by Ross Sidor
Aguilar smiled. “You’re easier to read than you think you are. You’re going after her, aren’t you?”
Avery allowed his silence to answer for him.
“I thought so. My team couldn’t have pulled off Phoenix without your help, and Phoenix is the catalyst for all this. The Viper is the unfortunate product of my country’s internal conflict. She’s my responsibility. I’m not going to let some gringo fight our battles for us.”
“Look, Felix, I appreciate it, but I’m better off on my own. I really am.”
Avery didn’t say it, but he thought he would have stood a better chance of bringing Pablo Muňoz out alive if he’d gone in solo.
But Aguilar wasn’t buying it.
“Bullshit. You can’t face her alone, not in the shape you’re in. Look at you. You can barely run, and I’m willing to bet that shoulder isn’t doing much for your shooting. I know you’ve been putting a lot of time on the range, more than you need to.”
Avery sighed. He knew Aguilar was right, and Avery’s options for reliable support were limited. After Panama, he wasn’t about to trust another local CIA station. He doubted Culler would be able to get SAD assets over here—CIA’s paramilitary units were all focused in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the Middle East, and Africa. DEA was good and could provide solid leads and intelligence, but DEA was a law enforcement agency, had to work with local agencies, and couldn’t take the quick action necessary for an effective counterterrorism op.
And after Aguilar double tapped Castillo without flinching, Avery had no doubt that he could trust the Colombian with his life. That was sentiment Avery presently shared with nobody else in the country, sentiment he only shared with a handful of people, and at least two of them had still managed to stab him in the back.
Avery knew he couldn’t do any better than having Aguilar watching his six. Aside from his loyalty and dedication, he also knew Aguilar was a pro.
Colombia’s Special Forces Brigade had the finest spec ops troops on the continent. They regularly win the main events in the two-week long, SOUTHCOM-sponsored Fuerzas Commando, an annual and highly secretive competition among South American special operations and counterterrorism units in fields ranging from physical fitness, to marksmanship, to assaulting and emergency responses. Colombian Special Forces were also highly sought after by West African and other Latin American governments to train their counternarcotics and counterinsurgency troops. They also trained regularly with the troops at Fort Benning, where most of them breezed through the Ranger Course. Due to their cross-training, Avery and Aguilar were familiar with each other’s fighting styles and tactics, and could therefore function cohesively.
“What do you know about the Viper?” Avery asked. “You ever come up against her before?”
As a hunter of terrorists, he never bought into the mystique or hype that often grew around the bin Ladens or Abu Nidals or Jackals of the world. They were simply criminals and murderers on a large scale, and their motivation, cause, and ideology didn’t matter.
“I know little more than you do. But I’ve operated against many terrorists to come out of the FARC camps or trained by the Cubans at Camp Mantanzas. They were extremely well trained, competent and dangerous. We hit a jungle camp once, just over the border in Ecuador, where intelligence had spotted Moreno and her brother. There was no sign of them when we attacked, but we found ANIC’s source hanging from a tree, draped in his intestines, full of bullet holes and knives. Radio intercepts later indicated we missed the Morenos by eleven hours.”
“The source. Was he one of Daniel’s?”
“Yeah,” Aguilar said. “Another of the Deep Sting agents.”
“Muňoz wasn’t the only one?”
“There were several. But Muňoz lasted the longest.”
“You think Moreno is as dangerous as Daniel makes her out to be?”
“I think you wouldn’t ask that question if you didn’t already think that she was,” Aguilar replied. “Her track record speaks for itself. You saw her in action in Panama. She has you worried, doesn’t she?”
Avery didn’t answer.
“ Look at the enormous risks she took in Panama just to get a shot at you, and no offense, but you’re nothing special. You’re not a politically or strategically important target as far as the Central High Command is concerned. She’s confident, skilled, completely fanatical, and not afraid to take risks.”
