Three Minutes Page 32
HE HAD DRIVEN through the night, heading directly east from the morgue, southeast from Bogotá to the province of Guaviare, and the little town of Calamar. From the dead man who constituted his backup plan—if conditions changed—to the main plan, the rescue, the exchange of a life for a life with the US government.
And he hated the feeling, the loneliness, the darkness monotonously knocking against the window, refusing to leave him alone. It sucked the marrow out of him. It was the only thing he feared. Dying no longer frightened him, but living alone did.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
He’d called her, of course. Woke her. He knew what she looked like groggily groping for the phone. And it never gave him a bad conscience—unlike him, she fell asleep the moment they finished talking, even when she was in a temporary shelter without any clear reference points. She was a rock.
“Where are you?”
“Far away.”
“Where, Piet?”
“It’s better that you don’t know where. A place where I’m going to take back our lives.”
Tonight she sounded harder. As she sometimes did in her very own way, Zofia-soft and Zofia-hard, at the same time.
“I hope you do. Because I love you, want to live with you, you know that. But you also know that even if you do, I’m still going. Do you really understand that, Piet? Even if you solve this, even if we survive, it won’t affect my decision to go home.”
“You promised to wait a week—I have four days.”
“Yes. And I will. I’m waiting for you. But afterward, if we survive, we won’t be sitting down together at the kitchen table again, hoping things will get better. If you succeed, the difference is that this time, the boys and I go home—with or without you.”
After that they waited each other out, each with phone in hand, he in the car, she in bed. Silence for the next kilometer, then the next. Listening to each other breathing. Until she kissed the phone twice and hung up.
And by the time, much later, that he parked outside a quiet hotel in Calamar in order to get a few hours of sleep, that terrible loneliness was hunting him down more than ever.
PIET HOFFMANN HAD sat outside a university hospital last night working on one of two vital pieces of paper at the bottom of his leather holster. Now he unfolded the other one.
14:52 (Briefing Calamar.)
15:27 (Departure ATV.)
17:21 (Arrival river.)
18:31 (Landing base camp.)
19:21 (Arrival prison camp.)
19:25 (Attack, break in.)
20:31 (Arrival helicopter.)
23:16 (Arrival Isla Tierra Bomba.)
23:43 (Underwater).
00:32 (Arrival ship.)
00:37:01—00:40:00 (Time window.)
The timeline for a rescue operation of a hostage that, when he’d shown it to Ewert Grens, had been marked with only xx.xx. But now he could time everything in relation to the very last entry, the time window. With as late a start, and as short intervals as possible. Less time meant less exposure, and that meant less risk that their operation would be discovered.
“Ready?”
They were in a church. Small, beautiful, and cool compared to the heat waiting outside—located on the small open space behind the Registraduría Municipal del Estado Civil, which had once been one of Calamar’s most vibrant squares, but was now mostly home to rubble and homeless dogs.
“Ready.”
He looked at seven black masks, who looked back at him, and synchronized their watches.
14:52 (Briefing Calamar.)
Nine hours and forty-five minutes until the goal. Until that gap in satellite surveillance. Which would determine everything and which all other times were based on. That was the precise time the final phase would begin—only then would the time window be closed long enough. The precise time at which he had to break the surface water. If he didn’t make it, if he was a minute late, if his window had already closed, then his chance to exchange a life for a life would be over.
Through Grens, he’d asked Masterson for eight battle-trained incorruptibles—a helicopter pilot with access to a helicopter, and the seven standing in front of him right now in a place the outside world seemed to have forgotten, fully equipped for battle and capable of moving through water and night combat. And who were now listening to and memorizing his overview of Operación Obtener, Operation Recovery, as he broke it down into stages, minute by minute.
Hoffmann spoke, while thinking both of them and himself. He often did that. Stepped out of his body and observed and judged, while his mouth continued to formulate what his brain had already decided. Afterward, he was often unsure if he’d said what he thought he said, it happened so mechanically. But it always seemed to work, no one noticed anything, he’d managed to be both present and absent.
