Black Flagged Redux

by Steven Konkoly

  As the senior “Legat,” Susan had been approached by one of the more discreet embassy staff personnel, who also happened to work for the CIA, and provided the unsavory details of Agent Bailey’s first month in Buenos Aires. His behavior immediately classified him as a security risk, and she was informed that the surveillance would continue. She could barely contain her laughter as the details were exposed, almost wishing that she didn’t know about any of it.

  None of it was illegal behavior in Argentina, though it strayed pretty far from what was expected from a representative of the FBI. Still, she didn’t have any official recourse, beyond some uncomfortable lifestyle counseling and possibly some negative input on his performance evaluation. She was scheduled to leave within the next three months and wouldn’t be around for his transfer performance evaluation. For all she knew, her replacement could have chosen the assignment for the same reasons as Agent Bailey. She didn’t really care, as long as she managed to get out of here with her career intact.

  She eventually managed to make some use of the information provided by the CIA employee. Agent Bailey had logically started with her first when he arrived. She was single, attractive, in her early thirties, and they worked in the same section, though thankfully they had separate offices. The advances had intensified to the point of discomfort and harassment, until she played one of the many Langley trump cards so conveniently delivered to her. One day, she called him into her office and slid a photo across the desk. His face turned ashen when he took a close look at the photo.

  “Tranny prostitute #4” had been written across the top of the photo, in black permanent marker, identifying the “woman” at Bailey’s door as the fourth transsexual prostitute photographed entering his apartment. Susan was aware that the series ended at #9, but thought #4 was good middle ground. Stunned, he stammered for a few seconds before she laid it on him. She remembered her words clearly.

  “I don’t want you talking to me again, unless it’s official business. The same rule applies to all of the women at the embassy, or any women entering the embassy. Trannies too,” she had added, before dismissing him.

  Dan Bailey hadn’t been a problem for anyone since then, and she smiled at the bizarre train of thoughts that had led her to remember Bailey’s predicament. She dialed the number for Sharpe’s office, and he answered it after the second ring.

  “Special Agent Sharpe,” he answered, always sounding crisp to her.

  “Agent Sharpe, it’s Agent Castaneda from the legal attaché office in Argentina,” she said.

  “Of course. Please call me Ryan. Thank you so much for taking the time to look into this for me. I’m working on a long shot, but this one is worth the time. I really appreciate it,” he said.

  “No, it’s my pleasure, and it’s Susan. Unfortunately, I don’t think I found what you’re looking for. There’s not much in the way of new terrorism or paramilitary organizations. They have some neo-Nazi types that are pretty organized, drug cartels, Russian mob, all the usual suspects, but nothing that really fits what you described. I had one of my counterparts at AFP do some digging, and he came up with a few unusual events, but nothing they are actively investigating.”

  “I’m looking for anything here, so you have my attention,” he said.

  “Well, he found a few incidents spread over the course of the past eight months involving Chechen mafia and neo-Nazi gangs in Buenos Aires. Three separate incidents. The biggest incident took place at one of the Chechens’ dockyard strongholds, leaving eighteen bodies behind. The police and AFP have no idea what time of day they were hit, but the one thing they all agreed upon was that it was pulled off by professionals using suppressed weapons. Most of the gunshot wounds were precision headshots, and AFP’s SWAT officials said that there had been multiple, simultaneous breach points around the building. Ballistics confirmed that the four Chechens stationed outside had been taken down by snipers. AFP thought this was an American or European black op.”

  “This sounds like more than an incident. No investigation?”

  “Not really. Two more hits, smaller in scope, occurred in the following months. A Chechen safe house was hit inside the city, at about two in the morning, and there were witnesses from adjacent buildings and houses. The assailants were in and out within the span of minutes. Witnesses swore it was a government operation. Roughly a dozen attackers in three separate cars hit the building at once.

  “Someone managed to fire off an automatic weapon inside, but there were no signs that any of the assailants had been hit. Eight Chechens were found dead and one prostitute broke both of her legs trying to jump from one of the balconies. Witnesses said there were more women in the apartment, but they fled. Nobody has come forward to admit they were in the building, which is no surprise. FPA came to the same conclusion on this one and they’re pretty sure one of the Chechens was hit from the outside by a sniper bullet.”

  “They don’t know for sure?” he said.

  “I’m not sure they really care. Twenty-six dead Chechen mobsters within the span of a month and only a pair of broken legs as collateral damage. One of the Chechens was identified as senior leadership. My contact didn’t seem to indicate that this was a high priority,” she said.

  “What about the last one?” he said, pretty sure he had stumbled onto something pointing him in the right direction for further investigation.

  “Last one happened a few months ago and involved the neo-Nazi group. They’ve been expanding their influence over the past five years, and it looks like they expanded it a little too far. This one was different. It took place around 1 AM at an underground neo-Nazi slam fest, or whatever the skinheads call them. Heavy metal, lots of ‘Heil Hitlers,’ hard drinking…usually spills out into the street later and ends up killing or maiming someone without a Swastika tattoo. On this particular night, the reverse occurred. Someone tore through the bouncers with a knife, then lobbed a combination of fragmentation and incendiary grenades into the basement party. Nobody made it out. Estimated thirty-five dead, including the leader of the cell represented at the party. He was shot in the face running down the stairs with his girlfriend from an apartment unit located on the second floor of the house.”

