by J E Higgins
She had wisely concluded that as products of wealth, privilege, and breeding, the recruits would not mix well nor have any respect for those of the lower classes who could hardly read or write, let alone be able to grasp any serious intellectual concepts. Despite the rantings against classism, well-groomed and educated social elites would never take Colombian peasants and rural Indians seriously as mentors.
The lead instructor, Venzuelo Zamora, looked far older than his thirty-one years. Marching past the young students, he looked them over carefully. Then, in a gruff and gravelly voice, he called for their attention. “All eyes on me now!!!” he shouted.
Everyone went silent as the recruits turned in unison to the ominous figure now standing before them. Zamora stared at them coldly. “You are here to liberate your country from the clutches of the capitalists and the impostors who have betrayed you and the ideals they presume to represent!”
The crowd of recruits cheered in unison. Zamora had been a revolutionary long enough to know how to motivate adherents. He counted thirty in this batch and was aware that by tomorrow another truck full of recruits would be arriving. He expected nearly eighty recruits in total. Like the Contessa, he was pleased they were not the collection of misfits he had initially anticipated. Instead, he saw a batch of athletic and prepared adherents to a cause.
The Contessa observed the spectacle through her binoculars. She had not intended to stay long and would certainly not mingle with future terrorists who could identify her later. Once she was confident Zamora had taken control and all was well, she planned to depart to initiate the next phase of the operation.
She had known Zamora through her connections with the Spanish intelligence services that still had active missions in South America. He was respected by the Basque Separatists who had worked with him on joint operations and who helped recruit him for this mission. She had also learned from her contacts in the European arms trafficking world that he and a few others had become disillusioned with the conflict in Colombia and the feuds with the FARC over territory. The narcotics trafficking to finance the war had begun to supersede all other aspects of the movement. The intensified efforts by the Colombian military had worked to nearly decimate the ELN’s hard-fought efforts. By offering a good price for men looking to get out of the revolution business, she now had her instructors.
The Contessa arranged the travel of the former revolutionaries into Argentina through negotiations with the Cali Cartel. Over the years they had developed an additional business as a professional logistics network for various black-market ventures that needed to bypass troublesome international borders and security officials.
Zamora wasted no time, breaking the recruits into ranks and assigning them instructors. Line by line the recruits were led away to begin several weeks of training.
“They look like a solid lot,” said a voice with a strong Irish brogue.
Sitting across from her, a medium-sized man with a muscular frame and a bushy crop of sandy blond hair attended to his stout beer.
Martin Derry observed the ELN instructors directing the trainees. He leaned back in his wooden chair. “Fuck sake, it’s hot as bullocks around these parts,” he sighed as he wiped the beads of sweat from his brow.
“I’m glad you approve,” the Contessa said, lowering her binoculars. “I would hate for you to have a pack of students you found undesirable.”
Her Spanish flavored English was sensual, almost erotic. The Irishman had to resist the urge to make sexual overtures. She was way above the class of a poor Irishman from the farming country of County Armagh.
“So now we begin our next phase, Mr. Derry. I hope you are capable.” She rose from her seat and gave him a look out of the corner of her eye that suggested she was expecting an answer.
“I am. Everything is in place, so we should be able to hit most of our objectives.” Derry again wiped collected beads of sweat from his forehead and sipped his beer. Martin Derry had been a member of the Real Irish Republican Army ─ one of the breakaway groups that formed after the signing of the Good Friday Peace Accords that essentially ended the near thirty-some year conflict in Northern Ireland.
Much like Zamora, he had become disillusioned with the good fight and decided to try his hand in the free market. Through friends in the Basque Separatists, he had been placed in touch with a Spanish aristocrat looking for professionals with his expertise. His job was to bridge the void of knowledge the ELN instructors couldn’t provide ─ training advanced urban warfare tactics to these recruits and the directing of ‘phase 2’ that the Contessa had been planning.
The Contessa watched as the truck drove out of the facility. The recruits were marched off to their barracks. Comfortable that Zamora and his men had control of the situation, she bid farewell to Derry, who replied with a slight wave of his hand and started out of the building. “In two days’ time, Mr. Derry, I expect you at our appointed location. Will that be sufficient to finish up any last-minute complications?”
Only turning his head slightly, Derry said, “More than ample time, madam. Everything is largely ready, and I perceive no foreseeable problems.”
“Good. Until then.” With those last words, the Contessa departed.
Chapter 15
Despite being a vehicle of far superior design and construction than the aged, cheaply built army jeeps he had used for patrolling around Syria, Nouri al’Marak Surriman found the drive down the severely weathered dirt road nauseating. It was ironic that he should be born and raised in this country in this environment and still find traveling in it physically difficult. The Land Rover traversed the dips and near lake-size puddles. The driver, a young man in his early twenties, kept a wide, toothy grin on his face the entire time. He even found the nerve to play tour guide when coming across something he found exciting to talk about. It was hard for Nouri to decide whether his driver was being a smartass, adding to his suffering, or was sincerely oblivious to his passenger’s discomfort.
