by Gary Brozek
When Keith’s guy moved on to bind the next person’s legs, Keith raised his arms and separated his hands to show me that he was free of the ties. He did the same thing with his legs. He’d already snapped his leg ties and was spreading his legs again and again to show me how to get out of mine. I was wondering if the three of us were supposed to break out at that point. There were fifteen hostages and not counting the pilots, only five of them. Before I could figure out everything that Keith was trying to tell me, I saw César step into the helo. He was about to take a seat next to me when the Ray-Ban guy stepped in front of him.
“No, comrade. Sit here, comrade.” He pointed to a jump seat at the front of the cabin that faced the rear. César took the seat and was directly across from me. With the door not yet completely closed, we started to pull pitch and leave the ground. I looked over my shoulder to see out the window and we were airborne for the first time in more than five years. Almost immediately the feeling that we were in a car and speeding over a hill welled up in the pit of my stomach.
When I turned back around, all hell had broken loose. Bodies were jammed up in front of me. I could see Keith, Jhon Jairo, and one of the aid workers struggling with César. César was in his fifties, but he was a tough old guy and I could see him trying to get his pistol. No one else had a weapon that I knew of. Keith threw a punch and Jhon Jairo tackled César.
For the last five-plus years, I had barely raised my voice above my normal speaking volume. With everyone else in the craft yelling, and the noise from the rotors and the motor churning, I shouted so loud my throat was burning and the muscles and tendons in my neck felt like they were on fire. I had no idea if anyone could hear me.
Above the sound of my own voice, I heard several other people shouting in Spanish and English, “Colombian Army! Colombian Army!” Suddenly I felt that same sensation I had whenever I got a message, that a voice and a presence were touching me from a great distance. In an instant, all the dreams, fantasies, and visions I’d had of what it would be like to be rescued flew through me at Mach 2. I went from completely empty to completely filled.
The fight continued. Whoever these friendlies on board were, they were giving César a serious beating. One of them was punching him behind the ear, and then I heard the spark-snapping sound of a stun gun. The guy who had introduced himself as the doctor looked at me and told me, “Get the shot! Get the shot!” I stood up, forgetting that my legs were still tied. I nearly fell over.
The “doctor” pointed to the seat next to me where César had tried to sit down. Under it, I found a bag and a hypodermic needle. I handed it to the doctor, and he jabbed it into César. In a few moments the Front commander was out.
Keith rolled out of the pile on César and then so did Jhon Jairo. Tom knelt down next to them, put his arms around them, and said, “Damn, Keith. We’re free now.”
There was a soft thump behind us. Enrique had lain down on the floor and one of our rescuers tied him up. He had just sat back and watched while César fought like a tiger. Enrique surrendered without even a whimper.
Tom saw him and stood up. The rescuers put Enrique in a seat. As Tom walked toward him, Keith and I looked at each other. For all the hell that Enrique had put Tom through, we were expecting a punch, a kick, a slap—something. Instead Tom just squatted down in front of him. He patted Enrique on the chest and said, “Good luck.”
Keith and I stood up and nodded. Nothing else needed to be said. We had won.
I sat back down and looked across the cabin at Tom. He’d retaken his seat, a huge smile spread across his face. I felt the same way. I had no idea who these people were, but they had just set us free. Everyone on the aircraft was yelling, and I tried to get the attention of the one woman who was with the guys who’d done this for us all. She finally came and cut my leg restraints. I walked back toward Tom, and a moment later Keith joined us. We all took turns embracing. Keith had blood on his hand, and when I pointed it out to him, he laughed: “Just one blow for freedom, bro.”
“My God,” I said. “I can’t believe it. This is it. We’re free.”
“I can’t believe it, either,” Tom said, still smiling.
One of our rescuers came up to us and pointed at the backpack Keith was holding. “Hang on to that. Important stuff in there.”
Keith nodded and clutched the backpack to him. He smiled and said, “It’s César’s. I grabbed it during the scuffle. Must be something valuable in there.”
“You know,” I said, “the first thing I thought when this thing took off was I hope this Russian bucket of bolts holds together.”
The thought of crashing had occurred to all of us during the rescue. It had taken just a few minutes and it was executed as flawlessly as any of us could have imagined. The Colombian military had devised a scheme that must have been months in the planning. In the time it took us to lift off and get airborne a few hundred feet, fifteen souls had been lifted out of the jungle, and two FARC terrorists were on their way to whatever hell awaited them.
Keith looked at the two of us in turn. “Have you ever felt this light? This relaxed? Man, it’s like I’ve been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders for five years. It’s gone. It’s gone.” He turned to look out the window.
“I wonder when we’ll be able to get to a cell phone. I want to talk to Destiney. I have to hear my girl’s voice and let her know I’m coming home.” My voice caught in my throat for a moment. I looked around the helo. All fifteen of us were smiling and laughing, and a few were brushing away tears of joy. I was with them, in spirit and emotion, but a part of me was still back in the jungle we were flying over, worrying about the hundreds and maybe thousands of other hostages the FARC still held. We were one step closer to getting home, but none of us would really ever be fully there until all of us were reunited with our loved ones.
