CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
With full expectations of him eventually taking over the control of the family businesses, from his aunt; after graduating from King’s College, Carlos had gone on to read Law and Business Administration, at The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
He had also studied Italian and Portuguese and, along with English, had become fluent in all three as well as his own native Spanish tongue. Although popular with his fellow students, both male, and especially female, and gaining a reputation as being a hard drinking, hard playing, bull riding playboy…Carlos had excelled at all his studies – bringing him to the keen attention of others.
And, in the late 70’s, Carlos had been recruited by the CIA. With his joint Columbian and Spanish nationality, and his understanding of languages and proven business acumen, he had been the ideal recruit for what the CIA had in mind – the indirect influence and control of the international drug trade! The stratagem of the CIA, in the seventies, had been crudely simple: ‘who ever controlled the world’s growing dependency on drugs – controlled the world.’ They had seen, at first hand, the devastating effect that the widespread use of drugs had on the moral and effectiveness of US troops, in Vietnam. By having a considerable influence over international drug supply, it had been considered that it would be tactically feasible to saturate the country of any political enemy with cheap easily obtained drugs – thereby undermining that country’s social infrastructure and unsettling its military cohesion. But, before they could implement this stratagem, they first had to create the cartels that they might have domain and influence over. The CIA had moved into Indo China first, actively financing and supporting certain military generals, who had exclusive control of their respective country’s production and supply of drugs. Afghanistan, with its whole host of warring warlords had initially been slightly more problematic, though. Nevertheless, in the end, money talks. And, while they would still slaughter each other over whose goat had been grazing on whose of land, when it had come to drugs and the CIA’s not inconsiderable amount of money – these warring factions had been as one.
However, Columbia had been something else. Columbia had been considered to be in America’s backyard…and America had been considered to be Columbia’s number one customer, for their products – and therefore, the distribution of these products had needed to be restricted. The unique problem that the CIA had with Columbia had been the diversity of drug producers, operating in the region, and the diversity of their attitudes to the United States of America. Some had been pro-American – but a lot had also been pro-Communist, or worse still, pro-Cuban! From extensive studies of the region, the CIA had believed that one of the leading drug producers had all the criteria that they had been looking for. Pro-American, and easily influenced by US Dollars, they had also demonstrated one more significant, important attribute – they were extremely ruthless. And it had been into this particular cartel, the ‘Medellin Cartel’; that the CIA had wanted Carlos to infiltrate. Now, the Medellin Cartel was not exactly the sort of organisation that you could just walk up to the front door, and ask if they had any job vacancies – most definitely not. You needed to have references. And what better reference could the CIA have given Carlos to take with him than the head of a rival gang leader – neatly packed and just ever so slightly decomposing in an ice bucket. Carlos had taken it directly to the villa of the Ochoa Vázquez brothers, who had headed up the Medellin Cartel. They had been suitably impressed, but more so when Carlos had turned down the bounty on the head of the rival gang leader, in return for job with them. The CIA had trained him in the basic rudiments, but Carlos had learnt his craft as an assassin the hard way – as we all do – by going out and killing. And he did a lot of that. The CIA had indicated as to who they had wanted to be ‘removed’ and, in turn, Carlos had suggested to the Ochoa Vázquez brothers which of their rivals that he should dispose of next. One by one, over a very short period of time, the Medellin Cartel ‘lost’ most of its direct competition, and became the major player in the Columbian drug market. Eventually, Carlos’s standing in the organisation had grown. Here was a soldier who not only killed the opposition but, with a bit of unknown help from his CIA friends, could clearly identify and prioritise them, too. Carlos had been so well respected, that he had ended up working directly as a soldier for the main man, himself – Pablo Escobar! Then, in the early eighties, with the Medellin Cartel firmly established in Columbia, the CIA had switched Carlos to actively supporting the Contras and their fight against the Sandinista government, in Nicaragua; and supporting the military government, of El Salvador, against the Cuban and Soviet backed Marxist-Leninist rebels, who had been operating there.
***
Incidentally, as a footnote, in the early nineties, Carlos was then engaged by the CIA to actively assist a Columbian National Police Unit, the ‘Search Bloc’ – a special operations unit of the Columbian Police – in the systematic hunting down and elimination of his former employer, the members and known associates of the Medellin Cartel.
Just goes to show – nothing in life is ever sure.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Between 1986 and 1988, Central America had been a very good source of income for us, with the CIA putting plenty of work our way.
Through the good offices of Phil N…Jnr, our CIA contact, we had been in constant demand; flitting from working in Nicaragua, carrying out covert and lethal force operations against the Sandinista government; and then crossing over to carry out similar covert operations against the rebel groups, in El Salvador – using Honduras as our base. Initially, with just Patrick, Hughie, Mike, Ritchie and myself, and then, later on, with John-Luke, Joshua and Maaka – Carlos had joined us to make up the team. Operating out of a private hotel on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras, we had been ideally placed to operate in either Nicaragua or El Salvador. In a room at the very same hotel, Phil N…Jnr had set up an ‘export-import agency’, which he had used as an umbrella for our operations.
