Six Minutes To Freedom

by John Gilstrap

  All of it, the whole dance, would begin straight up at midnight when a Delta sniper team on Quarry Heights would open up from a quarter mile away with M-60 machine guns to take out the ZPU-4 antiaircraftbattery Noriega had recently installed in the Comandancia compound. Simultaneously, the snipers would take out the main power supply and the backup generators, plus any other targets of opportunitythey could find.

  There was a certain irony, Jim thought, to an entire invasion beginningwith a single burst of 7.62mm bullets.

  50

  It was 23:50 hours, ten minutes before H hour, when a regular Army machine gun team mounted in an M113 armored personnelcarrier in Fort Amador saw the school bus approaching. It was running hot and fast, and it was full of PDF soldiers who’d been rousted from their barracks.

  If there was one point that was made perfectly clear during the finalbriefing on this mission, it was that no civilian vehicle was to be fired on without specific orders, and certainly not before kickoff at midnight.

  But this was war, and in war, no standing order stands for long. Command had notified the team of this bus two minutes ago, and now here it was, racing straight for them.

  It only took about twenty rounds of .50 caliber ammunition to reducethe bus to scrap metal.

  Thirty seconds into the war, they were already ten minutes ahead of schedule.

  51

  Kurt had been sleeping only fitfully. The events of the morning and afternoon had left him feeling intellectually dizzy. Haunted by dozens of questions and possessing no answers, his mind whirled a million miles per hour. When he wasn’t dozing, he found himself thinkingabout the trauma of his family’s first Christmas without him, and his first without them. When he pictured the holidays, his mind conjuredimages all focused on his old house, the house of his kids’ childhood.It occurred to him now that those images were all wrong. The faces were the same, he thought, but then he had to cancel that in his mind, as well. The Christmastime faces of the past were happy ones; he had no idea what they looked like anymore. He had no idea what terrible impact he might have had on the happiness of his children. Come to think of it, he knew virtually nothing anymore about what was important to him.

  His family’s lives were moving on, just as they were supposed to, in as normal or awkward a manner as circumstances would allow, and he was no longer a part of it. All the day-to-day activities, all the things that defined the very essence of family life no longer reflected his touch. It was a terrible thing to consider. It was a terrible thing to live—

  What was that?

  In the distance, he thought he’d heard the brissant thudding of a heavy machine gun. There was a rhythm and timbre to a .50 caliber machine gun that was unique to itself; once you heard it, you’d never mistake it for anything else. But in this case, it was far enough away that Kurt wondered if maybe it hadn’t been something more benign—say, the beat of rotor blades, filtered through a dream he hadn’t realizedhe’d been having.

  He lifted his head from the pillow to glance out in the hallway, and when he saw the curious expression on the corporal’s face, he knew that it had been real.

  The next burst of gunfire was extended, and from much closer.

  Still bathed in total darkness, Jim Nelson felt his Little Bird bank hard to the right and swoop into a steep, deep dive. His first thought was, these guys are going in too early! What the hell are they thinking? Then he realized that the pilots from the 160th were way too good to move without orders, so H hour had clearly been moved up.

  They came in fast, and as they moved through the center of the city and beyond, Jim could see Modelo Prison clearly among the assorted tenements. Its flat cement roof was the clearest giveaway, and next to it sat the Comandancia with its antiaircraft emplacement, which frankly looked to be up and running just fine, even if its crew didn’t yet know that the sky was full of targets for them to shoot at. Jim was watching, in fact, when the tracers streamed in from the high ground and killed both the gun and its crew.

  This was it. They were on their way.

  For a very brief instant, Kurt and the corporal just stared at each other, mouths agape, knowing that something earth-shattering was underway,but neither of them knowing exactly what to do about it. The close-in machine gun fire spurred Kurt into action. He rolled out of his cot and crawled into the bathroom for cover while his executioner was still weighing his options.

