That Night in Cartagena

The two men in the back were slumped over the machine gun and they weren't moving. The only movement I saw was the man riding shotgun. He was trying to find a way out of the Pinzgauer without exposing himself.

He almost managed to do that. He'd climbed out by using the door of the Pinzgauer as a shield. He was peering around it when I saw enough of his head to give me a sight picture. He went down without ever getting off a shot.

I'd told the three women to stay put until I told them to move. That was because I couldn't see into the bed of the Pinzgauer very well, and there could have been another couple guys hiding there. It was also possible one of the guys in the back was just playing dead. I couldn't take that chance.

I waited an hour. By then, the sun was beaming down on the Pinzgauer and it had to be hot as the hubs of hell inside the truck and in the bed. I hadn't seen any movement, so I stepped out from behind my rock and ran in a crouch up to the Pinzgauer. A quick look at the driver told me he hadn't known what hit him. My shot had caught him in the temple and when he fell over on top of the engine cowling, he'd turned the wheel and his foot had slipped off the accelerator. Without enough fuel to keep moving the vehicle, the engine had choked and died.

I eased around to have a look at the shotgun. He was dead too. All that left was anybody in the bed. I pulled the Sig from my holster and then stepped around and took a quick look in the bed. Other than the two guys, now lying in the bed instead of slumped over the machinegun, it was empty. I signaled for the women to come to the truck. Once they got there, I smiled.

"Well, that fixes this problem, but it also fixes another. We have wheels now, ladies. We'll make the Colombian border sometime this afternoon. Let's get these guys out and then we'll be on our way."

The two girls weren't much help. They just stood there looking terrified and shaking. The older woman and I pulled the two guys out of the truck bed, and then pulled the driver out. Once that was done, I got in and started the Pinzgauer. Everything seemed normal, so I told the women to get in. Ten minutes later, we were driving down the slope of the gap and on our way to safety.

It was almost four when I drove the Pinzgauer into the trees beside the small river in Colombia. I told the women to stay put and then went the rest of the way to the crude landing on foot. I was hoping the dilapidated fishing boat was there, and I thanked my lucky stars that it was. When I heard the soft clack-clack of a rifle bolt, I stopped and raised my hands.

"Any fish in this river", I asked in Spanish. The reply was, "Depends on what bait you use". I smiled as a man dressed like a native Colombian fisherman walked out from behind a tree. Juan was smiling too.

"I'd about given up on you, Andres. Got your RDF signal about an hour ago. Everything's ready. By tomorrow, you'll be in a plane and on your way back to El Paso."

I wasn't sure how Juan would react to what I was going to tell him, so I sort of led into it.

"Thanks for waiting, Juan. Is this plane the small one I got here in?"

He laughed.

"Yeah, same plane. Since when did you start being afraid of small planes?"

"Well, see, the problem is it isn't just me. I have three other people with me. Can the plane handle four of us?"

Juan scratched his head.

"I think maybe it can unless they're really fat. How did you manage to find three people to go with you?"

I shrugged.

"I still don't have all the details yet. All I know is I need to get them back to El Paso."

I went back to the Pinzgauer then and brought the three women down to the landing. Juan stared at the three women for a few seconds, and then grinned.

"I see why you want to take them with you. I'd want to take them with me too. Now, let's get in the boat and get going. My wife is making a special dinner for me tonight and after that...",

He grinned again. "I've been out here waiting on you for three days and she'll want some lovin'. Me too."

We took the boat down river to a small, ramshackle building with a dock sitting on piers in the water. On the shore, a man sat in a beat-up chaise lounge and smoking a cigarette. When he saw the boat, he stood up and stepped inside the building and came back out holding a shotgun. When Juan yelled in Spanish, "Hey, Fanuco, I got my fish", he leaned the shotgun against the chaise lounge and walked down to the bank.

This was my evacuation plan. It probably doesn't seem like much, but it wasn't supposed to. It was supposed to look like a fishing shack owned by two men, and that's part of what it was. Juan did fish the river, the Rio Tóchiro, and every couple of days, took his catch to the market in Ragonvalia.