We had operated exclusively in the rural areas through-out Nicaragua, excluding the larger cities and towns of the Pacific Coast region – unless it had been to perform selective assassinations against government or military officials. When not carrying out these selective assassinations, we had operated alongside active Contra units, targeting high value government assets – including people. Our over enthusiastic Contra colleagues would fire wildly and uncontrollably at their sworn enemy, the Sandinistas – with little effect other than providing us with useful cover and a distraction to what we were up to. The training of the Contras had been placed, by and large, in the hands of American Special Forces and a small number of Argentinean ‘military advisors’. But, as good these specialist military trainers and advisors might have been, they could do little to curb or control the wanton excesses of their emotionally unstable students…either on the battle field – or with the barbaric atrocities that they had regularly perpetrated. To say that we had operated directly with these Contra units is probably a little short of the truth. In combat, we had kept a discreet distance from them, allowing them to make their rash suicidal charges, while we had silently gone in and completed our work.
El-Salvador had been a completely different matter, though. Here, an incompetent, corrupt military government had been engaged in fighting extremely well trained, extremely well supplied and highly motivated Marxist rebels. In El-Salvador, we had worked alone; such had been the extent of rebel activists and sympathisers throughout all levels of government. Frequently, we had been called upon to target these known activists and sympathisers, assassinating them as they had commuted to or from their government offices, or places of work.
No trial – no martyrs…just a corpse lying in the doorway of their home.
We had also attacked the rebels in their jungle and mountain camps. Again, for maximum security, we had worked alone. No full blown cavalry charges here; but surgically precise attacks and strikes, using stealth and subterfuge to enabl
e us to focus solely on high value targets – rebel officers, commissars and the occasional visiting foreign advisor – without getting into drawn out fire fights or pitched battles and skirmishes. Perfectly straightforward.
Set up the kill – straight in – make the kill, or kills and straight back out again – easy peasy, lemon squeeze
We had flitted between the two – El-Salvador and Nicaragua. Carlos had been our man on the ground in Nicaragua. Obviously, he had extensive knowledge of the country, its geography and topography, and its demographics of population and politics. As well as taking an active part in our covert operations, he had also been our go-between in our dealings with the various Contra leaders, who we had come into regular contact with. In El-Salvador, Carlos had been purely a combatant. However, his skill as a tracker, and his considerable knowledge of jungle and mountain terrain, had come in handy.
But it had been in Nicaragua that I had discovered why Carlos had been called ‘el Sastre’ – ‘the Tailor’.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
It had been in late ’87.
Patrick and the rest of the team had been in El-Salvador, reconnoitring up in the highlands of the country; Carlos and I had been in Nicaragua, watching over three Sandinista prisoners who had been captured just days before. Normally, the Contras would have slaughtered them out of hand, but Phil N…Jnr had needed prisoners for interrogation. So, someone had to watch over them – protect them. One of the prisoners, a young army nurse called Rosa, had actually tended to some of the wounded Contras in the camp, administering treatment and appropriate medical care to their ailments, sores and wounds.
Leaving a ‘senior’ Contra rebel in charge – he would have been all of thirty, if he had been a day – Carlos and I had gone to pick up Phil N…Jnr, a few klicks to the north-east of the camp. There had been sufficient clearings for the privately chartered helicopter to land closer to the camp; but we could not risk giving away the camp’s location – so a bit of a trek through the jungle had been involved. Exactly on time, the conspicuous blue and gold liveried Bell 206B JetRanger had landed in the small clearing, and Phil, dressed in a neatly pressed, olive green safari suit, had stepped out to greet us both. Greetings over, we had then started the short thirty minute hike back through the humid jungle. Within minutes, Phil’s neatly laundered suit had turned into a clinging sweat drenched shroud. We had got to within probably five hundred metres of the camp, when we had first heard the screaming. Quickening our pace, after covering less than half the distance, above the damp musky background smell of the jungle, I had suddenly caught the sweet, salty scent of fresh blood. I had begun to trot – I don’t do running – Carlos and Phil close behind. As we had broken through the edge of the jungle, directly into the camp, it had been clearly obvious where the source of the screams had come from – Rosa!