Avery agreed with Aguilar’s reasoning, but he thought that his assessment also indicated how unbalanced Arianna Moreno was. Terrorists weren’t known to make things personal. It simply wasn’t worth the risk of potentially compromising the entire cell or organization to settle a personal grudge, and Aguilar was right about Avery’s lack of value as a target for assassination. If Moreno was successful in killing him, nobody in Washington or Langley would give a shit, but knocking a couple civilian airliners out of the sky over American cities would sure get a reaction and have an impact on government policy and American life for decades to come.
Germany’s GSG-9 instructed their operators, and lectured foreign counterparts, to always shoot female terrorists first in a combat situation. After over a decade taking down Red Army Faction and PLO terror cells, the Germans found the women to be far more aggressive, colder, equipped with faster reflexes, and far more eager to kill civilian hostages or bystanders than were their male peers, and this was largely the experience of the Colombian military, too, in regards to FARC. Women needed to be cold and ruthless to survive in violent male-dominated extremist organizations.
And Avery thought that certainly explained how Arianna Moreno became the Viper.
“Yeah,” he said, “so let’s get to work and find her before she reaches the States.”
ELEVEN
Seven hours later, the German-made Do 228 twin-turboprop, needle-nosed utility plane’s wheels hit the dirt-paved runway at a remote military outpost in southwestern Venezuela. It was a hard landing, given the required steepness of the ascent due to the forest of seventy-foot tall kapok trees surrounding the outpost.
The military outpost was fifty miles from FARC-controlled land in eastern Colombia. From here weapons were flown in and delivered past the border, and cocaine came in from Colombia or Bolivia. Normally Venezuela merely acted as the middleman in arming FARC. The Central High Command purchased the weapons and paid a fee to the right officials in Caracas to facilitate delivery through Venezuelan territory and the rainforest, where the American spy satellites’ coverage was obscured by the layers of jungle canopy.
Furthermore, for a cost, the Russians provided tracking and telemetry data of American reconnaissance satellites to Caracas, who then relayed it to the Central High Command’s intelligence staff, allowing FARC to transport weapons and equipment along its supply lines when they knew there’d be no satellites overhead.
Hydraulics whined as the Do 228’s cargo lamp lowered.
The Viper climbed out the back of the plane’s small, stifling cabin with Durante on her heels. His orders were to keep her in sight until she’d left the Bolivarian Republic for the final time.
It felt good to see the jungle again, swathed in the familiar tropical heat and humidity, breathing in the dense, musky scent of dirt and plants, and feeling the occasional warm mist spray against her face.
In a heavily populated urban area, the Viper’s training kicked in and her mind went into overdrive, assessing possible targets, monitoring police activity, looking for potential sniper hides, where to place a bomb to cause the most damage, and preparing escape routes.
In the jungle she felt at home, far removed from the revolting sights and sounds of humanity, and the animosity those things invited. She’d understood from an early age, at the peasant village in which she grew up, that she didn’t belong in society. Even when she’d enlisted in the people’s army, following Aarón so that she would not be left behind, she never really belonged, but she’d at least found a sense of purpose and an outlet for her anger and hatred.
Arianna Moreno could recall the precise moment the Viper was born, when she accepted that by nature and design she was something inherently different from other people. At the training camps, one instructor, a veteran of Guatemala’s internationally condemned Kaibil Battalion, provided each of his trainees with a puppy to take care of. After three weeks passed, time enough for even the most hardened guerilla fighter to form some attachment to their dog, the Guatemalan ordered the recruits to slice the throats of their puppies. The sole female in the group, Arianna was the only one to follow the order without hesitation or question. She found the puppy pathetic as it helplessly whimpered and squirmed in its death throes, and it made her understand the weakness that attachments and empathy instilled in men.
