The DMZ Page 7

  Sawatsky set his sandwich down on the bone-china plate that was one of the perks of government dining. “Nothing—directly. Until you look at the long-term results of that destabilization. Look what’s happened even now with the guerrilla advances over the last couple of years. Narco-traffickers operating with complete impunity within the DMZ. Coca and heroin crops proliferating everywhere. Drug labs and flights under the direct protection of the guerrillas.

  “Who does it hurt? The major recipient of those illegal drugs—the United States. And that goes for armed conflict down there too. It’s the same trick the Soviets pulled back in the seventies with the Contras and Sandinistas. They couldn’t hit us directly, but they could sure light a few fires on our borders. Whether we go into Colombia and end up with another Vietnam on our hands or stay back and watch the entire hemisphere south of our borders go up in flames, the mess is going to be ours to clean up.”

  Washing down the last of his sandwich with a gulp of black coffee, James Whitfield set down his mug with an audible thud. “Gentlemen, I’m sorry, but I do have engagements I can’t cancel this afternoon. Would you mind skipping all the intel line and just tell me who your money is on?”

  Martin Sawatsky opened a folder on his lap. Taking out a handful of newspaper clippings, he tossed them onto the desk. “Let’s just ask ourselves who has the most cause to hate the United States.”

  Whitfield picked up the clippings, frowning as he read the headlines aloud. “Morocco spearheads Colombian investment. Iran and Colombia agree to economic cooperation. Syria sells missiles to Colombian guerrillas. Iran to finance meat-packing plant in Colombia’s guerrilla-held region.

  “What’s all this mean?” he asked.

  “What it means,” Sawatsky answered, “is that we’re seeing the same pattern down there as in every other corner of the world. Socialists are out. Islamic fundamentalists are in. Just take a look at the evidence. First we’ve got Islamic terrorists buddying up to Colombian guerrillas. Why? We know Muslim fundamentalists have nothing but horror for Marxist ideals. Now we have Middle Eastern neighbors tumbling all over each other to develop economic ties with Colombia. Again, why? As you said, it’s hard to find a less stable investment right now than Colombia. That Iranian meat-packing plant is one good example. The proposed site is smack in the middle of FARC-controlled territory. There are no major roads or river traffic in and out of the area. On top of that, it’s nowhere near Colombia’s cattle-ranching zone.

  “Add to that the reality that no one—not even Russia at its worst—hates us as much as the Islamic fundamentalists do. And not just a few rogue extremist organizations, either. Plenty of their governments do too. Partly because they see us as the staunch ally of their sworn enemy, Israel. But they have other reasons. Iran has hated us since we supported the Shah and did our best to overthrow the man who dethroned him, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Let’s not forget that we actually supported Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against Iran. Then there is Iraq itself, only nominally Islamic at the level of the ruling class, but with their own reasons for hating the U.S.”

  James Whitfield couldn’t argue with that. In the wake of the Persian Gulf War, it was a little-remembered fact that the United States had been Iraq’s major ally during the decade-long conflict with Iran that preceded their invasion of Kuwait. The reasons were clear enough for any student of that political arena. It had always been in the interests of the United States—and of Britain before her—to keep the oil-rich region of the Persian Gulf splintered into states small and weak enough to need the West to help defend its wealth. This was possible only as long as the region’s two major powers, Iran and Iraq, were kept too busy to turn their ambitions on their smaller neighbors.

  Fortunately for Western peace of mind, those two nations had been enemies since the fabulous Babylonian Empire—present-day Iraq—had been invaded and assimilated by its mortal enemies the Persians—present-day Iran. During the reign of Iran’s dictator, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the United States had encouraged Iranian ambitions against Iraq. That happy alliance ended abruptly when Khomeini blew in from exile to depose the shah and return a cheering population to the tenets of their Shiite branch of Islam. Any U.S. hopes for cooperation soon evaporated as the ayatollah instituted his own reign of terror, branding the decadent West, especially the shah’s former ally, the United States, the Great Satan, and harshly punishing anyone suspected of harboring favorable sentiments toward the infidels. When Khomeini compounded that expression of contempt by taking fifty-two American citizens hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the United States promptly shifted allegiance to Iraq.

  Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in September 1980 kept both countries nicely occupied for almost a decade, along with providing the United States a market for war materials, which the Americans, regardless of supposed alliances, sold profitably to both sides. It was an unpleasant surprise when, more than a million casualties later, Saddam Hussein actually managed to force Iran into a stalemate.

  The Iraqi leader had been naive enough to assume that its Western ally both understood and supported his next goal—the annexation of Kuwait, which Iraq had long considered a rebel province. He had actually called up the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad and informed her of the impending invasion before going ahead with his plans. To Saddam Hussein and others, Kuwait was the expected reward for Iraq’s support of American policy in the region.

  But the United States had never had any intentions of allowing Saddam Hussein’s imperial ambitions to go beyond his advantageous quarrel with Iran. It was simply too dangerous to have one man—and such a man-controlling the bulk of the region’s oil supply. When Iraq struck, so did the United States.

  The rest was history.

  “Then we’ve got Syria,” Sawatsky continued. “And Libya. And Sudan. All Islamic nations where terrorism has been as much a part of their foreign policy as economic development. To these countries, we’re still the Great Satan, and for all their current rhetoric supporting the war on terrorism, we’d better not kid ourselves that their two chief goals have changed—the destruction of Israel and the downfall of the United States.”

  Whitfield was no longer glancing at his watch. “So which is it?” he demanded. “Which nation is stoking Colombia’s war? Or is it the whole bunch? Do you have any hard evidence? Or is this more speculation?”

  “That’s the problem,” General Johnson answered, with an edge of bitterness to his tone. “We have no hard evidence. And not a whole lot of prospects right now of getting any. You know the state of our operations down there since SouthCom relocated to Miami. I’m not going to discuss the pros and cons of returning the canal to the locals. But walking away from our air bases down there—at the least, we’ve placed ourselves out of easy range for radar coverage of the Andean region. And with the refocusing of the bulk of our armed forces on the counter-terrorist operations in the Middle East and Asia—I’m not questioning the urgency of that mission, but it’s left SouthCom gutted to the bone in both resources and personnel. Surveillance flights alone have declined by two-thirds down there, and the narcos know it—and so do the guerrillas. The biggest problem is right here.”

  Out of his seat now, Johnson strode over to where a huge global map covered one whole wall of Whitfield’s office. “Some forty-two thousand square kilometers of territory that former Colombian president Andres Pastrana turned over to their largest guerrilla group, the FARC—excuse me, that’s the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—over the heads of the Colombian congress, the military, and the Colombian people as well. The original idea was a short-term demilitarized zone to pave the way for peace negotiations. But the original ninety-day negotiation period has already extended to more than three years, and the FARC show no intentions of giving that territory back. Nor the Colombian government of demanding it.

  “Nor, for all the compromises the Colombian government has made in ceding the DMZ, have the guerrillas shown any sign of taking the peace negotiati
ons seriously. On the contrary, they’ve stepped up operations against both military and civilian targets everywhere in the country, and they’ve been using the DMZ as a launching pad—just as we predicted.”

  James Whitfield cleared his throat. “Brad, I appreciate the geopolitical lesson, and I agree we have a situation on our hands. But we’re straying from the point. What does any of this have to do with our dead Americans down there?”

  Johnson spun quickly away from the map. “That is the point, Jim! We’ve had three major incidents involving the loss of American military personnel in the last month—all in and around the DMZ. Including the loss of our foremost intelligence asset down there.”

  Whitfield nodded. “The surveillance plane that went down.”