  “What about the girlfriend?” he said.

  “She’s the only one that survived the entire attack. Said there were four of them, heavily armed like Komandotruppe.”

  “I assume that means commandos?”

  “Yes, my FPA counterpart has a sense of humor. The woman dragged one of the bouncers out of the blaze, and the forensics team determined that he had been stabbed through the neck, just above the collarbone. Knife plunged through the spinal cord on the same strike,” she said.

  “Can you get me that forensics report?” he said, feeling his pulse quicken.

  “It shouldn’t be a problem. Sounds like this might have been helpful?”

  “Yes, I think it has. Were there any theories about who was doing this? Other than a foreign black ops team? I’m just having a hard time believing that this isn’t being actively investigated,” he said.

  “Luckily, my counterpart has a little bit of a crush on me and likes to drink Sangria during our lunches. He was hesitant with this information, so I need your discretion,” she said.

  “Absolutely, Susan. I’ll use this to corroborate, but nothing beyond that.”

  “All right. He said the only serious theory circulating through the ranks was that a man named Ernesto Galenden had hired an outside team to send these groups a message. This might also explain why the investigations have stalled,” she said.

  “I can’t wait to hear this,” he said.

  “Ernesto Galenden is one of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Argentina, owning a huge stake in one of the primary oil companies within the country, and of course, dozens of lucrative business ventures. He also owns more real estate than you can imagine. For the most part, Galenden has retained a good reputation in Argentina across the board and has never been implica
ted in any illegal schemes.

  “He owns a vast portion of the shipping waterfront along Argentina’s coast, which put him at odds with the Chechens. He hasn’t made it easy for them to expand their efforts to ship Andean cocaine to Europe and ports north. Once the strife turned deadly on the docks, Galenden turned to his government cronies to put some pressure on law enforcement, but this tactic didn’t prove very effective. FPA thinks Galenden took matters into his own hands.”

  “It’s not a bad theory. You said Galenden owns land all over Argentina?”

  “He owns localized assets and buildings in most cities, but the vast majority of his land lies in western Argentina, along the Chilean border. This is where his father discovered oil,” she said.

  “Interesting. Susan, I trust you to keep this quiet there. I’m working on something very sensitive, and if the wrong person at the embassy found out, I could have a complication that would jeopardize my investigation. I can’t thank you enough for the help. I’ll be in touch shortly with some more questions, as soon as I figure out which direction to pursue. In the meantime, can you get me the forensics report of the knife attack at the neo-Nazi club?”

  “Sure. I’ll give my guy at AFP a call. I’m sure he won’t mind another lunch,” she said.

  “Not very sporting of you to lead him on like that, but I’m not going argue against your methods. This was great work, Susan. Talk to you shortly.”

  She hung up the phone and smiled. She wasn’t sure how to classify what she was doing with Federico. Technically, she wasn’t leading him on because he had no chance in the first place. Despite his handsome, Italian inspired face, muscular build and pleasant manners, she had never been interested in him romantically. In fact, she’d never been interested in men and was on an “unaccompanied” tour to Argentina. Her partner of eight years, Stephanie, eagerly awaited her return to the states.

  Chapter 9

  8:30 AM

  FBI Headquarters Building

  Washington, D.C.

  Special Agent Ryan Sharpe made room for Special Agent Eric Hesterman, which was no small sacrifice given the agent’s size. Hesterman, a broad, muscular African-American in his early thirties, stood over six feet tall and took up twice the amount of shoulder room of most agents. He literally dwarfed Dana O’Reilly, who stood on the other side of him, invisible to Sharpe through his large, expensively-tailored suit. At 225 pounds, Hesterman had trimmed down considerably since his linebacker days at the University of Michigan; scaling back in size during law school, and finally settling in at his “target” weight upon graduating from Quantico as a Special Agent. Eric was one of six agents permanently assigned to Ryan’s task force within the Domestic Terrorism Branch, and despite the fact that he had no background in finance, he had quickly impressed everyone from Sharpe’s veteran finance tracking team. Sharpe could tell by the grins on both Hesterman’s and O’Reilly’s faces that he had found something.

  Hesterman manipulated the screen with a mouse on the computer station in front of them and zoomed the satellite imagery into an area of western Argentina, less than twenty miles from the Chilean border. Suddenly, a yellow line appeared to outline areas throughout the province. Sharpe glanced around at the Joint Operations Center, looking for any faces that were overly interested in his semi-private meeting. Luckily, Hesterman blocked most of the screen from view.

