Original subtitles

NAVAL SPECIAL FORCES COMMAND

ARC PACIFIC CENTRAL "MÁLAGA" NAVAL BASE

Training has to be so intense that war feels like a break.

As special operators,

we're categorized as high-performance athletes.

- Really? - So...

we can't lose control

if we're physically on a mission,

just because, let's say, we might be tired.

- Right. - It's inconceivable.

This battalion has the most well-trained

minds and bodies in the navy.

The targets we deal with are high-value targets.

If we need one, we go for one.

That precise and that specific?

We don't go for more.

With the damage we can do to that target alone,

we're directly affecting the entire structure.

You cut off one head and another pops up automatically.

The king is dead, long live the king.

- But we know that the king who's dead... - Isn't coming back.

He's not coming back. And what he was doing

and his connections die with him.

- Right - The next one starts from zero.

In a difficult situation, we don't want to improvise.

We need to have a quick and effective response.

That's why this training needs to be intense,

it needs to be demanding, it needs to push us to the limit.

That's the only way we can know each other.

- More sweat and less blood. - More sweat, less blood.

What do your families think of this thing you've gotten into?

- They'd be happy. - My family supports me,

but yet they know the risk in what we do,

in what we face every day.

The most important thing is that if six go out, six come back.

We have to be very calm making decisions in the moment,

to make the best decisions.

A great commander of mine in the unit

used to say that when you lead a team of six, like this,

you don't lead six people, but six people

- plus their wives, children, families. - Yes.

In the end, you add that up,

your decision is going to involve 50 or 60 people.

- Directly. - Directly.

That's a lot of weight on your back.

We have a motto that we keep in mind

in difficult times,

and that's "not on my watch."

If we all do that, if we start with that in mind,

things are going to go well.

But that's the strength of the group.

When I falter, you pull me onward.

You have to know the chain is as strong as its weakest link.

It's not about me doing it, you doing it. No.

We do it all together.

Same philosophy as Spain's Special Ops Group.

The team is the most important thing, nothing else.

Apart from the armed struggle that you can see,

we also know that we're facing a spiritual struggle,

between the forces of good and evil.

On one occasion, one of them showed up and declared

that he worshiped the devil.

Literally, like that.

"I worship my devil

because my devil is stronger than your God."

- There's no room for doubt here. - No.

You have to be decisive.

Doubt gets you killed.

I would rather let the mother of the criminal cry,

than let my mother cry.

That's clear.

Lord, Almighty Father, we thank you for this day.

We thank you for our life, for our health,

for our families.

Father, in your hands we entrust

that our mission be successful.

Deliver us from the enemy,

from his sight, from his smell, from his ear.

Whatever the outcome at the end of this mission,

allow us to return alive, healthy, safe and free to our homes.

In your name... Amen.

PACIFIC NAVAL COMMAND ARC "MÁLAGA" NAVAL BASE

At your service, Admiral.

COMMANDER, PACIFIC NAVAL FORCES

We're here conducting offensive operations

with the Pacific Naval Forces.

Our jurisdiction is rather broad.

There are 1,300 kilometers of coastline

along which we maintain a presence

with our naval units, our marine infantry units

and the Coast Guard.

Organized armed groups claim territorial control

and make use of the tributaries that flow into the Pacific Ocean

because it's an excellent corridor for moving narcotics by sea.

Why the journey to the sea?

To communicate with Central America and North America

and to be able to move those drugs into their illicit economies.

We're going to find organized armed groups

that use this area for their purposes,

the organized armed group ELN and the Gulf Clan.

Usually when we do these kinds of operations,

they always try to harass us,

and that's why we go into combat in our offensive operations.

To date, we've taken 232 tons of cocaine.

Thirty-two tons in our territory,

the rest with friendly countries like Panama, Ecuador,

the United States, Central America.

OPERATION ORION

-Navigator, heading? - Bearing for you, Lieutenant, 234

Copy that.

