The Geronimo Breach (32 page)

No, the CIA and the administration understood that if they made a claim, and had the media repeat the claim over and over, they could make even an obvious lie into a new kind of truth – at least for the U.S. population – and if it was later exposed as false, the new proof could just be ignored away or dismissed as an irrelevant mistake. After all, nobody was infallible.

Several generations of political correctness had bred a population that confused patriotism with credulousness and felt it was unpatriotic to question anything the government claimed was true. The government now relied on that combination of ignorance and apathy for tacit approval of its deeds. It realized that reality didn’t matter any more – there was no right or wrong, there was no ‘what actually happened’ versus invention; there was simply what the government said happened. All other speculation was squashed as wacky conspiracy nonsense…or treason.

That a nation founded upon the principal of a small government that should be distrusted and held accountable by its constituents could morph into a state-run machine where the apparatus determined what was fact and what was fiction, and the masses swallowed it up without question, had been unthinkable a few decades ago. The former U.S.S.R. was castigated for its ludicrous internal public relations messages of happy tractor workers and a benevolent ruling group of equal privilege. Back then, those were examples of totalitarianism or fascism.

Apparently not when the U.S. did it.

No, the CIA understood that; he who controlled the message, controlled history.

So history would record that the U.S. had gone in and killed Bin Laden, and he’d gotten what he had coming.

The crowds celebrated across the nation, and the President became a kind of hero overnight.

And they all lived happily ever after.

It had been perfect.

Except for Albert Ross and the fucking camera.

~

Al and Mari checked out of the hotel at eleven, and after grabbing breakfast in the lobby restaurant they caught a taxi to the airport.

Jorge was waiting for them by the battered old plane. Al cursed that he’d not belted down a few fortifiers at the hotel, but given Mari’s mood, it hadn’t seemed like a good idea. So he was going to have to do the return trip sober as well – a state of affairs that hadn’t done much for his mood, either.

Mari’s cell rang as they were buckling into their seats. She looked at the caller ID but there was no number listed. Odd.

A digitally distorted voice spoke a single sentence: “Your friend will get everything he requested.” And then the line went dead.

Mari turned to Al, who was struggling with the seatbelt, and deftly fastened it for him.

“So what did you ask for?” she said. “What was your end of the deal?”

“I told him I wanted a new name and passport with a guarantee of his organization’s protection…and a bar on a beach somewhere warm where there aren’t any Gringos, and where the U.S. has no reach – like Venezuela…or Cuba. And a little pocket money to cover operating expenses until it hits its stride,” Al explained.

“A bar, huh? How fitting. How much did you ask for…this pocket money?” Mari inquired.

“Half a million dollars. I figured that would last a while, even if the bar didn’t do so well.”

Mari raised an eyebrow. “You know that’s a fortune someplace like Venezuela.”

“Yeah, but in the business your bro’ is in, it’s about twenty minutes’ worth of profits. I’m not greedy,” Al reasoned. What he didn’t tell her was that he didn’t plan to touch more than a hundred grand of it – ever – the other four hundred was Mel’s college fund.

“No, you’re a lot of things,” Mari observed, “but greedy isn’t one of them.”

She buckled herself in and patted Jorge’s shoulder to signal they were secure.

As the old plane taxied up the bumpy runway Al felt something rolling under his feet and leaned forward, retrieving the object.

The empty
Gatorade
bottle.

He hoped Jorge wouldn’t need to use it; or at least had one of his own.

It was a long trip.

Al said goodbye to Mari and Mel and walked out the iron gate to the waiting taxi. The arrangement was to go into the downtown area and wait at a restaurant called El Mirador, where someone would contact him. Two weeks had passed since they’d arrived back in Cartagena after a turbulent flight on the little plane. Al had gotten his new Venezuelan passport and driver’s license three days ago, delivered to his hotel in a plain envelope, along with a deposit slip in his new name for five hundred grand at Banesco in Caracas, Venezuela.

