by L S Barron
After several minutes of Becca celebrating and yammering on and on, she finally stopped. She paused for a moment, turned away and walked over to the gear her and Jack had been getting ready. She stood over the gear and then turned to everyone in the room, whom had just been silently watching her, and said “Jack, you get a hold of the CIA. The mission is not off.” She went on to explain that there was no time to switch someone else to the mission. The CIA had already been stalling the cartel by pretending that they were working on meeting the demands of the ransom. Becca and Jack both knew that she was their best asset for this mission. “Jack” she said, “God put me in here for some reason and I think that I am supposed to do this. If I am actually a free woman now. I choose to do this. They owe me that much.”
Jack knew Becca was right. He agreed to contact the CIA and not ask them, but tell them the mission was going forward. He didn’t care if he lost his job. He knew Becca truly wanted this and he was bound and determined to help her, besides that he knew the CIA would love to have this mission continue on. He also knew that Becca was really the only hope left for the three marines being held by the cartel.
Jack had a message sent back to his CIA boss, who would then in turn inform the governor, that the mission was going forward. Like expected, the CIA easily granted the request to continue. Becca thought it was funny how all of the crew members seemed to be treating her with a whole lot more respect all of a sudden. The fact was it didn’t matter what they thought, however she was elated that Jack finally knew the truth. As she sat in her cell awaiting word from Jack about the mission, it came across her mind “What would the CIA do with her when she got back?” That thought and knowing the CIA like she did, made her feel a little scared about what her future might hold, that is if she made it out of this mission alive.
After what seemed hours, Jack had returned with news to go ahead with the mission. He asked Becca “Are you sure you still want to do this?” “Without a doubt,” she answered not even having to think about it any further. She could see a look of concern in Jack’s face, but she and he both knew it was a good thing to finish this mission.
Jack then asked Becca to go with him. He escorted her to the ship’s medical office. He told Becca “I have known the doctor on board for a long time and he has agreed to do me a favor.” Becca didn’t have any idea what he was talking about, but shook her head as to say okay. Jack explained that he was going to have the doctor remove the GPS tracking chip in her neck. He said to Becca “This situation is something new, the program has never had this happen before and I don’t know what to expect or what the CIA will do with you.” Jack went on to explain that he was having the chip removed without the knowledge of the CIA. He told Becca “Keep the chip on you at all times just like it was still in your neck. When you decide the time is right, do with it what you need to.” Becca wasn’t totally sure what he meant, but she had been wondering what the CIA would do with her once they were back home. Maybe this was Jack’s way of telling her that she needed to disappear.
Let the Mission Begin
Becca was escorted ashore by Jack, Chief Martinez and several marines via a Zodiac CRRC. The raft dropped her off on the shore just down from the city of Buenaventura. It was an isolated beach without a soul around. The marines unloaded Becca’s gear for her and then each of them shook her hand and wished her luck. She, for the first time, could feel the respect that they were showing her. When she came to Chief Martinez, he shook her hand like the others, but left her with a folded piece of paper in one hand as he whispered “read it later,” then smiling he stepped back to let Jack move forward.
Jack actually had a single tear rolling down his cheek. Jack was usually so emotionally tough, so Becca knew that this was hard for him. She looked at him and said with a big smile “This will be a piece of cake. I get to blow stuff up again. You know how I love that.” He shook his head yes as he was smiling but couldn’t seem to find anything to say. So Becca just stepped forward and gave him a hug, picked up her pack and swung it over her shoulder as she turned to walk away. She went a ways and looked back to see all the men still standing on the shore watching her. She hollered back to Jack “I think Panama would be a good place to take a vacation someday,” and then she gave a single wave goodbye.