Starboard 15 to 234.

Everything okay?

Good, good.

Ready! Ready!

Look at me!

Second skid! Second skid!

Look at me!

Battle stations in place, lights out in the unit.

That's your hammock.

Thank you.

From the first minute I met them,

it was clear they were from Special Ops.

They're especially qualified people.

It's in everything they do, how they move, how they talk, how they think...

It's not necessary to ask them anything, they're Special Ops.

We've never met, but it's like we've always known each other.

When we in the Special Ops get together, meet up,

call it what you want,

right away there's that feeling, that connection,

because their way of life

and way of dealing with problems and situations is the same as yours,

exactly the same.

And this is true across languages, and countries, and continents.

Copy that.

We're going to proceed to the operations area

as ordered by the Pacific Naval Forces Command.

Radar is on high alert for any surface contact.

Helicopter on alert 15,

ready to perform any type of maritime interdiction operation.

Copy that, Captain.

Sentry, intensify search program with binoculars

on starboard and port sides.

Ready. Have them raise the gate and proceed to the point.

Copy that.

Attention, all personnel, we begin maneuvering!

Let out the group.

Copy heading, copy distance...

Maintaining heading 160.

- Opening gates. - Copy.

Lead unit initiating movement on schedule.

I have contact. We have them at a distance of...

5.2 miles.

Cartagena, China to Cartagena.

Copy.

- Ready now? Hold tight. - Ready.

Recommended heading, Captain, 130.

We have them in a rolled crossing situation off the port bow.

Cartagena, China to Cartagena.

Run heading 225 immediately, full speed.

Contact distance, 5 miles. Speed, 32 knots.

Heading position 225.

Copy speed and distance.

Movement bearing 170.

Increase engines, increase all engines.

Distance, 4 miles. Do you have it?

Four miles.

Engines, I'm going full speed ahead. Going full speed ahead.

- It's fast, isn't it? - Very.

Bearing 190, maintained and adjusted.

Hold on.

Keep me updated on the situation.

One mile, one mile. We have a visual.

Cartagena, China to Cartagena. It's all across your bow, please confirm.

Copy that, 158, visual contact, visual contact.

Your vessel is bearing 145.

This is the Colombian Coast Guard. Identify yourself, cut your engines.

They're dumping something!

Increase power!

They're dumping cargo, contact across the bow.

Watch, maintain heading, dumping cargo.

Hey, to the bow, to the bow!

To the bow! To the bow!

Go!

Go get the cocaine! Go get the cocaine!

They dumped the cargo! Vessel secured.

Let's go after the cargo!

They dumped the cargo! They dumped the cargo!

Vessel secured, but they dumped the cargo.

In the bow, we have one in the bow.

To the next one!

From port to starboard!

There's more cargo they dumped.

As soon as they detected a Navy vessel,

they started dumping everything.

- We've got one more left. - We've got another in front.

- There are four packages - Over there.

Here's one!

- Come on, come on! - Please.

- The bow is not secured. - Pelayo!

- Here. Bear right. - There are nine more packs in the water.

They're reporting that at 1.4 miles, across our bow,

there are approximately nine packages in the water.

Here they are. To the engines.

- Stop the engines. - Cargo in the water.

One, two, three, four... There are five.

Yes, it's here on my stern.

He's running a search pattern to show us

where the most parcels are.

China to Cartagena,

head toward the line.

This is Cartagena. Copy, adjusting.

Heading to the parcel.

Bridge, tell the URR that there's a buoy here

off our port beam.

Yeah, it's possible this is a buoy

for locating the merchandise they've abandoned,

so if they get the play right, they can come back for it.

I'm not sure either.

It'll have to be dismantled since it's been used.

- What a beating, man. - You can see.

I'm soaked.

Right now we're back at square one,

catching the last link in the chain,

the lowest one.

- Quickly, quickly. - Let's go, let's go.