The sudden recollection surprised Arianna, and she wondered why she thought about that now. She had little place for reflection or memories. She’d barely given thought to Aarón over the past week. There was no point in clouding her mind with memories and feelings. He was simply gone and no more. She’d never hear his voice again or feel the comfort of his embrace or the warmth of his flesh inside her. He was reduced to memories, which, like dreams, were simply abstract products of the mind and became less clear over time. Like dreams, memories were useless things, left for the sentimental and the weak, and Arianna Moreno thought that there was nothing weak about the Viper.
The backfire of an engine snapped her out of her reverie. Standing beside her, Durante said something, but she didn’t hear him as a Russian-made UAZ-469 open-top jeep pulled up alongside the airstrip, kicking up a cloud of dust and belching dark exhaust fumes into the air. A man jumped down from the back of the jeep and approached Durante and the Viper.
He was in his fifties with an olive complexion, short graying hair, a salt-and-pepper beard, and a long, angular face with narrow, deep set eyes and a sharp nose. He wore fading blue jeans and a white shirt with the top four buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. His shirt was damp with sweat, and he dabbed a handkerchief at his face; a man not acclimated to the tropical climate.
Colonel Vahid Kashani served in the Quds Force of the Seppah e-Pasdaran, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was a veteran of conflicts and covert actions in Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, having spent his entire adult life in service of the ayatollahs.
The Revolutionary Guard is the military branch tasked with protecting Iran’s revolutionary Shiite clerical government. The Quds Force, or Jerusalem Force, is the special operations unit of the Revolutionary Guards, responsible for covert operations in foreign countries. This included coordinating, training, and supplying terrorist and insurgent groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Mahdi Army in Iraq. Quds Force introduced explosively formed projectiles into the Iraq Theater, a weapon whose molten copper slug proved brutally effective against American tanks and armored personnel carriers, and Quds Force continued to augment Assad’s forces in Syria’s civil war.
Quds Force was also responsible for recent bomb attacks against Israeli diplomats in Georgia, India and Thailand in retaliation for Mossad’s assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, and Quds Force was linked to the failed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, DC. It also maintained a small presence in Latin America as Iran strengthened its relationships with Venezuela and Bolivia, training and advising military and police units to combat internal opposition. In the Triple Frontier, the tri-border junction of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, Quds Force ran paramilitary training camps. In Mexico and Central America, they established links with the drug cartels to smuggle personnel and weapons into the United States. In 2013, JSOC and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) neutralized a Revolutionary Guard/Hezbollah money laundering and drug trafficking operation in Paraguay.
Colonel Vahid Kashani and Durante greeted each other with handshakes. Then Durante introduced the Viper as an acquisitions representative of FARC, but she sensed that he knew something more. They spoke in English, since it was a shared language. The Viper noted that Kashani’s eyes did not frequently and salaciously shift over to her, stealing glances at her body, as men invariably did. When Kashani addressed her, he looked her directly in the eyes.
She’d met Iranians before, instructors at the FARC camps, and found them to be highly disciplined men, deeply committed to their cause, and for that she respected them, but she thought their religious devotion was misplaced, men driven by a non-existent entity, the product of superstition.
“It is a pleasure as always to see you, Durante. I hate to be rude, but I wish to speak with Captain Moreno alone,” Kashani announced after the formalities.
Durante hesitated. His orders from Caracas were quite clear about staying with the Viper at all times, but there was nothing he could do, and he could not offend Caracas’s political partners, so he smiled, capitulated, and said, “Of course.”
Arianna got into the back of the jeep with Kashani.
They drove a short distance across the military outpost, following a narrow, winding unpaved road through the rainforest to the ramshackle hut where Kashani stayed. A small satellite dish on the roof was the only touch of modernity. He ushered her inside and flipped on a fan.
“I will be direct with you, woman,” Kashani said. “I know exactly who and what you are. Given recent intelligence reports from multiple sources, and the weapons you seek from me, I also have a fair idea of what you are planning.”
“And?”
