by J E Higgins
The briefing continued with a smattering of questions from the rest of the team. Being more familiar with the case, her DEA colleagues remained silent. Holden asked some pointed and strategic questions. Where Ashler had been focused on the more tactical aspect of the mission, she directed her comments toward more procedural considerations and the overall legal strategy.
Holden was a lawyer by training who had served as a prosecutor in the Boston District Attorney’s office before joining the Bureau. Her legal mind was oriented toward pursuing the extradition. Darson fielded the litany of pointed questions fired by the FBI agent, answering to the best of her ability. She thought a number of the questions she was getting was more for posturing than clarification and information. Holden wanted to make her point that she was at a higher standard than the rest of the team.
Pierce had opted to remain silent, deferring instead to Ross to be the voice of the ATF at the meeting. While Ross seemed to harbor similar feelings as his partner over the breach of protocol, he remained less confrontational and kept his comments and questions professional and pertinent.
It was too early to tell, but she figured that down the road, he was going to be more reasonable to deal with. She would need such an ally as the operation progressed. One of the most detrimental things she had seen happen to inter-agency operations was when the team leader relied too heavily on people from their own agencies, marginalizing the other members. It always led to chaos and resentment.
Chapter 13
The bus ride from Puno was an incredibly unpleasant experience. The dips and rough terrain of the severely weathered dirt road rattled and shook the bus. Some of the dips had been carved so deeply that it felt like an elevation drop when the bus passed over. The fall back to earth always resulted in a hard crash that jolted everyone on board. Dugan McNaulty groaned as he recovered from the most recent encounter the bus had with one of the canyon-like holes. “That one felt like it hit right up my ass,” he growled to no one in particular. He gritted his teeth and wiggled around in a vain attempt to get comfortable.
Kusaki, who sat in the seat just ahead of him, ignored the Englishman’s cries. He looked upon such weak complaining with utter contempt. Warriors such as they were, who had seen and endured what they had, shouldn’t be bothered by the simple unpleasantness of a bus ride. He looked at the barren grassland outside that was gradually giving way to ever-thickening vegetation as they drove further into the Amazon rainforest.
Crane sat across the aisle from Kusaki. The few passengers on board allowed the men the comfort of at least being able to sit alone. He had attempted numerous times to catch a nap throughout the trip but was thwarted by the endless surprises that continued to jolt him awake. Like a man with a bad case of insomnia, he had taken to staring at the roof of the vehicle letting his mind wander and occasionally being interrupted by the sounds of neighboring activity. McNaulty’s groans of irritation had only interrupted the equally annoying argument he had been forced to listen to between a woman and her rebellious teenage daughter.
San Pilliar seemed to come out of nowhere as the bus, moving through endless carpets of brush, shrubs and low hanging trees, suddenly emerged into an open space containing buildings and houses made of light brown wood clumped together. It was a thriving town hidden within the protective canopy of the surrounding jungle.
The bus drove a good distance through town before coming to its designated stop. The passengers were unceremoniously herded out the door by the driver, a cranky old man, who appeared incapable of speaking in any other tone than a shout. The mercenaries shuffled out the narrow exit along with the other passengers.
Having packed light, they had been able to keep their Bergen packs with them thus avoiding the cumbersome act of retrieving any bags stacked haphazardly atop the bus as the other occupants were now embroiled in doing. Slowly, the mercenaries slipped from the crowd and made their way down the street. The village was remarkably modern and well-kept for a settlement that was largely isolated in the depths of the Amazon. The houses and buildings were built primarily along the top and down the side of a hill ─ a plan designed to protect them against floods during heavy rains.
As with most remote villages, San Pilliar was a village with no designed layout. The roads varied between streets intended to accommodate vehicular traffic turning into nothing more than a simple pathway. Along the route, the mercenaries saw an assortment of businesses ranging from small machine repair shops to restaurants, bars, some storefronts featuring various gadgets, and even boutiques offering clothing and luxury items not often seen in such remote places.
Finding what looked like a decent enough cantina, they strolled in and took seats at a rickety table made largely of wicker or some other local material. The seats, woven structures that crackled loudly as they lowered into them, were not much better. A tubby man with a partially opened, pink collared shirt approached them. He had a round, gleaming dome surrounded by a thin line of hair.
The short walk from the bar to the table had the man breathing deeply. He greeted them with a thick, gravelly voice and an apathetic attitude that only perked up when they asked for the most expensive beers. He turned slowly in a plodding manner returning a short while later with three glass bottles wedged between his sausage-like fingers. Placing them on the table, he happily accepted the bills Crane placed in his hand for payment. Without asking anything further, the man returned to the bar, leaving the men alone.
Kusaki continued to study the landscape within his purview while the two Europeans enjoyed their drinks. “Well, this is a nifty little setup,” McNaulty quipped, commenting on the town.