Once she got out of sight of the beach, she opened up the hand that had been so tightly holding on to the note Chief Martinez had left her. It was a letter, as she glanced to the bottom she saw that it was written by Chief Martinez himself. She went on to read the letter and found that Chief Martinez and Jack had been friends clear back to the days that Jack had been a Navy Seal. In the letter, Chief Martinez basically explained how Jack had been the one that led to the capture of Jenna. He explained that Jack had several of his old friends working to find out if Jenna was in fact still alive and he had been doing so ever since he saw the first postcard that Becca had received back in prison. Ends up that Jack had always believed that Becca was innocent and he was the one that found her redemption in the end. After reading the letter several times, Becca finally stopped, folded it ever so carefully and placed it safely in her pack.
Becca now turned her thoughts to the mission. She found that she was more scared now than on previous missions. All of a sudden she had hope, a reason to live, she would have her freedom. “Don’t think ahead. Just concentrate on the mission at hand,” she told herself as she made her way to the city of Buenaventura. From here she would catch a local bus to Cali, the city where her contact would be waiting.
Becca found the the address of her contact without any problems. The home was in what Becca thought was a pretty nice neighborhood. The contact was home and had been waiting for Becca’s arrival. A small built middle aged man, Juan Diego Garcia opened the door and invited Becca inside. He introduced Becca to his wife and to his three children. She was surprised to see that a contact had a family and wondered if they all knew why she was there, but she decided not to say much just incase. After introductions, Juan showed Becca to the back of the house where there was a small beautifully landscaped courtyard. At the back of the courtyard was a small guest house and that was to be Becca’s residence. Juan told Becca to get settled in and he would come back in a little while with something for her to eat. They could then discuss the business at hand.
Becca unpacked her gear, laying everything out on the bed so that she could see what other supplies she would need to get. She also remembered about her GPS chip and reached into her pocket to make sure that it was still there and it was. As she looked through her gear she found a small package that she didn’t recognize. “Jack must of packed this,” she thought as she opened up the package. Inside she found several bundles of one hundred dollar bills. She figured Jack must have given her his own stash of money. He knew that her only true option of being free now was to disappear after the mission was complete and Becca had been counting on that.
Juan showed up with a nice meal for Becca and placed it on a small table sitting in the nook of the little guest house. He motioned for Becca to join him at the table. He was a polite man and kept the conversation in a light mood speaking in English while Becca ate her dinner. He mainly told Becca about the town and his family’s history there. He talked about his three children and what a problem the teenager had been. Becca just listened to Juan and smiled, acknowledging his stories with a nod every so often. As Becca was finishing her meal, Juan looked over to her gear spread out on the bed and asked “Is there anything you need me to get you?” She told him she had everything she needed except she was light on C-4. She told him that it was too hard to carry all that she needed in one pack. She went on to explain that she had all of the timers and detonators, but needed just the C-4 alone. He smiled and said “No hay problema.”
Juan went on to explain her new job as the laundry lady for the drug lab site, known as the Cali Camp. After the mysterious illness of the regular laundry lady, Becca would take her place. He explained that she would actually have to do the w
ork of the laundry lady so that she would not become suspect. He explained that her job would be to pick up the daily laundry throughout the drug lab outpost and deliver it back the next day. He told her “It is a lot of laundry. This place is like a small community with the cocaine lab workers living on site and there are a lot of guards also.” Becca would have to gather the laundry and bring it back to town to wash it at the local lavanderia. Juan could see Becca looked worried and said “mi esposa le ayudara,” as he smiled.
Next Juan went over Becca’s paperwork to make sure everything was in order. He also told her to keep her background history simple. He explained that she was to be one of his distant cousins from Bogota. Evidently Juan’s recommendations came highly respected by the Rodriguez cartel family, being that their families had been friends for a long time. Becca wondered what had caused Juan to turn against the drug cartel, but she decided just to leave it alone.
There was no waiting around, Becca started work the next day. She drove a small beat up pickup that Juan had given her. In the back were three laundry totes that she would use to pick up the laundry from the Cali Camp. The camp was in the jungle region just south of town. It had only one road in and out. Becca started to wonder how she would pull this whole thing off, but reminded herself that she had about a week to study the site. “You can do this,” she told herself.