Now, as he briefed them on their advance from the river to base camp and then from base camp to the prison camp, the other half of his mind was busy with thoughts of how thin the line he was balancing on really was, how fragile the protection he’d built. If you, who are standing across from me, were to overpower me now, roll up my mask—it would all be over. Not much more than a meter away stood seven elite soldiers in the employ of the US government. The same government that had sentenced him to death. If they found out that the man who was about to lead them was also a person they were supposed to capture, dead or alive—it would all be over.
No identity. That was how Sue Masterson had presented him to the Crouse Force’s newly appointed director, Navarro’s successor. One of our informants—who needs to remain faceless in order to survive—has located the hostage. The only outsider who knows where he is. And you will assist him. She’d sold him with the nameless trust that was a precondition for all undercover operations. He was neither Hoffmann nor Haraldsson; he was a DEA informant whom she was responsible for and the informant’s anonymity was crucial when identification meant the same as death, for him and for his family. The same conditions as for the members of the Crouse Force, who also wore black masks in public to remain anonymous, incorruptible—impossible to locate, threaten, influence. Anonymity as a starting point was therefore unremarkable, in fact quite the opposite. And as he approached the end of his detailed overview, the other Piet Hoffmann—the one who left his body and watched those seven elite soldiers and their leader from a distance—observed that they seemed to trust him, were willing to follow him in order to free the hostage. Without realizing that this was about exonerating himself, exchanging a cage for a crossed-out name on a kill list.
If they only knew.
15:27 (Departure ATV.)
Hoffmann checked the time. 15:26. One minute ahead of schedule, the pounding in his chest got quieter.
Without the helicopter pilot the transport vehicle had plenty of space on its flatbed for the seven kayaks and a RIB, which accommodated seven soldiers and their equipment. Everyone sat in silence, focused on the mission. A single sound penetrated—it came from the Crouse Force’s Hawkeye plane, which, since their arrival, had been circling five thousand meters above them, radio-jamming the area around Calamar. Nobody in this city who discovered their presence would be able to warn the guerrillas—all telephones, all radio traffic, and data traffic would be wiped out until the mission was completed.
Hoffmann sat alone in the cab, accompanied only by the maps unfolded on the seat next to him. An hour’s journey on what might generously be called a highway, twenty minutes on a much less navigable dirt road, half an hour through the jungle on no road at all. Until they reached a tributary of the Río Vaupes. Until they reached the next phase.
17:21 (Arrival river.)
He checked the time again. 17:25. Four minutes behind schedule.
Unbelievably hot. Unbelievably humid. Around their heads—restless, pressing clouds of sand flies, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing for blood. In front and behind them—rubber trees, sapucaia, Brazil nut trees, fig trees, mahogany, and everything else he had no name for that
was part of the impenetrable vines and vegetation as thick as closed doors. He’d selected a small lagoon in the river as their starting point, that was where they loaded the large rubber boat with fluids—water in one of the twenty-five-liter cans and colada of Cuban espresso in the other. Then, the medical equipment—a first-aid kit enhanced with morphine, serum, tetanus vaccines, and blood thinners. This was also where they distributed the weapons, ammunition, and machetes before getting into their own battle kayaks.
A few seconds later they were pulled into the swiftly flowing water, fighting to keep balance as they were pushed downstream—the lungs of the Amazon and its bloodstream were transporting them deeper toward its heart. The world’s largest river system connected by a thousand tributaries, which supported a whole ecosystem—and for the moment was manifested in those swarms of stinging flies that were then replaced by swarms of biting mosquitoes.
