The NSA Geo Cell, accompanied by a DEA FAST unit, soon received the green light from the embassy and the Colombian government to deploy to Buenaventura.
A Colombian Air Force C-130 carried the specially equipped-surveillance vehicles. These were brand new Ford E-150 cargo vans converted into mobile surveillance command centers. The vans were equipped with Stingray, a controversial IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) catcher that forced all cell phones within a given area, including those with encrypted data, to connect to Stingray’s base station. The vans also carried computers equipped with GPS mapping software, other SIGINT and ELINT gear, and a connection to the Bunker’s Real Time Regional Gateway.
At Gerardo Tobar López Airport, a small airport eight miles outside Buenaventura serviced only by the government-owned SATENA airline, the National Police commandeered a hangar. Here, while Benning’s people physically and electronically scoured the streets of Buenaventura, Avery remained on call, with Aguilar’s squad and the FAST team acquisitioned by Slayton and headed by DEA Special Agent Tom Layton.
FAST stands for Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Team. Specially trained by the FBI Hostage Rescue Team and the marines, FAST is tasked with special enforcement operations around the globe. Based out of Quantico, there are five FAST units on rotating deployments. One is always deployed to Afghanistan.
Layton was already a familiar face to Slayton, so he required little time being brought up to speed on the current situation, and he and Avery got along well from the start.
Abigail Benning’s ELINT spooks took up pre-planned routes to cover different sectors of the city in their surveillance vans, with Stingray active and intercepting all calls on their way from cell phone users to local towers.
It was early-afternoon with humidity at ninety percent. Dark gray rain clouds hung low in the air over Buenaventura, unleashing a seemingly endless downpour onto the city. Buenaventura is one of the world’s rainiest cities, and a week straight of almost non-stop rain wasn’t uncommon. Rusty buckets and cans were lined up everywhere to collect rainwater, the only source of water for most of the city’s residents. Benning was glad to spend the day dry inside the van, stepping outside only once to stock up on snacks at a local market.
Aside from the rain, Buenaventura is also known for being Colombia’s most violent and impoverished city. Street crime is high, and gang activity is rampant. Two dominant and rival gangs — Los Urabeños and La Empresa, both originally paramilitary groups formed to combat FARC — fight each other in the streets for control of territory in the drug market.
Both gangs are well armed and many of their members have military training, veterans of the Colombian military or the country’s various paramilitary groups. La Empresa especially ranked high on DEA’s target list. DEA agents have pursued Empresa members across Nicaragua, El Salvador, and as far as Spain.
The dueling gangs are unconcerned about the numerous civilians that enter their crossfire. Mutilated and dismembered bodies, taken apart in so-called chop-up houses, regularly washed up on the beaches. Anyone suspected of cooperating with the police or affiliating with a rival gang disappears or turns up dead, often along with their entire family. Armed men run checkpoints on the main streets that serve as borders between neighborhoods, stopping motorists and pedestrians, occasionally executing them in the street.
The situation in Buenaventura has deteriorated so badly that President Santos ordered the deployment of six hundred army troops to keep the peace, but the army’s primary focus is the security of businesses around the docks and safe passage for commercial traffic on the highway. The soldiers have done little to curb the gang violence. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon to see soldiers on the streets openly fraternizing with gang members.
The city’s unemployment is at thirty percent. Most of the Buenaventura’s residents are poor and uneducated, many of them immigrants looking for manual labor jobs. Ports and foreign trade are managed and taxed by the national government, while the local economy reaps little benefit. The population lives in small, overpopulated apartments or tiny wooden shacks built on stilts on newly-formed marshland where the coastline is moving gradually inland. Those with the means to do so have fled the city. Those without are trapped in this urban hell and stay barricaded indoors. Several thousand residents of the outlying villages have been forced out of their homes by corporations seeking to expand the port facilities and drill for oil.
The roads are narrow, many unpaved, and are obstructed by broken down and stripped vehicles, all manner of garbage and debris. Streets are often flowing with raw sewage, mud, and filth. Many buildings are pock marked from bullet strikes and adorned with colorful gang graffiti.
Benning’s team was given a complete brief on the security situation in Buenaventura. Both Daniel and Slayton had ventured into the city before to meet informants and agents, and Tom Layton’s FAST team had conducted raids here before. They gave Benning’s team, and their security escort, a complete rundown on how to stay safe and discrete, and the routes to take through neighborhoods to avoid being stopped or ambushed by gangs.
Benning’s surveillance vans were each accompanied by a chase car — armored Lincoln Navigators with blacked out windows — carrying CIA security contractors wearing armored vests and carrying MP5 submachine guns or HK413 assault rifles. These men had done time in Iraq and knew how to maneuver through and stay alive in hostile urban environments. Still, they were on edge the whole time, trailing the Geo Cell’s vehicles through the rundown ghettos. Some sections of the city were patrolled by armed gangs, while in other areas there were Colombian soldiers. Daniel had informed the army and police that ANIC units were conducting operations in the area, so that Colombian forces would not stop Benning’s team.
At one point, one of the surveillance units was forced to make a detour, because a gun battle was in progress between rival gangs, and the army had cordoned off the area.
Despite their security teams’ concerns, Abigail Benning’s crypto-spooks seemed unfazed by the bleak, violent conditions around them. Their focus was set entirely on analyzing the ceaseless stream of cell phone activity. They worked intently at their stations in the backs of the vans; occasionally cursing out loud as their fingers slipped on a keyboard or coffee was spilled when the driver made an abrupt turn or braked suddenly or the van bounced along over potholes and poorly maintained roads.
Sorting through all of the calls was time consuming and tedious work. But the undercover DEA source had been able to provide the cell phone number of the North Valley cartel facilitator believed to have met with Sean Nolan, and within four hours, that number appeared on the network, instantly providing Stingray with its IMSI. Benning hacked into the phone and obtained the numbers listed in the contacts and the recent calls history. A couple of the numbers had North American codes, but most of them were local.
Two numbers appeared on the network within the hour. Both were Colombian numbers and the calls were made between Colombian and Spanish speakers. One call was to Mexico, the other to Bogotá. The former was drugs related, the latter a personal matter; and neither appeared related to Sean Nolan or the Viper.
An hour later, another of the targeted numbers registered on Stingray’s network for a ninety-seven second conversation with the cartel facilitator. The number had a Cali area code, and the caller spoke English with the hardened consonants and soft drawn-out vowels of an Irish accent. The accent was feint, the speaker seeming to try to sound American, but it didn’t fool NSA’s voice recognition algorithms. More important, the cartel facilitator directly addressed his caller as “Sean,” and the Sean Nolan voiceprint provided by Great Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was a 94 % match with Abigail Benning’s intercept.