“It is at that,” Crane replied, taking a sip of his drink. It had been agreed that nothing was to be discussed about Guzman or anything relating to the mission until they were sure no one was listening. In a town such as this, there was no telling who could be watching and what kind of eyes and ears Guzman would have in the area. As far as anyone was concerned, they were just tourists; foreigners enjoying the sites and visiting a village that had been recommended to them back in Puno. The last thing they needed was anyone getting any idea about why they were there. In places like this, people disappeared very easily. It was best to do everything to promote themselves as poor hapless backpackers.
The men sipped their beers slowly, laughing, and making idle conversation. As they did, Crane noticed their fat barman tending to the few customers at the counter was seemingly indifferent to them. He also noticed a young woman who had been hanging around prior to their arrival had slipped into a seat within earshot. Crane easily figured out she was an amateur informant who earned a little extra money picking up bits of information in places like the bar and selling it to whoever would pay her a few bucks. The question was whether she was learning information to sell to the cartel bosses or local hoodlums interested in rolling wealthy Europeans. She would have heard nothing of interest as the men held their conversation primarily in English and kept the topics to subjects of no importance.
After finishing their drinks, they walked through the village stopping every so often to take pictures. Laughing and joking they looked as if they were just capturing the exotic world of the village. Actually, they were capturing all the relevant, strategic points.
It was unlikely the village wasn’t part of Guzman’s narcotics operation. They had all noticed the young woman following them out of the cantina. She kept her distance and tried to blend into the population. After two streets watching the men behave like typical foreign tourists, she decided there was nothing of interest and headed elsewhere.
After an hour of walking about the town, they found themselves at the base of the hill just outside the village. They had come to a tributary with a small waterfall pouring into it. Throughout their trip, they noticed eyes were watching them only a few times.
“What do you think?” McNaulty asked quietly, feeling confident they were alone.
“They weren’t working to keep an eye on us,” Kusa
ki said.
Crane took a deep breath as he turned and looked around. “No, they weren’t. It’s safe to say that they're buying our tourist bit. My guess is that by tomorrow they’ll lose interest, and we’ll be able to move about more freely. Until then, we keep up appearances.”
“Suits me,” McNaulty said as he stripped off his clothes and carefully dipped his feet into the cool water. Kusaki followed. Crane took up a seat on a rock at the edge of the water. He watched as his compatriots sat back enjoying the relaxing effects of the waterfall. McNaulty leaned back exhaling deeply while Kusaki swam about within the limited space of the pool.
Despite a few calls from both men to join them, Crane decided to stay on land. He collected his thoughts as he went over all that he had seen walking through the village. There was a steep hillside coupled with the complicated road pattern. The crowded buildings practically built on top of each other created real problems. In short, any operation within the village would be impractical.
Later that afternoon the men found a cheap place that served as something of a hotel for transients passing through. An old building that had served in the past as a military barracks, it was one of only a few structures in the village that had more than one floor and was built with any professional planning and skill. After being shown to a room on the second floor, they walked through doing a brief scan for bugs and other listening devices. It was a little paranoid to think such a remote place would have that level of sophistication, but cartels had been known for employing similar technologies to ensure they knew what was going on in their territory.
At one time, the Cali cartel was known to have such a high-level intelligence network throughout the city of Cali that every hotel phone was bugged, and every conversation listened to by an intelligence organization that was more efficient than either the CIA or KGB. Determining that the room was free of any such devices, all three settled in for a quick nap.
Later that night, they set out again walking around the village. The streets were crowded with men returning from jobs that took them out into the jungle. Stopping at an eatery that looked to be frequented by the locals, the mercenaries took up seats in the center of the room. They enjoyed their meals and drinks in silence as they listened to the conversations going on around them.
Men, who normally would be suspicious of speaking around strangers, began to loosen their tongues as they relaxed, and their drinking became more excessive. Soon, they were freely chatting away, completely oblivious of the foreigners sitting nearby, who they presumed spoke little or no Spanish. As Crane and his cohorts predicted, they began to hear interesting things as men spoke of their jobs working for Guzman. They caught snippets of a large field several kilometers to the east and another farther south. But it was the mention of a processing plant somewhere north that piqued their interest. A couple of men, who were slightly better dressed and seemingly possessing more money, spoke about the pressure they were under to process a large batch of their product.
Crane enjoyed his meal and drink. So did his cohorts, who also behaved indifferently to the conversations going on about them. The information was coming in piecemeal, but it was giving them what they needed ─ a general idea of potential targets.
A few of the conversations eventually drifted towards the topic of Santos Guzman. Opinions about the man varied amongst those who discussed him. Some enjoyed the good pay he offered. Others despised his mad dog gang of thugs who apparently were quite trigger happy and prone to violence as a means of keeping order in the organization. A name that kept being mentioned with these mad dog killers was Serona who when spoken of was characterized as a thug who used brute force as his first resort for everything.
