Authors: Ross Sidor
Visualizing his
movements in advance, Avery carefully covered four yards through the understory
foliage, maneuvering around trees, over deadwood, through the understory
curtains, and over the mud and decaying plants on the jungle floor, ducking and
weaving around low-laying branches, following Moreno’s path. He stopped when he
caught the blur of movement somewhere far ahead—strands of branches parting.
Avery was
immediately reminded of another aspect of the jungle he detested. It was damned
near impossible, especially at night, to track and subsequently hit a target through
the endless trees, hanging branches, and vegetation. Absolutely no light from
the moon or stars penetrated the canopy top.
To make matters
worse, the rain began to pick up again, muting out all surrounding sound as
water poured steadily through the treetops and pooled into puddles in
depressions in the ground. Fortunately, Moreno was desperate to get far away,
which made him easy to track. In the jungle, you had to sacrifice stealth for
speed.
A couple yards
deeper into the forest, Avery couldn’t even see the flame and lights from the
FARC camp off to his right anymore. There was only darkness transformed through
his night optics into a wild, cluttered green alien landscape.
He stopped briefly
alongside a wide tree trunk for cover, and carefully studied the environment
for movement. Finally, he saw a dark, man-shaped target pass along a copse of diseased
trees that were nearly bare. The head whirred once round, panning left to
right, oblivious to Avery’s presence.
Anticipating his
target’s path now, Avery aimed ahead through a space between two trees offering
him clear line of sight. This time he caught sight of the fleeing figure—the
FARC soldier accompanying Moreno—aligned his crosshairs over the target’s back,
and broke the trigger with a firm three pounds of pressure. He felt the M4’s
stock buck against his shoulder and saw his target drop, as if the forest floor
had opened up and swallowed him.
Less than a
second later, Moreno sprung out from behind the same copse of dead trees. He jumped
over the body of the FARC soldier, sprinting now, frantically maneuvering
around trees and shrubs with natural ease. He turned and fired off a blind burst
from his M16 before leaping over and throwing his weight behind the thick,
sturdy trunk of a fallen kapok tree overturned on its side.
Avery lost sight
of him. He studied the thick and high carpet of shrubs and decaying plants
directly behind the driftwood, looking for motion or shapes that did not belong,
but the forest floor remained completely still.
Although Moreno
was an assassin, Avery remembered that he was also a trained jungle warfare
fighter, having been brought up through the ranks of FARC as a foot soldier
over two decades before. Moreno definitely held the advantage if it came to a duel
in the jungle, which Avery sought to avoid at all costs, knowing that he wouldn’t
stand a chance. He needed to end this quickly, before Moreno gained the upper
hand.
Avery held his
rifle in the ready position with his finger indexed over the trigger. Leaning
into the stock, he ventured forward, staying behind trees, careful not to
disturb branches or bushes, while simultaneously searching for a vantage point
offering suitable line of sight. He took high steps to avoid kicking loose
twigs or leaves, and with each step, he gently lowered his foot onto the leaf
litter and saturated mud to reduce the risk of audibly signaling his approach.
The problem with
jungle warfare was the poor visibility. You could be completely oblivious to
the enemy’s presence until you came within a couple meters of him, especially
if the enemy had good discipline, knew how to blend in, and didn’t so much as
move a muscle. Meanwhile the same enemy was tracking you the whole time,
waiting to get a clear shot. Operating solo, Avery was at a further
disadvantage. Ideally, he’d have someone staying stationary, putting down fire,
while he moved in on the enemy’s position.
A helicopter
whipped by low overhead, one of the Mi-17s, its bright white searchlights
cutting through the overhead canopy. Taking his eye away from the night optic, Avery
used the noise of the helicopter’s rotors and engines to mask his approach,
covering an ambitious five meters in one go. He kept his unblinking gaze locked
on the driftwood, to make sure Moreno didn’t have the same idea and tried to
slip away.
Once the
helicopter passed, Avery became aware of silence in the surrounding jungle. No
longer were there the sounds of combat coming from the camp some thirty meters
away.
Then he heard
twigs snap from behind the fallen tree, and something splashed against the mud.
Before Avery’s mind could process the sounds, a muzzle flash lit up over the
side of the driftwood, and there was the familiar report of an M16 with a
selector switch at three-round burst. The barrel shifted several degrees to the
right and lit up again, releasing another burst. Avery ducked into a half
crouch and reeled back behind the nearest tree for cover. The incoming rounds
chewed through the leaves of hanging branches three feet to his left, near
where he’d just been standing.
