The Lost Missionaries

Making your way through the Colombian rain forest is no task for the uninitiated. I'd had my initiation during the swamp phase of US Army Ranger school. I'd passed the course and had earned my Ranger patch, but this was a lot harder than finding my way through a Florida swamp. The heat was stifling and the high humidity meant I wasn't sweating enough to cool off.

I caught my native guide, Quardo, by the arm after we crossed a small stream.

"I need a break to cool off a little and fill my canteen."

After I filled my canteen and tossed in two water purification tablets, I shook the canteen and then let it sit for half an hour. After half an hour, the tablets would have killed any bacteria in the water that would give me the shits or make me sick in some other way. The water would taste like crap, but the alternative was puking and shitting my insides out and becoming so dehydrated I'd end up dying.

By my watch it was two in the afternoon local time and I knew the sun would start going down in a couple of hours. By going down I mean the sun would be dropping below the tree canopy, and it would start getting dark really fast. We had about another hour to find a place to spend the night, set up our hammocks, and eat something. I stood up and waved to Quardo.

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After another hour of slashing our way through the undergrowth with machetes, Quardo found a slight rise in the ground with a few trees and another stream. The slight rise was enough to keep us from camping in water if it happened to rain a lot. The trees would let us string our hammocks a few feet off the forest floor and keep any of the local crawlies out of our beds. The waterproof fabric roof on each hammock would keep off any rain or anything else that might fall from the canopy, and the mosquito netting would keep the mosquitoes away.

After we hung our hammocks, I offered Quardo one of the food bars I carried in my backpack. Three had enough calories in them to keep me going for a day, but I had plenty so I'd been eating two for each evening meal. I liked the food bars because while they didn't taste all that great, they were light, fast and didn't need a fire. Sometimes building a fire in a rain forest isn't very easy.

Quardo shook his head and said, "I go fish." Half an hour later, he came back with two fish I didn't recognize. After he built a small fire, he roasted the fish on two slender sticks he pushed into the ground. He pulled one of the sticks a few minutes later and used his knife to peel off the skin and scales. After taking a bite out of the fish, Quardo grinned and rubbed his belly.

"Fish good. You want one?"

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I had two weeks of rations and I didn't know how long it was going to take to find where the two missionaries were. I had satellite pictures of half a dozen clearings in the general area with GPS coordinates for each, but it would take time to scope each one out without being discovered. I figured it wasn't a good idea to surprise a tribe of natives who'd not seen any white men before.

My plan was for Quardo and I to find each clearing and do some surveillance to see if the couple was there. I was comfortable with making my way through a jungle without making much noise. I needed Quardo because of his knowledge of the Colombian rain forest in that area and also because he spoke several of the local native languages. Since he was a native I figured he knew how to be quiet too.

My last act before rolling into my hammock was to check the M-16 rifle I carried slung across my chest and the Beretta 92 in the holster on my hip. I'd learned in Panama that heat and humidity can fuck up the action in some guns as well as fuck up the ammunition. Both mine and the three hundred rounds for each in my pack were military issue so they shouldn't have had any problems. I still checked. The second to last thing I wanted was to need to use them, but the very last thing I wanted was for one to misfire or misfeed if I did.

I have no idea how Slayden Security got those firearms into Colombia and it's probably better that I don't. All I know about them is that when I landed at the airport in Bogota, a man in a suit who seemed to know who I was walked up and said he had arranged a flight from Bogota to Pueblo Nuevo and he would drive me to the hangar where my plane was located.

The hangar was at the far end of the runway and the plane turned out to be Dehaviland DHC-6 on floats with wheels. The name on the side was Taxi Aéreo de Colombia. I thought it was strange that that plane was the only plane in the hangar if the company was really an air transport company, and even more strange that the pilot and co-pilot both looked very Colombian but spoke perfect English.

About two hours after the plane left Bogota, The Dehaviland landed on the river at Pueblo Nuevo and taxied up to a dock. The pilot and copilot finished their post flight check and then walked back and opened the door. While the copilot tied the plane to the dock, the pilot picked up a briefcase and said I should follow him.