The green carpet on the horizon gradually shifted color as the sun went down. Hoffmann focused all of his strength on fighting and steering with the paddle—he had to keep the big rubber boat he had in tow from getting caught somewhere and pulling him down to his death with its weight. Down to the seven-meter-long anacondas. To the crocodiles and piranhas. To the candiru fish that everyone had stories about but no one had seen, who supposedly swam inside you when you peed in the water, hooked their barbs inside the penis or vagina, and remained there to consume your blood and tissue.
They’d been traveling for almost an hour when Hoffmann heard something behind him that sounded like a whip. He broke away from the current, slowed down, and searched for the source of the sound in the gloom. There. One kayak had collided with a tree trunk, or maybe a rock, and one of the anonymous members of the Crouse Force, who Hoffmann called Five, sat in the swirling water that was shooting like a fountain out of the hole in his sleek craft. While the kayak gave up and sank to the bottom, Five caught the lifeline attached to the rubber boat and blew air into his lifejacket. A couple of breaths, a few strokes, and the stream carried him closer to the rubber boat, then next to it. Hands around the edge, a jerk to bring over his upper body, a short break to gather new strength, a jerk—and his whole body was up. And when Piet Hoffmann gestured with his index finger and thumb from the kayak to ask Everything okay? Five stretched up a thumb from his new location in the towed rubber boat to answer in the affirmative.
18:31 (Landing base camp.)
About a kilometer later Hoffmann’s GPS alarm went off—behind the next sharp bend in the river was the spot where he and El Mestizo had landed. All the remaining combat kayaks and the rubber boat left the wild, rushing current and headed silently toward the riverbank. When Hoffmann took his first step on solid ground, he also checked the time. 18:39. Another four minutes behind schedule. The incident with the sunken kayak. A total of eight minutes, and he couldn’t afford to lose any more time—on the contrary, he had to gain some. The next stage was their move from the river, past the base camp, and on to the prison camp. They would have to move faster than anticipated.
They unloaded, moored the rubber boat to a winding root of one of those unidentifiable trees, and pushed out one kayak at a time into the rushing current. There they’d be captured by the swiftly moving water and in a few kilometers broken and sunk as the river narrowed and became shallower.
Hoffmann knew this place well. The same tiny space between two rocks where the camp staff washed, the same potrillos that he and El Mestizo jumped between when Cristobal brought them here to torture the man Piet had now returned to save. It had been light out then and was dark now. But he remembered every detail. How Cristobal had walked ahead of them with his machete for two hundred and twenty steps to base camp and how they continued without him.
They put on their combat gear and night-vision goggles, loaded their weapons, screwed on their silencers, divvied up the cables and medical equipment.
“Ready?” Hoffmann whispered. Nevertheless, his voice played around them in the humidity. And equally quiet voices answered and danced around too.
They walked slowly in a tight row along a well-beaten path, tripping on twisted roots, bumping into hanging vines. Until only fifty steps remained to base camp—and Hoffmann stopped. On his last visit he’d drawn a mental sketch of where the caletas and chontos stood, of the depression on the right side of the camp that formed its natural border. He also remembered where fifteen fully armed guerrillas and guards were placed, one in every corner of the approximately square camp area. Not especially well trained—young and dedicated, but with no expertise to match what he and his team had. They could easily win a battle here. But that would also be the end of the operation. It would mean discovery, a warning sent to the prison camp another twelve hundred paces away. He directed his men off the path, had them follow him straight into the vegetation, making a semicircle around the right side of the camp. With their machetes they created a new path in the direction of that depression, time-consuming, energy-draining work despite sixteen well-trained arms, and it had to be done in silence. As they reached the depression it went faster—far less concerned about sound spillage as a deep wall of vegetation encircled and isolated them. A good half-hour to move a few hundred meters. Until they reached the path again, now on the other side of the camp. Continued moving down the path until they paused halfway, the place he’d crept to in the middle of the night on his last visit in order to determine the exact coordinates, longitude and latitude—then he’d had no night-vision goggles and he stumbled and fell over the six hundred and twelve steps that separated the prison camp from the open glade they now stood in.