Avery swung his rifle
around his tree and fired multiple shots back at the muzzle flash when it lit up
again, forcing Moreno to ease off the trigger and drop back. Then Avery covered
another meter, taking wide steps, unconcerned with concealing his approach now,
and he swiftly sidestepped to the left behind another tree, this one covered
with termites, as Moreno popped up once more and returned fire. Avery heard the
shots bore into the tree trunk he used for cover, and then he came around left
and fired another burst.
Tree bark
exploded in Moreno’s face, and he took cover once more.
Avery took a few
more steps with his eyes locked onto another tree and quickly took cover behind
this one. Here, he dropped onto one knee and looked ahead, but he still wasn’t
able to see directly behind the driftwood. There was a slight gap between the
bottom of the overturned tree and the jungle floor, but the space was too dark
and shallow to see Moreno through it.
So Avery
concentrated his eyes on the forest floor, concealed beneath shrubs and plants,
further behind the tree. About four feet beyond the overturned tree, the brush shuddered.
Avery’s eyes
shifted to the movement in time to see the sole of a boot slip between the
bushes and the low hanging branches. He raised his aim and fired four quick shots
through the flora. At least one made contact. Avery saw a leg kick out of the
plants, and then it was dragged forward through the forest floor.
Avery sprung
ahead, keeping his rifle trained on the growth. When he came within two meters,
Moreno rolled out of the brush onto his back, with his M16 pointed up and
angled toward the American now towering above him. Moreno grimaced, but he was
oblivious to the blood pouring into the mud from the back of his left thigh
where Avery’s 5.56mm had punctured the meat of his quadriceps, and he was oblivious
to the millipedes and army ants on him. He was intent on nothing but acquiring
Avery in his sights.
But Avery,
anticipating the attack, and not physically impeded, moved faster. Without
aiming, he triggered three shots into Moreno’s chest and throat. Moreno’s body
convulsed, then his head fell back and his arms went limp and his hands dropped
the M16. He wheezed and gasped and withered on the ground for a couple seconds,
then became completely still. His eyes stared up at the treetops without
seeing.
Keeping his M4 on
Moreno, Avery took five more steps forward, slipping one leg and then the other
over the top of the overturned tree. He kicked the rifle out of the dead man’s
hands and did a full three-sixty sweep around him.
“
Suelta
el arma, y se identifique
!”
The voice called
out somewhere behind Avery.
Drop your weapon
and identify yourself.
Avery stood
completely still and held hands held out to the side. He identified himself by
his call sign, Carnivore, the name the Colombian troops would know him by.
It had to be
Aguilar’s men—FARC would have just shot him—but Avery’s body still tensed,
would stay that way until he was sure someone wasn’t thinking about killing him.
He heard the
approach of the troops from behind. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder, and
another hand relieved him of the M4, and he was instructed to turn around. When
he did so, he came face-to-face with First Sergeant Jon Castillo.
Even wearing a
bandanna, with camouflage paint concealing face, Avery recognized the Colombian
army NCO. There were two more soldiers spread out behind Castillo, holding Galil
rifles.
There was the
flash of white in the darkness when Castillo’s lips parted in a wide smile.
“What the fuck
are you doing out here, Avery? You’re supposed to be hunkered down in your
little shithole until we tell you it’s safe to come out.”
“I would be,”
Avery said, cocking his head to indicate Moreno, “if you hadn’t let this one get
by you, dickhead.”
Castillo stepped
past Avery and looked down at the body.
“Oh fuck! Do you
know who you just nailed? That’s Aarón Moreno. CO will be pleased. He was worried
that cocksucker slipped away.”
“Nearly had,”
Avery said. Castillo handed him back his M4. “But he made his getaway just a
dozen meters from my OP. Bad luck for him.”
“Nice shooting,”
Castillo said. “I owe you a beer when we get back to base. We’ve got a lot of
catching up to do.”
They’d done a
lot of hard drinking fourteen years back. The memories were fresh in Avery’s
mind, felt like a lifetime ago, but he didn’t tell Castillo that he no longer
drank, fought hard not to when it was put in front of him.
“I’m not sure
I’ll have the time. They want me back at Palanquero right away.”
“Well, I still
owe you one. Come on. Let’s head back to the camp. We need to egress before we
have the whole Venezuelan army coming down on us.”
