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The 126 days of more boredom than terror, of carry-out food and no showers, had undercut the morale of rebels and prisoners alike. But it turned out much worse for the rebels, who had become dispirited and inattentive. "This will never end," one of them complained to a hostage the day before the rescue. "They were most ready for a raid after midnight or at 6 in the morning," says Gumucio. "They never expected something in broad daylight."
Just as the guerrillas playing fulbito (minifootball) were bellowing "Goal!," the floor exploded under their feet. Five were killed instantly, and the others scrambled for their weapons and toward the stairs. At the same moment other plastic-explosive charges blasted more openings from the tunnels into the interior of the residence. Still others blew open on each side of the building's exterior, and one ripped up the back garden. "The whole house shook like cardboard," an army lieutenant says, and smoke billowed into the sky as automatic weapons clattered.
Commandos poured out of the tunnels, firing as they came. On the balcony outside the master bedroom, the attackers found a wooden outer door still locked, though hostages had opened the inner, metal panel. One rebel fired his AK-47 through the wood and killed Lieut. Colonel Valer. Valer's troops then blew the door open with a grenade and stormed in. Foreign Minister Francisco Tudela van Bruegal-Douglas was wounded in the leg as he escaped. The commandos, intercepting guerrillas coming up from the living room, shot them down on the staircase.
In another room upstairs, a rebel shot Supreme Court Justice Carlos Giusti Acuna. Giusti died on the way to the hospital of a heart attack. During a fierce fire fight in which Lieut. Raul Jimenez Salazar was killed, another hostage, Agriculture Minister Rodolfo Munante Sanguinetti, had a close call. A guerrilla dashed into the room where he was hiding with several others and raised his rifle. But he did not pull the trigger. "He just left without shooting or lobbing a grenade at us," Munante recalled. "I got the impression the boy suddenly felt bad about what he and the rebels had done." Fujimori, his voice breaking, praised Jimenez later for his leadership, saying, "He was the first to open the way for his companions."
All 14 guerrillas were killed, and in the aftermath there were charges, or at least suspicions, that some had tried to surrender but were executed. Fujimori stoutly denied he had issued a shoot-to-kill order. "My only order," he told reporters, "was to rescue 72 hostages." That is almost the same thing, of course. Special-operations troops are trained to kill swiftly to keep terrorists from fulfilling their threats to massacre their hostages. Commandos usually warn hostages to lie down because they will be shooting at anyone standing up. When the special troops, wearing gas masks, burst into the thick smoke of the residence hallways last week, they had trouble distinguishing hostages from guerrillas. One hard-charging lieutenant shouted, "Anyone who moves gets shot!" He almost fired at a hostage who grabbed his hand and would not let go.