Soldier D: The Colombian Cocaine War

by David Monnery

  The inner compound, surrounded by a stone wall some three metres high, was almost square, with each side about two hundred metres long. The main house – a two-storey villa with flat roof and first-floor verandah – was at Wynwood’s end. It had two single-storey wings that had obviously been added at a later date. Three more buildings – one of two storeys, the others of one – stretched along the inside of the northern wall. Beyond them there was a helipad, but no helicopter. The south-western corner was mostly lawn, and boasted a couple of canopied tables.

  There were several armed guards in evidence, some stationary and some moving. Wynwood watched one of the latter slowly walking the southern fence. When he reached the far corner he took something from his pocket and seemed to speak into it. There was obviously a security centre somewhere in the complex.

  Wynwood got out a pencil and began sketching the layout as accurately as he could. He worked quickly, knowing that the squadron in Belize would be getting satellite blow-ups, and that his main job that day was to find the surveillance patrol an observation post and a hide location. He found them both within the next two hours.

  Retreating uphill from his vantage point, he had drawn a wide circle round to the south and west before cresting the ridge of the slope that rose up from the stream due south of the compound. About a third of the way down the slope he found a climbable tree that offered an almost uninterrupted view of the estate. There was a swimming pool behind the eastern wall which had not been visible from his previous position.

  On the other side of the ridge, one valley away from Totoro, he found the ideal spot for their hide: a wide gully in the valley side which boasted the extra protection of a large uprooted tree.

  He could see no disadvantages to this site, but it was not yet two o’clock, and he might still have time to look for something better once he had found somewhere for the helicopters to land.

  Eddie walked across the arched bridge, then down some steps to the park which stretched out alongside the river. There were lots of students sitting on the grass and under the palms, while others paced up and down murmuring to themselves. Maybe here they had exams at Christmas, he thought.

  A couple of hundred metres on he came across a huge open-air blackboard, with a dozen or so students busy drawing equations on it. The whole thing made him smile, though he was not sure why.

  There were lots of trees, though few of them seemed particularly tropical; in fact most seemed not that different from the sort you would find in Epping Forest. He stopped to watch two art students having their photographs taken with their paintings, huge canvases covered in abstract designs which, like the trees, seemed just a little strange. It occurred to him that this was a difficult place for Europeans to understand; it was different but not really different enough. You felt like a foreigner but at the same time you didn’t.

  Still, none of the locals had any trouble identifying him as one. As he walked through the park the word “gringo” came at him in a bewildering mixture of mutters, growls and simple observations. The park ended, and away across two blocks he could see a statue on a hill. He walked up the road, and found a path which spiralled up towards the summit.

  The statue turned out to be a large and suitably aggressive-looking conquistador. From its base Eddie could see the town spread out below him – a grid pattern of mostly white buildings in a wide plain bounded by distant mountains. It didn’t look like Hackney. In fact it looked damn peaceful.

  Appearances could be deceptive, of course. Two teenagers were coming up the path he had climbed, carrying a ghetto-blaster between them. Loud and distorted heavy metal blared from its speakers. They took one look at Eddie and disappeared from sight round the other side of the statue. Not out of earshot, however. Their ghetto-blaster, apparently aimed at Ecuador and Peru, still strained at its speakers like a wooden boat in a thunderstorm.

  Home sweet home, Eddie thought. He wondered what Lisa was doing. ‘Happy New Year,’ he murmured.

  On the other side of the town the Dame was walking round the block which contained the Cathedral. It looked like a fortress, with its high walls and corner tower, but the Dame didn’t think that was why he found it forbidding. B Squadron could be over those walls in fifteen seconds.

  He stopped at the front entrance and stared up at the sun-shadowed stonework and the dome floating in the blue sky. There seemed to be a stork or something like it nesting under the eaves. Chris would know.

