Guilty Until Proven Innocent

by L S Barron

  It was already dark when she found the small farm house. A sheepdog came out up the dirt driveway as Becca made her way to the house. The dog was barking and running back and forth in front of the jeep, wagging his tail the whole time. A man holding a lantern stepped out onto the porch. He was shouting, “Ciro, vuelve aqui.” The man then looked up towards the jeep and pointed to the small barn just west of the house. Becca parked the jeep just inside the barn and then made her way to the house. The older man was still standing on the porch and said “Welcome Becca of America, Como estuvo tu viaje?” Becca had to stop and think for a minute. “oh, estaba bien.” He laughed and said in english “It is nice to meet you. I am Humberto. I was worried for your trip. I had heard there was much hostile activity out there today and am surprised you didn’t run into trouble.” Becca told the man “It must have been a lucky day.”

  Humberto showed Becca to a small bedroom in the back of the house and told her she could put her things there. He then invited her to join him for dinner. She gladly obliged as she hadn’t taken time to eat anything all day. As Becca sat at the Kitchen table, she looked around. The house was very clean and had a comfortable atmosphere about it. Humberto was a small older gentleman with a kind face. The way he was dressed reminded her of a cowboy from an old western show.

  Humberto seemed so gentle to Becca, she had noticed that there were no signs of anyone else in the house and wondered why he would not have any family. She wondered why he was a CIA contact. Humberto brought over a plate of food that smelled delicious. “Potatoes, peppers, and squash from my garden,” he said with a proud smile on his face. After dinner, Humberto told Becca to get a good nights sleep and that they would go over the plans in the morning. He showed her where the restroom was, handed her the lantern and then said “Buenas noches mi amiga,” as he disappeared down the hallway.

  The noise of the roosters outside and the smell of fresh brewed coffee awoke Becca that next morning. She wondered “How could this place be such a place of violence?” She wandered out to the kitchen to find Humberto had cooked up some breakfast, fresh farm eggs with red beans and rice. As she sat down to the table she noticed that Humberto had half the table covered with maps and some photos. She picked up one of the photos to see bodies of several men who were lined up and appeared to have been beaten and hacked to death. “Gees,” she said as she looked up to see Humberto watching her. He walked to another photo picked it up and handed it to her and said “Mijo, my son, my son.” Becca took the photo out of Humberto’s shaking hand and saw the picture of three young boys that had been propped up with their throats slit. She looked up to see a single tear rolling down Humberto’s face. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like, “and your wife?” she asked. Humberto explained that his wife had managed to get out of the area and was living with her sister in Lima. He went on to explain to Becca that he had stayed to secretly see that justice would be done. He also explained to Becca that the only reason he was not killed was that he agreed to grow Coca for the Shining Path and was therefore useful to them, just as all the other farmers in the area had done.

  After breakfast, Humberto went over the areas on the map that would be of interest to Becca. He showed her a jeep route to where the CIA coordinates were located. He guessed that the coordinates were for the drug processing building, but he also said that there were several other buildings in the area and a small runway strip. He warned her that there would be high activity in that area and most likely guards around all the buildings. This area was closer to the Huallaga river and that the areas vegetation was more dense than that of the mountainside farms . “How are your skills in the forest? Possibly you could more easily sneak into the area through the forest than risking it on one of the roads.” he said looking to see what she thought. She agreed.

  They decided to leave Becca’s jeep in the barn and Humberto would take her down the road as far as it was safe to do so. Becca loaded her backpack with several different explosives, an extra handgun, her GPS, a rain poncho, a couple of candy bars and some thermal binoculars. On her belt she attached several grenades, a side arm, some ammo clips, a small hunting knife and her canteen. She thought to herself “I would be glad to use these explosives just to get rid of some of this weight. Man this stuff is heavy.” In Humberto’s farm truck she threw her rifle and gear in the back and covered it with some of the loose hay that was already there. Right before heading out, she grabbed her camera and put on her National Geographic tag, just in case.

  Sure enough not too far down the road two young men dressed in military uniforms stopped Humberto in the road. They knew Humberto and talked with him a bit before asking about the senorita that was with him. Becca had been following the conversation, thank goodness for Johnny’s spanish lessons, and she was able to say something before Humberto said anything that might get them into trouble. She started in on how she was a photographer from National Geographic and was trying to get pictures of some of the unique wildlife in the area. “However,” she told them “I am also interested in taking pictures of some of the local people as well, and you both are such good looking young men. I would love to photograph the two of you.” Both men smiled at her compliments but declined being photographed. They told Humberto and Becca that they could go down the road to the right that led towards the Huallaga river, but that they could not go on straight. Becca told Humberto in a voice loud enough for the young men to hear, “I think the possibility for better pictures of wildlife would be by the river anyway.” Humberto just shook his head yes and they thanked the men as they turned and went down the road to the right.

