Tasked with killing Pablo Escobar, Peter McAleese dared and was supremely confident he would win. The former SAS soldier’s plan to eliminate the world’s most notorious cocaine trafficker at his compound in the Colombian jungle was simple. First he would kill the watchtower guards using a helicopter. After the two choppers landed he and 11 other special forces veterans would “take out” his 60-strong bodyguard. They would throw phosphorus and fragmentation grenades inside the buildings, find Escobar, kill him, remove his head as proof of job done, then leave.
“We had enough ammunition to kill the best part of 3,000 men,” recalled McAleese, a Glaswegian with a bullet-shaped head, privet-hedge moustache and come-to-war eyes. “We were tooled up to the eyeballs, plus the fact that