There were two guards holding military assault rifles at the front gate. Becca could see that the front part of the complex was fenced off. As she pulled up to the gate the guards held out their hands motioning her to stop. She listened to their conversation intently hoping that her spanish wouldn’t let her down. One guard was telling the other guard that she was the new laundry lady. He said “Ella es la senora que lava la ropa no la molestes.” Becca knew that he was telling the other guard that she was the laundry lady and to leave her alone. They haphazardly looked through the back of the truck. One guard welcomed Becca and she acknowledged him with a simple “hola” and a smile. The other guard said “Olle tu puedes lavar mi ropa en mi casa hoy en la noche,” teasing Becca. She laughed and said “En otro momento si asi lo afortunado,” teasing him back, knowing that she definitely wanted to stay on the good side of these two guards. They could be key in her sneaking in her gear with the laundry. The two guards laughed and waved her through.
Juan had told her to pull the truck up to each building and collect the laundry that would be sitting out on each of the covered porches. There were two wooden boxes on each porch, one marked Ropa Sucia and one marked Ropa Limpia. She would collect the dirty clothes each day and return the cleaned clothes from the previous day. Becca knew that the laundry was going to give her a perfect way to sneak in any item she would need.
As Becca gathered the laundry at each building she took the time to glance in any windows or doors. Most of the buildings were built of metal panels tacked onto a wooden frame, except for two, which had some concrete construction. One building was an all wood structure built up on stilts. It had one set of steps leading up to the covered deck. It also had two armed guards at the front entrance. She saw a well dressed man enter that building and figured it must be the office and the money room. The other building was the prison. Three of it’s walls were concrete with the front having open steel bars, just like a jail cell. She could see that there were in fact three men inside. She thought that they looked like they were still doing okay, health wise anyway. Several of the buildings were only housing dwellings and she wouldn’t worry about those. The drug lab itself was a large metal building that surprisingly was not very well constructed. Becca knew that because of the chemicals stored inside a cocaine lab, it would make for a good explosion. She thought “That one will be fun to watch.” She also noticed that the entire camp was fenced in, but only by a chain link fence. She figured it was probably only to keep out unwanted wildlife and that the armed guards were what kept out any unwanted people.
For the next week Becca would do the duties of the regular laundry lady. She made sure to stay friendly with the guards, even bringing them some homemade pastries. After just two days she realized the guards weren’t going to check through any of the laundry totes, after all why would a young lady be anything to worry about. She immediately started to sneak in items that she would need. When no one was paying her any attention, she would then hide the items in various places around the camp, like under the wooden porches or to the side of a few buildings in some bushes. She gave Juan some extra money to pick her up some needed items, which included wire cutters, a couple of duffle bags, a couple of flashlights, two high quality watches of the same make, a piece of a rubber hose, and a few large plastic containers that would hold liquid when needed. She also asked him to throw some garden tools in the back of the truck, along with a few bags of fertilizer that she told him must have Ammonium Nitrate as an ingredient. She instructed him to make sure it looked like he had been doing some garden work.
For the next week Becca would drive the truck in full of these items and park the truck along the sides of each building to keep her out of view of the guards. Each day should would hide one bag of fertilizer and syphon one container of fuel from the truck. She placed the two duffle bags in the bottom of the laundry totes. She prayed each day “Please God, don’t let anyone find my hidden supplies,” and each day through the gates her heart would pound until she was safely waved in by the guards.
Her chance for contacting the prisoners came about at the end of the first week. Evidently the cartel thought that the CIA was still going through with the prisoner and money exchange. Therefore, they were treating the prisoners well and wanted them presentable for the exchange so they wanted clean clothes for the prisoners. Becca thought this was probably a miracle for her because she had been struggling with an idea of how to make contact with the three marines.