  After the checkpoint was out of sight. Humberto stopped and asked Becca “What would you like me to do?” She told him “Just drop me off here and go back home. I will have to hike in from here.” This would put Becca in a position quite a ways from her GPS coordinates. She figured it would take her at least a day just to hike into the area she needed to be. She asked Humberto “Do you know another way home, so that the men at the checkpoint do not see you leaving the area without me?” He nodded yes.

  It had started to rain, so Becca pulled out her poncho and then donned the rest of her gear. She then headed straight into the rainforest. The blinking light on the GPS was the only way to keep track of where she was headed. It was not an easy way to hike. The rain made the rainforest floor particularly slippery. She had to slow down her pace after falling on her butt a couple of times and with a heavy pack full of explosives that’s not a fun thing. Finally, she came to a well used dirt road. She figured by the map that it was the same road that the checkpoint had kept them from going down. The map showed that this road would lead her to the general area she wanted to go. Walking down the road would be a lot easier to traverse but it would also be a lot riskier. She decided she could walk close to the edge of the road and then dive into the forest if she heard anything approaching.

  On several occasions she found herself crouching in the forest as a vehicle would pass by. There had been a pickup truck full of men with rifles, a truck that looked like an old army vehicle, and a fancy expensive looking Jeep. She thought that the fancy jeep must be someone high up in the organization. It didn’t matter though, that wasn’t her mission.

  Becca found herself closer to the area on the GPS quicker than she thought, so she ducked back off the road and into the forest. Something about the area had her on edge, so she swung her rifle off of her shoulder and chambered a round just to be on the safe side. She walked slowly and softly now as she could hear voices not too far off. Humberto told her the drug processing building would be in a clearing next to a small airstrip so she figured she would sneak up to the area and scout it out from coverage of the forest edge.

  There were actually five buildings, not one. The buildings were set in a half circle clearing next to the small airstrip. There were four small buildings and one larger building all built in a makeshift manner with wood and tin. The larger building had a loading dock, so Becca figured
it to be the processing plant. It was also heavily guarded. There was one other building guarded and that is where she found the fancy jeep she saw earlier to be parked. “That’s gotta be where the money is,” she thought. The three other buildings had quite of bit of activity, but no guards so she figured these were less important, probably something like workers quarters. Although she thought to herself that she better check them out too just incase. “I definitely don’t want to blow up the wrong building” she thought “especially if they were full of workers that had maybe been forced to work there. So, Becca decided to watch the site until it got dark and then possibly try to sneak around the back of each building to further check things out. However, the fact that if she does blow up the processing lab it will most likely have workers inside, gave her an uneasy feeling inside.

  She moved through the forests edge to get a closer look at the airstrip. It currently had no activity on it, but did have three old planes sitting at the far end. They appeared to be old World War II planes. “Possibly a Douglas DC-3,” Becca thought, “too bad, but I’ll have to make sure they’re destroyed as well.”

  She stayed crouched at the edge of the forest until darkness fell. The constant drizzly rain had made time go by too slowly for Becca. She welcomed the darkness so that she could get on with the task at hand. In the meantime she sat hidden in some brush using her poncho as a shield from the rain. She used this time to go through all of her explosives, making sure each was ready to go. She decided as soon as it got dark she would try to get a closer look at each building and then go about setting her explosives on the ones she deemed necessary. Her explosives were limited so she would have to pick the most important targets.

  The other question in Becca’s mind was that of the GPS chip the CIA gave her to mark the building where the money was housed. She wondered how the CIA could get to the money soon enough if she left it unharmed. “Surely the Shining Path would be able to move it quickly,” she thought. So she figured if she could get close enough she would put the chip directly in with the money. Lastly, she hoped she could get this done without having to shoot anyone, but that was probably doubtful, so she double checked her rifle, attached her silencer to one of the handguns, and made sure the belt had extra ammo clips and her grenades. “Yikes, I’m turning into Miss Rambo,” she thought as she chortled to herself.

  Finally, it was time. Darkness had fallen on the camp and in all it was pretty quiet. The rain was still falling and seemed to make most of the activity around the site come to a halt. Still using the forest as a cover, she came to the first building. It backed up close to the forest and would make it easy to check. As she snuck up to the building she could hear men’s voices on the inside. There was a crack in the tin siding that Becca could see through to the inside. There were several cots and a table. There were six men sitting around the table with a lantern in the middle, playing some card game. The guns were tilted up along the wall by the door along with six pairs of boots. Becca thought “well if they were going to chase her they would be doing it barefoot.” She decided this building would not be on her priority list.