Al was now Alfredo Guerrero, presumably of Italian heritage – or perhaps Swiss or French descent via Mexico. All he really had to do was practice spelling his last name because he’d chosen the first after his favorite pasta dish and so was unlikely to forget it. He’d selected the last because it meant ‘Warrior’ in Spanish. He figured if Julio could be ‘The Butcher’, he could at least be a soldier of some sort. Conveniently, Alfredo shortened to Al, so he was safe on keeping the first name straight, even after a couple of cocktails.

He’d gotten his photographs for the new identification taken on his first day back in Cartagena, after which he did a surreptitious drop at a dive hotel in one of the seediest neighborhoods in town. Al looked like virtually any somewhat seedy middle-aged white guy in the shot, although he felt he was considerably better looking than most. Admittedly, the shaved head look wasn’t his best, but then again he was still breathing and no commandos had shown up to cut him down with a hail of lead so he was staying with it for now. He figured if he waited long enough all his hair would fall out anyway, making it a far lower-maintenance style in the long run.

Al made it a point of meeting up with Mari, and if possible, Mel, every day. He and Mari were still distant in places, but he felt like she was thawing a little. That he’d blown it badly was obvious to him – but he couldn’t turn back the clock so he was reconciled to mushing on to whatever the future held as bravely as he could. He’d made it clear that he was interested in trying to patch things up but Mari was apparently still resentful – her feelings were still hurt, even three years after the fact. He couldn’t say he blamed her. She’d spent a lot of time working on getting over any connection to him; it was foolish to expect her to be interested in re-kindling.

The cab arrived at the restaurant. It was a typical seafood-themed Caribbean place with dancing shrimp painted gaudily on the walls and salsa thumping out from the ceiling-mounted speakers. He sat at the table by the window, as instructed, and ordered the grilled fish and a Bavaria beer. A glance at his watch told him he still had twenty minutes till the rendezvous time and he could see no reason to starve.

The plan was to drive from Cartagena to Maicao near the Venezuelan border, then take a bus across the border to Maracaibo, which was a large city of over two million. From there he could transfer to another bus, taking him to Caracas, where he would be met and escorted to his new home in Carenero, roughly fifty miles east of Caracas.

The condo that had been leased for him was actually down the road from Carenero, in the larger town of Higuerote – a four mile drive – but the bar was by the yacht club in Carenero, so he’d be commuting every day. That was fine by Al – it was about as far as he could imagine from prying eyes, not that he had any fear he was still as valid a target – but you never knew.

Better safe than sorry.

The passport was genuine so he had no concerns that traveling would be any sort of problem. Whoever had arranged it had been thoughtful enough to get an entry stamp for Colombia dated a few days earlier so he would appear to the Venezuelan system to be returning home. Al knew nothing whatsoever about Venezuela except that it was on the Caribbean, had nice beaches and good weather, and enjoyed extremely poor relations with America, which was the most important thing.

His fish arrived and he tucked into it with enthusiasm. That had been one of the notable transformations his forced exile had brought about. Everywhere he went now, he ordered the grilled fish, and, not only had he yet to be poisoned, he actually found it an enjoyable meal.

The waiter brought the bill. Al checked both sides of it, just in case.

Nothing.

After a few more minutes a mid-forties woman in fashionable jeans and a colorful blouse entered the restaurant and approached Al’s table.

“Alfredo,
Corazon
, how have you been? I thought that was you,” she cried, extending her arms to him.

Al, who had never seen her in his life, played along and stood embracing her fondly in return. To all the world it looked like good friends re-uniting after a lengthy period apart. The woman surveyed the restaurant over his shoulder as she hugged him, then whispered in Al’s ear.

“Let’s go to my car. The restaurant’s clear. Hurry.”

Al gathered his knapsack, now considerably fatter with the new shirts and shorts he’d bought, as well as six pairs of socks. He followed her through the doorway and down the shambling block to a parking garage. They walked silently to her car, and soon were hurtling down the road at the peculiarly Colombian clip that struck Al as borderline suicidal. She passed trucks on blind curves, never touched her turn indicators and redlined the motor as often as possible. Al was only half sure they’d make it in one piece but he figured she knew what she was doing.