  “The yellow line roughly demonstrates Mr. Galenden’s land holdings, the best I could calculate using public-sourced documents. Most of it is held within the Nuequen Province, where his father struck oil in the sixties. He holds some vast tracts of land in Mendoza, La Pampa and Rio Negro, but I focused on some of the parameters we discussed and narrowed the possibilities to a few locations. Most of the land is held in national reserve status, though not to be confused with the concept of a nature preserve. A national reserve opens land to the country, but the landowner retains mineral rights and can restrict access to fifteen percent of the reserve. Restricted areas need to be filed with national and provincial government at the beginning of the year, so I started there, looking four years back.

  “If we figure that Sanderson started his plans at least a year prior to the events of May 2005, it made sense that he would have already broken ground on his new organization’s headquarters, and that the location might not have been on restricted land. Most of the restricted areas retained by Mr. Galenden were located in flatter, arid zones, better suited for oil and mineral exploration. I found three separate filings that immediately attracted my attention and led to the image you’re viewing on the screen.

  “First, in January of 2003, Mr. Galenden filed for the immediate restriction of a relatively small area here, which encompassed a local airport. Not a big one. Two runways, one capable of landing small jets. The airport was manned by volunteers on weekends and sported a small café, limited fuel and basic air traffic control capabilities. It was used as a weekend leisure stop for pilots interested in some great trout or fly fishing in the nearby foothills. I spoke with one of the volunteers listed on an old website, and he confirmed that it wasn’t a busy location. Maybe ten to fifteen planes on a busy weekend. Said the buildings were mostly run down and that pilots couldn’t land or take off at night. No lights. He heard rumors that some major improvements would be made to the facility, but hasn’t been able to visit. Based on satellite imagery graciously provided by the powers that be, we can now see that this airport has been completely refurbished. The most interesting aspect is this dome right here.

  “I had to dig around on this one, but found similar images and determined that this is a remote air traffic control module…RATCOM. The airport now sports a small radar, VFR transmitters, new radio transmitting equipment, new hangars, and of course, lights. This facility can now be used day and night, in any visibility condition, and can remain completely unmanned due to this extremely expensive device. It allows for a real time connection between all of the airport’s equipment and a contracted air traffic control site. This site could be located anywhere in the world. There are several companies that specialize in this service, and none of them are located at an airport. It’s really quite innovative, if you have the money and don’t really want anyone seeing what comes in and out of your airport.”

  “Could it be a drug operation?” Sharpe asked.

  “The thought crossed my mind, but the facility is in the open and the RATCOM system would leave tracks. I asked DEA, and they’ve seen these used by the big boys for their own personal airports, but never at a distribution point.”

  “Yeah, it wouldn’t make much sense. Can we get the records of traffic into the airport since it became operational?” Sharpe said.

  “Eric and I talked about that and decided that it might present a few problems. First, we have no idea which firm handles the site, but this is potentially the least of our issues. Without a subpoena, the firm would have to willingly talk to us, which, given the nature and expense of the service, seems unlikely. I’m afraid that even asking questions might tip off Sanderson,” O’Reilly said.

  “I think you’re both right. What else did you find?”

  “A second site was gobbled up by Mr. Galenden at the same time, a hundred square miles surrounding an abandoned town…here,” he said, and the screen changed.

  “Located about sixty miles south east of the airport, in a mostly flat area. There’s not much information available on the site, but I found references to towns rising during the speculative years following the discovery of oil in Nuequen and falling shortly after that. Unless Mr. Galenden suddenly discovered something his father hadn’t forty years ago, I’d say this was an odd choice for a land status conversion,” Hesterman said.

  “It would be a poor choice for a headquarters or training compound. Too exposed,” Sharpe said.

  “Exactly,” O’Reilly added. “There is evidence of significant improvement to the town, but mostly superficial. Cleaned up, a few new structures, but beyond that, not much has been done. One of th
e ex-military guys said it looked like a combat town.”

  “Interesting. Close Quarters Battle training site?” Sharpe said.

  “Could be anything, but it’s fenced up on all sides. Someone wants to keep people from wandering too close. As for a headquarters? Take a look at this,” Hesterman said.

  The flat-screen monitor changed to a satellite image of trees and a river valley that ran northwest to southeast out of the Andes foothills. Structures were evident along the thick pine tree line, tucked together on the western side of the valley. Several larger buildings appeared in the open, clustered at the northern end of an improved dirt road that ran adjacent to the river. Based on its location in the foothills, and the immediate presence of a decent, shallow river, this would be a fly fisherman’s paradise. The area was world renown for trout and fly fishing expeditions.

  “Something tells me this isn’t a fly fishing lodge,” Sharpe said.

  “Well, if it is, it’s brand new and operates year round. January 2005, Mr. Galenden set aside a massive tract of land in these foothills. Over four hundred square miles of valleys and mountains,” Hesterman said.

  “How the hell did you find this camp?”

  “A ton of patience. I requested comparative pictures, at the highest level of detail available, and spent some time alone with a computer.”

  “A lot of time. We were pretty sure he had given up and had started surfing internet porn,” O’Reilly said.

  “If anyone had cared to join me staring at thousands of satellite images, you could have put your dirty minds at rest,” he retorted.

  “Eric and one other agent volunteered for the job, but after about forty minutes of staring at satellite images, the other agent suddenly found more important work to do,” O’Reilly said.