“How high are we going?” he yelled to José. Abel had jumped from planes as high as thirty thousand feet back in his SEAL days, but what he was looking at wasn’t exactly standard-issue Navy SEAL gear.
“Ten thousand feet!” called José. “We must cross the mountains on the coast. Much better for you. You can catch the highway and drive from San Jeronimo, or even rent a plane if you want. See! I am good Colombian—help DEA get rid of the cockroaches!”
Great, thought Abel. Just high enough to freeze my ass off, and all so I can land in a potential hornet’s nest of cartel thugs.
At that moment, he knew that if Dolan had been there, he’d have slugged him smack in the nose. He hoisted himself into the cramped rear seat and strapped in. A SEAL was taught to adapt to changing situations, but the events of the last eighteen hours had been taxing. José worked the controls in front of him, and they bounced down the old runway, taking off into the dawning sky.
6
—
Colonel Rafael Ochoa, commander of the Darién Brigade of the PNP, grimaced as he read the paper just handed to him. A US DEA agent bound for Costa Rica is flying in within the hour, it said. Don Vicente Galvan of the Clan de Cartagena had put a price on his head. The don’s operatives in the Gap were already aware of the reward. The bounty was posted on the dark web. The request was being made by the DEA post in Cartagena to protect him and see him on his way. It had been sent to General Javier Vizcarra, the national commander of the PNP, and he had contacted el presidente himself to get his official go-ahead.
Colonel Ochoa shook his head. Panama’s economy lived and died according to its relationship with the US. Panama rebuilt its economy after the days of dictator Manuel Noriega on foreign tourism and expatriate resettlement. Panama’s program for pensionados offered the most comprehensive benefits of any country in the world to foreign nationals who moved to Panama to spend their retirement years. All they had to do was be at least fifty years old and provide evidence that they received a pension from some source in their home country. This had brought tens of thousands to Panama, many of whom stayed, some even obtaining dual citizenship. By far, the most significant number of foreign retirees came from the US. That meant that their relatives came to visit them as well. Though Panamanians officially controlled the Panama Canal now, the US still maintained a significant presence there to help protect the most vital waterway in the world from attack. Billions of US dollars were spent by the shiploads of tourists that came through the canal on cruise liners, many based in the US. If a US DEA agent needed protecting now, not only would it be done, but it would become the top priority of those in charge.
Within the hour, thought Colonel Ochoa. Not much time.
Perhaps this explained why his patrolmen had already detained more than a half dozen men this morning. Some came out of the Gap without the proper papers. Others had crossed the river into San Jeronimo at places other than the footbridge or simply were strangers who nobody knew and looked suspicious. Could there be others on the way? Colonel Ochoa’s Darién brigade consisted of five hundred officers and patrolmen, but most were scattered along the border or on patrol in the Gap itself. There were probably only about fifty patrolmen currently stationed in San Jeronimo, along with the local constable and his volunteer deputies. Whatever the colonel did, it would have to be decisive, and it would have to be quick. Neither time nor resources could be wasted.
He figured that he probably had one advantage, and it was a big one. The cartel hitmen and the bounty hunters didn’t know when this DEA agent was coming or in what way, or if he would even show up in San Jeronimo at all. In fact, most of them probably had only a name and a picture and were just guessing that he might show up here because most everyone coming out of the Gap did.
He decided to take a low-key approach. He turned to his communications officer.
“Send Code Jaguar,” he ordered.
Code Jaguar indicated to his men and the local constable that there was a reason for a heightened number of strangers or illegal activity to be about. It was a call to be extra alert and to question or detain anyone who aroused suspicion. It also put his airport security force on high alert, though it did not call for them to obviously deploy themselves.