Becca didn’t know if she would have another chance to wash the prisoners laundry, so she hid a note with instructions inside the pocket of a folded pair of pants. She synced the two watches that Juan had bought her, keeping one for herself and folding the other inside the prisoners laundry. The time was important and the note let them know when to back away from the south side wall of the cell. It also let them know that there would be a duffle bag in the jungle just past the hole in the fence behind the small building at the south end of the camp. The note also advised them not to wait for anyone else, it was up to them to make it to the extraction coordinates. The bag would contain their fake passports, three bus tickets from Cali to Buenaventura, a little bit of money, one handgun, a flashlight, one navy radio, and a GPS with the coordinates of the pickup site along the coast. There would also be three sets of civilian clothes that she hoped would fit them. Now all Becca had to do was to actually get everything in place.
Becca had figured it was time to get this over with. She set the time and the date on the note for Friday, which was two days away. She set the time at 4 am, really making it only a little over a days time away. She picked 4 am because she figured no one ever expects anything to happen so early in the morning and because the activity at the camp would be at a minimum. She let Juan know to contact his CIA source and give them the date and expected time for the Navy extraction.
Juan brought Becca a really good meal Thursday night. It was one of her favorite local dishes consisting of tamales wrapped in banana leaves, rice, sliced tomatoes, and some fried plantains. Juan’s wife was a very good cook and Becca knew that she sure would miss her cooking. Juan stayed and visited with Becca while she ate her meal. Becca felt like it was a good time to ask him about his plans for himself and his family. “Surely the cartel would learn who to blame for what was about to come down the pipe,” she told Juan. He agreed with her but told her not to worry. He had made plans with his CIA contact to relocate himself and his family to Chile. He told Becca that they had been waiting for this moment and would be leaving that evening. “As long as you don’t get caught, it will take the cartel some time to figure out what happened. Hopefully w
e will all be out of the country by then,” Juan said with a smile. Before Becca could ask him why he had sided with the CIA, he had gotten up from the table and told her to get some rest before they have to head out. Becca took his advice and tried to get some sleep, but everything and every detail kept racing through her mind. She prayed for Juan and his family to be safe. She prayed that she wouldn’t get caught. Finally she just prayed for a little help and then said “Oh boy, I sure hope someone up there is listening.” “Funny,” she thought “I all of a sudden have more reason for hope.” She spent the rest of the evening hoping that she had planned for everything. She would soon find out.
Juan was already knocking on the door. The time had gone by so quickly and Becca was more nervous now than she had ever been on any of her missions. She told herself “You have everything already set up. It’s going to be a piece of cake.” She grabbed her pack, that she already had meticulously gone through several times, and put her belt on that held her handgun, several clips, and two smoke grenades. She put the wire cutters in the front pocket of her pack because that is what she would need first. Juan grabbed the duffle bag that contained the items intended for the 3 marines. They hopped in the truck and took off towards the camp.
Juan would drop Becca off down the road and just out of sight of the camp. He got out with Becca and gave her a hug goodbye and said “Este seguro y puede Dios estar con usted.” Becca told him “Thanks for everything. I too hope that God is with me,” as she smiled put on her pack and grabbed the duffle bag. She disappeared into the forest along the road leading into the camp. She watched as she saw Juan’s truck lights turn and head back towards town.
The jungle seemed eerily quiet as Becca made her way to the southern end of the camp, making sure to stay hidden in the cover of the jungle. She came to the southern most building of the camp and carefully placed the duffle bag in the closest foliage to the fence. Straight in front of where she placed the bag she cut through the fence and pushed the flap of the fence back so that the three marines could find the opening with no problem. She slipped in through the fence and stood behind the building just to listen for a moment. Everything was quiet and as she peaked around the corner of the building she counted only four guards. Two guards were standing under the lights at the front gate and two were on the front porch of the headquarters where the money was kept. “This is good,” she thought.