“With all due respect to your brother, and the others who died, the Secretariat is dealing with the enormous political and security ramifications that will follow Reyes’ death. We have never lost someone as important as Reyes.”
“I think I understand,” Arianna said. “They care only about Reyes. They probably do not even know Aarón’s name. But I’ve done more for the FARC than any of them ever will, and by rights I should have earned their support. I should at least have your support.”
Flores sighed. He’d wanted to keep this to himself, but he realized he had to give Arianna something to placate her. “Very well. Through our intelligence sources, we have identified the man who killed your brother.”
Her eyes widened and she leaned in closer to Flores. “And you intended to withhold this from me?”
“I intended to keep you from doing something… imprudent, at least until you had time to compose yourself and distance yourself from recent events.”
“He’s mine.”
“He will not be an easy target.”
“I will put my team together. They are the best.”
And Flores knew it, too. Four months ago, he’d tasked the Viper’s team with ambushing and destroying a convoy of oil tankers on the highway, spilling their contents to cause millions of dollars of financial and environmental devastation. The following week, they killed the president of the same company with a car bomb.
“The Secretariat cannot authorize personal missions for revenge, you know that. The risk is too great for little reward.”
“Look at me, Andrés. My judgment is not impaired. Give me a name, and I will find him, quick and professional, like any other mission. I’ll do it myself, and there will be no risk involved to anyone but myself.”
Flores knew she possessed the skills and the capabilities. Despite her arrogance and zealousness, she was one of the Central High Command’s most lethal weapons.
Arianna Moreno started out at the FARC training camps at a young age, but her intelligence, sharp reflexes, natural marksmanship abilities, and quick grasp of hand-to-hand fighting skills quickly set her apart from the other recruits. She was selected for advanced special warfare and terrorism training, and that’s when the Viper came into being.
Credit for the creation of the Viper was owed to FARC’s toughest, most unforgiving IRA and Israeli mercenary trainers, and to the DGI, Castro’s Directorate of General Intelligence, at Camp Matanzas, near Havana, where Carlos the Jackal was trained.
The Viper once used the promise of her sex to lure an undercover DEA informant from a bar in Bogotá to his hotel, where she castrated him and slit his throat. She assassinated a senior, well-protected Cali cartel member who had ceased paying the tax required of those trafficking cocaine through FARC-controlled territory. In Quito, she assassinated a right wing Ecuadoran presidential candidate who sought closer ties to Colombia and military cooperation with the US. In the Bolivian city La Paz, outside the US Embassy, she held the American deputy chief of mission in the crosshairs of the VSS sniper rifle and broke the trigger on her. She’d even been sent to America once, for the early stages of a mission, later aborted, to bomb the FBI’s Hoover Building in Washington, DC.
But…
“It won’t be quite that simple,” Flores said. “We only have a codename for this man — Carnivore. This is the first time my intelligence people have heard this name before. From our source, we believe he is a former American soldier, probably from an elite unit, and now works for the US intelligence agencies. Other than that, we have only a vague physical description.”
“So the chances of your intelligence networks identifying and locating this man are small,” Arianna said, the disappoint clear in her voice.
“When I said that he would not be an easy target, it was not because I questioned your capabilities. We may simply never know who he is.”
“And if you can identify him?”
“Then he is yours.”
As usual Flores did not divulge the details. The Viper didn’t need to know that one of Flores’s informants in the Colombian army, an NCO who occasionally bought and smuggled cocaine, put Flores’ agents into contact with an army sergeant at Tolemaida, where the Colombian Special Forces were based. From this man, Flores’s agents were given a name and a full account of the army raid and the shooting death of Aarón Moreno. Flores’s agents offered $30,000 for the American, but their source wasn’t confident he could deliver.
In the meantime, Arianna Moreno’s vitriolic anger and need for bloodshed would fester and become her obsession, demanding an outlet. She wondered if killing one man would really satisfy her. Americans as a whole disgusted her, and she’d long been a proponent at striking at the American electorate, the ignorant, pampered people who put into power those subjugating the Colombian people. Whether her brother was killed or not, the Colombian operation into Venezuela demanded a strong response to show that FARC was still a powerful military force.
“What about Plan Estragos?” the Viper asked, catching Flores by surprise. The name was supposed to be known only to the highest ranking FARC commanders. Plan Estragos — Havoc — was a new military endeavor intended to shift the war in FARC’s strategic favor. “Reyes was close to finalizing the acquisition of weapons. That’s why he travelled to Táchira, to see the man from Caracas.”
“Plan Estragos will proceed according to the original timetable,” Flores said, “but I do not see how our measures for enhanced air defense are relevant to this discussion.”
“I can bring the weapons into the US, just as the Americans arrogantly violate the borders and sovereignty of other nations with impunity. With just a couple strikes, I can devastate their entire country.”
Flores shook his head, and the Viper cut him off when he started to respond.
“It would be a far better use of my abilities than using me to catch one worthless sapo, and you know it,” she said.
Sapo was the derogatory slang term used within FARC for spies who collaborated with the Colombian federal government.
“We both know it will never happen. The Secretariat must take into consideration the politics, current negotiations with the Bogotá government, and our long term strategy. As satisfying as it may be, the Secretariat will most definitely not authorize military action against American civilian targets, certainly not within the borders of the United States. There is no way.”
“You misunderstand me. I am not asking the Secretariat to sanction anything.” Arianna realized that she now crossed a line from which there could be no going back. “I will use my own agents. All I require from you are the weapons and financing. I think I’ve earned that much.”
“You forget your place, Captain. I understand you must be very emotional at the moment, but if you do not let this topic rest, I will need to inform the Sec-”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Andrés. In fact, it would be best for both of us if you didn’t repeat a word of this conversation to anyone. How do you think the Secretariat would react to learning that you and Emilio Reyes skimmed from FARC’s cocaine revenue and sold drugs to the Mexicans for your personal profit? I imagine they’d execute you.”
Flores blinked, understanding where this conversation was headed and at once regretting his decision to not have his personal bodyguards standing outside of his hut for the duration of his meeting with Moreno, a precaution he normally took. As valuable as she was, the Viper wasn’t easily controlled, and Flores never fully felt at ease alone with her.