  He crossed the road and entered through the small door which had been made in the larger ones. After the bright sunlight it seemed almost lightless inside, but after a while his eyes began to adjust and he started walking slowly down a side aisle, watching those sitting in the pews, their pleading faces turned upwards towards the stricken Christ.

  He looked away, and tried to make out details of the dimly lit paintings on the walls. Surely the men who had painted them would have wanted them seen more clearly than this. A sign caught his eye, telling visitors, in English, not to use flash.

  Dull gold gleamed everywhere; it was like being swallowed by a huge golden whale. And yet … his eyes were drawn back unwillingly to the upturned faces. So much need. And he knew what for. He could not put words to it, but he knew what for.

  He got to his feet, aware again of the church around him. The thought crossed his mind that death would be like this golden darkness. He shook his head and started back down the aisle, towards where a thin wash of light was seeping in from the invisible doorway.

  Chris did what Wynwood had told him to do – went and sat on a mountain. Once back on the main road he simply turned the car uphill, and watched as the view through the windscreen grew ever more spectacular. After an hour or so he emerged onto a vast, rolling plateau. For what seemed like thirty kilometres in every direction palm-studded fields and hills stretched away towards purple mountains. Above it all myriad banks of cloud rolled across an enormous sky. It seemed like a land custom-made for giants.

  He parked the car and walked up to the crest of a nearby knoll, book in hand, and had no sooner sat down than a hawk-like bird appeared almost directly above him, drawing lazy circles in the air. It was white with prominent black markings either side of the neck. A black-shouldered kite, the book told him.

  The next few hours went by like minutes, and it was with some reluctance that Chris abandoned his perch to collect Wynwood.

  The upper slopes of the Cauca valley were still bathed in sunshine, but the light had already deserted the road in its bottom, and Wynwood seemed to almost leap from the shadows at the arranged spot.

  ‘Well?’ Chris asked as they drove back down.

  Wynwood told him about the layout of the estate and the potential hide. ‘There’s a pretty wide flat clearing about a kilometre to the northeast which should do for the pick-up,’ he added.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Yeah, but dropping in isn’t going to be so easy. It’s all forest.’

  ‘What about the front garden?’

  ‘It may come to that.’

  His New Year soirée was going well, Luis Quintana thought. A fair slice of the cream of Colombian society was there, which not only reflected well on the respect in which he was held, but also on the wealth of the coffers which would be available to him for financing a presidential campaign.

  Noticing his wife across the room he thought she looked almost desirable. Perhaps, he thought sourly, the two of them could start speaking to each other again in the coming year.

  At that moment he noticed Rafael Lamizares standing alone, and took the opportunity he had been waiting for all evening.

  ‘Could I have a word, Rafael?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, Luis. A private word?’

  Quintana nodded. ‘The garden, perhaps?’

  Lamizares followed Quintana out onto the terrace and down into the shadows of the path which circled the lawn. The two men had known each other for twenty years, ever since they had attended the same college in the United States, and both
had risen high in the Party. Quintana was an important minister, and though Lamizares had no official Government post, those well versed in Colombian politics considered him one of the most powerful men in the country. He was the Liberal Party’s kingmaker. Or, more accurately, its President-maker.

  ‘I have a question for you, Rafael,’ Quintana began, once they had moved far enough away from the house. ‘A hypothetical question, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lamizares said, smiling. Over the distant centre of Bogotá a firework flashed red stars into the sky.

  ‘If Estrada was not to stand or not to be selected by the Party, do you think I would stand a chance of the nomination?’ Quintana asked.

  ‘Is he thinking of not standing?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Then he will be selected.’ Another rocket showered stars into the sky, this time green ones.

  ‘It looks that way. But six months is a long time – something might happen to undermine his popularity. Who can tell?’

  Lamizares stopped and looked at him closely. ‘Who indeed?’ he said sardonically. ‘Well, in this highly hypothetical situation, and assuming that whatever it is that undermines Estrada’s popularity does not also undermine your own, then … well, I would make you second favourite to Muñoz. Always assuming his family agrees to pay the ransom, of course. A long way second though, Luis, I’m afraid to say. This is not my personal preference, you understand. It’s what I suspect would be the Party’s preference.’

