But I couldn’t let the question go. Even as I moved on to other indecipherable messages, my mind worried at it. What set of circumstances could possibly explain how three groups of guerrillas in Colombia and Peru started communicating with a language from one of the most isolated tribes in Brazil? The messages also shared the characteristic of a lack of precision. Distances and places were vague, groups of people unidentified, numbers of any kind almost non-existent. It was driving the analysts crazy. It also implied that the guerrillas had some other means of communicating that type of information, since without it, the messages appeared almost worthless.
Even so, I was feeling pretty proud of myself for kicking off such a furor. We had a front row seat to unfolding world events because of my work. I had complete confidence that the NSA machine would uncover the secret agendas of the guerrillas and know what to do in response. This was the NSA, after all. The largest and most well-funded intelligence agency in the world.
A week later, on the same day, and with no warning despite all our efforts, the presidents of both Colombia and Peru were assassinated.
CHAPTER 12
Multiple terrorist organizations claimed responsibility for the attacks, including the Ligados, the group associated with the attack on Paul’s boat in Brazil. It was starting to seem like everything was connected—the presence of armed guerrillas raiding tourist boats on a previously peaceful stretch of the Amazon, the increased activity of FARC and ELN and their communications with Shining Path, and now the assassinations of two South American leaders. Something big was happening, and we were only scratching the surface.
“Listen to this,” Shaunessy said. She pressed play on a video on her unclassified computer, and the president of Venezuela appeared on an outdoor stage surrounded by serious-looking military types and Venezuelan flags. He was a large, intimidating figure, and he shook a meaty finger as he spoke.
“Venezuela applauds the brave actions of these freedom fighters,” he said. He spoke in Spanish, but I could understand well enough. “It is never easy for the poor to throw off the rule of their Fascist overlords. We call for the people of Colombia and Peru to insist on fair elections and resist the right-wing extremists who have controlled them for so long. Heroes like the soldiers of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia light the path for free people everywhere.”
“Wow,” I said.
“That’s a first,” Andrew said from over my shoulder. “Colombia has been accusing Venezuela of supporting FARC for decades, but they’ve always denied it before.”
“What does this mean?” I asked. “War?”
Andrew dropped back into his swivel chair, which creaked in protest. “Hard to say. For us, it means we’d better figure out what’s actually going on down there before someone up on Mahogany Row—or heaven forbid, the White House—starts demanding answers.”
Melody appeared around the corner. The wrinkles around her eyes were pinched, and her normally neat hair flew out behind her. “Follow me, right now,” she said. “The DIRNSA wants us in his office.”
Andrew and Shaunessy and I looked at each other. “Who does he want?” I asked.
“Me, actually. But I want the rest of you there with me.”
NSA director Mark Kilpatrick was an Air Force four-star general who had made his career in the intelligence services. He was only fifty years old and looked younger, tall and athletic enough to play basketball in his immaculate and heavily decorated uniform. His expression was grave. He addressed Melody without waiting for introductions to the rest of us.
“Harvin says you know something.”
“That may be overstating it.”
“Well? Don’t make me beg.”
Melody summed up our knowledge in short, declarative sentences, sticking only to the facts. Kilpatrick cut her off regularly to ask new questions, which she took in stride without a hint of annoyance. I watched them like it was a tennis match, words bouncing rapidly between them, and then it was over. We were out the door before I realized we were leaving.
“Whew,” Shaunessy said. “Another first.”
“You’ve never been in his office before?”
“I’ve never even been on this floor.”
We regrouped back in our room. “This is serious stuff,” Melody said. “The government of Colombia is asking where the United States will stand if Venezuela invades them. FARC demonstrations have tripled around the country, and several major highways have been shut down with landmines. FARC is apparently seeing this as their chance to seize control.”
“What are their chances, realistically?” I asked. “The Colombian military hasn’t been able to shut them down, but the government still has the far superior force, right?”
“You’ll have to ask the CIA for the over-under on that one,” Melody said. “Our job is to figure out who’s pulling the strings and what their end game is. That was an incredibly coordinated attack. From now on, the term Ligados is our official umbrella name for these people, whoever they turn out to be. My money says the messages in Johurá we’ve been cracking are directly related. But there are an awful lot of questions we can’t answer.”
“How were the assassinations accomplished?” Shaunessy asked. “Do we know?”
“The investigation is ongoing by the national police in both countries, but in both cases, it looks like top, trusted staffers strapped bombs underneath their clothing and suicided. Complicit security personnel who enabled them to avoid electronic detection have since disappeared. The plots were carefully planned and remarkably similar. The real mystery is how the Ligados managed to compromise high-ranking, carefully vetted people in both governments. It’s not like they haven’t dealt with threats like this before.”
We worked late into the night again. Around eight o’clock, team members started to leave, and by ten Melody and I were once again the only people left in the room. She stopped by my desk and dropped a clipped stack of paper next to my keyboard. For an organization with so many computers, the NSA sure killed a lot of trees, and Melody was one of the worst offenders. “Take a look when you get a chance,” she said. “It’s a media analysis one of the data mining teams put together.”
I picked up the bundle and paged through it. It was a collection of news stories from multiple countries, mostly in Spanish or Portuguese, many of them from small city newspapers located in the Amazon basin. I picked one out at random.
“Genius of the Amazon,” the title read in Portuguese. It went on to describe a Sateré-Mawé tribesman who had walked out of the jungle and showed genius-level aptitude in mathematics and, after learning Portuguese in a matter of days, tested with an IQ of 180. He appeared to be in his forties (he didn’t know his precise age) and had spent his life until then hunting in bare feet and growing guarana.
The article was sensationalistic, and I doubted a number of its claims. I paged through the others, and found that they were similar, differing wildly in location and details but with the same basic concept: native with no formal education demonstrates astonishing intellect. Individually, they could be dismissed. As a group, they held some weight.
“What’s the relevance to our assassinations?” I asked.
Melody shrugged, a tired, barely noticeable movement. “Maybe none. But given our impossible Johurá code talkers, I’m inclined to keep it in mind.”
I waved the stack of papers. “Has anyone mapped these?”