by Dan Kelly
He told them what was really going on and why it was necessary that they be held there incommunicado until the assault was over. “Your cell phones are going to be confiscated and sandwiches and water will be left for you to eat and drink until we return which could be anywhere from a few hours to all day. As you can see, there are windows in the shed so you’ll have plenty of light to see and you aren’t going to be tied up so you’ll be able to walk around. There will be guards posted outside to prevent anyone from leaving the area until it is safe for you and us to do so. I apologize for putting you in this position, but we just didn’t have any other options.”
Surprisingly, once the drivers had a chance to assimilate what was happening they got with the program and cheered them on. Looking around at the rest of the drivers, one of them said, “I doubt you’ll have trouble with any of us. I don’t think those bastards have any friends here.”
Nodding his head at the man, Manny turned and left the shed. The troops fell into their assigned platoons and squads. There are normally four or five squads in a platoon, four to eight men in a squad, which means for this mission there will be nine platoons each with five squads totaling 40 men.
Manny is in charge of all of them and it is his responsibility to deploy them in the most efficient and effective manner possible so that they can initiate a coordinated attack that hopefully will overwhelm the enemy and keep casualties to a minimum. Commanding this number of men is a new experience for Manny and although he is confident that he is up to the task he harbors some doubts about his platoon and squad leaders being able to handle the unexpected. After all, he knows nothing about these men. Until a couple of days ago, he didn’t know they existed. He’s sure the troops have some doubts about him as well, so he calls his platoon leaders over for one final briefing.
“We know nothing about each other’s ability to perform under fire. All we know is our countries believe in us and trust us to get the job done. If our mission is to be successful, we’re going to have to put our trust in their ability to make sound decisions and therefore trust each other. Please see that this message passes down to the men in your platoons. Make one last check of your communication gear to make sure the weather hasn’t affected any of our gear and then revert to our communication protocol for the duration of our mission, I will be communicating only with you platoon leaders, you will be communicating only with your squad leaders and they with the men in their respective squads. Are there any questions?”
There were none so Manny said, “Move’em out.”
Chapter 38
- Bogota, Colombia –
As the assault team moves out, Pete and Abby are taking seats at one of the communication tables set up along one wall of a large and exquisitely furnished and decorated room that looks like a small ball room with its hard wood flooring and grand piano in one corner and a bar in another. There are beautiful tropical plants everywhere. They somehow had missed this room when they first arrived and roamed around the villa.
Looking around Abby says, “Wow, if we were here for any other reason, I could really enjoy this.”
Pete says, “It sure gives you a better idea of the difference between the haves and have nots.”
They were brought back to the reason they were there by Manny’s voice coming over the speakers placed at intervals along the tables. “
“Beach. Pod. Comms test. Over.”
Pete responded with, “Pod. Beach. We hear you loud and clear. Over.”
“We’re on sight and are moving into position to feed. Things are kind of moist around here, but that makes it harder to be seen. I’ll check in again when we’re ready to rumble. Over.”
“Understood. Over.”
Pete turned to Abby and said. “So far, so good.”
Abby just nodded her head as she mentally reviews for the umpteenth time all that has been done to prepare for the mission, looking for any weakness in their plan that has escaped her scrutiny.
Except for the low murmurings of conversations that the other people in the room are having with their homelands, it is eerily quiet. The tension in the room is already as tight as the membrane on a drum.
At 05:30, all of the men are in their assigned positions and Manny checks in, giving everyone a heads up as to their status.
At 07:30, Juan Fuentes’s guests begin to arrive. There’s still a heavy rain coming down, but glimpses of the morning sun can be seen between the clouds and the wind has diminished considerably, no longer pelting the troops with hurricane gusts of wind and rain.
By 09:30, the steady stream of bodies showing up at the front door has slacked off to a few stragglers making apologies for being late and blaming it on the weather.
By 10:00, it appears no else is coming, so it’s now decision time for Manny. He calls Abby and gives her an update and she has some information for him that she has just received from Ramon Herrera who has been working in the kitchen of the farm house.
The guests are currently congregated in three places, a covered patio on the west side of the structure, in an enormous wine cellar in the basement and in a huge recreation room equipped with every type of game imaginable, everything from pool tables, shuffleboards, dart boards, foosball machines, pinball machines, videogames and slot machines to poker tables for the serious gamblers.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 13:00 hours and will be held in a huge tent that has been erected in the side yard and attached to the north side of the house to provide access to it via a pair of French doors.
