Carlo Ibarra waited in a Nissan Pathfinder in the lane of vehicles picking up newly arrived passengers. The Viper and Trujillo climbed in. Ibarra pulled into the traffic on the outbound lane of Avenida El Dorado, which ran nine miles from El Dorado to downtown Bogotá. After covering two miles on the highway, they exited and made their way into Bogotá’s Engativá locality, where the Viper’s safe house was located.
TWELVE
Eighteen hours later, National Police officers waved the Lincoln Continental through the front gates of the US Embassy compound in Bogotá. Avery and Culler got out and identified themselves to the marine security guards at Post One, near the main entrance, where Avery flashed his ID and the green badge identifying him as a CIA contractor. Culler had called the station chief earlier to clear Avery, and Avery was handed an additional bar-coded badge giving him access to the embassy’s most secure areas.
The building itself is one of the largest and most expensive American embassies in the world. The white fortress-like compound with dark reflective glass sat atop bright green, flawlessly maintained lawn. Satellite dishes and antenna jutted out from the roof of the main building. Monserrate, a 10,000 foot tall mountain in the center of Bogotá, was prominent in the background, reaching up toward the low clouds. In addition to serving as one of America’s most opulent diplomatic outposts, the embassy also housed one of the largest regional American intelligence bases in the world.
Avery followed Culler into an elevator, down a corridor, past another security checkpoint, and through the cipher-lock doors into the top secret Intelligence Fusion Center. Known as the Bunker, this is a small, enclosed, windowless Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF), a fortified, copper-plated room-within-a-room secured against all manner of internal and external electronic and audio surveillance.
Manned twenty-four hours by a rotating staff of CIA analysts and NSA signals and communications specialists, this is where American intelligence agencies track enemies of the Colombian state all across the country. Intelligence collected in the field was analyzed and relayed to regional fusion centers by the Real Time Regional Gateway, an NSA-designed computer link-up, which, as its name suggests, allows for the real time sharing of intelligence.
Interactive digital maps laced with red, blue, green, and white dots were displayed on wall-mounted monitors with chyron labels indicating the positions of assets, ongoing operations, and possible targets.
At crowded rows of computer workstations, NSA analysts worked with Colombian army SIGINT technicians to decipher radio, cellular, and digital communications intercepts from satellites and American aircraft that scoured the Colombian skies tracking cell phones. Monitors at other terminals displayed the live footage from Predator surveillance drones.
The stench of coffee, cigarette smoke, and microwaved food left sitting out hung in the cool climate-controlled air, along with sweat and body odor from technicians who seemed to live at their computers, forgetting to take breaks. Trash receptacles overflowed with plates, food containers, and aluminum cans. The sound of computers humming, fingers tapping keyboards, radio chatter, and voices calling out to one another filled the background.
“Look familiar?” Culler asked Avery.
“Feels like I’m back at the Death Star. Only thing different are the maps.”
The Death Star was the nickname given to Joint Base Balad, where CIA and JSOC once coordinated its search for insurgent and terrorist high value targets in Iraq. JSOC might hit a terrorist safe house and seize the occupants’ cell phones and laptops. Data from those devices would be passed to the NSA spooks at the Death Star, and within hours NSA would have another target for JSOC. It wasn’t uncommon for them to launch as many as three or four raids in a single night based on intelligence fusion, and that was the model for the Bunker.
Daniel and Slayton were present, the former drinking coffee and looking like he hadn’t slept in days. They were speaking to a shorter, heavier, haggard-looking bald man, with his tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, and sweat stains beneath his pits.
Culler introduced the man as Vincent Rangel.
Avery had caught glimpses of the CIA Bogotá station chief the previous week during the planning for Operation Phoenix, but they hadn’t formally met until now. The son of first-generation Guatemalan immigrants to Miami, Rangel was a twenty-year veteran of the National Clandestine Service’s Latin America Division. He’d spent his career pursuing FARC, M19, ELN, and Shining Path terrorists; disrupting Bolivian and Colombian drug cartels, rigging elections, buying politicians, and playing a role in more than one coup.
“Matt’s told me a lot about you,” Rangel said, shaking Avery’s hand. His tone and his narrowed gaze indicated the statement wasn’t necessarily intended as a compliment. He kept a firm grasp of Avery’s hand a couple seconds longer than necessary, while he openly appraised Avery. Then Rangel released his grip, and his tone softened. “Hell of a job you did for us in Venezuela. Come on; let me show you around.”
Avery frowned, not quite caring for people knowing, who didn’t need to, that he was the man on the ground for Operation Phoenix. Rangel’s manner also had him on guard now. Behind Rangel’s back, Avery gave Culler a questioning look, but Culler pretended not to notice.
“Most of the Colombians’ ops against the FARC leadership are coordinated from right here,” Rangel said, “and the Bunker’s connected to regional fusion centers across the country. From here, we have instantaneous access to ANIC files, Predator drone feeds over the northern rainforest, or intercepts of FARC chatter in the Andes. Up until recently, we were almost as heavily involved here as we are in Afghanistan.”
By “we,” Rangel meant CIA. Avery knew that American agencies were so deeply immersed in the Colombian conflict that it was known amongst those involved as America’s Other War. There were plenty of contractors like Avery working here, ostensibly doing security, but he knew plenty of them were also running direct action ops alongside Colombian special ops in the jungles against FARC and the cartels.
“If the Viper’s still in-country, we’ll find her,” Rangel said confidently.
“And if she isn’t?” Avery asked. Her primary target was the US. She wouldn’t have shot down the Avianca flight if she hadn’t already had her exit plan in place and ready to execute.
Rangel shrugged. “Then chances are we’ll find the lead to pick up her trail. We have the world’s most advanced tactical intelligence collection system arrayed against her. She won’t get away.”
As they walked along a row of computers, Rangel said, “Ah, here’s Abigail Benning, the bright, young lady who makes most of what we do here possible.”
Hearing her boss’s voice mention her name, the woman in question swiveled her chair around from her computer screen and lowered her headset. She was in her early-thirties, had a pale complexion from a lack of sunlight, soft features, and light hair tied back in a knot.
Abigail Benning ran the Bunker’s Geo Cell, electronically tracking targets, intercepting e-mails and satellite communications, and listening to phone calls.
“Christ, Abby, how long have you been down here?” Rangel asked. “Must be going on ten hours now.”
“Almost, Vince. I’ve been going through our databases for anything and everything connected to the Viper. We’ve got ECHELEON sifting through all the usual suspects.”