Eyes of the Hammer (The Green Berets) (51 page)

The guard at the landing pad acknowledged.

TIGER FORCE

Rabitowski smiled as the skids of the bird settled on the concrete landing pad. Two Colombian guards were moving toward the aircraft from the front. Cullen suddenly twisted his throttle to flap the blades. The two guards bent their heads even further and covered their eyes at the sudden onslaught of wind.

As they did so Griffin and Jacobs leaned out of the open back doors, one on either side, and gunned down the guards, using their silenced MP5s.

"Tiger, two down LZ," Rabitowski reported over the radio as he got out. Griffin and Jacobs started sprinting for the front gate, their RPG rocket launchers over their shoulders. Cullen rolled off the throttle and stepped out next to Rabitowski; they headed for the cars parked in the lot.

SNAKE FORCE

10:31 P.M.

Tremont started firing. He was slightly off his boast to Riley of a round every two seconds, but he wanted to be sure he hit his targets. He fired and worked the bolt like a well-oiled machine. The rifle puffed as each of the three rounds left the barrel. They were all out in slightly less than nine seconds.

"Tremont, three down, north, north, and south," he whispered into his mike.

Below him, Thompson was trying to find the last remaining guard. The man must be somewhere on the west side. He spoke into his voice-activated mike. "We've still got one on the outside. I think he's on the west side."

SECURITY CENTER, RING MAN'S VILLA

Lopez heard nothing but the sound of the helicopter winding down. He keyed his mike. "Hosea? Antonio?" He frowned at the lack of an answer. He was interrupted by the buzzing of his phone. He sighed as he realized it was the line from the Ring Man's room.

"Yes, sir."

"What is going on? What is my helicopter doing here?"

"I don't know, sir. I'm trying to find out."

"Find out and let me know." The other end slammed down.

An unpleasant, tingling feeling grew in Lopez's stomach as he continued to receive no answer from the men who had been waiting for the aircraft to land. He considered alerting the other guard shift of eight men who were sleeping in the room next to this one. Or perhaps he should go out himself to check on why the helicopter was here. He wished the Israeli was here to handle this. He was still trying to figure out what to do when the guard from the west wall called him.

"Lopez, this is Rene. I'm heading around front. I don't see—" There was a thunk followed by a brief gurgling noise.

SNAKE FORCE

"Tremont, one down west side." Tremont smiled as he worked the bolt and reloaded. The last guard had shown just enough of his head around the side of the building.

Thompson listened as other reports came in.

"Tiger One in place."

"Eagle going in."

EAGLE FORCE

Edberg signaled. There was a flash and hiss as the charge ate through the lock. The door swung open and the ten men slipped in, Edberg in the lead. They halted at the foot of the stairs and the team split. Four men headed toward the west wing, while the other six began work on the second floor.

They fanned out on the second floor, moving in a practiced routine.

They began clearing, room by room. The first indication that anything unusual was happening in the building finally occurred—the muffled roar of a shotgun echoed up from the east wing.

RILEY AND WESTLAND

Getting in had been easier than expected. The patio doors at the rear of the wing had carelessly been left unbarred. Riley had pried them open with his knife. Starting from the farthest room out, they had begun working their way down the corridor toward the main building. The first three rooms had been empty.

Riley turned the knob on the fourth door and stepped through to the right while Westland stepped to the left. In the dim light shed by a single lamp, they were greeted by the sight of a man and a woman in a compromising position on the bed.

The man dove for a gun on the nightstand and Riley pinned him against the headboard with a sustained burst from the MP5. The room echoed lightly with the noise of his expended brass tinkling onto the wood floor.

"Stay put and you won't get hurt," Riley hissed at the woman in Spanish. She nodded weakly, holding the sheet up in front of herself with one hand. Riley turned for the door.

The repeated roar of Westland's shotgun reverberated in his ears. Riley turned in surprise to see the girl on the bed crumpling forward, a pistol in her hand, practically disemboweled by the slugs and buckshot from Westland's gun.

"Riley, two down east wing," he whispered into the mike as he and Westland turned for the hallway. He was conscious that he'd made a bad mistake in not shooting the woman to start with. Kate had saved his ass.

SECURITY CENTER, RING MAN'S VILLA

10:38 P.M.

Lopez screamed for the men in the next room as he grabbed his MAC-IO. He yelled into the radio: "Jaime, get your people up here. We're being attacked!"

He waited for the brief acknowledgment from the leader of the four men manning the ambush position down the driveway before he headed for the door.

Lopez swung the door open and stepped into the main foyer. He spotted two black-clad men moving up on the second-floor stairwell. He was preparing to fire when an explosion blew open the locked front double doors. Lopez swung around to see two more dark-clad men stepping through the smoking wreckage. He fired a wild burst at them. In return, a sustained burst of machine-gun fire pummeled him back into his office.

Rabitowski let up on the trigger of the SAW machine gun with a satisfying click. "Tiger, one down first-floor foyer, main building."

He swung the muzzle slightly to the left as another door opened and a half-dressed Colombian stepped out waving a pistol. As he pressed the trigger Rabitowski could see the outlines of other men behind the first. He decided to make a clean sweep of things. Keeping the trigger depressed, he swept the doorway and then stitched a pattern on the walls.

The 5.56mm steel-jacketed rounds tore through the plaster, leaving carnage in the guard room. Rabitowski fired until he expended all one hundred rounds in the drum magazine. When the bolt slid forward and halted for lack of ammo, he expertly pulled another drum out of the bag on his hip and reloaded.