TOM
The chess match was over. We’d won. It was as if the FARC had never even played the game before. The setup and execution was so perfect and the kill so clean, I didn’t need to swipe the pieces off the board in a flamboyant display of triumph. It was enough to just sit back and admire the swiftness of it all. How could five years and four months of agony come to an end so quickly?
I didn’t want to linger on the question. I just wanted to savor the moment. Everyone was dancing and jumping up and down, and Jhon Jairo and I grabbed each other by the biceps. All we could do was laugh and smile. It felt so good to see him like that. He was a young kid who had spent the prime of his youth in captivity. I can’t say that the years slipped from his face, but there was a spark of life back in his eyes, a spark that had dimmed briefly before we got on board the helo.
“You gave César hell, Jhon,” I said.
He frowned and pursed his lips. “I only did what was necessary to make sure he didn’t harm anyone else. God will decide the rest.”
We tried to say more to each other, but the Colombians had burst into song, a patriotic tune I’d heard before but never really paid much attention to. We expressed our thanks to the heroes who’d rescued us. Each time I tried to convey my gratitude and admiration, they simply said that we were the heroes. I didn’t really look at it that way. We were the victors. We were the survivors. Doing the hard right thing doesn’t make you heroic, it just means that you’ll eventually come out on top.
Taking in the whole scene, I thought of something that Enrique said many times along with a number of the other guerrillas. He always said that if he saw the end coming, he would not submit meekly. He had the old they’ll-never-take-me-alive mentality. To see him sitting on the helo stripped to his underwear and with his limbs all wrapped up, I couldn’t help but think of him as a pig. A pig’s an intelligent animal, and as yellow as Enrique proved himself to be, he’d made the intelligent choice. He couldn’t have fought us all off. In the end, I think he realized what we all did about the FARC: Their cause was not something worth losing your life over.
After a brief twenty-minute flight, we were
on the ground in San José. Without any fanfare or delay, we were loaded onto a Fokker jet that had once been the Colombian president’s equivalent to Air Force One. We were seated in the front part of the plane, the first-class cabin. The rest of the former hostages were in the rear of the plane. We sank into the cushioned leather seats. In my life, I’d been on too many commercial flights to count, but never had an airline seat felt so comfortable. A small contingent of Americans were on the plane with us. They were partly responsible for our rescue and worked at the embassy in a highly classified capacity. They were great to us and filled us in on some details of the operation. Essentially the FARC were undone by their own people and their own flawed and antiquated communications systems. It was good to know that some members of the FARC had been corrupt enough to cooperate. The FARC had been duped into believing that a humanitarian contingent had come to visit with all of us, but in fact, our rescuers were highly trained members of an elite Colombian army squad. The doctor was real, but the TV guys were soldiers who’d volunteered for this dangerous mission.
We drank clean bottled water for the first time in years and sat back, letting everything sink in. We heard quite a celebration going on in the back of the plane, and walked in that direction to enjoy the spectacle. General Montoya, the chief of the Colombian military, was speaking through a megaphone: “Stop it! Stop it! Silence!” Things would quiet down for a bit and then he would scream, “Glory to the Colombian Army!,” causing the cabin to explode again in revelry. When he finally got them all to calm down, he said that we were going to begin the flight with a prayer. A Colombian priest was on board and he led us all in a prayer of thanks. At the end, I did manage to say amen.
After the prayer, General Montoya got them all singing again. I couldn’t imagine an American general letting loose with that kind of emotion, but I was so glad to see him respond that way. He should have been happy; they’d just delivered one of the biggest blows ever to the FARC. Their most valuable hostages were no longer in their grasp.
After takeoff, Ingrid came into the forward cabin. She walked up to Marc and hugged him.
“I’m so happy we are all free.” She paused for a bit. Then, a look of regret passed across her face like a cloud shadow. She continued, “I hope that we will be in touch again in the future.” They hugged again and she walked back to the rear cabin.
Someone mentioned that we would be landing at a military base in Tolemaida. The Colombians would be going their own way from that point.
“It’s going to be weird saying good-bye to them,” Marc said.
“It’s also going to be good,” Keith responded, and Marc and I waited for him to explain.
When he didn’t, Marc said, “Whatever happened happened. I can move on from there. When I heard the guy shout, ‘Colombian Army! Colombian Army!,’ the last five years just seemed like they had lasted a few minutes. I don’t hold any resentments. I’m just happy to be free. No animosity. Just get home.”
Keith said, “That’s what I meant. I can get over just about anything, but I don’t know about Ingrid. Forgive? Yes. Move on? Yes. Respect? No.”
We asked if we could go back to say good-bye to the Colombians. When we landed, Keith immediately went to his buddy Juancho. They bumped fists and Juancho said, “Hey, don’t forget to call. I’m going to need that truck.” The two of them had talked about Keith shipping his old Toyota pickup to him. All of the military ex-hostages were trying to move forward and there was a contingent of other Colombian military personnel on board in addition to the rescue team. I wanted to say good-bye to them all, but we only had a few moments, so it all felt rushed and out of control. I managed to find Jhon Jairo and we said a quick farewell and good luck.