Manny is thinking, “Okay, do I want to launch a three pronged attack now, isolating the groups from each other and possibly diluting the amount of concentrated firepower that will be coming our way and hopefully creating a lot of confusion in the process, each group not knowing what’s going on in the other parts of the house or would it be best to wait until the meeting starts and then hit them while they’re all crammed into the tent and have minimum room to maneuver which could very well overwhelm them and generate sufficient panic to weaken whatever response they might be able to muster?”
After a few minutes, Manny decides on the latter because there’s a big advantage to doing so. There is only one way in or out of the tent unless one chooses to crawl out under its walls, but the pegs are placed very close to each other to keep the sides taut and are driven deep into the turf. It would require a great deal of effort and time to get out from under the tent this way and panic would surely discourage the attempt.
Manny notifies the people back at the villa of his decision and that they will storm the farm house at 13:30 hours.
Abby forwards this info on to Dave and finds Phil Desoto on the line with him. Phil says, “I’m on a conference call with Dave and am on his speaker so I can monitor the action along with him until the mission is over. Keep this line of communication open until I tell you otherwise.”
“Yes sir.”
Pete said, “Scrounger, I’m starting to become a believer in Abby suspicions about our long lost colleague. He’s been acting very strangely. From the feedback we’re getting from our plants in the farm house, everyone appears to be oblivious to the danger that’s heading their way, so I don’t think he’s alerted anyone at the farmhouse about our presence there, but I overheard a phone conversation he was having with someone that has raised the hackles on the back of my neck. He was cautioning someone about a specific course of action and the phone conversation took place in a location that definitely indicated he didn’t want anyone to know about it.”
“Okay, continue to keep a close watch on him and from now on don’t let him get off alone until the mission is over. I agree with you and Abby. He’s up to something.”
During his conversation with Phil Desoto, Pete’s been keeping an eye on Damien who has been talking with Aloncia on the other side of the large room, so it was impossible for him to hear what Pete was saying to Phil.
As 13:30 approaches, Damien who has been sitting on a couch along the wall at a right ang
le to the communication table walks over to where Pete and Abby are standing and asks, “What’s Manny’s initial engagement strategy? Are they all going to storm the tent at once to maximize confusion or attack in stages to provide back up to the waves going in first in case these guys are able to get it together and quickly respond to the attack with firepower of their own?”
Abby answered with a curt, “From here on out it’s a military operation and Manny is in charge. He hasn’t shared any strategic or tactical plans with us. He’ll adapt to situations as they develop and I’m confident that whatever comes his way he’ll handle.” This wasn’t entirely true as Manny has shared some of his intentions with her, but she wasn’t letting Damien know that.
This seemed to satisfy him for the moment and he returned to the couch apparently deep in thought.
At exactly 13:00, Juan Fuentes walks up onto the stage that has been erected in the front of the tent. He picks up a mike attached to a long chord set on a table at the top of the stage stairs and walks to center stage. Tapping the mike to get everyone’s attention Fuentes says, “This is a very unique gathering and I’m hoping my efforts are making it an enjoyable one. I want to thank all of you for coming, for being willing to stick your necks out to find a solution to the problems plaguing our organizations.
“It’s now time for us to put our heads together to find a way to deal with our rivalries in a way that is satisfactory and productive for all of us. Being at each other’s throats is costing us enormous amounts of money and it’s stupid of us to continue doing so. There are enough risks associated with our operations without having to worry about each other. Every one of our operations, drugs, smuggling, piracy, kidnapping, prostitution, whatever, has been seriously messed with and to avoid an all-out war between us, I’m making this last ditch effort to come up with a solution that we all can live with.”
The meeting got underway, drawing everyone’s attention to the task at hand and distracting them from everything else going on around them. Thinking the tent is a secure area, no one holds back with their concerns or ideas. One of the inside people has managed to plant a bug in one of the speakers positioned around the tent so everything said is being recorded back at the villa.
As 13:30 comes and goes, the anticipated bedlam that everyone expects to take place doesn’t occur. Everyone at the communications table fears that something has gone wrong. Except for the sound of the wind which has picked up again, although the rain has stopped, there is no other sound to be heard. Manny has his transceiver on so the folks in the villa will have some idea of what is happening, but the mikes on the communications table are off for the safety of Manny and his men and it’s only extraordinary will power that prevents someone from opening his mike and asking what’s wrong.
