Chapter 16

Posted: April 09, 2007 - 12:38:06 am?

After Gabe's visit to their table, he became the topic of conversation among Riley, his mercenaries and the two DEA men. Gary Fletcher, the man who had briefly served with Gabe, spoke first.

"Mr. Riley, Ballard's got a point about the kidnapping of the women and children. That's something we didn't sign on for. He also had my undivided attention, when he said we needed to not get in his way if we want to live. As soon as he introduced himself, I remembered him from Fort Bragg. He had a huge reputation as a hard assed, straight shooter. Then there is the fact that he was here before us, even though he is working alone. That ought to be indication enough about how good he is. I'm calling Mr. Bellows tonight and pulling the plug; we'll head back to Bogotá tomorrow. I highly recommend you go with us."

Riley nodded in agreement. This mess had the potential to become a major embarrassment for Consolidated Minerals and Metals if the company's involvement with Colonel Nuñez was made public.

"I'll call my boss tonight also and let him know what's going on. I want to be a long ways away from here before any more shit hits the fan," Riley said.

The two DEA men didn't have the option of leaving. In a week or so, the replacement helicopters were arriving, and the eradication of the coca crops had become a priority in the war on drugs. Besides, the FARC was on the US State Department's list of terrorist organizations, so they didn't feel that there would be any repercussions from a little harsh treatment of the rebels and their sympathizers by the Colombian authorities. They would remain above the fray, keep a low profile and let the situation run its course.

Gabe and Selena finished their dinner and walked over to the pay phone situated in the lobby. Using a calling card, Gabe dialed the Stovalls in Orlando.

Alexandra Stovall answered the phone mounted on the kitchen wall on the third ring.

"Hello Lexie, I have news for you, so you might want to have Charles join you on the phone," Gabe said, as soon as she said hello.

Alexandra knew the news couldn't be bad, or Gabe wouldn't have used his pet name for her. She called Charles into the kitchen and put the phone on speaker.

"Go ahead, Gabriel, I have you on speakerphone."

"Okay. I found the kids and they are fine. They are not hostages now, but the situation here is making it difficult to get them out of here and back to Bogotá. Add to that, Pete fell in love with one of his captors who wants to seek amnesty, and he won't leave her until the threat here is over. I figure, though, that no matter what, I can have the girls back in Bogotá in a week or ten days."

The Stovalls both heaved a sigh of relief.

"So when will you be bringing them back to Orlando?" Charles asked.

Gabe paused for a few seconds before he replied.

"I'm not coming back. I met someone down here, and I'm staying. I think it is pretty much the same thing for Pete. One or both of you might want to fly down and take them up."

The pause was on the other end of the phone this time. Finally, Alexandra spoke.

"This is kind of sudden, isn't it Gabriel?"

"Yeah, but it happened to me once before with you Alex," Gabe reminded her.

Gabe wasn't much for chatting on the phone, so the conversation ran out of steam. He did promise to call them again in a few days before he bid them goodnight. Gabe turned to Selena and translated the conversation for her. Selena shot him a happy smile and grabbed his arm.

"I can not believe you tell everyone about us so easily, my husband. Do you not fear what they might think about such a quick romance and marriage?"

Gabe stopped walking and turned to face her.

"The only thing I fear, Little One, is you coming to your senses and realizing that you are much too good for me. I am very proud that you are my wife and can't wait until we make it official."

Gabe was heart attack serious in everything he said to her. It was a constant amazement to him that she loved him so much. He thought her beauty and intelligence were wasted on him and the simple lifestyle he wanted for them, even though she averred that she wanted the same things. He was smitten all over again every time he looked at her. Selena rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him firmly on the lips.

"Your only fear should be that you are stuck with me forever because that is your fate, Gabriel Ballard. Now hurry up so we can make love in a bed for a change, I am burning for you to take me."

While Gabe was speaking with the Stovalls, across the piazza, another man was on the phone also. The caller was Father Francisco (Padre Paco to the younger parishioners) Ortega, the young assistant pastor at Our Lady of Redemption Church and Parish. The man on the other end of the conversation was the assistant to the Archbishop of Ibegue. Father Ortega had been urgently trying to reach the Archbishop all afternoon, but the man was in Bogotá, meeting with the Cardinal of Colombia. The assistant was a seminary classmate of Francisco, and had promised to relay a message the next time the Archbishop called.

"Paco, I informed his Grace of your call, he said he would take the matter up with his Eminence, Cardinal Santos, as soon as possible tomorrow. His advice to you, Paco, was 'to tend your flock wherever they may have strayed'."

The urgent matter that Father Ortega was trying to address was the hostages taken by the AUC soldiers that day, one of whom was his superior, Father Gonzales. As he sat by the phone and pondered the situation, he could only think of one way to minister to his missing flock. He would have to go to them and set them free. Every one in the Parrish loved Father Gonzales, so he figured he could raise plenty of help. Padre Paco was a great believer in nonviolent protest as an expression of the will of the people. He formed a plan around that theme and picked up the phone again.

That same night, Marta Cardenas and Peter Ballard snuck away from the mountain that housed the caves of the Columna Carlos Sanchez, so Marta could make a telephone call of her own. Once she and Pete reached the hill of the cell phone tower, Peter spread out the blanket he'd brought and Marta nervously dialed a telephone number with a Quindío prefix.

Quindio was a small district in the high Andes a hundred miles West of Bogotá. Some of the finest coffee beans in the world grew on large plantations that dotted the Eastern slope of the mountains. At one of those plantations, a man just leaving his home office for bed turned around and answered the phone that jangled on his desk. When he spoke, his voice was deep, aristocratic and somewhat annoyed.