When we deplaned from the Fokker, we were immediately loaded onto an American C–130 for a quick flight over the mountains to Bogotá. As we boarded we were greeting by Ambassador Brownfield. He was from Texas and it was strange to hear English spoken with that accent. We could tell he was thrilled by the success of the rescue mission and he was proud of the role he’d played in helping bring it about. We thanked him for all his efforts and for the bottles of Lone Star beer he’d brought on board with him. Our heads were spinning. I looked at the cheap Casio watch I’d picked up on one of our marches. Only a couple of hours had passed since the helos had first set down, and we were descending into Bogotá. I’d had dreams that lasted longer than this new reality.
We didn’t know what to expect when we landed, 1,967 days since we’d taken off. When the loading ramp lowered and we walked down it, we saw Fast Eddie’s in front of us. Cordoned off from the parking area where our planes usually sat, there was an enormous crowd. It was as surreal a moment as when we’d first crashed and found ourselves in the Planet of the Apes.
As soon as we saw some of our old crew from the company and from the embassy, we broke into a jog. We were all a bit taken aback by how emotional everyone else seemed to be. We were happy, but people were sobbing and laughing. Brian Wilkins, a guy who had started with the company at almost the same time as Marc, was shouting, “We never left. We never stopped working on trying to find you guys.”
Ed Trinidad, the man who had been on the other side of our mayday calls that day in February 2003 was there, as was Mike Villegas, another coworker of ours from before the crash. They were both in tears and their voices choked with emotion as they repeated a variation on what Brian had said.
“We never stopped. We never stopped.”
We were overwhelmed by the emotion and the thought that these people had suffered, too. Not only had they lived through our crash, but they had lost another crew. And still they kept flying, doing orbits to track our location. It made me realize yet again something that I’d tried hard to block out over the years: So many other people besides the three of us had suffered because of the FARC. I couldn’t even begin accounting for the damage they had done to us all.
Everything happened in a rush and a blur, and we only had a few minutes with everyone there before we were escorted to a C-17. When we were on our missions and we’d successfully flown over all our targets, Keith was always the one to let our people know we were RTB—Returning to Base.
Our colleagues were crying like crazy, and through the muffled tears of joy, I could hear Keith say, “It’s okay, it’s okay. We’re RTB. We’re a little late, but we’re RTB.”
EIGHTEEN
Homecoming
July 2008–October 2008
TOM
From the moment we set foot in the air-force C-17 transport, we were solely in the hands of Americans and on familiar turf. Only a little of the euphoria had begun to wear off, and just being back in an aircraft felt so good that I asked if I could join the crew on the flight deck.
“I’ll check on that for you, sir,” one of the flight engineers said as he headed back to the cockpit.
“You remember what happened the last time you were in the cockpit with the two of us in the back, don’t you, Tom?” Keith laughed and I gave him my best, “who me?” look. It was wonderful to laugh, and we knew we were in good hands on this flight. The flight engineer reemerged from the front of the plane.
“Mr. Howes, you can make your way up to the flight deck, sir. The PIC has given her approval for you to join the crew there.”
“Mr. Howes? Sir? I’d almost forgotten I had a last name.”
Keith and Marc could only shake their heads.
I’d been in a lot of aircraft that day, but sitting in the cockpit of our C-17 transport, I enjoyed looking at the airplane’s sophisticated avionics. It felt good to be out of the Stone Age and in my world again. I leaned back, relaxed, and let it all sink in. Just hearing the quiet exchanges of the flight crew on a routine, uneventful flight did a lot to scrub away the memory of that day back in February of 2003. My mind didn’t rest on those thoughts for very long; they passed beneath me like the landscape below. Everything was below me at that point. The intoxicating sense of being free was so great that nothing co
uld drag me down or have me descend. Over the years, I’d taken a lot of grief from various FARC members, but in the end, they were still in the jungle fighting for what they thought of as freedom, and I had mine. We’d won. I’d won.
As we passed over the dark, inky water of the Gulf of Mexico, my anticipation grew. Until February 13, 2003, I’d never been a rah-rah kind of patriot, but words weren’t enough to describe just how much I was looking forward to seeing the shores of the U.S. again. About fifty nautical miles from land, I could see the first few pinpricks of light from the Texas Gulf Coast spreading out before me. As we drew closer and the glow grew brighter, I had to still my leg as it bounced from a combination of eagerness and fatigue.
We touched down at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and were ferried by a Blackhawk to Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) at Fort Sam Houston, adding to the tally of flights and aircraft we’d been on in a twelve-hour period. Because the doctor who examined us on the C-17 flight couldn’t be certain that we didn’t have any infectious diseases and we had visible signs of lesions (both Keith and my leishmaniasis was clearly visible), the staff at BAMC had cordoned off an entire wing of the hospital in anticipation of our arrival.
As another part of our reintegration, the army’s specialists had arranged it so that the three of us would stay together that first night. They believed that it would be better that way until we’d been reoriented a bit more. When we were settled into our room, I found that my energy had returned more forcefully than I expected. After I flew, I could never just go right to sleep. It was as if my mind had raced ahead to my new location, but my body was still lagging behind. That first night felt a lot like that.
