The Geronimo Breach

by Russell Blake

  “Hmmmm. So if we go to Cali together, who’s going to watch Mel?” Al asked.

  “Oh, Momma and my sisters will. They absolutely love her,” Mari gushed. “I’ll call them tonight and see what time they can come over tomorrow.”

  “And getting to Cali?” Al was almost afraid to ask.

  “We’ll hire a plane. A small four passenger one, so you won’t have to document anything.”

  “If you recall,” Al reminded her. “I don’t do well with motion.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Mari replied. “The alternative is being slaughtered by Gringo death squads.”

  “You have a marvelous way with words.”

  “After three years, one forgets the little things, no?” Mari chided.

  The discussion went on for another hour, as they argued the fine details of the plan. But in the end it was Al’s only shot.

  The talk turned to Mel, and the childhood he’d missed sharing with her so far. She sounded like a good kid and it was obvious that she was the light of Mari’s life. Al wondered what it must be like to care so profoundly about someone besides yourself, and again felt an uneasy stirring.

  At ten p.m. Mari went to a closet, got a sheet and a pillow out and invited Al to make himself at home on the sofa. Her only request was that he sleep clothed so if Mel wandered in for any reason she wouldn’t be permanently traumatized by the sight of his unclad body.

  What else was new? Seemed like a fair deal to Al.

  At least he had clean socks.

  Chapter 36

  The following morning, Al woke early and was showered, shaved and in shape by the time Mari emerged from her room with Mel.

  Mel regarded Al with seriousness, and held out her hand. “Buenas dias,” she recited, lisping over the soft consonants.

  “Encantado, Senorita Melissa,” Al replied sonorously, shaking her little hand with as much gravity as he’d ever shown at a diplomatic event. “She can talk?” Al wondered aloud to Mari.

  “She started young, at eighteen months, forming simple words,” Mari explained. “At this point she’s up to three and four word sentences.” Pride bloomed in Mari’s face. “She’s advanced for her age.”

  “I don’t have any experience with this...” Al explained.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to,” Mari said as she headed into the kitchen to set about feeding Mel.

  The two sisters and Momma arrived at nine a.m. and were introduced, in turn, to Al. He got the feeling Mari hadn’t fully explained his relationship in the family, although he sensed that Momma wasn’t particularly warm towards him. He asked Mari, who told him that no, as far as they knew he was just a friend, nothing more.

  He supposed that painted an accurate picture, at this point.

  Mari explained to Al they’d be taking a taxi to the nearby airport – she’d arranged a small plane to take them to Cali for a thousand dollars plus hotel expenses; the pilot would wait for two days in Cali to fly them back.

  “That seems expensive,” Al grumbled.

  “You can always take the bus,” Mari countered, “which takes several days and runs the risk of requiring your passport to be checked as you get further south.”

  That about covered that issue.

  Al quickly calculated; with the flight and some hotels, he would burn a third of his money. Then again, he wasn’t going to need much if this didn’t work – his retirement would be measured in hours, not decades.

  Every cloud had a silver lining.

  Which might have been a poor choice of phrase, given Al’s reaction when he saw the plane Mari had hired. He’d been in economy cars that were bigger. Mari seemed unconcerned. Al needed a drink. Or ten.

  The captain, Jorge, patted the side of the dilapidated plane with pride, assuring them that they were in for a treat. A 1978 Cessna Turbo Skylane. Finest plane in the air. Hundred and fifty knots per hour would get them all the way to Cali with no refueling. And Jorge proudly told them that he’d wisely bought his fuel for most of the flight in Venezuela, due to the radically lower costs. He’d have to charge $1500 if he did the whole trip using Colombian fuel.

  “Isn’t the plane almost thirty-five years old?” Al asked Mari.

  “That means it hasn’t crashed for thirty-five years,” Mari observed. “Relax, you’re in safe hands.”

  She had a point. Sort of.

  The plane interior smelled like ass. Maybe all small plane interiors did.

  “Where’s the co-pilot?” Al asked, noticing the dual controls.

  “No necesito,” Jorge replied. “Don’t need one.”

  Al wasn’t convinced. “What if you have a heart attack or something?”

  “Let’s hope I don’t. If I do, try not to hit anything,” Jorge advised.

  “How about the bathroom?” Al asked.

  Jorge handed him an empty Gatorade bottle. “Liquids only.”

  Al could already see this was going to be a hoot. He gazed at the clouded over sky skeptically. The thunderheads looked ominous.

  So did the pilot.

  They were airborne within ten minutes. Al watched the altimeter as the small plane rose to nine thousand feet and steadied. Jorge seemed suspiciously close to nodding off. Every so often they’d lurch and bump and plummet alarmingly. Al left finger grooves in the armrest. Mari looked like she was sightseeing.

  He was convinced they were going to go down at least a dozen times over the Andes, when they were only three thousand feet above the mountain tops. Jorge would let out a ‘whoo’ every now and then following a particularly alarming loss of altitude or sideways wind shear.

  They touched down in Cali just a little over three hours later. Al felt like he’d been doing sit-ups the entire time – his abdomen was cramping painfully from the stress.