“I am willing to provide you ten missiles at no cost. I will also provide you current intelligence on American domestic security and airports.”
Arianna was skeptical, especially after how her former sponsors, one after another, had cut her off and turned their backs to her. “What do you expect in return, if not money?”
“Quite simply, I expect for you to do exactly as you have planned. To that effect, I am willing to provide certain assistance within reason.”
“I don’t understand how you benefit.”
“It’s obvious, is it not?” Kashani said. “Ten aircraft brought down inside the United States will cause significant damage to the American economy, political landscape, and national psyche. It will degrade the resolve of their citizens, who already grow tired of electing into office officials who seek to fight perpetual wars and bankrupt their treasury. Your desire to strike our mutual enemy now presents a unique opportunity for my country, one with limited risk and high reward.”
“Then why not do it yourself? What’s the catch?”
“Well, you will understand if I cannot completely turn over these weapons to you. My country is making an investment in your operation, and we need to ensure our return. I will provide you with a trained operative, a man whose sole purpose in life, endowed upon him by forces far greater than you can ever understand, is to wage war against the Great Satan. He will provide…” Kashani paused as he thought of the right word. “He will provide guidance and advisory assistance, but will not interfere.”
“I have my own people,” the Viper said. “They wait for me in Colombia. They are every bit as skilled as any agent you have. More important, I know them, and I can trust them with my life. I cannot say the same for someone who I do not know, an outsider whose loyalties lay with Tehran.”
“Your position is understandable, but you really should be careful who within FARC you trust. I can also tell you that Durante and the Venezuelans are not your friends. Andrés Flores is interested only in his own survival. He will sell you out the minute it becomes expedient for him to do so.”
“You think I did not already know that? I’m not an amateur or a fool, so don’t insult my intelligence or question my abilities.”
“Then I’m sure you already know that Timoshenko recently had a private meeting with Flores to specifically discuss you. In fact, I believe Flores is awaiting your return, along with those friends of yours. Why do you think Durante is so eager to personally see you off? He’s going to notify Flores the instant you are on your way.”
; Kashani let his words hang in the air, and he saw the flash of doubt in Arianna’s eyes.
She thought of the FARC truck on the airstrip nearby, waiting to deliver her and the missiles across the border, now her only way out of the country.
“I do not need your people to look after me,” she finally said, but she was grateful for the warning, and her mind was already working out what she needed to do next.
“Indeed, you are skilled,” Kashani acknowledged, “I meant you no offense, and I will pray for your success, but distance yourself from your ego. You cannot do this alone. It is very simple. If you want SA-24, my agent will accompany you.”
Kashani’s tone indicated there was no room for negotiation. The Viper didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. They both knew she had no choice.
Kashani said, “You can meet my agent in Bogotá, assuming you will make it there.”
___
The Viper travelled in a six-wheel-drive, army green FAP cargo truck. A FARC soldier drove, with two more riding in the back with two dozen SA-24s in transit cases secured in place with cargo netting. Fourteen of the missiles, the first scheduled batch of the Libyan SA-24s to FARC, were to be supplied to the 34th Front, which controlled northeastern Colombia.
Tree branches scrapped across the sides of the truck as it traversed the narrow, muddy path running through the rainforest. Twenty feet back, a tailing jeep carried Durante and three Venezuelan soldiers.
It was almost an hour drive from the Venezuelan military outpost to the border. Along the way, they were stopped once by an army checkpoint, and were allowed to pass after Durante spoke with the soldiers. Venezuelan soldiers were all over the border after Operation Phoenix. Once past the checkpoint, there was no other vehicular traffic, and they had to stop only once, to allow a group of peasants to cross the path with their donkey-drawn carts.
There were no clear border markings, and the Viper knew they’d entered Colombia only after the jeep abruptly stopped and turned around at a point where there was sufficient width in the road to do so. Durante used GPS to follow their route, and with the Viper on Colombian soil, his job was completed.