by Dan Kelly
Risking a tongue lashing or perhaps worse Damien smiles again and says, “I’ll tell all when we join the rest of our team on the veranda. I’d rather deal with the non-belief and the bombardment of questions all at once instead of piece meal.”
“You’d better not be playing games with us, Damien. If we can’t verify your story you’re going to be in a world of hurt.”
Damien led them through the villa to an archway that opened up onto a large veranda that was resplendent with beautiful flowers of all kinds and colors. At one end of the veranda a help yourself bar is set up with every alcoholic beverage imaginable and at the other end there’s a smorgasbord of goodies to satisfy the most discriminating palate.
In between these tempting offerings, there are fifteen people, Abby counted them, gathered in small groups probably talking about the mission ahead.
Pete leaned into Abby and whispered, “I don’t know who’s running the show here, but all these signs of wealth are making me a little paranoid. The only people I know of around here that can afford this kind of luxury are the bad guys.”
“It is a little overwhelming, isn’t it? It makes you wonder what kind of legal means could lead to something like this.”
Seeing Aloncia pick up a remote control from a small table up against the wall of the villa and point it at a TV monitor suspended from the ceiling in a corner of the veranda Pete says, “Well, it looks like the show is ready to begin. All we can do now is hope we can give it good reviews when it’s all over.”
Aloncia tapped the remote on the table and said, “May I have everyone’s attention please. Please listen up everyone. It’s time for us to get down to business. What you are about to see are satellite surveillance videos of the farm and the surrounding area where the cartel leaders and other crime lords are going to be having their meeting at the end of next month. Although they provide extraordinary exterior detail, they do not replace the need for on the ground intelligence when it comes to the interior layouts of the buildings on the premises, the security measures in place, the daily activities of the farming operation and the number of bodies we’ll be dealing with when we launch our assault.
“Please concentrate on identifying the number and location of the means of access to the property and buildings. Don’t focus just on the normal means of access, roads, doors, windows etc., but also on open fields that can be crossed or accessed by air, culverts, tunnels and wooded areas. It will be our responsibility to gather the needed intelligence to develop a game plan to cover all of these locations so that nobody can get away, to arrange for the required logistics from our respective countries and to develop a plan to move the assault troops into position undetected.
“With respect to our getting eyes and ears inside the farming complex, Senorita Keenan from the United States will be coordinating the effort to get some of our people hired on as temporary staff for the meeting as well as procuring and setting up electronic eavesdropping equipment. All of you will get a chance to formally introduce yourselves at dinner after you have viewed these videos. We will be receiving and viewing surveillance videos on a daily basis until the day of the meeting so we can reduce the chances of, to use an American expression, getting caught with our pants down.”
Up until now, the monitor has shown nothing but a title page that identifies the source of the information and a brief description of what will be seen. Another click of the remote puts a high altitude view of the target area on the screen which casts an all-encompassing silence of deep concentration over the veranda which lasts for a solid hour.
After all of the pictures have been viewed repeatedly and painstakingly scrutinized, Aloncia turned the TV off but the silence remained. Everyone was still mentally reviewing what they had just observed, analyzing, editing and compartmentalizing the information into a format that they can use to help them contribute to the development of a successful game plan.
Aloncia broke the silence by saying, “Dinner is served. Please follow me.”
The formal dining room was as exquisite as the rest of the villa they had seen. The beautiful crystal chandeliers that hung from the ceiling over the middle of the long and intricately carved table made of caracolis, a yellowish red wood which is indigenous to Colombia, coupled with copies of paintings of famous Colombian painters like Andres de Santa Maria and Natalia Karenka Parra Sierra and the colorful dinnerware and shining silverware that lay next to it generated a chorus of oohs and ahhs as everyone filed into the room.
Aloncia responded to her guests’ reactions by sweeping her arm around the room and saying, “It is beautiful isn’t it? Just so you all know how committed I am to Sea Wasp and its mission, I’d give all of this up in a second if I believed it would guarantee the collapse and utter annihilation of the cartels that have been beleaguering our countries for what seems like forever. However, I’ve learned that it will take much more than money to defeat these animals. It will take the determination, the intelligence, the courage, the skills, the craftiness, the cooperation of all of our countries and the commitment of all of these things for as long as it takes to bring these organizations down if we are to be successful. So, instead of converting all of my considerable assets to cash and handing it over to Sea Wasp to use as it sees fit, I have elected to use what I have as an active participant in delivering crushing blows to our common enemy.”