  “That’s right. The DeHavilland RC-7B. We may not be allowed-or even want—to flex our muscles against the guerrillas, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep an eye on what’s going on. We’ve been watching the DMZ since the beginning. Worthless jungle it may be, but don’t forget the only war we ever lost was fought in jungle, and we’ve never had much faith in the sincerity of the FARC’s protestations of peace. No one—not even the Colombian president—really believes the guerrillas have any intention of relinquishing their control on the region as part of the peace process. Not without a fight. Why do you think he keeps extending their deadline? It’s easier than admitting to himself or the Colombian public that he couldn’t take back the zone if he tried.”

  “The RC-7B’s purpose,” Martin Sawatsky explained, “was collecting intel on new coca and poppy plantations and monitoring radio and cell phone communications in territories occupied by either guerrilla or paramilitary forces. But the crew was also making a systematic mapping of the demilitarized zone with every tool we’ve got—sonar, radar, infrared, low-light television—looking for anything out of the ordinary that might shed some light on what exactly the FARC is up to.”

  “The DeHavilland had earlier turned up some valuable intel,” Brad Johnson continued, “and it allowed the Colombian military to foil a major FARC raid. On the night it went down, the crew radioed that the plane would be making a swing down through the DMZ before heading back to base—to test some new night-flying infrared and heat-sensor technology. That was the last we heard from them. Our sat link data indicates there was some attempt at communication just as they went down. But whatever they were trying to tell us never made it through. We wouldn’t have known how or when they went down except that one of our surveillance satellites caught an explosion over the DMZ at the same instant as that aborted communication.”

  “I remember that,” Whitfield said. “The assumption was that the guerrillas got lucky with a SAM.”

  “The media’s assumption,” Sawatsky said. “And we haven’t bothered to set them straight. But there’s major problems with that scenario. The DeHavilland was flying well out of reach of any surface-to-air missile the guerrillas have presented us with so far, even the new RPG-7s they got from Syria. And the plane was equipped with a state-of-the-art missile defense system. Besides, how did they even know we were up there? The plane had the markings of a commercial aircraft. And it was nighttime.

  “As for the other scenarios being tossed around—equipment failure or pilot error or even a bomb—again, no way. That plane was carefully maintained and continually checked over. And the pilot was one of our best. Whatever took that plane out, the fault wasn’t on our end.”

  “We might know more,” Brad Johnson added, again with some bitterness, “except that we haven’t been able to get into the zone. The Colombians say the area is off limits, and they won’t risk jeopardizing what little progress the peace talks have made by violating the DMZ’s sanctity. They say we had no business flying over it in the first place—as though their government hasn’t been falling over backward for any intel we can get them. Not that there would be much to find even if we could get in there. The satellite image pinpoints the DeHavilland’s last position to within a fairly close radius, but with the force of that explosion, there won’t be much left of the plane, and what there is will be scattered across who knows how much roadless, townless, triple-canopy jungle.”

  “Which is one reason,” Sawatsky said, “that we didn’t push it with the Colombians. But only a week later we lost our second asset in the area. Part of the White House’s new counter-narcotics package”—he nodded toward Charles Wilson—“was a consignment of Black Hawk combat helicopters. The first one went to a brand-new military base just north of the DMZ. In fact, the brigade stationed there was one that had been run out of the DMZ itself. The Black Hawk was designated for counter-narcotics operations only—though the FARC may not have known that or cared. In any case, the very next night after the delivery of the Black Hawk, the FARC hit the base, wiping it out without a single survivor.”

  “Which should have been impossible!” the general interjected forcefully. “That’s what doesn’t make sense. One of our guys was there at the time. He’d gone along to help break in the local pilots. The only communication we got was that the base was under attack and that the Black Hawk was going up after them. No suggestion of panic or a situation they couldn’t handle. Then—just like the plane—nothing! When the area commander sent in a convoy the next day to see what was up, they found pieces of that Black Hawk everywhere and the base looking like it had been hit by World War Three.