Before the situation became serious, the vehicle pulled onto an even worse dirt trail and within minutes the hellish ride ended. To his relief Surriman found they had stopped just outside a village ─ the sign guarding the entryway was ominous; a forewarning. After the Spanish verbiage of painful endings to trespassers, a lengthier message was written out in some Middle Eastern foreign scribble. The writing, as far as Surriman could read, offered a few Koranic edicts to those going farther.
Studying the driver, whose toothy grin had been replaced with a look of hesitation, Surriman nodded calmly letting him know his job was done. Exiting the Land Rover, Surriman started walking toward the village. At the edge of the village, two men suddenly appeared from behind the shrubs. Dressed in a strange ensemble of civilian work clothes and military fatigues, they looked like a picturesque image of South American guerrillas. The Soviet-style Kalashnikov rifles slung across their backs would have solidified that assumption for any stranger in this area. For Surriman they were all too familiar. The two guerrillas viewed the man before them. His tan slacks and vanilla colored shirt did not give the appearance of a local from the mountains.
But despite the clothes, shorter hair and shaved face, they recognized the familiar face of the man before them. They smiled and with an assault-like lunge fell onto the man with exuberance. “Long time, brother,” the older of the two men said affectionately.
“Too long! Much, much too long?” Surriman responded with equal enthusiasm. Stepping back, the three old friends exchanged a few more words before heading toward the village. To his relief, the small Lebanese settlement had hardly changed. It was still a collection of tin-roofed shacks lined almost side by side with open pit stone fireplaces. Some of the houses were larger, even offering a second story, while others were only one room.
Thick canopies of forest vegetation provided excellent protection from anyone trying to watch them from overhead. The three men talked as they walked proudly down the dirt road cutting through the town. Various people happily greet
ed the long-gone youth who had run off to fight for the old country and the Shia cause in Syria. It was the perfect family reunion Nouri al’Marak Surriman had so hoped for when arriving home. He did not want to be overwhelmed by joyous family and friends, but he also hoped he would not be ignored as a runaway.
A few miles past the village they arrived at a makeshift factory. There, small oven-like smelters of clay and rock roared angrily with flames as tables holding an assortment of parts, both metal, and wood lay before them.
Atop the ovens were big clay caps covering the exhaust holes attached to large clay smokestacks that led underground. Surriman found it interesting that the stacks were dug several feet deep and led to a river several miles away from where the smoke exited under water. Not only did it keep the operation protected by not exposing clouds of smoke for reconnaissance aircraft to see, but it also protected the true size of their operation and the vegetation.
It would have been disconcerting for anyone to know that hidden beneath the thick vegetation beyond the façade of remote, backward villages was a massive operation for replicating weapons. The handmade furnaces and workshops provided the Lebanese immigrants and their offspring the ability to develop near-perfect replicas of varying weapons from AK-47s of Soviet military grade to SKS assault rifles and Rocket Propelled Grenade Launchers to exact specifications of the 7 and 7D models.
What would have been most shocking was the near perfect models of American M-4 compacted automatic rifles and some Fabrique National machine guns they created. Aside from the Arabic writing on the side of the magazine weld, they would have easily been perfect copies of the American military weapons.
The village had been making quite a handsome profit manufacturing and selling weapons to various criminal and rebel groups that had no external connections to obtain combat weapons. Luckily, these villages were most discriminating with whom they chose to conduct business. They had gone largely unnoticed by the outside world allowing them a great deal of anonymity.
This situation also created a great deal of confusion for the governments of the region who were apt to assume their criminal networks and guerrilla bands were being supplied by phantom weapons suppliers or some hostile foreign government. Surriman thought it strange how the intelligence agencies of the world spent so much money and time looking to the industrial world to track the flow of illegal weapons when the biggest producers were not even on their radar. The two old friends led Surriman through the workshops.
He was endlessly greeted by longtime friends and relatives who would quickly exchange pleasantries and embrace him before continuing their work. Entering the center of the operation, the two old friends brought Surriman to a formidable, bear-like figure of a man standing before a large wooden shack. At almost six foot seven, Basham al Allimuri was a giant with a most commanding presence. Far from using physical intimidation, his smart management and astute business sense had advanced him to the level of the village chief. Dressed in a similar fashion to the two men that flanked Surriman, Allimuri had a salt n pepper, thick bushy beard looking every bit like a mountain guerrilla leader.
“Salam a lakem,” the elderly man quietly said as he approached the young man before him. Surriman, looking up at the approaching figure, replied, “Wha lakem salam.”
Allimuri smiled through his thick crop of facial hair. Surriman gave a bow of respect to the older man. “It has been a long time,” he said as he rose to stand erect.
“It has,” the older man replied. “You have fought for God. I commend you for that. You bring nobility to your people.”