The other part was Fanuco's job. Under camouflage netting on a ramp into the river was a Cessna 182 on amphibious floats, and that stretch of the river was just wide and straight enough he could take off and land the Cessna. Both Juan and Fanuco were native Colombian's who had lost family to the cartels in Colombia. They were well compensated by my company for serving as an evacuation route out of that section of Venezuela and Colombia, but they did it mostly out of hatred for the cartels.

It was too late in the day to fly out, but that was a good thing. I needed to do something with the Pinzgauer. Leaving it where it was would guarantee that at some point it would be found and that might expose Juan and Fanuco.

Juan said he had to go to Ragonvalia to tell his wife he'd be gone another day, so he'd take care of the Pinzgauer. Fanuco was in the process of checking the Cessna out. He had laughed and said five people wouldn't be a problem but one of the girls would have to sit on his lap.

That left me alone with the three women, and I decided it was time I got some answers. They were inside the fishing shack, so I went inside and sat down at the small table opposite the older woman.

"OK, I got you and these girls here and safe, so who are you and why did the Bolivian National Guard have you?"

She still looked tense, but she did answer me.

"My name is Renata Contreras Velasquez. These two are not young girls. Felicia is twenty-one and Maria is twenty. They are my daughters. The Bolivarian National Guard captured us because my husband was a journalist who started writing articles criticizing the government. He started when Perez was in power because he saw how Perez was putting Venezuela into debt with his social programs. After Maduro was elected President, it got worse because the government was stopping people from speaking out.

The newspaper my husband worked for was forced to shut down. My husband began using social media to inform people about what the government was doing. At first, the government ignored him, but when he began to get support from certain people, they saw him as a threat to the power of the government.

"Those certain people are wealthy people who fled Venezuela to other countries. Those people would like Venezuela to become a truly democratic country and they were sending my husband money to continue his work on social media. They were hoping for another revolution that would expel Maduro and the rest of the government. The Maduro government wanted to know who those people were. In order to find out, the Bolivian National Guard arrested us at our home early one morning about a week ago.

"They tortured my husband for three days trying to get him to tell them who was supporting his campaign financially, but he would not. A day after that, they brought us to him and told him unless he told them everything he knew, they would rape all three of us while he watched. If he didn't tell them after that, they would kill us all.

"I begged him to tell them. He had burns and cuts and bruises all over his body and I thought if he did, they might let us go if we left Venezuela. He just said they would kill us all no matter what he did. When he said that, the man doing the interrogation cut my husband's throat, watched him bleed to death, and then turned to us. I remember that he had this wicked smile on his face."

"He said they wouldn't have hurt us if my husband had just cooperated, but since he wouldn't they had no option other than to kill him because he was a traitor attempting to cause a rebellion. He said that was what they would release to the state-run newspapers, that my husband had pleaded guilty to being a traitor and had been executed.

"Then he said I and my daughters were a problem. If we disappeared, people would know why, and the government couldn't say we were traitors too. We had never been involved in his work. My husband knew the dangers of what he was doing and wouldn't let us be involved in any way. The man in charge of the interrogations said he would let someone else take care of his problem so the government couldn't be blamed.

"From what I overheard in the truck along the way, we were taken to that cartel compound and were to be given to the three men there to do with as they wished. What I expected was that we would be repeatedly raped and then killed. That is how the cartels treat women they capture.

I spoke to my daughters when the guards left us alone in the truck and told them we had to fight if we were to live. I reminded them that men are very vulnerable in certain places and that now was not the time to be afraid. It was the time to do everything they could think of to hurt the men so they couldn't hurt us.

"When the men at the compound started taking us into the building, I told Felicia and Maria to turn around, face them, and be strong. When the two men were close enough I told them to do what I'd said. You saw the rest."

