Ecuador

Chapter 6

Chapter 6WILL CRYSTAL WAS GETTING used to his shuttle back and forth from one Washington to the other. He elected to take the Citation X as a late-night flight, sleeping on board. In a way, the plane had become his first home. He didn’t embrace his quarters at Langley. Nor did he feel his house at Fort Lewis was his home anymore. He had become a transient.

The plane deposited the general at the BWC hangar at zero-six hundred. He walked to his office and then to the conference room. Three men and two women were seated around a shiny mahogany table. Sheilla was conspicuously missing. Mark started to stand, an involuntary response to authority, and then caught himself, hoping the general had not noticed his movement. The general did not like wasting time on formalities.

While taking his seat at the head of the table, General Crystal began talking to the group in a voice that commanded their immediate attention, ‘Mark, summarize. I want to make sure we all start out on the same page. We have to get this operation up and running.’

‘To recap—the daughter of the Ecuadoran president is missing. Our Vice President Davis is an old friend of the president. With our latest information, she is presumed kidn*pped. We have an authenticated ransom letter. A small squad of FARC rebels probably have her. Apparently, the president doesn’t trust his military to retrieve his daughter, so he called his old friend Davis. They met in their law school days, roomed together, and he has asked for our government’s help in rescuing her.’

There was a knock on the door. Kramer walked in. ‘Excuse me, General. The Director of Intelligence is on a secure line for you.’

The general pushed his chair back and walked out.

‘What intel makes him suspect the FARC?’ asked Bridget, Mark’s second in the chain of command.

‘We weren’t given much of anything else. Just that they believed a FARC rebel band did not head back to their home territory in Colombia. They were in the area where his daughter disappeared, and there is a ransom demand, which appears genuine.’

‘How do we know kidn*pped? Why not killed?’ asked Katarina as she pulled her long blond hair behind her ear, leaving a few wild strands behind.

Mark shook his head. ‘I don’t know why they are saying kidn*pped, other than the rebels are famous for k********g and ransom. She would be a prize. Maybe the CIA has some evidence they haven’t told us about. When the general returns, he’ll give us the latest.’

Mark pulled out several folders and handed them around. ‘Sheilla gave me a list of questions to answer before the meeting. Number one on her list was that very question. As you can see, I tried to collect everything I could, and it is listed for you along with several other items that might be useful. Read through it and talk to me later before our next meeting,’ said Mark.

The general walked back in. ‘Let’s continue. Katarina has worked up detailed profiles on the daughter and the president. We’ll integrate the profiles with what the agency postulates. The FARC sometimes cross over the Colombian border into Ecuador. If our information is correct, they did not go back north this time. Rather, they continued south, further toward the Ecuador-Peru border. If they have Angélica Noboa Perez, our best chance of finding her is finding them. If they are not holding her, we have to start over.’

Katarina said in a soft voice, ‘I was just wondering if perhaps the Ecuadorans or Colombians had someone on the inside with the FARC rebels?’

‘I was going to say not likely,’ said the general, ‘but on second thought, it’s worth looking into. Money trumps ideology; maybe they have a paid informant.’

The general looked at Fred, who was the quietest of the analysts, never adding much but by far his most computer-savvy person—at least until Misa and Vidya joined the BWC. ‘What progress have we made?’

‘Some, sir. Misa and Vidya had no trouble getting into the Ecuadoran government computers. So far, they’ve found nothing interesting.’ He looked

down at a printed page, ‘unless you count a government as interesting. I quote Misa, who says the Ecuadoran government seems to be screwing over their citizens at every turn, especially their indigenous tribes.’

‘Stay with it. Expand it to Columbia and the FARC. Make it a priority,’ said General Crystal.

Due to the unique skill set that Misa and Vidya possessed, the general allowed them to work rather than attend meetings, as was their preference. They both seemed to abhor meetings and felt most comfortable nestled in their computer rooms—ones built specifically for them and based on their design. The general knew their value and allowed Fred, his old head of computing, to be their liaison. The general had offered them carte blanche to entice them to the BWC from Fort Huachuca.

Misa and Vidya’s two close friends were young hackers that chose the army over jail, the only alternative the government had offered them. The group of four that made up what had become known as the Wolf Pack, and more recently the Wolf Warriors, had been together at Fort Huachuca and were now separated by hundreds of miles. Using a virtual reality program of their own design, however, Colonel Jake Montgomery and Sergeant First Class Jason Lyle worked just as closely with their old comrades as before. It was as if they were still a team in the underground Strategic Air Command facility at Fort Huachuca. The general was pleased that he had plugged a weakness in his computer group.

Fred was not jealous of the pair. He understood that they far surpassed any ability he would ever have. He was content just to be in their shadow and to represent them and their findings. In fact, he was more than content. Being part of their team made him feel special and, in a strange way, complete. He felt that a sliver of their brilliance passed through him.

Mark waited to make sure the general was finished and said, ‘It is going to be tough locating the FARC in endless miles of dense jungle.’

‘Let’s follow up on Katarina’s FARC idea,’ said the general. ‘Do any government agencies have anyone feeding them information from inside the FARC?’

‘Fred,’ continued Mark, ‘pick someone to check on FARC moles and then work on locating the kidnappers along with the Ecuadoran army. Use the intel maps from Bethesda. Formulate some likely routes. Do a time analysis—how would they travel and how far could they go? Look for computer intercepts about any incursions or unexplained firefights. Put it together and then go to satellite to see if you can find out where this group might be in those thousands of square miles of the upper sss. They could even be moving by boat. Explore all possibilities.’

‘Mark, keep Sheilla in the loop but with abbreviated summaries, said General Crystal. ‘She’s working on another project for the next few days with Bridget. Katarina will stand in for her as we work through this.’

‘General,’ said Mark, ‘I would like to add that Fred should try to locate any Colombian troops as well as the Ecuadoran army and their recent movements. We’ll need to start keeping track of them. The FARC won’t be any closer than they have to from the army, but you might get a sense whether the army is chasing after them again and whether they have crossed back into Colombia.’

General Crystal nodded and started to move his chair back. ‘Worth a consideration.’ Then he stopped and turned to the only non-operation person at the table, Sergeant Mason’s replacement, Sergeant First Class Williston. His skin reflected the light like mahogany shoe polish. He had close-cropped, curly hair, graying at the temples. The forearms of his green army dress uniform had a dense covering of several gold slashes, marking his years in service. A memory jumped into the general’s mind, a flashback to Vietnam with Mason, Jim, and Brush.

The general continued looking at Sergeant Williston. ‘Start setting up transport for Jim, Brush, and Glenda. Lay out the equipment you think they will want.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ve got a good idea of what that is, after reviewing Sergeant Mason’s records. He left detailed notes.’

‘Good,’ said General Crystal as he stood.

‘Do you plan on sending support with them?’ asked Williston.

The general turned. ‘SOCOM already moved Neilly’s Special Forces team to a training base in Peru.’

Williston nodded. Neilly’s team was as good as it gets, as had been explained to him by the BWC’s own special response team. They were legendary in their past support of the BWC. Even with Jim’s and Brush’s capabilities, the new Special Operations Forces sergeant knew that everyone needs good backup.

The general noticed a small hand raised. ‘SOCOM, general?’ asked Katarina. The BWC’s profiler never stopped being amazed at the jargon, which until recently was outside her realm.

‘Special Operations Command,’ replied the general. ‘Mark, I want you to have a meeting to assess where we are. Start at sixteen hundred. I won’t be here. Afterwards, brief me in my office. Not later than seventeen hundred.’ He scanned the group as they rose from the chairs, and seeing no one had any more questions, walked out the door.