affair of iron with ornate leaf patterns, attached to a pair of stone columns standing at least fifteen feet high. The truck was manned by three of Soto’s men, who immediately got to work before Rojas’s security teams could react. Mounted on a railing fixed to the truck’s flatbed was a CIS (Chartered Industries of Singapore) 40-millimeter automatic grenade launcher capable of dispensing 350 to 500 rounds per minute, with a muzzle velocity of 242 meters per second. The launcher came equipped with a folding leaf sight, and its feed system was a linked belt of 40x53-millimeter grenades that were not fragmentary but instead carried a modified and less-than-lethal version of Kolokol-1, an opiate-derived incapacitating agent developed in a military research facility near Leningrad during the 1970s. The drug would take effect within only a few seconds, leaving Rojas’s exterior security force unconscious for two to six hours. According to intelligence sources, Spetsnaz troops had employed a more unstable version of the gas during the Moscow theater crisis in October 2002, resulting in the deaths of at least 129 hostages. While Moore, Towers, and the rest of the FES forces were not particularly concerned if one of Rojas’s security men accidentally succumbed, the thought was to limit the number of fatalities to Rojas’s staff (maids, cooks, etc.), which the Mexicans agreed would earn them even more glory.
Thus, as one of Soto’s men began launching the cylindrical gas grenades onto Rojas’s property, the hissing ordnance arcing over the gate and landing in strategically placed locations as close to the guards as possible (and within the weapon’s 2,200-meter range), another operator armed with an M240 machine gun stood on the flatbed and guarded him from any attacks outside the gate. A driver sat at the wheel, waiting to bolt as soon as they came under heavier fire.
Meanwhile, following Soto’s plan, a much larger force of nearly one hundred operators were cordoning off every street leading up to the neighborhood. For this job they employed more commando pickup trucks and several Russian-made BTR-60s and -70s, eight-wheeled armored personnel carriers whose presence would immediately strike fear into the hearts of the local residents, if not any of Rojas’s forces who spotted them.
Moore sat beside Towers inside the UH-60 Black Hawk with the word MARINA painted across the helo’s fuselage and underside between the landing gear. The Mexican pilot, the copilot, and two crew chief/gunners manning the 7.62-millimeter miniguns with Gatling-style rotating barrels were waiting for the good-to-go signal from Soto’s lieutenant on the ground.
Soto, who sat beside Moore, was in close contact with his ground team. Mission time was 0134 hours. They reported that some of the guards were fleeing back toward the house before they succumbed to the gas. That was not unexpected, and the assault team would keep them busy once the first-floor entrances were breached. The team planned to gain access through a kitchen door, a door leading into the master bedroom, the living room’s sliding glass doors, the garage doors, and the main entrance doors. Explosives and battering rams would take care of those obstacles.
“All right, all right, we’re good to move in!” Soto cried over the intercom. He removed his helmet and tugged on his gas mask, as the others had already done.
The Black Hawk banked hard, causing Moore to tighten his grip on the edge of his narrow seat. The three FES troops seated directly across from him, their knees nearly banging against Moore’s, grew wide-eyed. In addition to their alien-looking masks, they wore black combat helmets and matching fatigues, with heavy Kevlar vests beneath their shirts and the tactical web gear that covered their chests with pouches for knives, spare ammo, grenades, zipper cuffs, flashlights, compass, and canteens, and beneath that they wore their heavy pistol belts. Moore was dressed similarly, with patches on his shoulders, back, and chest that IDed him as “Marina.” His two trusted Glocks were tucked into a pair of TAC SERPA holsters at his hips, though he’d detached the suppressors. He had also been given a choice of an AK-103, an M16A2, or an M4 carbine. Did they have to ask? Of course, he chose the M4A1 with SOPMOD package, including Rail Interface System (RIS), flip-up rear sight, and Trijicon ACOG 4x scope. SOPMOD stood for Special Operations Peculiar Modification, and Moore considered himself a peculiar kind of guy, well suited to such a weapon. Besides, the rifle was exactly the type he’d often fielded on SEAL missions, and while the M16 he’d fired on Zuniga’s roof had felt like home in his hands, the M4 felt like a million bucks. Now, with the gun balanced between his legs and his breath coming hard through the mask, he waited as they wheeled around once more and began to descend, the chopper’s engine revving.