Somewhat embarrassed, Surriman gave a gesture toward the older man in gratitude. “My service is not yet complete, which is why I am here.”
The older man cocked his head as he waited to hear more.
Alyssa Rios knew the murky world of espionage and the dark alleys it led to. Having graduated Purdue with degrees in Political Science and International Relations, she later obtained a law degree from San Diego University and was recruited into the Drug Enforcement Administration. She spent the next 10 years navigating the mean streets of the various cities of South and Central America that hosted the most powerful narcotic cartels.
Though she had proven quite an effective operative, she found the DEA was not to her liking ─ bureaucratic thinking and Anglo-Saxon colleagues dominated the culture. She also found the work tedious and often counter-productive. The targets and direction of the agency were driven more by the need for political expedience than serious beneficial gain. She also felt she was treated more like a potential spy than a respected co-worker. When she got wind of a joke circulating through the department about Latino agents being referred to as Escobar’s Secret Task Force, she had had enough and quit.
With her knowledge of South American politics and business combined with her expertise in covert operations and espionage, the most logical choice was simple, and Guardian Angel Intelligence was born. She found steady work with the numerous businessmen looking to ensure that possible business partners or business deals were not fraudulent or connected to the cartels. Reformists looking to know what politicians in their country were corrupt or just politicians looking to know who their enemies were in Parliament also provided a steady amount of work.
She discovered her old friends in the DEA were actually keeping tabs on her for a time wondering if her talents were providing support to any criminal networks. When the DEA determined she was not involved with criminal networks, she was approached by one of her former superiors who intimated that she had a patriotic duty to her old country. Her old bosses felt she at least owed a debt to the agency to run missions as a front for them.
A polite refusal ended any relationship she had with the man she had once called her boss and with her old comrades. Now, she was her own boss and liking it. From time to time, however, she would have informal and indirect approaches made to her when a US agency was in need of information.
Mulling over the information splashed across her computer screen, she rolled one of her expensive pens between her fingers as she read. Her thoughts were mixed with grave concerns over her recent findings and the instinctive excitement the espionage agent felt over the intrigue of what she was seeing.
Her desk communicator rang, and she heard the soft voice of her assistant telling her Mr. Herron was in the office for their scheduled meeting. Thanking her assistant, she clicked off the communicator and slid out of her seat. Picking up the leather notepad and packet that had been assembled for the meeting, she exited her office and proceeded down the corridor to where her Middle-Eastern client waited.
She entered the same room where the two had first met. Little had changed. The Israeli was dressed in a sports jacket, gray cotton slacks, and white buttoned-downed shirt that hung loosely from his shoulders. She gathered this was his uniform.
Exchanging pleasantries, both parties took their seats opposite one another. Her leather pad and packets were placed directly in front of her as she looked the man squarely in the eye. She opened the conversation with, “I have found some things out over the last few weeks regarding your person of interest.” She had Dayan’s full attention. “It was not easy, and we only captured what we did by sheer luck.”
Opening her leather notepad she produced a picture of a well-groomed man of obvious Latin origins dressed in an expensive tailored suit coming out of what looked like an office building. The man was of medium height and looked to be in his late forties to mid-fifties.
“His name is Elloy Mendoza. Officially, he is CEO of Bolivar Investments & Acquisitions, a prominent financial operation headquartered out of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has investments and business interests across South America. That’s the official story. In reality, Sẽnor Mendoza is a high ranking operative with the General Intelligence Directorate, better known as DGI, the Cuban intelligence service.”
Dayan acknowledged the information. Sensing no questions, Rios continued. “His name has come up from time to time in oth
er investigations of mine. You could say he is something of a competitor. He sells his connections, both business and intelligence, as a side business. I bring him to your attention because several weeks ago, shortly after the recorded arrival of your Iranian in Buenos Aires, Bolivar Investments & Acquisitions conducted a sizable business transaction for an Iranian company. This company happens to be a distant subsidiary of the Gorb Corporation, a corporation known to be controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. It purchased several parcels of real estate from Bolivar Investments for what we can determine was far above its current valuation ─ almost three times the price of similar property.”
“A business transaction of another kind,” the Israeli retorted.
“Yes,” Rios agreed. “That is what I and my people have determined, except for some of these properties.” She removed the leather pad and grabbed the packets sitting underneath it. She handed them to Dayan. “These properties, upon further observation, appear different.”
She stopped speaking long enough for the Israeli to review the information in front of him. When he got to the maps and overhead pictures, he examined them further before placing everything on the table returning his attention to Rios. “Unlike the others, the prices on these properties were negotiated for quite some time before a price was agreed upon. Even more interesting was that there was not an immediate agreement on the properties themselves. I was able to obtain correspondence whereby several other properties were discussed and dismissed before deciding on these specific locations. I found some interesting highlights: these properties skirt the borders of both Argentina and Brazil. They are far out of the way from any modernized urban center, and they are all locations of what was once either a town or a mining camp sight.”