It's similar,

different, but similar to what we get in Spain,

people who see this as an easy business, easy money,

and accept the consequences that can happen when it all goes wrong.

Let's go, let's go!

How much is it?

Eighty-one bags.

Can you confirm?

AS OF 2025, OPERATION ORION HAS SEIZED 2,000 TONS OF COCAINE

AND OVER 1,000 TONS OF MARIJUANA

These guys are ready for...

any situation that requires special training.

In every mission,

there's a very good chance they won't come back,

or something will happen to them.

Family is what remains in the end...

fucked...

forever.

The biggest fear in a heavily compromised situation,

what really made me afraid, was failing my teammates.

It's the inflection point.

I understand perfectly.

A few years ago, we were on a river in the Colombian wilderness,

we were patrolling and we received information

that we had to get to a certain point

to blockade an area where the enemy was normally deployed.

We were ready to leave when we heard a shot.

I had a teammate

who was operating a radio.

I see the radio fall in slow motion.

- Right. - He drops the radio, I watch the radio,

I turn to see my teammate bring his hands to his chest.

When I see him start to bend over, double over,

I see his shirt start to get wet with blood.

"He's hit, he's hit," we were shouting, and the fighting started.

It was complicated because we were on the ground.

We had most of our heavy weaponry in the boats,

we just had our personal guns.

but the fighting and the fire went on a long time.

We got to a hamlet where we could extract him

and, since he was wounded, we were dragging him,

blood and foam started pouring from his mouth.

The only thing he managed to say, since he was is such bad shape, was,

"My Corporal, I'm going to die.

My Corporal, I'm dying.

Take care of yourself." And he died.

It's been several years but that never fades from my mind.

You're never going to forget it.

We've lost really good teammates,

but... this is our life.

Death comes and does not wait for you to have done all you needed to in life.

It comes suddenly and all at once.

I suppose if you have a few seconds of clarity

before your mind goes out,

you think of your people.

I would think of my children.

I worry about tomorrow.

We're going to start ascending one of the most dangerous rivers in Colombia,

the San Juan River.

The fundamental thing about fear is to dominate it.

Fear is going to be there in the worst times,

helping you stay active,

stay alert.

...deliver us.

It would be a mistake to be confident in this kind of operation.

Fear keeps you alive.

Fear is necessary.

The Chocó department is of primary interest

to organized armed groups for extracting their drugs.

The operation we're carrying out will be on the San Juan River,

one of the main rivers in the Chocó department.

This route, let's say it's favorable.

But the moment we start heading north,

we're going to run into the organized armed groups

that use this area for their purposes.

It's important that our people be in sync,

always on situational alert.

We're facing a real threat

that's menacing these communities.

We may encounter improvised explosive devices

and, in the same way, in this sector, we may engage in combat.

So we should understand that when we're now positioned

to execute an operational phase, we're almost in a war zone.

It is a war situation.

I'll try to call you, but I don't know how long I'll have coverage.

I'm out. Love you lots. Kisses.

- Am I okay here? Am I in your way? - Sir?

- Am I okay here? - You're good, sir.

- Call me Pelayo. - Pelayo.

- Forget "sir." - Pelayo.

Between you and me, we're all in the same shit.

You get on the boat and it's an idyllic landscape.

Lush forest,

exotic animals.

It could be paradise on earth.

But you look in the eyes of the commandos next to you

and you see the tension.

There is a dense atmosphere...

that you can't trust.

You won't see him visually.

You just see the flashes where the shots come from,

you usually don't see the enemy because he's in the bush.

He does see you, but you only see where he's shooting from.

We've just started to go upriver a bit.

Maybe 40 miles,

and the rules of the game have changed.

They're not the same as before,

trying to make a living on easy money.

Here, we're now touching the middle links of the chain.

They use minors and elderly folks

to block us, because, as they know,

we respect the civilian population first and foremost,

they use that civilian population as a shield,

a human shield,

so that we can't conduct our operations as normal.