At the far south side of the gardens and higher up the hillside stood a smaller building, a two-car detached garage that served as both a lawn and maintenance equipment storage facility and an armory for the guards.
A few of them were dashing toward the building when the pilot pulled back up and called out the targets to the crew chiefs, both of whom unleashed hell, their barrels rolling, the guns booming, tracers lashing out like red lasers toward the building, which began to shatter under the barrage of 7.62-millimeter fire. The portside gunner jerked his rifle to the left and cut down three guards. They were nearing the garage, just as motion-activated lights above the doors clicked on to reveal their bodies, bloody and still writhing.
Before Moore could fully take in that scene, the pilot cut the stick once more and descended sharply, bringing them in over that second-story sundeck at the southwest corner of the house.
The crew chief on the starboard side slid his arm under the first of two fast ropes attached to a support arm extending from the chopper’s open bay door. Each rope had been created out of a four-strand round braid that reduced kinking, created an outer pattern that was far easier to grip than any smooth rope, and allowed operators to better control the speed of their descent through a towel-wringing motion as they slid down. Each rope had been coiled into a loop with the diameter of a truck tire, and the crew chief sent the first one flying over the side, followed by the second.
Moore wasn’t just a little experienced with fast-roping out of a helicopter. He’d spent entire weekends doing it over and over and over again until he could fast-rope in his sleep. When the Navy was dropping you off somewhere, there was never any time for long good-byes or thanks for the hospitality. They booted your ass out of a helicopter, and down you went. As many a crew chief had advised him:
“Ropes out,” the chief hollered in Spanish, then glanced over the side. “Ropes on the deck. Ropes clear and ready. Go, go, go!” He pointed at Moore and Towers, who threw off their safety harnesses and got to their feet.
Moore slid the M4 over his back, making sure the single-point storm sling was secure, then he shifted over to the rope on the right side, while Towers took the one on his left.
“One more radio check,” said Towers.
“J-One, this is J-Two, gotcha,” Moore answered. A toothpick-thin boom mike ran down the side of his cheek and was attached to an earpiece even smaller than the average cell phone’s Bluetooth headset.
“This is Marina One, I got you, too,” Soto added over the channel.
“All right, this is J-One. We are good to go!”
Moore braced himself, making sure his heavily padded gloves felt secure on the line. He leaned forward, then swung himself out of the chopper, beginning his descent, the rope firmly guided between his boots. He glanced over and saw Towers on his line, just a meter above. Allowing himself to slide a little faster, Moore craned his head down to better judge his speed and approach.
And that’s when something struck the helicopter with a muffled thud, followed by an ear-shattering explosion that sent Towers and Moore sliding wildly down the ropes.
Moore could barely see what was happening above him, but he felt a rush of heat and suddenly the rope was dragging him away from the sundeck and toward the lawn.
When he glanced up, he saw only smoke and flames.
Fernando Castillo lowered the rocket-propelled grenade launcher from his shoulder, then rushed back into the house, through the sliding glass patio doors. He began to cough, to feel sick to his stomach, because he’d breathed in a bit of the gas before putting on the gas mask and fetching the RPG from his closet.
As Jorge Rojas’s right-hand man and chief security man, Castillo had planned for every scenario his imagination could muster, and an assault using tear gas — or whatever kind of chemical agent the Navy was using against them — was not very creative.
He’d already called his boss, ordered him to go to his own closet gun safe, arm himself, and don his own gas mask. He would get down to the basement, where they would go through the vault within the vault and take a tunnel that led back up the hillside to the two-car garage, where inside was parked Castillo’s armored Mercedes. Castillo would try to hold off the attackers for as long as he could.
Beyond the doors, the helicopter plummeted in a great conflagration, crashing onto the hillside beside the garage, the rotors snapping off as though they were made of plastic, the secondary explosion and burning fuel