  “It’s crazy! The guerrillas have never been able to take on a full-fledged military base, however much they might like to hit and run. They just don’t have that kind of firepower. Not even with these new RPG-7s. Those’ll hurt bad enough. But to wipe out a whole base with the kind of destruction we saw there? No way! And the Black Hawk was no Vietnam-era Huey. It was a state-of-the-art, all-options-included combat helicopter that should have been able to take out those guerrillas in two minutes flat.”

  Charles Wilson had been listening with only an occasional assenting nod as the others talked. Now the drug czar spoke up slowly. “None of it makes sense. Whatever mayhem the FARC has been up to in the rest of the country, it’s to their advantage to maintain a certain level of stability in and around the DMZ. This is the guerrillas’ first serious social experiment. They want to show the world they can bring at least some semblance of order and peace to the zone in order to give legitimacy to their political aspirations. What they don’t want is to provoke action from the Colombian military, which is already upset over what they see as an unconscionable pandering to criminal elements by a weak government. Or to provoke the U.S. into stepping outside their present ‘counter-narcotics only’ policy and taking a direct hand against the guerrillas ourselves. So why—and how—these two vicious attacks on American military assets both in and around the DMZ itself? Three, including yesterday’s outrage.”

  “Your American tourists,” John Whitfield said with some satisfaction. At last his visitors were getting to the point.

  “Not tourists. Environmentalists,” Sawatsky reminded. “And only one was ours.”

  “When the DeHavilland went down,” Johnson explained, “we took flak from Colombia’s media once it was made public that an American spy plane, as they termed it, was invading their sovereignty. It was suggested—clearly by some desk jockey who’s never left the padded seat of his executive armchair—that we shift to covert ground surveillance of the DMZ. We’re talking a jungle here the size of a European country with hardly a road or a town, overrun by hostile forces, infested with who knows what-all wildlife—and we’re supposed to mount a meter-by-meter ground search?”

  Sawatsky spoke again. “But if we can’t scope out the whole place, at least it makes sense to nose around a bit. This environmentalist bunch made the perfect cover. Save the Amazon, or something like that. They’ve been facing off with one of the big multinationals for a couple years now over drilling rights in one of the last true virgin rainforests on the planet—which just happens to overlap a good part of the DMZ. If nothing else, the guerrillas have done wonders for conservatio
n in scaring settlers and development out of the jungle.

  “Anyway, the Amazon Protection Society, or whatever it’s called, roped one of the local indigenous tribes into backing their campaign to save the rainforest. And since keeping American business interests out of the area is right in line with what the guerrillas want, the local FARC commander gave the group a safe-passage through their territory. It seemed the perfect opportunity to get into the DMZ. And these indigenous people move freely in the jungle. Not even the guerrillas bother them. Who better to notice if something funny is going on out there? So we got one of our people attached to the group as photographer. John Goodson. Special Forces training. Photography was his hobby.”

  General Johnson took up the narrative as Sawatsky reached for his cooling coffee. “Three weeks ago, John Goodson flew in with a conservationist named Dr. Winifred Renken, plus a national interpreter, to an indigenous village in the DMZ. They had already notified the proper rebel authorities, so they shouldn’t have had any problems. They arrived at the village and talked to the chief. That much we know from the pilot. Then, according to the pilot, they left the village by dugout canoe downstream toward the DMZ itself. He wasn’t informed why—just that they’d be back by dark. The pilot wasn’t overly concerned. The party had a GPS locator and a laptop computer with sat-phone modem. They could holler if they ran into any trouble.

  “But they never came back—and they never called, either. The pilot waited all night, trying to raise the party by sat-phone. When they didn’t respond by daybreak, he began a pattern search of the jungle, checking rivers and lakes for any sign of the canoe. He found nothing. Finally, low fuel forced him back to base. By the time he returned to the village with some of Dr. Renken’s colleagues, he found the place abandoned. But sitting on a stump in the middle of the village was Dr. Renken’s laptop.