Then Colonel Ochoa made a couple of more overt moves. These would help facilitate his still-formulating plan to get this DEA agent on his way as inconspicuously and efficiently as possible. He ordered that his post helicopter get airborne and go out as if on a normal flyover of the Gap. But also, while taking off, it would briefly fly out over the jungle surrounding the airport and make a sweep to detect if any assassins were perhaps staking out the airport. He ordered his personal turboprop to be prepped and readied for takeoff, and at least one armored Humvee to be put in place as well. Then he got into his private police SUV and headed for the airport.
The airport at San Jeronimo was not actually the San Jeronimo Airport. It was just a single strip of runway carved out of the jungle a few kilometers up Highway CA-1 (also known as the Pan-American Highway) and a cluster of service buildings and PNP offices. Its primary function was to be an aerial hub where supplies and men could be moved in and out quickly. Patrols within the Gap could be quickly resupplied or given cover in case of attack, and humanitarian aid could be efficiently dispatched. It did also serve the public as a landing point for private, non-jet aircraft, but no commercial flights of any kind were allowed there.
As he drove, Colonel Ochoa finished formulating his plan. He and his men would apprehend this DEA agent the moment he stepped out of his plane. Then they would put him on Ochoa’s PNP turboprop and get him off the ground and away in less than five minutes. Simple, quick, and efficient, the way Colonel Ochoa always tried to operate. In the remote possibility that his helicopter flyovers detected assassins in the jungle with weapons that could shoot down planes, they’d make a run for it in the Humvee instead.
But there was something that bugged the colonel about the entire situation. Only in his best-case scenario would he actually get the man to safety and off the cartel’s radar. If the agent could be apprehended, put on the turboprop, and flown out of San Jeronimo, the man would get away. The cartels would have no idea what his destination would be. The man would have months, maybe even years, to figure out how to disappear for good. In every other scenario, though, the people who were searching for this man would know at least which way he was going and would have maps to track where he might go next. Even if the colonel sent him into the Gap, which most considered a death sentence anyway, the cartel’s men inside would quickly hunt him down. The fact was, wherever the man went, no matter how far away from Colombia it was, the cartel would continue to hunt him down until he was dead. That’s how it was for people they wanted badly enough. Short of the DEA and the Colombian National Police destroying the cartel itself, the only thing that would stop them would be the man’s dead body. And that incredibly sobering thought set Colonel Ochoa’s mind to contemplating different, more ominous contingencies to his plans.
He headed out of town and eventually turned his SUV onto the dirt road that led to the airport. As he drove, he wondered just what this man had done that made Don Vicente Galvan so angry? The drug lord didn’t seem to have vendettas out on the other DEA agents in Cartagena, or at least no more than usual. Perhaps he would ask this DEA agent about it when the man arrived if there was time.
Moments later, Colonel Ochoa pushed through the door of the airport office of his PNP command. He was just in time to hear the report coming in from his helicopter. It had just completed its first pass over the jungle around the airfield.
“I saw several people scurry for cover as I passed over,” the man in the helicopter said over the radio. “It was impossible to tell how many, but certainly at least five or six, all armed with automatic weapons. We’re coming around to check out the left side of the runway now.”
“Acknowledged,” said the radio op
erator.
This news was very troubling to Colonel Ochoa. The jungle was cleared for a quarter mile around the runway. The forest’s edge was also walled off with a perimeter fence eight feet high and topped with razor wire. This ensured that the airport was safe from the vast majority of weapons preferred by the cartels: assault rifles and handguns, even bazookas. However, there were any number of heavier weapons such as high-caliber sniper rifles and late-model RPG launchers that could effectively reach the runway, or even the airport buildings. That is, if a bounty hunter or cartel hitman could somehow haul it in from the impassable Gap or over the surrounding mountains without being detected by his patrols. And there was always the question of whether an aircraft could get high enough once it took off to get itself out of range before crossing over the jungle. Overhead, he heard the chopper coming in for another high-level pass over the area.