“I want everybody to drink at least half of what’s left. Replenish your energy. Next time we stop, we do it for battle.”
Water and colada from steel flasks, some stretched, some readjusted their weapons. Then they continued walking, approaching their objective, counting down the steps. Silently, stealthily, like hunters trying not to scare away their quarry.
19:21 (Arrival prison camp.)
He checked the time, like before. 19:32. Going around base camp had reduced their pace even more—now he was eleven minutes behind. Time he had to make up—this would all be in vain if he got to that gap one second too late. But he refused to feel stressed, the preparation and implementation of a rescue demanded a controlled calm, spontaneity and shortcuts were seldom the key to a successful mission.
They stopped on the trail with just twenty steps left, adjusted their radios, and put their earpieces in their right ears. While the members of the Crouse Force carefully crouched, crept, and wormed their way toward their assigned positions, Hoffmann snuck over to the tree he’d decided was control mark two on his last visit. A sapucaia tree with branches and thick leaf coverage a good way up its trunk. He quickly climbed two thirds of the way to the top, probably twenty meters, carrying his sniper rifle. From up there he’d have full control of the camp during the rescue. An overview of the twelve camp soldiers. Of Speaker Crouse’s cage. From there, he would also be in control of communication between the rest of the group, no one would be allowed to speak until the operation was over and the hostage free, the seven soldiers would only respond by pressing the transmit button according to a predetermined code.
Hoffmann slid farther out on the tree branch. Now. He was in a good position, good view. His rifle mounted, firmly supported for any shot. A final adjustment to deal with the extreme heat and humidity—turning the sight screws one click to the right, TPR1.
Perfect. He was ready.
The first whispered command. “One to Two, are you in position?”
Two short clicks as an answer. Two was in place, seven meters inside the jungle with a clear view of the commandant’s caleta.
“One to Three, are you in place?”
Three clicks from a small rise of five meters south of the chontos, the camp latrine.
“Four, confirm.”
Four clicks from the most vulnerable position, as close to the prisoner’s cage as they could get. Four w
ould initiate the attack by neutralizing the cage’s guard and then monitoring, defending, and freeing Crouse.
“Five, Six, Seven, Eight—confirm.”
Eight clicks in Hoffmann’s earpiece. Five, Six, Seven, and Eight were grouped behind the guerrilla soldiers’ mess hall, or at least he thought of it that way, a regular caleta, which was used as a sort of gathering place.
“We are now ten and a half minutes behind schedule. Synchronize. Nineteen thirty-five and . . . zero. And don’t forget—spare the commandant.”
All were in place. Time for the countdown.
“Good luck. In thirty seconds.”
Hoffmann, before climbing up, had taken off his night-vision goggles, which were useless for longer distances—now he pulled a pair of night-vision binoculars out of a leg pocket to orient himself in the camp and find the seven soldiers in position. Not even a trained sniper gaze could find any traces of them, much less see them.
“In twenty seconds.”
He searched further, training the gun at one of the four places the Crouse Force members should be at. Nothing in his telescopic sight. Until he pressed the little red button just above the sight for the infrared camera and was suddenly staring at the yellowish-green outline of a man, motionless on his knees a few meters into the jungle, near the toilet.
He moved his sight again into the camp, the largest building, the mess hall. There, inside the thin cloth of the tent, the outline of five yellow-green figures. He’d hold the rifle right here.
“In ten seconds.”
He closed his eyes and three deep, slow breaths passed through his nose.
“In five, four, three, two, one . . .”
19:25 (Attack, break in.)
The moment the sound of his own voice died away, he perceived two muffled shots just behind the hostage’s cage—followed by four quick clicks in his earpiece. Four had taken out the cage’s guard. Subsonic ammunition engineered for the silencer, whose residual noise would be soaked up by the wall of vegetation around them—taking out the prison camp without alerting base camp.