  Quintana said nothing, savouring the possibility.

  ‘Of course,’ Lamizares went on, ‘if Muñoz didn’t come back, I suspect the radicals would find it hard to agree on his successor. In which case I don’t think there’s much doubt you would be the favourite.’

  It was what Quintana had wanted to hear. ‘Thank you, Rafael,’ he said with more than his usual sincerity, ‘for indulging a few New Year daydreams. Let’s go back in.’

  The phone rang in Wynwood’s room. ‘There’s a long-distance call for you, Señior Wynwood,’ the receptionist told him.

  ‘Fine,’ Wynwood said.

  Oliver’s voice came down the line, but there was no click to suggest the receptionist had hung up.

  ‘Hi, Joss,’ Oliver said. ‘I just called to tell you I can’t make it. Would you believe five of our people are down with colds, which only leaves two to man the phones.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Jim.’

  ‘Yeah, well, can’t be helped. I’d still like to see you on the sixteenth if that’s possible?’

  ‘Sure. What number’s your apartment again?’

  ‘Seventy-three.’

  ‘I remember now. OK, see you then. Bye Jim.’

  Wynwood hung up, picked up the list of numbers he had just made, and went out to use one of the public phones in the Plaza de Armas. He chose one as far from prying ears as possible, punched out the code for Bogotá and the numbers Oliver had just given him – 521673.

  The embassy man answered immediately. ‘Hi,’ he said, ‘everything OK?’

  ‘No,’ Wynwood said. He told Oliver about the men in the Merc.

  ‘Oh hell’ was the first response; ‘I’d better get on to London’ the second.

  Wynwood waited for more.

  ‘Did you check them for ID?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘There wasn’t time.’ Had there been? he wondered.

  ‘No matter, it probably wouldn’t have told us anything.’

  ‘Seems to me,’ Wynwood said, ‘the best place to find out whether it’s blown is Totoro. I think we should establish the surveillance operation right now.’ He told Oliver about the recon that day. ‘It didn’t look like they were preparing a reception committee. And if they do, then if we’re in situ we’ll know about it.’

  ‘There’s a problem with that – your cache. We were going to deliver to certain map coordinates and let you collect, but it’s been decided that such an operation would be unnecessarily complicated. Instead, we intend to deliver direct.’

  ‘To the hotel room?’

  ‘No, of course not. But the delivery is tonight, which is why I say there’s a problem with establishing the surveillance immediately.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘A lay-by off the Cali-Popayán highway, three kilometres north of the turn-off to Silvio, about ten kilometres south of Pescador. On the west side of the road. A blue and cream coffee truck, bearing the name Café Liberador. You got that?’

  ‘Yeah, we stop for coffee.’

  ‘The driver’s name is Manolo Ochoa.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Ten this evening.’

  ‘We could pick up the stuff and then establish surveillance.’

  ‘If you say so. I thought …’

  ‘Always assuming the night vision equipment is on board.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And everything else?’ Wynwood was thinking how good it was going to feel to be a soldier again.

  ‘Even the Claymores.’

  ‘Great. Thanks, Oliver. Hope to see you in some other life.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  Wynwood put the phone down and walked back across the square and up Calle 6 to the others’ hotel. He found the Dame reading, took him down to where Chris and Eddie were playing cards, told them what he had just discussed with Oliver, and asked them what they thought.

  The decision was unanimous.

  ‘What are we going to do with the car, boss?’ Chris asked.

  ‘It’s either hide it close by or one of us has got to hide it some way off and walk all the way back in.’

  They thought about it for a moment. ‘What are the chances of hiding it close by?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ Wynwood admitted. ‘I didn’t see any obvious places.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ Chris said.