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He led me to a relatively new building with a sign that read, Compañía de Autobuses de Puerto Nuevo, and there was a small bus about the size of the school buses in the US sitting in front with the engine idling. The guy opened his briefcase and handed me a bus ticket.

"The bus leaves in half an hour on its way to Barranco Minas. Tell the bus driver you want to get off at Nueva Compañía de Café de Colombia It's about ten kilometers from here. It's a working coffee plantation but they will have the things you said you needed. Just tell the supervisor your codename and that Felipe sent you."

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Well, that bus ride was one of those things in life that you've experienced but would never want to do again. The so-called road was just packed dirt and for most of the way was only wide enough for the bus and the occasional donkey cart I saw. I say it was packed dirt meaning that at some point it had been packed, but the rains that happen often in Colombia had washed out places deep enough I was surprised the bus made it through without dragging the frame.

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The guy at the airport in Bogota and the plane and pilot told me that Slayden Security was a pretty big organization. Nueva Compañía de Café de Colombia told me just how big an organization Slayden Security really was. I walked into the office and in Spanish told the pretty little woman in a typical Colombian dress at the desk that I was Nighthawk and that Felipe had sent me.

She didn't even bat an eye at my name. She just tapped a button on an intercom box on her desk and said in perfect English, "Senõr Pena, the man you've been waiting on is here."

The man who walked out and shook my hand was taller than most of the Colombian men I'd seen so far, but he had the same skin tone and black hair. He smiled and his English was perfect as well.

"I hope your trip was pleasant. I have what you requested in another building. If you'll follow me, I'll give you the things you requested and introduce you to your guide. When you leave Colombia, you need to stop by here and give me anything you have left."

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I walked out of the locked, concrete block building with a medium ALICE pack and the accessories for it I'd requested, a handheld GPS unit with a dozen extra batteries, and a hundred food bars. I stashed my personal satellite phone and extra batteries for it in the pack.

I had an M16A2 rifle over my shoulder and a Beretta 92F in a holster on my belt. The pack held three hundred rounds for each in magazines. I figured if I had to burn through three hundred rounds from the both the M16 and the Beretta to get myself out of trouble I was pretty much done for anyway, but that many rounds would give me at least a fighting chance and wouldn't weigh me down too much. I also figured since I wasn't part of any military or an actual war, the Hague Convention didn't apply to me. My 9mm cartridges were jacketed hollow points. The Randall Model 1 fighting knife on my belt completed my armament.

When I put on the pack, Senõr Pena introduced me to an obviously Colombian native named Quardo.

"Blackhawk, this is Quardo. Quardo will be your guide and knows the area as well as the many of the languages spoken by the natives."

He paused then and stroked his chin.

"One more thing you should know about Quardo. He may look to you like any other Colombian native, but when he was younger, he served in the Colombian military in a unit specifically designated to combat the various communist leaning guerrillas in Columbia. He later worked with several US CIA operatives. He's a man with battle experience in the rain forest and a man you can depend on if things go bad."

Quardo wasn't very tall, and all he was wearing was a pair of denim shorts and a simple T-shirt. The only weapons he seemed to have were a machete with a blade almost two feet long and a knife on his belt that looked a lot like the trench knives issued to troops in WWI. I asked him if he didn't want at least a pistol and he grinned.

"Gun heavy to carry and make noise. Machete and knife not heavy and quiet."

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Walking through the Colombian rain forest with a guide named Quardo was just another day in the office for me. Well, it was a lot different than other jobs I'd had, but it was what I'd chosen for an occupation once my Army tour was finished.

I'd finished that enlistment in Panama when the US brought Noriega back to the US for prosecution. Judging by the rumors floating around my Ranger company and looking at the current world political situation, it looked to me like the next stop for me would be in the Middle East. That meant I'd have to go through Desert School and probably learn Arabic. I'd already learned to read, write, and speak Spanish courtesy of the US Army. Spanish had come in pretty handy in Grenada and Panama. The girls down there knew I wasn't a native, but at least they'd talk to me. I didn't think the women in Iraq would be quite so accommodating even if I did speak the language.