Approximately
six minutes elapsed since the Apria gunships descended upon the camp and
commenced the assault. Aguilar’s team would take an additional fifteen minutes
to perform the requisite intelligence sweep of the camp. Aguilar didn’t want
boots on the ground for more than twenty-five minutes total. Longer than that,
they were pushing the time it’d take the Venezuelan army to reach the site. They
had to assume that FARC had sent a distress signal to the Venezuelans that they
were under attack or that Venezuelan air defenses had spotted the helicopters
The FARC dead
would be counted at thirty-three, including Reyes and the second-in-command of
FARC’s Eastern Bloc. Aguilar’s team suffered five injuries, three minor.
Following
Castillo back to the camp, Avery smelled cordite, burning wood, and hydraulic
fluid. The campground itself was illuminated by the blazing fires of smoldering
huts and trees. He felt the warmth of the fires.
Avery watched
the precision and deliberation with which the spec ops troops moved as they
went from hut to hut, while others tore down the camp tents to clear a space
for the Mi-17 to set down.
As Aguilar’s
soldiers went about their business, Avery waited onboard the helicopter with
the wounded. He chugged water and poured the remains of the last bottle over
his face and wiped way the camou paint, mud, and sweat. Then he removed some of
his layers of clothing and kit, and went after the numerous bugs crawling
around and biting his body.
The search of
the camp produced three laptop computers, including Reyes’s, hundreds of
documents, and several USB drives. Aguilar’s troops also took photos of all the
FARC dead.
Minutes later,
an American AWACS plane on station in Colombian airspace reported that four Venezuelan
Su-24 fighters had taken off from a nearby base and were on a course for
Táchira. They were barely ten minutes out, and communications intercepts
indicated they had orders to pursue and shoot down any aircraft in violation of
Venezuelan airspace. Venezuelan ground forces were likewise being mobilized.
Aguilar ordered
his troops aboard the choppers. They took with them Reyes’ body, now sealed in
a plastic pouch. They left Aarón Moreno’s corpse to rot where it lay on the
rain-soaked jungle floor.
Looking out the forward cabin window as
the pilot shifted the collective and gently lowered the Blackhawk, Avery
inwardly groaned when he spotted Matt Culler and Special Agent Mark Slayton
standing on the rain-swept tarmac below.
It was unlike
Culler to be on hand to personally greet him. They knew each other well, having
worked together the better part of the past decade, but their relationship
wasn’t particularly cordial. If Culler was there waiting to see him, it meant
he already had another job lined up, and the presence of the senior DEA agent not
only served as confirmation but indicated it was in-country.
Slayton ran the
American end of Operation Phoenix and was the man to whom Culler had essentially
subcontracted Avery, since the Special Activities Division and Latin American
Division chiefs at the National Clandestine Service, CIA’s operations arm,
unequivocally refused to authorize sending a paramilitary operator on a black
mission into Venezuela at the request of the DEA. The Drug Enforcement
Administration was essentially the US’s primary intelligence collector for all
things Colombian or FARC.
Avery had worked
with DEA the previous year, running security for one of their teams in El
Salvador. That had been the overt part of the job, which was cover for a black
op, completely off the books, to neutralize an MS-13 crew assassinating DEA
agents and Salvadoran cops.
Exhausted, dirty,
starving, and still wearing the same clothes with soaked socks and blistered
feet, Avery sighed, flung his backpack over his shoulder, and jumped down from
the Blackhawk. He kept his head bent forward beneath the blades whipping around
above him as he stepped clear of the rotor wash.
“Welcome back,
Carnivore,” Slayton said.
Avery nodded in
acknowledgement of the DEA agent and then said to Culler, “What’s up, Matt?”
“We’ll talk
inside. You’re not going home as soon as planned.”
It didn’t matter
to Avery. Home for him meant a small cabin in the backwoods of Virginia’s Blue
Ridge Mountains. He liked it there, but aside from the tranquility and the
scenery, there was nothing and no one waiting for him. After a week or two, he
invariably grew anxious and irritable, waiting for Culler to call with a job.
Passing American
airmen and marines along the way, Avery followed Culler and Slayton to the
building where the DEA’s offices were housed. Avery was so fatigued and
dehydrated that just walking the short distance felt like a grueling workout.
“Good job on Phoenix,
by the way,” Culler said.
“Aside from that
bit of excitement in the jungle, it was simple, went down as planned.”
“Whatever you
say,” Slayton said, “but the Colombians are fucking ecstatic about Moreno. And
so are we. That son of a bitch personally raped, tortured, and killed Pamela Schreen
two years ago in Belize. She had two kids. She was one of ours, DEA, and we
never forgot what happened to her.”