After pausing for a few seconds she continued with, “Please be seated everyone. Before I ask for our appetizers to be served, I think introductions would be conducive to getting some good old fashion dinner time dialogue going, so I’ll start the ball rolling by telling you a little about myself and then we’ll work our way around the table clockwise.
“I was born to Colombian immigrants in America and was raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I hold a B. A. Degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of New Mexico and currently work for a local TV station here in Bogota. I moved here three years after I graduated from university to take my current position. Two years after moving here I met and married an international investment banker, Jose Flores, and was happily married for ten years before being widowed last year by one of the cartels because my husband refused to provide assistance to the cartel in laundering their drug money. His death was my motivation to become involved with Sea Wasp when I was approached by a recruiter. This villa as well as significant other assets I inherited from my husband who inherited them from his father who was an engineer and geologist for Ecopetrol and held an executive position with the company.”
Damien Christensen was sitting to Aloncia’s immediate left, so he was up next. Looking directly at Pete and Abby as he spoke Damien began with, “My name is Damien Christensen and I am a double agent for the United States and the Fuentes cartel.” That was a whale of opener and it definitely got everybody’s attention.
“Up until a year ago I was working for the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, as an undercover operative who was being targeted for assassination by some very mean people because I was scheduled to testify against them in an upcoming trial. I dropped out of sight to support a press release that I had died in a plane crash, but conveniently gave a deposition containing my intended testimony before I bought the farm. When these guys came to trial, the jury found them guilty on all counts and they were put in a maximum security prison without any chance of parole due, in large part, to my deposition and are being kept incommunicado for an indefinite period of time.
“These guys were connected to some of the major cartels in the Caribbean and I had learned a lot about their operations and interactions with some of the major players in these cartels. I was recruited to go underground as myself with a cover story that said I had arranged my death in a plane crash to avoid capture for my relationship with these guys. I was to say that I was afraid that these guys would try to make a deal with the authorities for leniency by turning me in and decided to make myself disappear. If I was confronted with the accusation that I was a government agent be
cause one of the guys on trial had told them so, I was to say that that was a story made up by the prosecution to force me to surrender out of fear for my life, fear that I would be s taken out by one of them.
Pete couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Okay, Damien, let’s cut to the chase shall we? Who do you report to and why doesn’t anyone else know about your relationship with this individual? Everybody in the U. S. Government, including the President, hell everybody in Sea Wasp has been looking for you to find out what you have been up to and hoping you wouldn’t do anything to upset what Sea Wasp has been orchestrating.”
“For the same reason that only a very select few know about the existence of Sea Wasp and who its people are, the deep concern about security leaks. It was determined that only one person should know what I would be doing and that person is the only individual that I would take orders from and answer to. Until you and Abby got involved, I was the only U. S. asset that had an inside track for gathering any kind of meaningful intelligence.”
“Okay, who is this person, Damien, and why have you broken your cover now?”
“One moment please.” Damien took his cell phone from his pocket and entered a number while at the same time giving a slight nod to Aloncia. As everyone waited to see what was going to happen next, a TV screen appeared from behind a sliding panel above and behind where Aloncia was sitting. Damien said into the phone, “We’re ready sir.”
A few seconds later the President of the United States appeared on the screen. “Good evening everyone. Let me begin by apologizing for all of the charades you have had to deal with and the apprehension they have caused. They were made necessary because we were concerned about some potential security breaches here in the White House that we felt had to be dealt with in a very clandestine fashion. Fortunately, our worries were groundless, but if we had ignored them we very well might have wound up with a lot of egg on our faces, a failed mission and lives lost needlessly.
“Mr. Christensen has been a major source of intelligence concerning the operations and plans of a major cartel based in the Caribbean and we didn’t want to expose him to more risk than was absolutely necessary. Now that we have arrived at the final stage of preparation for our current mission, it is no longer necessary to keep him in the enemy camp, hence his appearance at the villa tonight. He possesses a great deal of cartel knowledge and that knowledge could come in very handy in bringing your mission to a successful conclusion.
“Agent Keenan and Mr. Brody, Mr. Desoto wants you to know that your loyalty to Sea Wasp was never in question nor was Mr. Morrison’s. I made the decisions as to who was to be in the loop and who wasn’t and those decisions were based on the need to know and keeping the number in the loop as small as possible.
“The same applies to all of you there. We are a force to be reckoned with because of our joint commitment to the purpose of Sea Wasp and our loyalty to each other. It is because of people like you that these horrendous organizations will find it extremely difficult to survive. They’ve been dancing for quite a while now. It’s time they paid the piper. Good evening.”