  Kurt reasoned his way through the problem in an instant. Clearly, this was no repeat of the coup attempt. First of all, the rebels didn’t have access to the kind of firepower he’d heard on the outside; second, most of the rebels of influence or importance were already dead or in prison. No, this was an American military action, and if the American military was involved, that meant that Noriega was finally going down.

  It was time to get dressed. He quickly, frantically, changed from his orange surfer shorts into some underwear, and from there quick-stepped into a pair of blue Docker slacks, a green Polo shirt, and his running shoes. What the hell. If you’re going to get shot at, you might as well look as good as you can.

  It didn’t even occur to him that he would not survive the night. In that moment, his thoughts were consumed by the image of the Pineapplescurrying for safety and begging for his life. If Kurt’s own life could somehow be spared in the process, well, that would be pretty damned good, too.

  Outside, the gunfire grew louder and closer. He saw tracers speedingpast his window with an upward trajectory, only to see it returned like some kind of fiery summer deluge. Jesus, it was really happening.

  Outside his door, out in the cellblock, he heard the sound of runningfeet and raised voices. Someone pounded on the door to the officers’quarters across the hall and yelled, “Sir! Sir! Something is happening!”

  “No shit,” Kurt mumbled.

  The ground fire surprised Jim. He couldn’t imagine what would inspire some PDF grunt to such a clearly suicidal act. But their wish was Delta’s command.

  The Little Birds swooped in low and fast, nose to tail on their approachto the roof of Modelo Prison, laying a blanket of suppressing fire toward the guard towers and the prison yard, yet still some overzealousassholes on the ground felt compelled not to dive for cover. It was a bad night to be carrying a weapon on the streets of the Chorrillo neighborhood. The war hadn’t officially started yet, but the grounds of the prison yard and the Comandancia across the street swarmed with targets. As the guy with the big-ass bomb on his back, Sergeant Jim Nelson felt particularly inspired to quench the tracer fire. The receptiondesks in Heaven and Hell were going to be a little overwhelmed this evening.

  The flat, concrete roof of the prison raced up to meet them, and as they closed to within a few feet, Jim unfastened his safety strap and lifted his legs straight out to avoid getting crushed by the skids as they slid to a remarkably smooth halt. The overture was complete, and it was time for the first act to begin.

  Before the bird had even stopped, Jim lurched off of his bench and ran to his assigned position next to the access door in the cupola that led to the prison’s central stairway. There he shrugged out of the torch tanks and crouched in a defensive position to cover Paul Jones and Parker Sturbridge, the explosives entry team. Within seconds, the entireDelta team was on the roof, swarming like ants to their planned posts, preparing to bring a little piece of Armageddon to this squalid, ugly place.

  The entry charge was custom designed for tonight’s mission. Carriedin four separate pieces and assembled in place on the surface of the metal door to the cupola, the charge resembled a large picture frame when it was finally put together. Paul inserted the initiator and signaled to Parker that it was time to go.

  Staff Sergeant Peter Jacobs drove his piton into the roof decking with five hard blows of a hammer. He securely attached the exposed end of his climbing rope to the eyelet, then slung the nylon bag with the rest of the rope over the parapet and into the darkness, where it arced toward the ground. His was the key element of the first moments—
one among so many key moments that lay waiting their turn. With his rappellingharness in place, and the figure-eight descender clipped to the caribiner, he was ready to slip over the side to fire the single shot that was his and his alone, to take out Kurt Muse’s designated assassin. His job was to be in place with his shot fired before they blew the door to the cupola.

  Balancing carefully on the top of the parapet, he leaned backward hesitantly, testing the integrity of his lifeline before committing himself fully to his task. Silhouetted against the gray adobe of the prison wall, he made a perfect target, and he hadn’t descended three feet before the first enemy rounds sent shards of shattered concrete into his face. From the air, the prison looked like an asymmetrical L, with the kitchen area serving as the letter’s squatty, thick base.

  Jacobs pressed the vest-mounted transmit button for his portable radio and spoke rapidly into his throat mike. “Bravo Three taking fire from the kitchen. It’s close.”