  Becca made her way to the second small building and after finding no peep hole or hearing no signs of occupants, she decided to take a look inside by going in. She slowly opened the door with her pistol in hand, but found nobody inside. It appeared to be partly a dining hall and partly a storage area. She looked through the storage and found that it was all harmless supplies. So another building was crossed off her list. The next small building was more of the same. So she was now down to two buildings, the one with the fancy jeep parked outside and the one she knew by process of elimination had to be the lab. The only question left was “if there was money, where was it?”

  Becca figured the money was in the building with two guards at the front door. She watched the guards for awhile and found that they were staying in the front under the eaves of the building trying to stay out of the rain. She then made her way to the back of the building without being spotted. She could see a light coming from inside the building and could hear two men talking. She tried listening to the conversation to get information, but all they were talking about was one of their wives and how much trouble he was in. So Becca, shaking her head to herself, made her way around to one side to search for someway to look in. There was nothing.

  After standing there for a moment she finally came to the decision that she would have to slide her way under the building. There was just enough room under the floor timbers that the building was set on for her to slide in. She left her backpack and rifle just underneath to the side and put the GPS chip in her front pocket, hoping to find the money and a place to put the chip. She stayed under the side of the building away from the voices to be safe. She prayed for the rain to continue to muffle her sound as she slid along the muddy ground. She finally came to a stop where there was a large enough gap in the floorboards to somewhat see into the building. She could see a desk and two well dressed men sitting on each side. Finally, she caught a glimpse of several stacks of money on the table. It didn’t seem like much, especially compared to the money she had found on her last mission, but if the CIA wanted it tracked she would put the chip here. She found a gap where the floorboard met the base timbers and attached the chip there. “That was a waste,” she thought, “but whatever.”

  Now the fun would begin. Becca would start setting the explosive charges. She snuck back to the forest edge and made her way to the large building. This building had several guards in both the front and back of the building. The question now lie before Becca, does she try and sneak into the building, or does she use her handgun and take out the rear guards? “I can’t,” she thought, “not unless I have to.” So she decided to sneak into the loading dock area of the building, that is where the most cover would be.

  Between her and the docks stood several wooden crates and something that was stored under a large tarp. Becca made her way between several crates to the large tarp and quickly ducked underneath it for cover, but what she saw was a surprise. She had previously figured it was something related to the drug lab, but it was not. It was several surface-to-air Stinger missiles. “Maybe this is why the CIA wanted her to go in first,” she thought “This should make for some cool fireworks.”

  Becca pulled out her first explosive and set it in the middle of the missiles. She would set the timer to 50 minutes and then set her watch. She figured she could set each timer in sync with her watch as she went, hopefully leaving her enough time to escape into the forest. Wasting no time now she worked her way to the open docks at the rear of the building. When the guards were turned the other way she hopped up and was in the building.

  The building was quiet on the inside. There were drying tables that Becca assumed were for drying coca leaves, but they were empty at the time. The building was full of different chemicals and equipment. She took a quick look around to decide where to place the explosives. She found bags of Lime and Carbonate Salt. There were also containers marked Kerosene and some marked Sulfuric Acid. She found a lot of empty 55 gallon drums and several portable cement mixers and washing machines. In the back she saw that there were several portable generators. She placed several explosives around the building, making sure to get several on structural supports and one by the generators. “This might make for an interesting show” she thought as she placed the only and experimental aluminothermic mixture amongst the Kerosine and other chemicals. Now all that was left was the airplanes

  Becca snuck out of the building as easily as she snuck in. The guards were just too miserable in the rain to be paying much attention. Becca slid back into the cover of the forest relieved to feel safe again. She checked her watch, there was only 22 minutes left. She would have to make haste now and work her way around to the planes.

  Getting to the planes was an easy task. With only one charge left Becca decided to place it on the middle plane hoping the explosion would cause collateral damage. She wasn’t real sure about these old p
lanes, but remembered something about the fuel tank being between the front and center spars, so that is where she placed her last charge. She looked down to set the timer, 10 minutes left. It was time to run.

  With the GPS set to Humberto’s home, Becca took off as fast as she could muster. There was a ridge above the clearing in the forest that she would try to reach before the explosives went off. “Jack would say, keep to the high ground” she thought to herself, knowing that really she wanted to get to higher ground so she could see the outcome of her work. The forest branches were slapping her in the face as she gave no thought into taking the time to clear a path. Keeping an eye on the footing in front of her while glancing at the GPS to make sure she stayed on the right path was no easy task. Finally, after glancing at her watch and seeing that there was only two minutes left, she stopped to catch her breath. She turned to watch and listen for the explosions while digging out a candy bar and taking in some water. `

  The sound of the explosions rocked through the forest. She could feel the wave of the blast vibrate her chest, but the most spectacular sight was the bright white flames that were shooting high above the tree line. As she held her hand up to the horizon it looked just as if she was holding a fourth of July sparkler. “Must be the aluminothermic reaction,” she reasoned, “Cool” . She stood there for just a moment before turning and heading back on her way.