  “Maybe on the trip back it will be bumpy. There are supposed to be storms moving in over the next couple of days,” Jorge said as they left for their hotel.

  Just making idle small talk.

  Al’s stomach did another flop – he made a mental note to knock back a liter of Absolut before the return flight.

  Chapter 37

  The FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) have existed since 1964, when insurgents from the Colombian Communist Party armed themselves to combat regular army units bent on breaking up communist strongholds around the country. It had developed over time into an armed militia that controls almost half of Colombia’s territory, even to this day.

  FARC forces are significant players in the Colombian cocaine production and shipment trade, having escalated from ‘taxing’ production to becoming involved in manufacturing and trafficking. Estimates of revenue exceeding $100 million per year from these activities are probably conservative, and FARC is known to be instrumental in many aspects of the business.

  Although Colombia doesn’t like to advertise the fact that almost half the country is under the sway of, or completely controlled by, an armed militia which makes its living via the drug trade, kidnappings and extortion – the fact is that the nation has existed in a state of de facto civil war for half a century.

  While some of the grievances that drove FARC in the early years have passed into obscurity, one of its central themes remains vital – the subjugation of manual laborers and murder and terrorism against union activists by agents of American multi-national corporations…

  Along with strongholds in and around the Darien region, FARC controls most of the south-eastern portion of Colombia, the Andean plains region, and much of the area along the Brazilian and Ecuadorian border. Viewed by some as armed thugs and murderers, and by others as the voice of the proletariat against foreign imperialism and oppression, the truth is complex, and likely somewhere in between. It’s undeniable that armed clashes tend to be brutal and indiscriminate, and yet it’s also obvious that the group is a political force to be reckoned with.

  Venezuela has attempted to temper the tone of the rhetoric surrounding FARC, and has encouraged the group to disarm and to stop emplo
ying kidnapping and similar terrorist/criminal tactics – with minimal success.

  The U.S. Government’s official stance is that FARC is a terrorist organization, but as with many such stances, the position that its duty is to stamp out global terrorism is highly elastic, given that the total narco-profit pie is a massive number – some estimates place it at nearly a trillion dollars a year globally. Money of that magnitude has to find legitimate homes in mainstream industries; multiply this by thirty years and apply simple compounding at a nominal rate – say 3% per year – and it’s easy to see that a large piece of the global economic pie has had to pass through or has been generated by narcotics trafficking.

  One illuminating example of how the U.S. talks out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to terrorism and organized crime is an embarrassing photo from 1999, when Richard Grasso, the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, was photographed in the cocaine production territory of Colombia hugging the then second in command of FARC, Raul Reyes.

  Another is a slew of lawsuits alleging that Chiquita, through its subsidiary in Colombia, funded payments to the AUC – the ‘United Self Defense Forces’ – a paramilitary organization that was in reality a murder-for-hire and extortion group that killed hundreds of union leaders and ‘agitators’ who were pushing for better wages and working conditions in the banana industry in Colombia. While the U.S. Justice Department fined Chiquita $25 million in 2005 for what it termed ‘extortion’ payments to the AUC, a host of internal company documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act suggest that the payments were much more than protection money.

  Whatever one’s views, it’s obvious from even a cursory review of the history of Central and South America over the last fifty years that what are perceived as American interests have resulted in massive numbers of violent deaths, and the populations of the affected countries have long memories.

  They hold a grudge.

  ~ ~ ~

  Sam was back at the embassy, having grabbed a few hours of sleep at home. He now occupied a temporary office down the hall from his permanent one. Richard, as far as he could tell, had done no more than catnap in the office since his arrival.

  The interrogation of Carmen had yielded no new information, other than confirmation that Al occasionally moonlighted as an escort for customers who wanted to cross a border with no questions asked. Given that Al didn’t actually transport them across any borders he technically wasn’t doing anything wrong, and it seemed like he was more of a feel-good chauffeur than anything else.

  So far, the foreign intelligence angle hadn’t provided any additional illumination on the enigma that was Al. If he was a foreign operative, then he was deep cover and had been spectacularly good at playing the part of a harmless, drunken oaf. That either made him a dangerous fool or an even more dangerous genius capable of years of sustained, convincing role playing.

  Richard swiveled in Sam’s office chair taking stock of events and their implications. Jenkins had continued the questioning until he’d been sure there was nothing more to tell, and had dumped Carmen’s body in an outlying area where she was unlikely to be found for weeks. The jungle typically consumed anything that hit the ground very quickly so any complications were unlikely. Richard hadn’t shared this with Sam because he didn’t want the idiot to complicate his life further with any vague ethical considerations about the value of foreign nationals’ lives.

  The team was still located in Colombia but had nothing to do. The decision was made to get them to Bogota, as there was a U.S. Embassy there, but they were at a dead end on leads. Until Al made a wrong move or contacted them again they had nothing.

  That didn’t sit well with Richard, however, he’d learned to be extremely patient during his thirty-five year tenure with the CIA. He had run ops all over the world, in all manners of hellholes, including Colombia and Ecuador, so he felt comfortable with the local dynamics. Compared to places like Nigeria or Sudan or the Balkans, this was positively uncomplicated and serene. So he’d just watch and wait, and be ready to pounce once Al surfaced.

