed lead down our hallway as the three of us dropped low. Bo’s pistol whispered twice. Double tap. We stepped over the body, halted. Another hallway led left and right. Voices—English—called, protested. To the left.
“Grenade!” Marcus yelled. He and I ducked into adjoining rooms, sought walled protection. Not Bo. I caught him leaping over the hallway-tossed grenade and sliding on his butt around the corner. Toward the source of the tossed grenade. The blast, shattering and earsplitting, covered the snicking sound of Bo’s deadly delivery. Marcus and I exited our protective position. A hallway cast-iron chandelier dangled from its electrical wires, the thick stucco walls gouged and peppered with grenade fragments.
We charged and caught up with Bo, halting outside a thick door. The English voices continued, frightened and pleading and near hysterical. Marcus took the lead, signaled Bo to open the door. Bo flung it open and Marcus stepped through, Bo and I on his heels.
Ortiz the drug lord held a pistol against the temple of one of the kids. He used the young man’s body as a shield, half of his face visible from behind the kid’s head. The other four hostages huddled in a corner.
In the movies, this would be the moment for a pregnant pause, a standoff, with pithy and threatening conversation. This wasn’t the movies.
Ortiz began speaking. Marcus, rifle shouldered, blew away the visible half of Ortiz’s head. Blood exploded across the kid’s head and shoulders. Ortiz’s blood. The kid was unharmed.
Exit time. “Objective in hand,” Marcus said into his microphone. “Exiting the front.” Catch and Angel would position, cover our departure through the front doors of the hacienda. “All of you. Come. Now,” he said to the five hostages. The four clustered together, wide-eyed, stood and approached. The fifth, Ortiz’s shield, remained frozen. Marcus signaled me to get him. Gripping his arm, I towed him toward the door and placed him among the others. Shock, stares, and frantic glances their common glue. Couldn’t blame them. The cavalry had showed up, delivered retribution and death, and the next agenda item unknown.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said, nodding in their direction. Several nodded back, unsure.
Bo led our exit. Marcus led the group of hostages. They slouched and flung frightened glances. I covered the rear.
Bo flew through the wrought iron–studded wooden front door and slammed the brakes. Made himself a target prior to our exit with the hostages. Drew the attention of potential attackers. He relied on personal mojo and the utter surety somewhere in the night both Catch and Angel covered him. A full five seconds and he raised h
is pistol, long silencer extended toward the sky, and used the weapon to gesture “move forward, all clear.” We hustled the kids through the door and took off at a dead run. At the edge of the lawn, fifty yards straight ahead, two bright flashes. Catch. Eliminating threats at our rear.
We hit the brush at the edge of the estate’s plateau. Catch met us, nodded, and moved toward the hacienda, now our rear concern. Angel appeared and signaled the all clear. Marcus radioed the chopper. Pick-up in ten minutes.
“Status,” Marcus said, demanding the state of our personal well-being.
“Good,” came back three times. Bo remained silent.
“Talk to me, Bo.”
“A wee dram of leakage. No worries.”
Bo had been hit.
“Tell me. Now.” Marcus captured current state, good or bad, and adjusted plans accordingly.
“Upper arm. No issue.”
“Wrap it.”
I did. A quick field wrap stanched the bleeding. We jogged toward the pick-up zone. One of the hostages, a young lady, asked, “What now? Where are we going?”
“Home,” Marcus said.
We kept a rapid downhill pace. Catch caught up with us and remained at the rear. The kid who was Ortiz’s human shield—a well-connected son it turned out—started a running soliloquy. He expressed displeasure at having his life risked with a pistol pressed against his head and what would have happened if Marcus missed and Dad would hear about this.
Catch overheard and sped up. He positioned alongside the young man. And had a chat.
Catch explained the young man should shut his trap. Be happy his ungrateful butt was safe. And think long and hard before mouthing any displeasure. Because the armed men currently saving his ungrateful butt lived in the States, and knew where he lived, and would be most displeased if he complained about the rescue methodology. And a late-night visit from any one of us five—at any of the well-connected kid’s houses—an ever-present possibility if the kid chose unwisely to piss off any of us. Next—and here Catch was quite graphic—the slicing and dicing the kid would endure were detailed.