“I’m looking through the binoculars now. I see more men running for cover under the trees, or back into the bush—one, two, three, some more—at least six, perhaps more.” The observer was referring to men caught in a fifty-yard swath of jungle on the other side of the fence where the undergrowth around the trees was regularly cut back to aid in exposing potential intruders who might try breaching the fence.
“One had a very big, long gun. That is all I could make out for sure.”
“Acknowledged. Gracias,” droned the radio operator.
Colonel Ochoa sat back on a desktop to contemplate this new situation. What was developing was not due to the luck of some bounty hunters or a few cartel hitmen happening to be in the right place at the right time. This sounded like a planned effort, an attack that had been coordinated and prepared in advance. How could that be? Only if—
Suddenly, in the distance, he heard the whine of a small plane coming closer. The plane carrying the agent is arriving already? Colonel Ochoa sprang off the desktop.
“Operator, contact the tower. Tell them to wave off the incoming plane. It must not land here! It must go to El Real or some other place farther up the valley.”
The operator did as he was told, but the sound of the plane was now even closer. The radio operator turned.
“Sir, the plane is out of petrol. It must land here, here and now. Otherwise, it will crash.”
“No! It cannot!” cried Ochoa.
This could not be happening. The plane was flying into a gauntlet! Just then, he caught sight of it, a tiny single-engine Cessna by the look of it. Closer and closer, it came to the ground. Ochoa waited for the fusillade to begin, but nothing happened. The plane skipped along the runway, then rolled in toward the office building and stopped by the adjacent hangar. Ochoa was speechless. They had let the plane land.
There must be something more to this.
Suddenly, Ochoa sprang into action.
“Operator!” he commanded. “Send orders to Lieutenant Garcia at the fuerte. Order him to bring half the garrison to the airport, approach with stealth, join forces with airport security, and once he hears gunfire, his men are to sweep through the jungle on both sides of the runway and kill whoever they find.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the operator, and he immediately got to work.
Colonel Ochoa stepped from the building and told one of the guards at the door to follow him. He and the guard walked to the plane, which had now pulled up close to the airport’s small refueling station and cut its engine. José and Abel climbed out.
“Hola!” called out the colonel in a friendly manner. “Welcome to San Jeronimo. I am Colonel Rafael Ochoa, the commander of the national police garrison here. If you can both come with me, we need to do some debriefing and have you sign a few things and the like before we let you go on your way.” He gave Abel a slightly longer look, and he hoped the warning was understood.
“Yes, sir,” said Abel sharply.
José, on the other hand, balked. “Respectfully, señor, I must refuel and get back into the air immediately. I have an appointment to keep back in Vista Bonita that is very important.”
“I’m sorry, señor, but it is required. They are just routine things, checking papers, signing some things.” At Ochoa’s nod, the guard gave José a little nudge. “We’ll have someone refuel your plane while you’re inside.”
They walked back toward the airport office building. Abel said, “He’s running on fumes. He’s got a guy coming out to fix his refueling pump back in Vista Bonita, and if he’s not there, the guy won’t come back again for another week. ‘Mañana time,’ I guess.”
“I see,” replied Ochoa tersely, clearly not appreciating the American’s cynical reference to the slower pace of life in many Latin countries. “Don’t worry about him.” He nodded to one of the mechanics nearby, who went to the refueling pump and started it up.
After they came through the door, Ochoa ordered the guard and a secretary to take José to a room down the hall while he escorted Abel to his office. Once the door was closed and the blinds were drawn, Ochoa turned and gave Abel a hard look.
“You are Abel Nowinski, the DEA agent?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Abel. “I guess the Cartagena guys got my message. Thanks for your help. I’ll be looking forward to getting out of here and letting you get back to your business.”
Colonel Ochoa’s face relaxed for a moment. “Agent Nowinski, protecting people from the drug cartels and other unsavory characters is our business.”
He sat down at his desk. An orderly knocked on the door. Ochoa admitted him, and the man tossed a piece of paper on the colonel’s desk and left. Ochoa read what was on it, smiled grimly, and then asked, “How well do you know this pilot?”