Another name that kept coming up in other topics of conversation was Hidalgo Perron. He was apparently Guzman’s right hand, the rational mind of the organization. He was discussed as the calculating strategist, the rationale behind Serona’s blunt force. It was also learned that Guzman made regular visits to his processing plant and often in the company of both men.
Having finished their meals and downed the remains of their long-nursed drinks, the mercenaries took their leave from the establishment and made their way back to their lodgings. Amongst them, they continued to keep their discussions to small talk on their opinions of the village and how it stacked up as a tourist location. Nothing was spoken about what they had heard.
They returned to their room. After a quick check to ensure no one was listening in the hallway or neighboring room, they felt free to speak. It was decided that they would hike west in the morning to throw any potential observers off their course. Then they would change course and head north to search for the processing plant which they all regarded as the key target behind locating Guzman’s hacienda.
The next morning the three men were awake at sunrise. With their gear tightly packed, they headed out. A quick stop at what passed for a grocery store gained them provisions for what might prove to be a long couple of days. The men of the village were also up and milling about as they prepared to head out for work. It was the moment Crane had been waiting for. Spotting the man he heard last night speaking about the processing lab, he watched as the man climbed onto the back of a beaten field truck ready to head out.
The Welshman and his comrades watched the truck grumble off down a poorly defined dirt road that trailed towards the north. Seeing what they needed to, they took up their kits and started out. To avoid raising any unwanted attention they moved out when the streets were full of people rushing to catch transportation creating mass confusion the mercenaries could use to blend in.
To start out, they opted for a westerly direction. Even though they had put to rest any initial suspicions the villagers may have had, they continued to notice eyes occasionally glancing in their direction. It was best to take measures to further mask their intentions. Securing the last of their supplies, they headed out of town, just a trio of tourists intent on back-packing through the Peruvian countryside.
The jungle was thick and packed with overhanging trees hanging like blanketing umbrellas protecting open patches of land in some places, while thick fat plants and tall leafy bushes spread unchecked over the ground. Stepping through the terrain took them alternately into murky darkness or through a gauntlet of shrubbery that forced them to fight for every step they took. It was made worse by the suffocating heat that surrounded them.
A few kilometers out they came to an opening under one of the overhanging trees. Kusaki peeled off and disappeared into a thicket while Crane and McNaulty pressed on. As a precaution, it was decided that they should establish a hasty ambush every few minutes to ensure they were not being followed. The two men continued walking for a few more minutes. If anyone was following them, they would follow the trail assuming they were undetected and pass by Kusaki’s ambush point.
After about ten minutes the two men stopped and nestled quietly in the bushes. They waited in silence. If somebody was following, they would have been confronted by Kusaki, who would have responded in whatever manner he thought fit. After nearly twenty minutes they were rejoined by Kusaki who trudged up along the pathway they had created with their own movements. He signaled with his hands that all was clear.
Satisfied that they were alone, they returned to the clearing. Opening their Bergen's, they laid out their military fatigues and tactical webbing that had been hidden under a few sets of civilian attire. Placing everything on the ground, they began to change.
Swiftly stripping, the tan cargo pants and T-shirts were soon replaced by dark green camouflage attire that closely matched the jungle environment. They didn’t bring weapons. They would have been hard to obtain, and the risk of discovery was too great. Camouflage fatigues and some webbing could be explained away as just some idiots playing military enthusiast. Actual firearms would have been a different matter entirely. Besides, they were deep inside Guzman’s territory. As a practical matter, weapons would have been of little help if they got into trouble.
/> They did bring ghillie suits that they had made prior to leaving Puno. They weren’t perfect, more like a cape with strips of burlap colored with dye to blend in with the jungle landscape. Not first-rate combat gear, but it would be enough for their purposes. Next, they applied face paint, rubbing lighter colors on their neck, ears, and sides of their face. To further break up the outline, they applied the paint in irregular splatters. They finished their outfits with floppy camouflage hats woven with netting and burlap strips.
Having gathered up their things, they moved out, this time to the north. As they advanced, they gradually swung east with the intent that they would pick up the trail they had seen the truck go down earlier and, hopefully, follow it to the processing lab.
It was a long journey, and they moved less like backpackers and more like soldiers. Initially, they were in the open and traveled at a steady pace ─ it was unlikely they would come across an enemy. It was only when they reached the road that they slowed down, taking each step carefully, creating as little noise as possible. The times of brief conversation had given way to using only hand movements to communicate.
The road was nothing more than well-defined imprints where truck tires had driven over the same track on a regular basis. A fresh set of tire tracks indicated that a vehicle had gone by recently. Staying several meters inside the tree line, they followed the trail. Two hours later they heard the faint sounds of men talking in the distance.