Chapter 39
- Bogota, Colombia -
Unbeknownst to the group back at the villa, Manny has things under control, kind of. On the command ‘smoke break’ from Manny, three men advance to the three sides of the tent not butted up to the house and flatten themselves on the ground waiting for further instructions. Seeing that the men have gotten into position unseen, Manny softly gives the command ‘Ante up’ and 330 guys looking for a fight crouch low to the ground and advance quickly forward to within twenty yards of the tent, 110 men for each side. At the same time twelve men move to take positions covering the front and side doors of the farm house with the remaining 14 men covering the feasible escape routes.
Manny is about to give the command ‘Do it’ when the voice of one of the platoon leaders comes through his ear piece saying, “Pod leader, we have a problem. Somehow a herd of cattle has broken through one of the farm’s fences and something’s spooked them because they’re stampeding right at us. They’re about four hundred yards away, but the way they’re moving, they’ll eat up that distance in a hurry. If we stay in position, we’ll be trampled to death and if we scatter we’ll be spotted when the noise of the approaching herd reaches the ears of those inside the tent and the curious come out for a look. Please advise and make it quick.”
Manny’s thinking, “Why couldn’t they be heading for the tent. They could do the job for us. Damn! How do you stop a stampeding herd of cattle?”
Suddenly, a crazy idea pops into his head and he doesn’t wait around for a more sane one to put in an appearance. “In your survival gear you have flares. When the herd gets within a hundred yards of you, fire all that you have at the leaders of the herd. That should blind them and bring them to a halt or at least divert them away from you. When I see the first flare, I’ll give the final command for the assault. Did you get that?”
“Affirmative.”
As Manny finishes talking with the platoon leader, he sees a man come to the front door of the farm house and peer out. He must have seen something that put him on alert and he comes out with a gun in his hand to take a closer look. While the man is looking around, he drifts to where Manny is hiding in some heavy undergrowth in a ditch that runs along the front of the property. It is separated from the front yard by a three rail fence that looks like something you’d see in a movie about thoroughbred horses in Tennessee.
The man gets too close to where Manny is hiding and pays for it with his life. For a big man, Manny can move with amazing stealth, agility and speed and the man is lying in the ditch with his neck broken before he can make a sound. Manny barely has time to cover the body with some brush in the ditch when the first flare goes off.
He gives the command to launch the assault and the three men lying on their bellies jump up, cut slits in the sides of the tent and then inset their rifles and fire tear gas grenades into the crowded enclosure. The inside of the tent is about 14400 square feet and each grenade covers about 1500 square feet. Each man fires three grenades, so it doesn’t take long for them to have the desired effect.
Eyes are tearing, throats are burning, there’s a cacophony of coughing, swearing, and folding chairs bouncing off each other or the floor, and when seconds later the assault force tears the sides of the tents to shreds with their knives and storms inside, pandemonium and stark terror engulfs the entire scene. 330 armed men coming at you from all directions firing their weapons into the air has a tendency to do that.
Manny and the platoon leaders are shouting orders, trying to get what has turned into an angry, panicked mob to get down on their knees and lock their hands behind their heads. Some of them obeyed, but a lot of them resisted and drew their own weapons to fend off the attack. Some of them got off a few shots, but they were no match for the combat trained assault force and were quickly subdued.
When the shooting stops and the smoke clears, there are bodies everywhere, some not moving, some writhing and moaning in pain from the wounds they’ve received, others are down on their knees bent over with their heads on the grassy floor, their hands over their heads in a protective manner, and there is blood everywhere. Manny still has his gas mask on and has to remove it to communicate with the troops covering the possible escape routes.
“Pod Leader to Seahawks. Assault area secured. Some fleeing fish may be coming your way. Net them if you can for incarceration and interrogation. Otherwise, do what you have to do to prevent their escape. Over.”
At first glance, one would think that the assault was a total victory for Sea Wasp. There were 253 enemy fatalities, 42 wounded and 94 captives with the only thing damaged being their pride. The assault force incurred no fatalities. 14 guys got shot up a little, but none of the wounds are serious and the platoon faced with the cattle stampede dodged that bullet with only one guy getting a gash on his forehead by a rock kicked up by the herd as the flares scared them off in another direction. All in all, it looked like a time for some celebration.
However, one outcome has somewhat tarnished the victory because the cartel leader they wanted the most, Juan Fuentes, has somehow managed to get away.
Manny’s fit to be tied. “How in hell did he pull that off? We had every possible escape route covered.” Three hou
rs later, after searching every inch of the farmhouse and finding nothing to explain how this guy got away, Manny is about to call off the search for an escape route.