  Sam had cancelled the police bulletin, as instructed, and now Richard was thinking maybe that hadn’t been such a great idea. Then again, they really had no choice – they couldn’t afford Al getting picked up, and a room full of cops viewing the camera’s contents. That would broaden Richard’s headache exponentially.

  They’d questioned all of Al’s associates and colleagues and known contacts but the man had no close friends or confidants. No mate, no steady, no poker buddies or weekend pals. It was as if Al was some kind of ghost. He had no credit cards, though his credit rating was below terrible anyway – then again, that could have also been a skillful ruse to sustain his cover. And worst yet, his generation of passport didn’t have a chip in it, so it couldn’t be tracked. Unless it was entered into the system somewhere and flagged a computer, Al was essentially invisible.

  That worried Richard. Under normal circumstances the first thing to do was follow the money, understanding that amateurs virtually always slipped up and eventually used an ATM or credit card. But a search of Al’s apartment had yielded his ATM card on the coffee table – next to his cell phone – so no hope there of an easy tag.

  That’s where things got complicated – if he was a pro, he’d ditched everything and likely had an emergency stash of cash to access until his handlers could get him somewhere safe. If that was the case and Al disappeared they had an epic problem, namely the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb ticking away, to be used by America’s enemies at the worst possible moment. The fallout would be devastating; the credibility of the nation ruined, and the repercussions would cut across partisan lines. It could literally start World War Three.

  There was simply no way they could allow the unthinkable to happen. Richard had even run scenarios where a major land and sea attack could be launched in Colombia, annihilating a whole town if need be, to contain the damage. It could be made to look like a rebel attack of rival elements fighting. Or whatever. But in reality they had no target, and no clue as to where to begin looking. There was no guarantee Al wasn’t long gone and currently jetting to Moscow, or Beijing, or God knew where.

  These were the crisis situations that wore on him, as one of the top field directors and trusted confidant of the Director. He was one of a handful, the inner circle, and knew the whole story; or at least as much as anyone knew aside from the Director – and possibly the President, though there were many operations that required deniability, and so the Oval Office was kept in the dark on them; for their own good, really.

  But exposure of the camera’s contents would destroy everything. There was no denial that would be plausible. It was the worst of all possible situations.

  Chapter 38

  Mari and Al checked into their hotel – a three star establishment five blocks from the primary business and tourist center. The modest focal point of the hotel was a coca plant growing in the small courtyard that housed the pool. They had a single room, but two beds; Mari hoped she had made it abundantly clear this wasn’t going to be their re-kindling vacation.

  Sure, they had things left unsaid – and now Al knew about Mel. For better or worse, things had forever changed. It seemed Al had changed too. Mari reminded herself this was about saving the life of Mel’s father. Nothing more. At least, that’s how she had articulated it, and Al had agreed – in that way of his.

  Once Mari had checked in, she met Al down the street from the hotel for a late lunch and gave him a room key. She instructed him to stay in the room at all times until she came for him. She’d already slipped the desk clerk some cash to ignore whoever accompanied her – in a society where mistresses were common you often didn’t want to recognize whoever a young lady was with.

  Nobody knew that Mari’s brother was high up in the FARC; for her protection and his. Many of the fighters went by false names or aliases, and nobody needed to know who was who when a man had proved his loyalty over a harsh number of years. Mari k
new her brother, ‘The Butcher’ was beholden to and connected to no one, and that’s the way it would stay. If there was any hint that she was his sister, she’d have been in mortal danger from the Colombian government, but Mari felt safe enough in her society – where secrets were closely guarded for generations.

  They finished their lunch and returned to the hotel, where Al was studiously ignored by the suddenly-absent clerk. Once in the room, Al searched around for a mini-bar but it wasn’t that level of place. Mari advised him against ordering anything from room service unless he wanted to risk his life, so it was looking to be a dry trip for Al, other than the beer he’d had at lunch.

  At four o’clock Mari’s cell rang. After a listening to a few words, she wrote down a number on the corner of a paper napkin, which she then screwed up and put it in her pocket.

  “I need to use a pay phone and call this number within fifteen minutes. I’ll arrange a meeting with my brother then. I may be gone for a few minutes, or maybe hours. Either way, don’t worry, and stay put. And under no circumstances call or order anything until I get back. No joke, Al,” Mari instructed, giving him a withering look. She knew him very well.

  Mari grabbed her small purse, checked her reflection in the mirror and hung the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door as she closed it.

  Al listened to Mari’s footsteps echoing down the passageway, and then she was gone. He tried taking a nap but the adrenaline from the flight and the anxiety over Mari’s brother overwhelmed his usual ability to sleep virtually anywhere at the slightest pretense. He tossed and turned until common sense told him he may as well try to distract his overworked brain. He switched on the TV to try out the Spanish language programs. Ugly Betty was the only program he recognized – he hadn’t realized it was Colombian, not that he particularly cared. He only recognized it because his secretary was a devotee, regaling him with plot summaries on a regular basis. Usually when he was tediously hung over.