The screen went blank and everybody turned towards Damien and the barrage of questions began. Damien didn’t dodge any of them and answered with as much candor as he could muster and soon the crowd’s curiosity waned.
The rest of the introductions paled by comparison to Aloncia’s and Damien’s revelations and the comments made by the President and took about fifteen minutes to be completed. As the appetizers were being served, Pete leaned towards Abby and whispered, “So far I give the show three stars. I’m sure the finale will come after the dessert is served, so I’ll wait to give my final assessment.”
As everyone was finishing their dessert, Aloncia tapped loudly on her water glass which made Abby wince because she was sure it was some rare Waterford crystal and was waiting for it to shatter into a gazillion pieces. “May I have your attention please? We have one more order of business to attend to before we return to the veranda for some wonderful after dinner brandy that Maria assures me is the best to be found anywhere.
“Although I am to be your host for the next month or so, I am not so audacious as to assume the role of leader of this august group. However, with your permission, I will assume the role of facilitator only because I am bi-lingual, speaking English and Spanish fluently, I know the territory better than anyone here and have access to local resources that are unknown to the rest of you.”
She said all of this with a respectful smile and got the support she was seeking. “Okay, we have a lot of reconnoitering and preparation to do and alternatives to evaluate before we’ll be ready to put a final plan into place. To make the most productive use of the time we have to prepare, I suggest that we break into groups of four and assign separate responsibilities to each group. Let’s plan on having a joint meeting of all groups in a week to assess our progress. Are there any objections to this course of action? No? Good. Then let’s meet here again tomorrow morning at eight for a working breakfast and get the ball rolling.”
The brandy proved to be as good as Maria said it was and after mingling with the group for a while Pete and Abby found them to be a very impressive lot. They were smart, all had extensive experience in below the radar international activities and all were convinced that although Sea Wasp was not the panacea for all of their smuggling woes it was going to be a major road block when it came to the cartels plans for growing their operations and building an atmosphere of cooperation between the various organizations. They were a committed group of people and their eagerness to engage the enemy was almost tangible.
Abby asked, “So, what’s your final rating?”
“I’m going to hold off until the final rehearsal. It’s looking good though.”
Glancing at Pete as her eyes took in everyone on the veranda she whispered, “I just had a scary thought. What if Damien is really in the Fuentes cartel’s pocket? We could be heading for disaster.”
“Boy, you sure know how to ruin a party.”
“It’s just a thought that popped into my mind. Anything’s a possibility when it comes to the world we’ve been wandering around in lately.”
“The President’s a hard guy to fool from what I know about him. I think he would have sensed something was wrong if Damien had gone off the reservation.”
“Just the same, I think we should arrange to have him in our group so we know what he’s up to and can monitor him more closely.”
“You really think he might be a danger to us?”
“I’m just being cautious, Pete. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
As it was getting late, the group began to disburse and head for their assigned sleeping quarters. Some were sleeping in the villa and others were sleeping in the guest house behind the villa. Damien had just left and Pete and Abby were surprised that he hadn’t engaged them in any conversation after dinner.
“You know, Abby, any one of these people could be a spy for the cartels. We’re just going to have to trust that Phil and his peers in Sea Wasp know what they’re doing and have thoroughly vetted their people. We can’t bird dog everyone.”
“You’re right, Pete, but for some reason Damien is giving off an odor that doesn’t smell right to me. I want to keep an eye on him.”
“Okay, Abby, I’m learning to trust your instincts, but I still find it hard to believe that Damien is a turncoat. I see no harm though in subtly keeping a close watch on him.”
Chapter 34
- Bogota, Colombia –
At breakfast the next morning, after a little adroit maneuvering from Abby, things went the way she wanted them to. Damien and a man from Argentina, Senor Ramon Herrera, were selected to work with Pete and Abby in acquiring the required electronic surveillance equipment, determining the best locations for and the clandestine installation of said equipment and in arranging for the hiring of some Sea Wasp personnel to assist with the accommodations and the catering for the upcoming meeting.
Dami
en was very cordial and actively participated in addressing the challenges before them, providing them with a reliable source for the equipment that wouldn’t ask a lot of questions and rip them off. Still strongly suspicious Abby asked him, “How is it that you know of such a person here in Bogota? Except for your undercover work in the Fuentes cartel, I thought your base of operations was primarily in the United States.”
“You are correct in your thinking, Abby, but I don’t work in a cocoon. One learns lots of things in my line of work.”