  ‘Then I vote for a long way off,’ Eddie said. ‘If it’s found close by then the thing’s blown, it’s as simple as that.’

  ‘He’s right,’ the Dame agreed.

  ‘OK, who’s going to take the long walk?’ Wynwood wanted to know.

  ‘I will,’ Chris said. ‘Anyone else is liable to get lost.’

  Eddie sprayed him with the pack of cards.

  ‘What about the hotel?’ the Dame asked.

  ‘We’ll check out. Tell ’em we’re taking the night bus,’ Chris suggested.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Wherever it’s going.’

  Wynwood looked at his watch. We’ve got an hour and a half. I’ll pick you up out front in half an hour, OK?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  * * *

  Thirty-two minutes later Wynwood was piloting the car past the bus station and onto the Cali road. Chris was sitting beside him in the front, examining a photocopy of the large-scale map which Wynwood had just made in one of the town’s numerous student shops. Eddie and the Dame sat behind, each keeping an eye on the view from his window. As far as they could tell the town was indifferent to their departure – no suspicious eyes seemed to be following the Fiat.

  Wynwood was pleased. Male gringo foursomes in cars were not unknown, but they were not exactly common either. Now all they had to worry about was running into a military checkpoint.

  They drove north along the dark highway, mostly in silence, as each man subconsciously prepared himself for action.

  Wynwood almost missed the lay-by specified by Oliver: in the moonless dark it seemed to jump in and out of his headlights in an instant. He pulled over, and all four men got out.

  The road was deep in a wooded valley, and the only illumination came from the stars and their own sidelights. ‘I’ll wait by the car,’ Wynwood said. ‘I think two of you should stay in the trees here, one across the road, yes?’

  They all agreed.

  ‘Chris, you take the Browning,’ Wynwood said. He looked at his watch. Twelve minutes. Let’s go.’

  The delivery was early. Chris and Eddie had only just taken up position in the trees, and the D
ame was barely across the highway, when headlights breasted the hill to the north and a truck rumbled down the incline and pulled across into the lay-by.

  The legend ‘Café de Liberador’ adorned the sides.

  There were two men in the cab. The driver climbed down and walked towards their car, leaving his mate behind. ‘Buenas noches’ he said. ‘You are American?’

  ‘No, British.’

  ‘Good, good. I am Ochoa. He raised a hand to his comrade, who also got down, gun in hand.

  ‘What’s the gun for?’ Wynwood asked urgently.

  ‘De nada’, Ochoa said. ‘Manuel,’ he shouted, ‘el fusil!’

  The other man laughed and put the gun back up on the seat. Wynwood wondered if he would have found being shot amusing. It must have been a pretty close thing.

  ‘Come,’ Ochoa said. He led Wynwood round to the back of the truck, into which his mate had disappeared. Behind the sacks of coffee beans they could hear him. A moment later his head emerged and then the rest of him, humping a large canvas bag out across the pungent cargo. ‘There are two,’ he said, dumping the first on the tailgate. Wynwood looked inside and found gleaming metal.

  Two minutes later the truck was pulling out onto the highway and disappearing in the direction of Popayán. The four SAS men reconvened by their car.

  ‘This doesn’t seem like a very good place to check the contents,’ Wynwood observed.

  ‘Let’s do it on the move,’ Eddie suggested.

  ‘Yeah,’ Wynwood agreed.

  They piled back into the car. Wynwood turned it round and headed back towards Popayán as Eddie and the Dame, more than half-hidden by the bags on their laps, went through the contents.

  ‘What should there be in here, boss?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Four MP5SDs, three Browning High Powers, one L96A1 sniper rifle with a nightscope, two Claymores, four sets of night-vision goggles, a PRC 319 radio and two spades. Food supplies for a week.’

  ‘It looks OK, but it’s hard to tell without unpacking everything.’

  ‘If it’s not all there, there’s not much we can do about it anyway,’ Chris said. ‘The turn-off’s coming up,’ he added.