They live in this area, they know it well.

They've done a lot of harm to the population,

but they're not visible.

It's an invisible enemy...

always waiting for you to reveal a point of weakness

to take you out.

It's a complex situation, it's tactically very complex to fight this.

Very.

Anyone who lowers his guard is fucked.

The patrol is initiating movement.

The pattern on the armor is cool.

Yeah.

- It looks like a ghost ship. - You can't see it at night.

- You can't? - Can't see anything at night.

Since it has no exterior lights, it's very tactical.

- It's silent, doesn't look like it, but... - Yeah, very quiet.

It looks like a ghost in the fog.

Watch out on the banks.

Historically, this is a point of harassment for the unit.

We have to be alert to any situation so we can react quickly.

Report.

Copy.

Copy.

We've gone far enough upriver to be worried about what will happen.

I've been on a lot of missions

and I know when something worries me or not.

- Safety is most important. - Safety is most important.

We're patrolling in a kind of armored submarine.

- It's an armored hull. - Yes, sir.

- Other than that, there's no security. - There's none.

Is that like a observation point there, or is it nothing?

Nothing, no.

There's a clearing, canopy is hidden.

- Yes, like... - There's a clearing,

but you can't see the canopy. I've located it.

It's time to open the stern and go all in.

That one, that one.

- Good morning. - Good morning, Major.

Today we're going to conduct a maneuver

to verify some points of interest

that historically were laboratories

or illegal infrastructure for processing coca paste.

We need to clean up the area,

secure it, advance into the dry zone,

and with some coordinates they've given us,

see if the old laboratories

of any of these armed groups,

which they usually abandon,

have been reused or remained abandoned.

We'll arrive at a point, land and initiate infiltration.

Until then, eyes open. Anything can happen.

- Yes, anything can happen. - This is a war zone.

War zone. Yes, the whole place is a war zone.

A lot of the time there are natural obstacles that don't let us

pass through easily.

There's no path, nothing.

There are paths and roads all over,

but for the safety of troops and for our own safety,

we never take roads.

- Can they be mined? - They can be mined.

We always, to surprise the enemy,

come the most difficult way, the way they least expect.

Sir, Sydney 3 did a flyover with the drone.

Saw nothing. Requesting to continue to the target area, over.

Copy that, Sydney 41. Continue with the forward advance.

Copy, sir. Sydney 3.

Check for any kind of explosives in there, okay? K9 unit.

We'll land when they advance.

Okay.

Watch where you step.

We only follow one path.

- Like a hideout? - Exactly.

Some place underground to store weapons and such. Drugs.

Put it in and guard it.

- Steps. - Yeah.

- What are they? Human footprints? - Yes. Footprints.

- What's in there? - Nothing.

- It's historical. - Right.

We've reached level 180 from the first point.

We found the hatch, but it's empty. Over.

Sydney 41, do a good sweep, too.

Do a good sweep of the sector.

They were here five or six days ago.

- Yeah? - About five or six days ago.

- How do you know? - The path is very recent,

the footprints.

And by the cutting of branches.

As if they had cut the branches so they could hang hammocks.

- So they made camp here. - Yeah, this was a camp.

They're temporary places, they come, spend two days, three days, leave again.

It's good.

How long have we been walking?

Approximately three hours.

Here, the most dangerous things

are improvised explosive devices, I hear.

Yes, of course, they tend to mine their entire sector

because they already know that we're coming.

They know that we check the old sites,

so they tend to mine them.

Okay.

- There's no road, is there? - It's over here.

And this is where they left.

Fucking jungle.

Very good, very good.

And, you, as the leader of a team with young people,

when there's a moment of weakness,

and there's always a moment, how do you manage that?

Normally, there are moments of a lot of instability.

For example, when you're on long operations,

and as a commander, as a leader, you have to be...

You should never take one step less, always take one step more

and be a constant support for your people.

A lot of the time, you talk to the soldiers and...

just by seeing your attitude, they get motivated, too.