  Two seconds later, the roof line erupted with outgoing gunfire as the rest of his troop opened up on the kitchen’s windows and red-tiled roof, shredding them in seconds. The suppressive fire calmed things down for Jacobs, but it couldn’t extinguish the return fire entirely. That job fell to a Little Bird gunship, which all but removed the kitchen’s roof in a single pass.

  Jacobs had practiced this so many times in his head and on the side of the elementary school at Howard Air Force Base that his hands and feet seemed to know on their own what to do. He zipped down to the exact spot, dangling in midair, and brought his CAR-15 to his shoulder,ready to kill a killer. “Bravo Three in position.”

  But the cell was empty. No killer, no prisoner, no anyone. In the green light of his night vision goggles, Jacobs peered intensely into the darkness, looking for some kind of movement, but there was nothing.

  “Shit.”

  Jim Nelson heard the magic words at the same instant as everyone else. “Bravo Three in position.”

  An instant later, Paul’s voice crackled, “Fire in the hole.”

  The entry charge blew the cupola door into next month.

  On the floor of the bathroom, Kurt tried to make himself as small as possible amid the strobes of muzzle flashes and the rain of hot concrete that blasted in through his window and ricocheted around the walls like BBs in a can.

  He couldn’t help but wonder whether the brave young corporal had fled his post, or if he was crouching outside the cell door, waiting for Kurt to show his face. Either way, Kurt felt reasonably safe in the bathroom,pretty sure that the guard was in no hurry to bring himself closer to the firing.

  The noise of the battle outside was unlike anything Kurt had ever heard. Complete bedlam.

  Then came the explosion. It was a horrendous thing, like a direct hit from a bomb, he thought, literally bouncing him off the concrete floor and seemingly moving Carcel Modelo off its foundation.

  Seconds later, night turned to day outside as the volume and rhythm of the shooting increased tenfold. This was hell on earth. Explosion afterexplosion rippled the air, and Gatling guns from God knew how many aircraft created a cacophony of noise that sounded like the fabricof the air itself was being ripped apart by the hands of God.

  He had to see for himself. Rising cautiously, first to his knees, and then to his feet, he dared a peek out of the bathroom window. One afteranother, enormous detonations blasted the Comandancia into nonexistence. Blinding flashes preceded the concussion by a fraction of an instant, before tons of dirt and concrete were launched high into the air.

  We’ve finally done it, Kurt thought. We’ve finally grown a set of balls.

  He never did see the camouflaged soldier dangling just a few feet away on the other side of the window.

  The detonation of the entry charge was the signal to the two orbiting AC-130 Specter gunships that it was time to unload on the Comandancia.As Jim Nelson led the way into the breached opening, the concussionof the first 105mm Howitzer shell felt like a shove from behind.

  Once inside the ruined cupola archway, the world was completely dark, lit only by the lights on the muzzles of their CAR-15s, dancing circles of white light cast on a flat black canvas. Two steps down the first flight of stairs, Jim noticed with a wry chuckle that the concrete walls in the stairway of their mock-up prison were in fact wide open. The narrow field of fire they’d anticipated and practiced for was in fact a wide open kill zone.

  They moved down the first flight of stairs like water over rocks, over a dozen men in all, pursuing a mission whose stakes were pure and clear. They were here for one man and one man only. Anyone who stood in their way—anyone, in fact, with a weapon in his hand—would die instantly, but all others were to remain unmolested. That meant a surgical strike in the prison, even as the Comandancia next door was razed to the ground.

  Descending to and through the fourth floor, security teams dispersedto hold the stairway and to dispatch any guards or soldiers who might try to engage them.

  The rest continued on, led by Jim Nelson, whose job it was to securethe third floor—Muse’s floor—and make sure that their precious cargo got home to his family. At the next landing, a second security team was deployed, and as Jim button-hooked around to the left, he found himself face to face with a terrified soldier who would have floated out of his shoes if he raised his hands any higher.