With his shaved
head, thick neck, and hooked nose, Mark Slayton had the straightforward,
authoritative attitude of a big-city cop, which is what he’d been prior to DEA.
Tall, black, and a Bronx native, he’d done eight years in NYPD’s Detective
Bureau and three more in its Emergency Services Unit before being recruited by
the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of National Security Intelligence.
DEA agents fired more shots than any other federal agency, and Slayton had seen
his share of action across North and South America, as well as Afghanistan.
He’d also led the sting that arrested Russian arms dealer Victor Bout, the
Merchant of Death, in Bangkok.
“I owe you big
time when we’re both back in the States, beer, a steak, whatever you want,” Slayton
added. “We couldn’t have pulled off Phoenix without you.”
Avery didn’t intend
to take Slayton up on the offer, but he nodded anyway.
He didn’t view a
killing as an achievement. Once, his Ranger chalk came to the rescue of a
wounded navy SEAL, the sole survivor of a chopper crash in the Safed Koh Mountains.
By luck, Avery’s Rangers managed to reach the SEAL before the Taliban’s Chechen
mercenaries found him, and he lived to see his first daughter born. Avery
thought that was an accomplishment, something of which to be proud.
Moreno meant
nothing. Killing always came easy.
Slayton took
them to a secure conference room that had been electronically swept for audio
surveillance within the past hour. The room was air conditioned, and there was
a platter of assorted mini-sandwiches and tortilla chips with salsa, plus coffee
and bottled vitamin water.
Avery took a
seat and helped himself to the food without waiting for an invitation. His body
craved the calories and hydration, and the cool air felt refreshing after the
time spent in the sweltering jungle. He untied his boots and slipped them off.
He took off his jacket and stripped down to his t-shirt, unconcerned with the
odor.
“The Colombians
are worried about blowback from Operation Phoenix,” Culler told Avery. “We’re
waiting on Daniel from ANIC, who will explain the situation.”
The
Agencia
Nacional de Intelligencia Colombiana
, or ANIC, was the new agency formed
after President Santos shut down the controversial and scandal-ridden Department
of Administrative Security (DAS). DAS waged a notoriously ruthless and brutally
effective war against FARC, ELN, and M-19 terrorists, and the drug cartels,
until its dissolution in 2011, when the agency was caught spying on the
president’s left-wing political opponents.
While Avery
worked on stuffing food down his throat, Culler and Slayton filled the silence
by making small talk. Soon as Culler started asking about the best restaurants
in Bogotá, and Slayton went on about the coffee he’d sent back home to his
wife, Avery tuned out. With his stomach filling up, his next priority was a
shower to wash the jungle filth and grime from his body and a bed.
The doors to the
conference room opened three minutes later.
The Colombian
man who entered had light skin, indicating that he was likely of mixed European
descent, most likely Spanish or Italian. The graying of his black hair was
partially concealed by its short cut, and he sported a trimmed mustache. He
wore blue jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, with
the top two buttons undone.
Culler and Slayton
rose from their chairs to greet the man. Perfunctory handshakes were exchanged
and verbal back-patting over the success of Operation Phoenix, like men in a
bar celebrating a sports team’s victory, but the Colombian lacked Culler and Slayton’s
enthusiasm.
From his seat,
Avery watched quietly and with disinterest, waiting for the relevant bit.
“This is Daniel
from Colombian intelligence,” Slayton introduced. He did not provide Avery with
the man’s surname, and Daniel likewise wouldn’t get Avery’s full name. That’s
how it was done at this level, even among friendly services.
Avery made no
move to stand up to greet the man, did not offer his hand, and Daniel likewise
sat down at the table across from Avery without acknowledging him beyond giving
him a quick appraising look, seeing the dirty camouflage and the mud-caked
boots and the patchy, smeared remains of grease paint on his face, and the
Colombian likely smelled the filth and the cordite still fresh on Avery.
Daniel had a serious
demeanor. Deep stress lines and tired, strained eyes made him appear older than
he probably was, and he smelt of fresh tobacco. He had a long and angular,
almost gaunt, face.
Avery
immediately sized him up and assessed him as an intelligence type, definitely not
a shooter, but he also wasn’t an analyst or staff officer who spent his time in
an office. No, Avery pegged him as a field officer doing undercover work out of
Medellin or Cali, finding and running agents and living his life in the shadows,
probably hard and cynical, and he was probably more committed to his work than
his wife—Avery noticed the wedding band around the left ring finger—if she was
still around.