“Just met him a little over an hour ago. He’s a DEA asset they use to get people across the gulf. He was supposed to get me all the way to Costa Rica, but he had this fuel thing, and this is as far as he—”
“Agent Nowinski,” said Ochoa, “I’m afraid that you and the DEA have been betrayed.” He handed the visibly shocked agent the note he’d just been given.
“Over half a tank?” he mumbled. Then his face turned from shock to anger. “His plane had over half a tank of petrol in it?”
“There is also a small convention of cartel operatives and bounty hunters lurking in the jungle around this airport, apparently waiting for you to leave so they can obliterate you and whatever manner of transportation you’re leaving in,” explained Ochoa. “I can assure you that holding conventions of cartel operatives and armed mercenaries is not something we’re in the habit of doing here in San Jeronimo. In fact, had they not been tipped off, I’m sure none of them would be here at this moment.”
“That lying weasel!” yelled Abel. He sprang out of his chair. “I’ll kill him myself—”
“No, you won’t,” interrupted the colonel, “and you will leave this airport in a few minutes. It just won’t really be you.” Ochoa gave Abel a meaningful look, and Abel sat back down. “You understand what will be happening here, then?” Abel nodded. “My orderly will escort you to the restroom and give you a PNP uniform. I’ll require all your clothes, effects, and identification, as well as your backpack and all its contents.”
Ochoa noted that Abel’s face suddenly paled. “Actually, there are just a few things I’ll need to get out of that, weapons, money, you know.”
“I’m sorry, Agent Nowinski. I will require all of its contents. I’m sure you understand. There may be an explosion or fire, rendering a body unidentifiable. But if there are other things, things only you would have—”
Abel jumped up. “Oh, yeah? Well, some of those ‘other things’ I’m gonna be needing and can’t do without, so—”
“Agent Nowinski!” Ochoa commanded. “Sit down!”
Abel refused. Ochoa pressed a button on his desk phone. A giant, well-muscled orderly arrived instantly, brandishing a policeman’s club. “Orderly, take this man to the restroom and remove all his clothing and an
ything in his pockets. If he resists, handcuff him to the lavatory seat.”
The orderly advanced on Abel, tapping his police club in the palm of his hand. Abel backed off. He put out his hands and sat down.
“Okay, okay. No need for violence,” he said.
Colonel Ochoa glared daggers at Abel. “Agent Nowinski, I have been charged by el presidente of Panama with your safety, and I will fulfill his orders to me, which means that you will obey my orders. Is this clear to you now?”
Abel gave the colonel a disgruntled smirk. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s get to it.”
Colonel Ochoa looked to the orderly. “Get this man a uniform, everything, including weapons, ammo, gear, the works.” The orderly dismissed himself. Ochoa turned to Abel. “You do have aliases with legends, correct?”
“Of course I do, but the papers are—”
“In the backpack?” asked Ochoa.
“No. They were in my apartment when the building blew up last night,” groused Abel.
“My sympathies. I’ll contact your acting commander in Cartagena immediately. What was his name, Dunham?”
“Dolan,” corrected Abel.
“Ah, sí,” said Ochoa. “Such a shame about former Commander Garza. He was a very good man, an old friend of mine.”
Abel was silent.
Ochoa continued. “You’ll have the new papers by tomorrow morning. It won’t be safe for you to travel before then anyway. We’ll discuss the details later. Right now, we should be about the business at hand.”
***
Colonel Ochoa led Abel, now dressed as an ordinary PNP patrolman, José, now dressed in Abel’s garb, complete with a backpack slung over his shoulder, and a couple of orderlies out to José’s plane, where Ochoa opened the cockpit door to let José climb in. The man was shaking like a leaf but still tried to continue with the charade.
“Why is this that I have to wear that man’s clothes?” he asked. “No one would tell me.”
The Green Cathedral Page 5