He tried small talk with the woman, whose name he didn’t know, but she wasn’t chatty at all. Obviously this was business, and her job was to get him to the border without a tail, nothing more.

Al settled in for the ride and closed his eyes. At least that way, if they crashed and burned he’d never know what hit him.

And so began his new life.

Julio sat on a folding canvas chair in his field headquarters deep in the southern jungle, watching the small playback screen on the camera. It never ceased to fascinate him, even weeks after the arrangement with the U.S. Government had been finalized.

The date and time flickered in the lower left hand quadrant of the video, as a wizened, olive-skinned man in grey cotton pajamas sat at a metal table, sipping a glass of water, stroking his beard and responding to questions from an off-screen voice in a foreign language. He looked unwell, with a gaunt, jaundiced complexion and palsied hands, and appeared bewildered at times; at others, extremely fatigued. The date was April 18, 2011, at 3:22 p.m. and Osama Bin Laden didn’t seem well at all. Julio had seen enough death to recognize it hanging in the air…and this was a man who was poised at its threshold.

Al had filled Julio in on the part the cook played during their hour long discussion – Ernesto had been making special meals for eight years at the villa. It wasn’t difficult to do the math and figure out that the world’s number one most wanted man had been in U.S. custody for at least that long. They’d likely grabbed him during the offensive in the mountains and caves of Tora Bora, assuming they hadn’t had him even before then.

Julio always paused the tape in the same spot – one where Bin Laden stared straight at the camera with a look of despair and resignation in his eyes. He’d been beaten long ago, that much was clear. This was a man with no hope.

Julio had never tried to have the dialog transcribed – it was far too sensitive for any eyes but his. He’d secreted one other copy with his mother, who was unaware of what the flash drive he’d messengered to her contained – he’d instructed her to lock it in her old floor safe and forget about it. He knew she’d do as he asked without question. That’s how mothers were. If anything happened to him, he’d left sealed instructions with a trusted associate in Bogota to go see her – then share the contents of the drive with the world. The friend was a schoolteacher he’d grown up with who had nothing to do with FARC or any political movement so Julio was confident that the instructions would remain sealed in the envelope, undisturbed unless he died an untimely death.

So far, twenty-eight shipments had made their way through U.S. ports with no problems whatsoever. He had no reason to believe that the new smooth passage wouldn’t continue in perpetuity. Political realities were the same the world over – if you wanted power you had to resort to risky plays, and if you had power you’d do anything to maintain it. The U.S. was no different. The bargain would be honored in the same way that mutually-assured destruction had served as an effective deterrent to nuclear holocaust – if both parties understood their existence would be extinguished the moment they violated their pact, then neither would breach it.

The world hadn’t changed during his lifetime and he doubted it would any time soon.

Humanity was a selfish organism.

~

Using a rolled-up situation report, Sam swatted at a particularly persistent fly in seething frustration. The fly proved more dexterous than Sam.

Freshly separated from his wife, and with a challenging new posting, he viewed his current station as a temporary setback on his life track. Sometimes you got thrown curves. You dealt with them as best you could and put one foot in front of the other.

He never understood what had gone so wrong at the end of Richard’s final visit to Panama. Richard had folded up his tent a few days after the final call from Al and departed without saying a word. He’d never offered any explanation, nor any guidance. Just left as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Sam’s relocation orders hit several months later and came as a surprise, to say the least. Not to mention that they resulted in the sudden termination of his marriage. His wife had made it quite clear she’d stuck with him under the expectation that their life would change for the better, not the worse. When he’d told her they had to move within ten days, she’d packed her bags and returned to her family’s home in the States.

He could see her point.

This posting was about as far from the power center of the Beltway as he could imagine. But it wasn’t as though he had fifty job opportunities, and he was a company man so he’d toe the company line whether he liked it or not.