“Thank you for
seeing me on such short notice, gentlemen.” Daniel addressed Culler and Slayton,
but his eyes stayed on Avery. “I must admit that I’m a little confused. I
specifically requested that this meeting be kept between the three of us, did I
not?”
“Sorry, Daniel,
but I asked Avery to sit in on this,” Culler said. “I don’t like keeping my
people in the dark, and if we are to proceed with the extraction, then
Carnivore is the man who will be sent in again.”
Daniel’s face
displayed his displeasure, but he opted not to argue about it.
“So what’s the
situation?” Culler asked.
“I am concerned
about the security of our agent codenamed Canastilla.”
“Canastilla was
the source that provided us with Emilio Reyes’ cell phone number,” Culler
explained to Avery.
“We knew from
the beginning this was a possibility,” Slayton said. “Only a handful of people
would have had access to Emilio Reyes’ travel plans or communications. The FARC
Secretariat will realize they have a traitor in their ranks, and it won’t take
them long to narrow down the list of suspects. We discussed this before, and
your people accepted the risk to Canastilla and agreed to proceed with
Phoenix.”
“Indeed, and
our concerns are now realized. We’ve started analyzing the computer files recovered
from the camp. So far, it is clear that FARC was already suspicious that we
have penetrated their organization at the highest levels. And Canastilla was
already named and put under watch as a possible suspect even before Operation
Phoenix. It seems that Reyes still personally and implicitly trusted Canastilla
and used his position and influence to protect Canastilla from investigation.
He’s served under Reyes for the better part of the last three years, after
all.” Daniel smiled at the irony. “If only Reyes had known.”
“So with Reyes
dead,” Culler finished, “the other FARC leaders are going to turn their
attention to Canastilla in their inevitable hunt for the spy.”
“I do not want to
overreact or take any action prematurely,” Daniel said. “It would be most
unfortunate to lose such a uniquely valuable source, but we owe this man a
great debt, and we must do everything within our capabilities to bring him out,
if and when he appears to be in danger.”
“I agree
wholeheartedly,” Slayton said. “I’ve met Canastilla. I’m not going to cut him
off and leave him and his family to be tortured and executed by terrorists.”
“He’s your
agent,” Culler told Daniel, “so why are we having this conversation? Why am I
going to potentially risk one of my people to get your agent out?”
“Canastilla is
not my unilateral asset. The DEA played a key role in his operations, and we
shared with you everything Canastilla provided us the past ten years. Our respective
services share equal responsibility for him.” Daniel paused as he weighed his
next words. “Additionally, it may not be suitable for my agency to make the
extraction.”
“Oh, why’s
that?” asked Culler.
“My superiors
hoped to keep this information to themselves, so I will not elaborate in
detail, but from examining Reyes’ files, it’s apparent that FARC has its own sources
within ANIC.”
Culler exchanged
uncomfortable looks with Slayton.
Even Avery sat
up a little straighter, stopping in mid-bite of a sandwich, and listened more
intently now.
Culler cleared
his throat. “It’s a bit disconcerting to think that a terrorist organization
can so easily penetrate your agency, Daniel.”
“It is more
likely that the source belongs to Venezuelan intelligence, who shares the product
with FARC,” Daniel explained, as if that made any difference.
“Regardless,” Culler
said, “I’m sure as hell not sending someone into an op that may already be
compromised before it even gets off the ground.”
“Nor would I ask
you to. We know the source is not someone who was briefed on Operation Phoenix.
Reyes would never have gone to that camp if he knew we were preparing to
attack, and the Venezuelan military would have been waiting to ambush the
assault team. FARC would not have sacrificed someone as senior as Reyes to
protect their source.”
“No,” Culler
agreed, “but SEBIN wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing Reyes to protect
their source in Bogotá. The Venezuelans have stabbed FARC in the back before
when it suited their own agenda. The Colombian attack on Venezuelan soil also
gives Caracas a nice little international incident to exploit. They’re already
complaining at the UN, and they’ve got Russia and China, plus most of Latin
America, on their side.”
“Where’s
Canastilla based?” Avery asked Daniel, steering the conversation back on topic,
at least far as it pertained to him. His body sure as hell wasn’t up for making
another trek through the jungle, deep into FARC country.
“Presently, he
is at a jungle camp, where he’s unreachable, but he is due back in Panama City
in five days. That is when we will have access to him.”
Avery nodded and
reached for another sandwich from the tray.