"Tiger, a bunch down, first-floor foyer, main building." Rabitowski smiled contentedly and glanced over at Cullen. The pilot shook his head. Some of these old guys sure were crazy.

Rabitowski swung his barrel to the left as two figures stepped out of the hallway from the east. He relaxed his finger when he saw through his goggles the glowing bands of tape on the newcomers. The old sergeant major's eyes widened as he noticed that one of the newcomers was a woman. Goddamn, he thought. What the hell was the army coming to?

EAGLE FORCE

Edberg was the second man into Ring Man's bedroom. They were met with the sight of the man, whose picture they had memorized, holding a pistol to the head of a naked young girl whom he held in front of him as a shield.

"I'll kill her if you come any closer," the Ring Man yelled out in Spanish.

Edberg keyed his mike. "Eagle. I've got our target here. Second floor. Center door. He's holding a young girl prisoner. Rest of floor secured."

From the hill Thompson updated the team leader. "Thompson. Sitrep. Compound secure. East and west wings secure. First and second floors main building secure. No sign of the prisoner. You've got the only live one there. Hawk two minutes out."

Edberg considered the situation. The girl was expendable. No one would say anything if they wasted her.

Another figure appeared behind Edberg. "Back out, sir. I'm Riley. I'll handle this."

Edberg didn't question the man and, nodding his head at his partner, he backed out the door around Riley.

Riley glared at the Ring Man. He knew the exfil bird was due shortly and they didn't have time to screw around with this fellow. He dropped his MP5 on its sling and drew his Beretta. He aimed it directly at the Ring Man's forehead.

"Where's the American?"

The Ring Man smiled. "If that is who you came for you are too late. He's not here."

The two cars that had left earlier, Riley realized. That was the only time they could have moved Powers. He took a step closer to the Ring Man.

"I'll kill her!" the Ring Man screamed as he screwed the muzzle of the gun into the side of the girl's head, causing her to cry out.

"Go ahead." Riley fired. The round impacted exactly in the center of the Ring Man's forehead, making a tiny black hole on entry. It exited the rear, blowing off half the back of his head. The pistol slipped out of lifeless fingers. The girl stayed where she was, frozen. Riley drew a bead on her momentarily, then lowered his barrel. He whipped off his belt, tied her hands together, and threw her over his shoulder.

"Riley. Ring Man dead. Has anyone seen any sign of Powers?"

"Thompson. Negative. Building has been cleared. He isn't here. Any idea where he could be?"

Riley felt as though he'd been hit with a sucker punch. All this only to find that Powers had been moved. "Riley. They must have moved him out this afternoon."

Westland appeared at his side as he carried the girl down the stairs. She pulled the mike away from her lips as she spoke to him. "What now? They must have moved Powers in that two-car convoy you saw leave earlier."

Riley nodded. His brain went into overdrive as he ran out into the backyard with his prisoner. The two cars had returned less than an hour after departing. If Powers had been in one of those cars, he had either been transferred to another vehicle or was being held relatively close by, probably in Bogota, Riley thought.

SNAKE FORCE

10:33 P.M.

Thompson shifted his gaze as Tremont alerted him. "Tremont. Got a pickup truck coming up the drive. Probably the guards from the road. I can see two men in the back with weapons." "Thompson. Tiger, you copy that?"

"Tiger, roger."

TIGER FORCE

Griffin released the safety on the RPG. He glanced over to the other side of the road where Jacobs was crouched, ready with his rocket launcher. Through his goggles he could make out the glow of the headlights coming closer.

Griffin pulled off the goggles and peered into the darkness through the NSP-2 infrared night sight of the launcher. The headlights appeared around a curve, eighty meters away, coming fast. Griffin centered the cross hairs of the RPG right between the two lights, and tracked. He waited until they were only fifty meters away before firing.

The rocket leapt from the tube. It covered the fifty meters in less than a second. The 85mm projectile tore into the front of the pickup truck and exploded, turning the vehicle into a blazing fireball that rolled off the left side of the road and tumbled down the slope toward the valley.

"Tiger, vehicle destroyed."

"Snake, roger. Hawk one minute out. All elements pull back."

Griffin and Jacobs ran back up the driveway, where they met Rabitowski, who had just lit the fuse running to the charges he and Cullen had rigged on the cars. The old NCO ran over to the OH-58 and threw in a satchel. He patted the side of the aircraft. "You done good," he muttered and then turned back to the other members of his team. "Let's go."

They raced around the building, where they were met by the other members of the strike force heading for the backyard. Edberg was standing next to the elevated diving board, counting heads as people came running up. He could hear the helicopter now, coming in from the west. He spotted Riley with a girl over his shoulder and ran over to him.

"What are you going to do with her? We can't take her with us."

Riley shook his head. "I'll keep her here. I'm not going with you."

"What!" Edberg glanced up as the massive HH-53 chattered in above them. "What are you going to do?"

"I have to find Powers. I'll take one of the cars up front."

Westland stood next to him. "I'm staying with you."

Edberg shook his head. He had no time to argue. "If you don't get on that bird you're not my responsibility anymore. Also, the cars up front are rigged to blow."

"How long a fuse?"

Edberg shrugged. "Five minutes, but I'm not sure how long ago Rabitowski lit it. He's ..." His next words were lost in the roar as the helicopter settled in. Edberg shook his head as Riley and Westland sprinted off for the front of the villa, Riley still carrying the young Colombian girl.