Rosa, the nurse, had been lying naked, spread-eagled on her back. On top of her had been the young ‘senior’ Contra rebel, who I had placed in charge of the prisoners…in one hand, a bloody knife – in the other, a severed female breast. In a few short strides, I had been alongside him, using the flat of my foot dislodge him from his ‘mount’. I had glanced down at Rosa, the nurse – the nurse who, only the day before, had been tending to sick and wounded Contras. Both of her breasts had been hacked from her body, the ragged cuts so deep that the bloody white bones of her rib cage had been exposed. The young ‘senior’ Contra rebel had gotten to his feet, his hands out in front him, his shoulders shrugging, as if imploring, pleading, his mouth moving – but I had completely switched off to his entreaties. Reaching across my chest with my left hand, I had drawn my Browning 9mm Hi-Power, flicking the safety off with my thumb, as I had done so…I could have used the heavier calibre .45 Colt Automatic, which I had also carried, but I had wanted to castrate this bastard, slowly – and the .45 would have been far too quick! But even before I could take an off-hand shot at the man’s crutch, Carlos had stepped directly in front of me, his back towards me, shielding the Contra from my aim. I had been pretty pissed off and had taken aim directly at the back of Carlos’s head, but I had held my fire – just as well, really. Carlos had gone directly up to the Contra rebel, said some quite words to him and then, using his twenty-four inch bladed machete as if it had been a mere a razor, had cut the rebel’s throat close up and tight to the jaw line. Then, letting the long bloody machete hang down loose from his wrist on a leather thong, there had been a quick movement of Carlos’s hands. While one hand had supported the back of the rebel’s neck, effectively keeping the man on his feet, the other had been round the front, diving deep inside the yawning chasm of the wound, which had almost separated head from body. Then, it was done, and Carlos had let the Contra rebel drop down on to the floor, the man’s tongue clearly visible – pulled out through the gaping hole in his throat!
“Now you know why he’s called Carlos ‘el Sastre’- Carlos ‘the Tailor’,” Phil N…had quietly whispered, from just behind me. “He fashions the neatest Colombian necktie this side of the Rio Grande.”
I had tried to make Rosa as comfortable as I possibly could. Her injuries had been dreadfully appalling. She had also been raped and sodomised and this, along with the trauma of her torture, had caused her to lose all control over her bladder and bowls. She had tried pathetically to cover her nakedness and embarrassment with her hands, and had only relaxed her arms once we had covered her with a blanket. Carlos had gone off into the camp and had retrieved the nurse’s medical bag from the makeshift hospital hut. He had returned with the greatly depleted bag, handing it down to me as I had knelt alongside the terribly injured woman. One of the gathered Contras, a tall thin surly man, had come directly over to me and had started to berate me, in broken English, about wasting medicine on the stricken nurse. I had genuinely appreciated the man’s concern and, under the circumstances, had empathised with his lack of common humanity. Rather than have him worry needlessly about wasting valuable medical supplies on the nurse, which he had implied that he might have need of in future, himself…I had shot the bastard straight between the eyes with my .45 – didn’t need medicine where he was going! I don’t know if it had been the delicious deafening roar of the Colt .45 Combat Commander, or the gloriously red technicolor explosion of the man’s skull coming apart, which had suddenly focussed the attention of the clamouring group of Contra rebels gathering round us. But, as a group, they had all clearly got the message and had cautiously backed away. With arms raised up and their hands open in front of them, in begrudged submission – they had all disappeared back into the camp, leaving us alone with Rosa.
Rosa had been whimpering softly, the severed nerve ends of her torn chest must have been sending out overwhelming unbearable messages of agony and pain. There had been very little left of use in the medical bag: no large bandages or iodine powder, nothing with which to treat her terrible injuries – just some aspirin and, remarkably, in the false bottom of the bag, a few well hidden injectable phials of morphine, carefully secreted in a padded compartment. Remarkable – for if the Contra rebels had discovered the morphine, they would have most definitely used it exclusively for recreational purposes. There had been virtually little that could have been done to treat the nurse’s terrific mutilations. Without sterile field dressings and antibiotics, infection was bound to set into her open gaping wounds – all I could do was to make her as comfortable as possible. Lifting up the lower part of the blanket, where it had covered her right leg, I had injected the first of three phials of morphine directly into her exposed naked thigh. And, as I had gone to close up the medical bag, the powerful opiate had taken over, quickly sedating and subduing the agonised senses of the woman. Rosa had reached up with her right hand, her fingers brushing against my cheek.
“¡No, por favor – dos más morfina! “ The nurse had stammered, her voice but a pathetic whisper. ‘No, please – two more morphine!’
“¿Dos más? “ I had asked. ‘Two more?’
Mike had been our team’s medic, but
he was not there. However, I had been only too aware of the recommended dosage of morphine. ‘Up to three shots to kill the pain – five, or more, to kill the patient’ had been one of many such mantras quoted liberally by La Légion’s Herr Doctor Death.
“¡Sí – complace – dos más…le mendigo! “ She had pleaded in desperation, her fingers earnestly stroking my face. ‘Yes – please – two more…I beg you!’
Autobiography of an Assassin:: The Family Page 17