Matt Hilton - Cut and run

I was in an anonymous-looking government car along with Bryce and Jack Schilling, one of the guys from my team. Montoya and my other two colleagues, Pete Hillman and Robert Muir, were set up a little distance away down the road, keeping obs on the side entrance to the house we were all watching. We had a view of the front facade of the historic house. I believed that our target would exit by the front, and it was my and Jack's responsibility to take him out. In the other car was our support team who would only engage the enemy if we were cornered, or if we failed. Six of us to take out one man. It might sound like overkill, but I hoped it would be enough.

Jesus Henao Abadia was a key player in the Colombian drug cartels. The US Treasury, Justice and State Departments had applied economic sanctions against the drug cartels under Executive Order 12978 in an effort at curtailing what they termed Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers. Abadia was an SDNT, but he was more than that. He was a butcher. He was suspected of having personally executed rivals and government officials by way of hacking them to steaming chunks with a machete.

Not that I feared we weren't up to killing one man with a big knife. It was the protection team which travelled with Abadia that gave me cause for concern. Abadia went nowhere alone. Not even here, to the home of his long-time mistress, Jimena Antonia Grajales.

Victor's intel said that Abadia was there with the woman and only two of his protectors who would be on the ground floor of the two-storey house. Abadia was due to return to his fortress-like home near to Prado in the Colombian department – like a county or state – of Tolima this morning. This would be our best opportunity for taking out the butcher without facing down a veritable private army of retainers.

I felt uncomfortable about taking out Abadia where there was the potential for innocents to be caught in the cross-fire. It was bad enough that Jimena was here, let alone the occasional civilian who wandered along the street past the house. But I had my orders and that was that. Collateral damage was apparently acceptable if it meant stemming the flood of cocaine to the western world.

We were wearing covert earpieces, and over the scrambled channel I heard Victor announce that Abadia's white Lincoln town car had been spotted heading our way. Victor had other DAS agents – the Colombian equivalent of secret police – in the field, watching all points of ingress.

'Two in the vehicle: driver and escort,' Victor announced in an accent redolent of his heritage. 'They should be with you in thirty seconds.'

Six to five, the odds were growing in Abadia's favour. If Jimena was a player, that meant the odds were one-on-one, but I didn't consider that too long. I didn't make war on women.

'OK, we're rolling,' Bryce said into the mike taped to his throat.

From behind our left shoulders came the white town car. We hunched down in our seats, Jack Schilling reaching for the Heckler and Koch MP5A3 sub-machine gun located under his seat. It was a variant of the usual MP5, with collapsible stock and chambered for nine mm rounds. It was favoured for close quarter battle and hostage rescue scenarios because the nine mm ammo was less likely to go through walls and hit the hostages. It also fitted nicely beneath the seat of a car and could be brought quickly into play where the longer MP5 would require more manoeuvrability. Armed with my sidearm, I'd be the man designated to hit Abadia, while it was Jack's responsibility to lay down enough rounds to keep his protectors' heads down. Bryce brought out his service pistol, a Beretta, and jacked a round into the chamber. His gun was to be used for defence only, as in effect he was our getaway driver and was no good to us if he was engaged in the fire fight.

The Lincoln rolled up outside Jimena's house on fat tyres. The house door cracked open and two men stepped outside. Neither of them was Abadia. They were tall, slim men, dark-haired, dark-skinned. They had predatory eyes as they swept the street for any sign of danger. I saw that they weren't taking any chances; they were already armed with 7.62 mm Israeli-made Galil automatic rifles.

The passenger eased out of the Lincoln and reached to open the back door. As he did so, I got out of our car and began walking slowly towards them. If I'd come in the black jumpsuit and Kevlar vest associated with my line of work, they'd have mown me down instantly. But I was dressed like anyone else in this teeming city, my skin and hair darkened with dye and my give-away blue-green eyes turned chocolate under contact lenses. I walked hunched over, feigning a slight limp. Abadia's protectors were aware of me, but they weren't concerned. One of them nodded and there in front of me stood Abadia. His two rifle-wielding guards took up position either side of him as he strode down the steps from Jimena's house towards the waiting car.

I was no more than ten yards from his position. One of the guards, the one holding open the car door, lifted the flat of his palm to me. Wait there, he commanded me in Spanish. I stopped, nodding like one used to taking orders. My finger was on the trigger of my SIG and I was a second from lifting the gun from out of my jacket pocket and placing a round in Abadia's head.

But then it happened: the uncontrollable force that has destroyed many well-laid plans throughout the ages. Normal life butted in to place a wall between me and my ability to carry out my duty.

Jimena followed Abadia to the car, demanding a final kiss. But that wasn't all. The tousle-haired boy hanging on to her waist stopped me faster than any amount of bullets that Abadia's men could have fired at me. He was maybe twelve years old, but he was much smaller and slighter of build than English boys of the same age. Something that struck me immediately: he was definitely his mother's child. But more than that, he had the same hawkish nose and deep-set eyes of his father. This boy was without a doubt the offspring of the man I'd come to kill.

My reaction to the boy must have been noticeable, much as I tried not to let it show. I saw Abadia's gaze snap my way, and his dark eyes bored directly into mine.

'Take the shot, goddamnit!' I heard Bryce whisper in my earpiece.

I couldn't. Not when the boy was there. I don't make war on women. I certainly don't against children. I could still have got Abadia clean, but that wasn't the problem. His men would lift their guns to avenge him and then the bullets would be indiscriminate.

'Abort, abort,' I whispered back, averting my gaze and hoping that the man hadn't recognised the murder in my eyes.

'Take the shot, Hunter,' Bryce snapped. 'We won't get this opportunity again.'

'Can't do it. Not with the woman and child here!'

Abadia was watching me like he'd been struck by a gorgon's stare. His face was like stone, and the only life I could detect was in the trembling of his eyelids.

In my time as a soldier, I'd often been in a position where something nebulous, some sort of super intuition or a sixth sense, was all that it took to warn me of danger. Whatever it was, it had saved my life on more than one occasion. But it seemed that I wasn't the only one who had this ability.

Abadia let out a wordless cry, and he turned to Jimena and the child, shooing them back towards the house even as his anxiety transferred to his men and they began to bring up their rifles.

In a split second everything went to shit.

I had no recourse now but to shoot or die.

The man nearest me lifted his Galil, and I swept out my SIG at the same moment. My single round took him in the throat and he went over backwards. His dying act was to pull the trigger of his rifle and bullets zipped over my head, knocking roof tiles from a nearby building.