  Jim felt his finger tighten on the trigger, but pulled himself back. This one was sane, doing the right thing. “On the floor!” Jim commanded.“En el piso! En el piso! Damn it, I almost shot the son of a bitch!”

  The soldier dropped as if his legs dissolved and instantly splayed himself on the concrete floor, in the process saving his own life. The securityteam would cuff him and hold him. Jim Nelson and his four-manassault team had a more important task to perform. Paul Jones and Parker Sturbridge would secure Moose while Jim and Chris Simonemade sure no one shot them in the process.

  A dozen steps later, they were there.

  52

  “On the floor!” Kurt heard. The voice echoed down the concretehallway, somehow discernable against the battle that raged outside.“En el piso! En el piso! Damn it, I almost shot the son of a bitch!”

  It was English! They were American soldiers. Kurt could barely believewhat he was hearing.

  “Cuff him.”

  His mouth agape, his eyes and throat burning from the acrid smoke and dust, Kurt watched in stunned amazement as fingers of light cut through the darkness and the sound of approaching footsteps grew closer.

  “Where’s the shooter?” someone asked.

  “We got a locked door here,” said someone else.

  A dark figure appeared in the smoke, indistinguishable as a soldier but for the silhouette of a rifle in his hands. A white light flashed through the bars of the cell door. “Moose,” a voice called. “You okay?”

  “Yes!” Kurt called. “I’m here! I’m okay!” He approached the door.

  “Get down and stay down,” the voice said. “We’re gonna blow the door.”

  It was unbelievable. The whole world was being blown up to supporthis rescue. Kurt scrambled back around the corner into the bathroomand tried again to make himself disappear.

  In a hallway this small, there was only one place for their shooter to be hiding, and that had to be behind the door to the officers’ quarters. As Jim took a bead, Chris crouched low and tried the knob. “We got a locked door here,” he announced.

  They’d have to blow it. Since the door was locked from the inside, someone was clearly barricaded inside, and with four members on the team, they simply did not have the manpower to protect against a wild-asssuicide mission from behind while they executed the rescue.

  Almost directly across the hall, Jim heard Parker telling the packageto get down. At least Muse was still alive. They still had a good chance to hit a home run.

  While Jim covered the door with his weapon high, Chris crouched low to attach a general purpose charge (GPC) to the door knob and lock. If the door opened on its own, the prob
lem would solve itself; if it didn’t, the GPC could open any door on the planet. Constructed of a wad of plastic explosive with a dangling tail of detonator cord, a GPC was initiated by two nonelectrical blasting caps embedded in the det cord. With the charge in place, Chris pulled the two safety pins to ignite the ten-second length of old-fashioned fuse.

  “Fire in the hole!”

  With Muse under cover in the bathroom of his cell, the assault team sought safety on either side of the door. Under most circumstances, the GPC delivers a hell of a whop, but in a narrow concrete hallway, it sounded damn near nuclear as it vaporized the lock on the door to the officers’ quarters.

  Chris led the way, breaking right while Jim followed a step behind and broke left. Instantly, Jim saw their man. He was trying to hide behindthe door to the latrine, appearing to Jim as a half-silhouette. Jim fired two quick shots with his rifle, hitting the target center-of-mass. The wounded man backpedaled out of sight, landing on his ass on the floor of a tiny shower. Jim pivoted around the corner and triple-tapped him, two in the stomach and then a head shot.

  “Clear!” he yelled, announcing that his only threat had been neutralized.

  Chris echoed, “Clear!”

  Across the hall, the concussion of the GPC hadn’t finished careening down the corridor before Paul Jones was on his feet with the muzzle of his Mossberg twelve-gauge pressed against the monstrous padlock on Kurt’s cell door. Behind him, he heard the CQB gunfire—close quarters battle—but he ignored it. Those guys had their job to do, and he and Parker Sturbridge had a mission of their own. Besides, he couldn’t imagine a surer way to die than to point a weapon at Jim Nelsonor Chris Simone.