I'd listened, and it explained a lot of things. The Bolivian National Guard was basically the President's private police force, and their interrogation unit was known for employing men who could only be described as psychopaths. Even that description is generous. Few people who were taken in for interrogation ever saw the light of day again. If they weren't killed outright, they were tortured until their ultimate death was a blessing they begged for.

It was also well known that anyone attempting to raise public support in opposition to the existing government usually just disappeared. According to the briefing I'd had prior to this mission, being captured was not something I wanted to experience. A few people taken prisoner were assumed to be in a Venezuelan prison where they would ultimately die. Most had just been killed and disposed of where they wouldn't be found.

"I'm sorry about your husband. He sounds like a very brave man. You must miss him terribly."

Renata nodded.

"I do, but it's not what you think. He became so involved in politics he didn't have time for me or my daughters, and over the years we grew apart. His reason for living was what he was trying to do. My reason was Felicia and Maria. It sounds cold to say that I didn't love him anymore, but I didn't. He was just a friend I saw once in a while.

"He wasn't brave either. When we were arrested he didn't try to fight back. He said they wouldn't do anything to us because he was so well known. He just let them put us in handcuffs."

Juan came back a while later, and he said he'd given the Pinzgauer to a man in Ragonvalia who took apart wrecked cars and sold the metal.

"I took off the machine gun and dropped in the river first. In a couple days, that truck will be just a pile of steel rusting away until the dealer from Bogota comes to get it. The dealer will probably know what it is, but he won't ask any questions. He brought his family from Venezuela to get away from the inflation and food shortages. He'll be happy the truck ends up being bicycle cranks or boat anchors."

Juan had also brought some clean clothes and sandals for Renata, Felicia, and Maria.

"I guessed at the sizes and they're not fancy clothes, but they're clean and you'll look like the other people walking around."

I think changing the boots for sandals pleased the women more than anything.

The next morning, Fanuco brought the Cessna down to the water and we loaded up. There was no need to keep any of the weapons, so I gave them all to Juan. He'd see to it they were given to people who needed a weapon. Fanuco didn't get to have Felicia or Maria sit on his lap. They shared a seat. Renata took the other rear seat. I rode shotgun.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the Cessna left the river and then turned northwest. About three hours later, Fanuco sat the Cessna down on the runway in Cartegena and taxied over to the private aviation hangers. He turned off the taxiway at the hanger labeled, Corporación de Exportación de Colombia, the cover business in Colombia for my company. When the doors to the hangar opened, he taxied the Cessna inside.

Things happened pretty fast once the hangar doors closed. The guys were expecting me and had already booked a hotel room for the night and a flight out the next day. They also had my passport and other identification as well as my company credit card because I'd dropped them off at the hangar when I went in.

Renata, Felicia, and Maria posed somewhat of a problem. Getting them to Cartgena with no identification and no baggage wasn't an issue because it was an internal flight. It was no different than flying a private plane in the US from Chicago to St. Louis. Getting them on a plane out of Colombia and into the US was a problem. They needed a passport to get into the US. They also needed a bag. Going through US customs without any baggage after leaving Colombia would probably result in detention, hours of questions, and a body search for drugs.

It took a phone call to my company, then another call from my company to the agency who let the contract, and then another call from my company to Harry Biggs, the hangar manager, to get that all arranged. Apparently, whoever had let the contract had an interest in talking with Renata and her daughters.

Adriana, a second generation Colombian American who, on paper, was the secretary of the export company, helped the women get cleaned up a little and then took their pictures. Adriana then had all three sign applications for a replacement passport with the reason being that theirs had been stolen as well as the form for reporting a stolen passport. She'd fill out the required information once Harry had put it all together.

Harry had the office in El Paso fax him three birth certificates with ages that matched Renata, Felicia, and Maria. They were fake, of course, but my company has some convenient connections in El Paso.

As a crowning touch, Harry also typed up an official-looking police report stating that Renata and her daughters were American tourists who had reported their stolen passports to the Cartegena police a day earlier.