From what I'd read about the Middle East, it was a lot of fucking sand, no water, and a shit-load of crazy motherfuckers whose idea of the best way to reach the afterlife with its twenty-one virgins just begging to be fucked was to die fighting for Allah. I decided I'd take my chances as a civilian. On May 30, 1990 I went from being Staff Sergeant Jack Masterson to just Jack Masterson.

Once I got out, finding a job wasn't much of a problem. The military had hired a slew of civilian contractors to construct military installations and airports, and they needed their own contract security. I certainly had more than enough in the way of qualifications, but those jobs were all in the Middle East so I passed on those. I'd have made a shit pot of money, but that was because those jobs were pretty risky. Instead of a US Army company backing me up, I'd just have a few other security guards. I didn't like those odds.

I did find one civilian security agency that furnished guards for several corporations and other entities operating in Spanish speaking countries. That sounded pretty good to me. I figured that meant Mexico or South America. Other than the people shooting at me in Grenada and Panama, I kind of liked South America. I sent them my resume and was asked to come to Laredo, Texas, for an interview.

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The guy who interviewed me seemed impressed by my service in Grenada and Panama. He also liked it that I could speak, read, and write Spanish. He said many of their contracts were in South America. When I asked what those contracts were, he wouldn't tell me. All he'd say was that certain individuals in certain countries were in need of certain services that only certain individuals with certain specialized training could provide.

Well, that sounded like a load of horse shit to me, just a bunch of words that sounded mysterious and were intended to make me curious enough to sign on. That's what I told him and then stood up to leave. He smiled and asked me to sit back down because while he couldn't tell me what jobs I might be asked to do, he could tell me about a contract his organization had fulfilled.

"Mr. Masterson, don't be so quick to pass up the opportunity I am prepared to offer to you. Given your background, I'm sure you understand the need for maintaining secrecy regarding past, current, and future operations. Our clients rely on Slayden Security to fulfill their needs, and if the identity of our operatives and nature of our operations were known to certain individuals, those efforts would suffer, even to the point of failure of our operatives to accomplish their mission.

"I can give you an example of a contract that Slayden Security fulfilled. Have you ever heard of a Roberto Morales?"

I said I hadn't and he smiled.

"Roberto Morales is the son of Mr. Juan Morales, an American importer of cashew nuts from Brazil. Mr. Morales has his own personal intelligence and security detail because of the country of origin of his product. His intelligence operation picked up on some information indicating Roberto was in danger of being kidnapped for ransom.

"Mr. Morales could not allow his personal intelligence and security people to pursue this information or they would have been compromised. He contacted Slayden Security to investigate and to provide security for Roberto if such was required. Our operatives investigated the threat, identified it as real, and prevented the attempt to kidnap Roberto. You heard nothing because no word ever leaked out about the operation, just as Mr. Morales requested."

I frowned because I was skeptical.

"So, they discovered the plan and prevented the kidnapping. Was there a kidnapping attempt they stopped, or did they stop it before the plan could be implemented?"

The guy stroked his chin for a few seconds as if he was thinking and then gave me an answer.

"Yes, the attempt did take place. However, Roberto was fifty kilometers from the location outside of Sao Paulo designated by the plan our operatives discovered. Since he was not there, no kidnapping took place."

"What happened to the kidnappers?"

The guy smiled.

"Let's just say they are no longer a threat to either Mr. Morales or to Roberto."

"So you killed them?"

The guy smiled again.

"Mr. Masterson, were that the case, would you not have heard about it?"

I shook my head.

"Not if your guys are as good as you say they are."

He was still smiling.

"I cannot tell you that the kidnappers were killed because I do not know what happened to them. I can only tell you that they were never seen or heard from again, and that there was no investigation by the Sao Paulo police because there was no indication that an investigation was warranted."