Your motivation,

no matter what happens, is also motivating.

What motivates you as a person as well?

What motivates us for those we command...

For example, what motivates me to be a soldier?

I dream of being able to say,

"I was part of the story of Colombia at peace,

I was part of peace in Colombia. I was part of that."

That really motivates me. My family, my loved ones.

We end up fighting for our family.

Yes, of course, one fights for one's family

so that, at some point, there's peace,

and all is well.

It's difficult, it's very complex.

But one fights for that,

for Colombians, for all Colombians.

The story is just wild to tell.

They live on a boat.

A boat measuring 6.5, 7.5 meters in length.

All day on it, patrolling, eating.

Night comes,

they establish their course and sleep on the boat.

For most people, the life these kids lead is a punishment,

they would never do it.

These guys are committed to it.

They're here, immersed in a combat situation,

in a war situation, at 18, 19 years old,

becoming men in forced marches,

at a speed

we're not accustomed to.

The identification code of troops wearing the same bracelet,

the same bracelet as Sydney 41.

The patrol boat is going to serve as our logistics platform

and, in case we need backup,

the rapid reaction force will come in.

Each passing day, the planning of each new voyage

is another unknown.

We've climbed several links in the chain.

Now we're already talking about much larger organized groups.

No one can detect a laboratory from above,

covered by the greenery of the jungle.

You go inch by inch, watching everything, or you don't see it.

You have to wait for them to come out, for the groups to come out.

And seeing all this,

you also understand how difficult it is

to fight to disrupt all their illicit businesses.

Like I said, when we came out, it was raining.

We came here and saw.

- Full sunshine. - Full sunshine.

I confirm that it's going to be a flyover.

It's in place to perform the reconnaissance flyover.

We'll jump off where there's a good place for the dog.

Watch your step, ready?

Same path as Leslie. We're only following one path.

The same path, just that one.

It's a difficult path.

Yeah, it's hard to advance.

It's crazy moving forward here, you're sinking the whole time.

This fucking heat...

- Nothing? How far have we gone? - Fifty-six meters.

Let's go over there.

It's impossible...

to control this place.

Tell Emilio to communicate with Medina,

to locate a village around here with the drone.

Copy, confirm that you're initiating adjustment.

Initiating adjustment.

Toward the inflection point.

Sydney 41, Sydney 3, copy?

Sydney 3, Sydney 41, Sydney 3, Sydney 41.

We're making moves. What are your orders?

Sydney 41, Sydney 3 to Sydney 41.

Pelayo, what's up ahead?

Engineering to Bridge.

Come in, Bridge.

Sydney 41, Sydney 3 to Sydney 41.

Sydney 3 to Sydney 41.

The radio is not working.

- We're on satellite and it's not working. - No.

Because of this green canopy.

How many klicks are we from them?

I told you.

At this time, we do not have comms.

Most likely we won't later, either.

In the event of an emergency later on,

an attack, an ambush...

We have no way to communicate.

Things sometimes go wrong.

Things get complicated.

And you have to accept that.

We like certainty too much, but certainty never exists.

And here, even less so.

Today, I'm here, in the fog.

We start to see the scope of all those arms,

of this leviathan that we've been told about long ago.

It's not easy to keep pushing.

Armed groups stand up

and use all the means they have at their disposal.

THIRD DIVISION CANTÓN MILITAR GR. JOSÉ HILARIO LÓPEZ

This has to be directed by someone

with special responsibility, with special value.

General Mejía's area of influence is a vast area.

A dangerous area, a volatile area.

Twenty thousand men,

and it seems he has mentally accounted for them all.

That's the way it is, it's his life, there's no life other than his operation.

It's a war of meters, of centimeters, of inches.

I can't give up,

my men aren't going to give up

because Micay Canyon has cost us blood, sweat and tears.

So the earth trembles, the cataclysm rumbles,

we won't leave for anything in the world.