While Harry was doing all of that, other things were taking place. Adriana got all the sizes of the three women and then went shopping. Fanuco went to a second hanger and began pre-flight checks on the Cessna Citation with Corporación de Exportación de Colombia painted on each side.

Adriana came back with three suitcases and four changes of clothing and shoes for each woman. She'd also booked the three into a room at the same hotel where I was staying, and she'd made dinner reservations for four in the hotel dining room.

When Harry had all the paperwork done and checked, he had Fanuco roll out the Citation. Just before he got on board, he said he'd be back in the morning with everything the women needed.

Harry was going to Bogota and I knew why. It's US law that you have to present the application for a passport in person. Harry was going to side step that law because he knew one of the people in the embassy in Bogota who would issue the passports was also a CIA agent who would understand what was going on. Renata, Felicia, and Maria were about to become American citizens born in El Paso, Texas who had their passports stolen in Cartagena.

By the time Adriana drove us to the hotel, I was pretty amazed. I knew my company had resources to do a lot of things, but I didn't realize they could do them so quickly.

I couldn't imagine how Renata and her daughters felt. In little more than a week, they'd gone from a family in Caracas to prisoners of the Bolivian National Guard to being trucked to a cartel compound and an unknown but probably horrible fate. Along the way, their husband and father had been killed while they watched, Renata had killed four men while her daughters watched, and then they'd been taken by a man they didn't know to an aircraft hangar in Cartagena where he'd said they'd be safe. They didn't know anybody, didn't know the city, and probably were just operating on the hope they could trust me.

We got to the hotel about five and Adriana had reserved a table for seven. I made sure Renata and her daughters got to their room and then went to mine. Standing under a hot shower for about ten minutes washed away a week of sweat and dirt, and also relaxed me a lot. In a day, two at the most, I'd be back in El Paso and the women would be taken to wherever they were to be interrogated. I was pretty sure that interrogation would be done by both DHS and State, so they'd be in safe hands once they were done. I figured they'd be placed in the witness protection program.

Dinner was nice but a little awkward for me. The clothing Adriana had bought was pretty nice stuff, and as the saying goes, Renata and her daughters had cleaned up really nice.

Felicia and Maria were beautiful, but in that fresh, really young woman way of being beautiful. I could appreciate them, but that was all. Renata...well, Renata was waking up some things in my mind that hadn't seen the light of day for a while. When you do what I do for a living, it isn't smart to form any kind of relationship with a woman. I never know where I'm going or when I'll be back or even if I'll make it back until the day I leave. I couldn't put a woman through all that uncertainty, so I've never tried to find a partner.

Renata seemed to have relaxed a lot, and with that relaxed state came a smile that made me smile too. That smile, coupled with the way she looked, kept taking my mind away from my dinner. Her dress fit every curve of her body and she had some very appealing curves. What got to me most though was her dark brown eyes. They were both mysterious and beautiful at the same time. It was like every time our eyes met something clicked in my mind.

If I'd been eating dinner alone like I usually did, I'd have had a couple drinks before dinner to relax a little. Since Renata's daughters were with us, I didn't think I should do that at dinner, but after sitting there and watching Renata, I needed something to relax me enough I could sleep. After I walked them to their room, I went to mine and checked out the selection on the counter over the little refrigerator in my room. There were two mini-bottles of scotch that I figured would do the trick. I was pouring the second bottle into my glass when there was a knock on my door.

When I looked through the peephole, there was Renata. It looked like she was wearing one of the heavy, white terrycloth robes that the hotel put in all the bathrooms. I opened my door and asked Renata what she wanted. She smiled a sheepish smile.

"My daughters fell asleep as soon as they undressed and got in bed. I tried, but I couldn't. Too much has happened to us in the last couple days and I can't stop thinking about it. Most of it is just a blur that I can't make sense of. I was hoping you could help me straighten everything out."

I asked her in and then asked if she'd like something to drink. Renata smiled.

"Would you happen to have any scotch? I don't drink alcohol very often but I do like scotch."

I lifted my glass.