I didn't believe for a second that this guy didn't know that the guys he called operatives had killed the kidnappers, and that's what I told him.

He just smiled again.

"While I suspect that was the case, I truly do not know. Part of our success has been that our field operatives have great leeway in accomplishing their missions, just as I am sure you enjoyed as a US Army Ranger in Grenada and Panama. We believe our operatives can make their own decisions based upon the situation much better than we can direct them from our desks and swivel chairs here in Laredo.

"We do not debrief our operatives at the end of a mission other than to confirm that the mission was or was not successful. To do so would risk compromising them as well as possibly draw attention to Slayden Security."

Well, I had had the experience of choosing the path my squad of Rangers took in both Grenada and Panama. As one of the instructors had said during the beginning phase of Ranger School, "No battle plan survives the start of the battle. You will be trained to act according to the situation rather than to specific orders."

I'd liked that freedom because being able to deviate from a set plan had saved my ass on a couple occasions.

"So, if I went to work for you, I'd be on my own as far as what I do and how I do it?"

The guy nodded.

"What you will be given is an objective, your choice of materiel required to accomplish that objective and all available information relative to that objective. The methods of accomplishing that objective will be left to your discretion.

"Of course, as much as possible you must obey the laws of the country in which the operation takes place. I would add though that such laws are in place to govern a mostly peaceful population in a mostly peaceful situation. Many of the situations you might encounter will be in a less than peaceful situation. Slayden Security does not participate in declared wars, but it is often that small, undeclared wars exist in some countries."

Well, that sounded a lot better to me than walking in sand and watching for some guy on a camel trying to throw grenades into a construction site. I asked the guy when I could start.

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My first mission was in Dallas. I can't tell you the client's name because he's a respected member of the banking industry in Dallas.

His nineteen-year-old daughter had disappeared the day the banker had told his daughter she couldn't see a guy she was dating. Apparently, she was head over heels about the guy, and when her father said she couldn't see him anymore, the daughter left their house that night. Her father thought she was still alive because she'd been using her credit card for a week after she disappeared.

The father didn't want to call the police because that would have made the news in Dallas big time. Instead, he called Slayden Security and asked us to find his daughter and bring her back. I got the assignment to do that.

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I didn't have much experience in finding lost people, but this one was pretty easy.

The boyfriend, José Pena, had a police record a mile long and was suspected of having ties to the Sinaloa drug cartel, though that connection had never been proven. I had the full police report of the guy including the fact he was on parole and his address. I wasn't sure how Slayden Security had managed to get that, but it wasn't my place to question it.

His police report also had the record of his six arrests for possession of heroin and cocaine. He'd been convicted of dealing in heroin and cocaine twice and had just gotten out of prison for the second a month before the daughter disappeared. He was living in a pretty crappy apartment in an equally crappy area of Dallas.

It was a pretty safe bet that if the daughter was still in Dallas, she'd be living with José. I put on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a ball cap and walked down the street where José's apartment was located.

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There were several men hanging out on the sidewalk. I walked up to one particularly sleezy guy and said I'd heard from a friend that some guy named José could sell me some smack.

The guy looked me up and down, and then asked me if I was a cop. I grabbed him by his scrawny neck and slammed him up against the building.

"Motherfucker, if I was a fucking cop would I just walk up to you and say what I just said? I don't have time to fuck with a goddamned idiot. You gonna tell me where this fucker José is, or do I have to beat the fucking shit out of you first?"

The guy swallowed hard and then pointed to the door to José's apartment building.

"In there, apartment ten, but he ain't there right now. He's always downtown this time of day. His old lady is, but she's always whacked out."

"Whacked out? What the fuck does that mean? She a junkie?"

"No. José won't let her do smack or coke. Says only whores do smack and coke and they ain't worth a shit when they're high. He gives her all the vodka she wants. Says she blows him real good when she's drunk."

I slammed the guy against the wall again to let the other guys know I wasn't going to take any shit from any of them. I wasn't worried that I could put them all down, but the last thing I needed was to have the police show up and start asking questions.