"Cardenas here, it is very late to be receiving calls."

"Hola Papa es Marta, yo se disculpa por llamar tan tarde (Hello Papa, it's Marta, sorry for calling so late."

Diego Cardenas had to sit down to continue the conversation. The call was the first time in eight years that his daughter, his only child, had tried to contact him. He had thought her dead, and that feeling was reinforced two weeks earlier, when two DAS agents came to the house and questioned him about her. When the DAS agents asked for the most recent picture he had of her, he thought it was to identify her remains. Given those facts, Diego refused to allow himself any false hope.

"I haven't heard from my daughter in nearly a decade, Señorita, so how do I know this isn't a cruel prank?"

Marta answered his question with one of her own.

'¿Soy alambique tu princesa flaca en coletas, Papi (Am I still your Skinny Princess in Pigtails)?"

"¡Gloria a Dios! (Glory to God)" Diego exclaimed. "Temimos que fueras muerto (we feared you were dead)."

After Don Diego brought his wife to the phone, Marta spent half an hour explaining to her parents why she had run away and why she hadn't contacted them sooner. Yes, she had initially lumped her parents in with the oppressors of the Colombian people, but she had kept herself incommunicado for the last seven years to protect her parents, not to punish them. She did not want the government to extract revenge on her parents for her actions. Peter held her hand and she leaned on his shoulder as she told her parents about meeting him and all they'd discussed. Finally, she asked her father to act as a go-between in her attempt at amnesty.

"I will see to it," Don Diego averred.

Pete held Marta as she cried with happiness at being reunited with her parents. Afterwards, they took advantage of the chance to be alone and made sweet love under the stars. They clung together desperately unsure of what tomorrow would bring and spoke hopefully of the future. They were lying on their backs, sated and deliriously in love, when Peter asked Marta to marry him and she accepted.

Captain Delgado, the commanding officer of Bravo Company of the Tiger Battalion, had his unit in a tight perimeter of interlocking firing positions, before darkness fell on the mountain across from the airfield. He radioed Colonel Nuñez and reported his status, including what he thought happened to the scout squad. Nuñez thought the actions of the FARC in ambushing the scouts was an indication that Delgado must be a threat to the insurgents' base camp, and determined to exploit the fact.

"You have done better than you think, Captain Delgado, now we must increase the pressure. Tomorrow, I will reinforce you with another company. The two of you will clear the mountain you are on now, then wheel toward the peak to the north. I will place a blocking force in the pass between the two mountains. You will drive the rebels right into my hands."

Sergeant Morales and his weary soldiers slipped into the caverns by the waterfall entrance an hour after it was fully dark. He took the wounded men to the dispensary, then made sure his troops cleaned their weapons and drew replacement ammo before he sent them to bed. As tired as he was personally, though, his day wasn't over quite yet. Instead of turning towards his quarters, he headed the opposite way towards the orderly room. He needed to brief the Comendadora and help her plan for the next day.

Marta was sitting in the orderly room talking with Captain Azevedo, the commander of A Company, when Morales strode into the big chamber. The normally serious Azevedo flashed him a smile, and Marta gave him a hug.

"I am so very happy to see you Serafin, my old friend. We were just discussing an idea Señor Ballard gave me last night. Gabriel said that where the path to the front entrance of the caves turns off the main trail, is a perfect place to trap El Tigre Gordo and his men. We have been busy all day, preparing concealed fighting positions."

As Zorra explained what she was planning, she showed him on a map she had spread out on her desk.

"I've established observation posts at each end of the main trail where it comes off the road to Prado. Two hundred meters in front of the cave entrance, is where we are emplacing our defenses. The defensive positions will be set up in a horseshoe, with the cliff face at the open end. We have found excellent sites for our machineguns, and have already identified secondary positions in case we need to fall back. With the machinegun strong points, we can hold off Nuñez and his goons with as few as forty fighters."

Morales nodded his head as he envisioned her plan. He was not surprised when she gave him the final details.

"A very workable plan Comendadora, now we only need a way to draw him into our trap."

"Exactly right, mi amigo, but Nuñez is a sly old coyote and will smell a rat unless we are careful and clever."

Morales chuckled and reminded her that she had named herself after an animal well known for being clever and careful.

"Yes, Serafin, Nuñez is the coyote and I am the fox, but you and Gabriel will be los lobos (the wolves)."

While Sergeant Morales and Commander Zorra were talking in the orderly room, Captain Eduardo Garza and Darla Ballard were falling in love in the makeshift dispensary they had created. Both of them were amazed at how perfect the other seemed. They communicated with each other through a combination of bad English from him, answered by worse Spanish from her, yet somehow, all the important things were said. Darla wondered if there was something in the Andean Mountain water that made Ballards fall in love so quickly. Meanwhile, Garza wondered what magical power the Ballards had that caused formerly rational Colombians to fall madly in love with them.

The town of Prado was located along an unnavigable section of the Magdalena River. The swiftly flowing fifteen-mile stretch of cataracts and rapids also made it impossible to bridge the river near the town. A bridge ten miles north of town crossed the river and led toward Purificación and Ibegue. Twelve miles south of Prado, a two-lane road built on top of a hydroelectric dam led toward Cali. Impassable mountains to the north and east, made the two bridges the only routes in and out of the small town. The town had existed in this isolation for more than a thousand years; first as a Muisca village then as a town founded by Conquistadors searching for gold.

When the gold mines played out, the Conquistadores departed, leaving only a few monks to run the Catholic Mission. Because of their isolation, the population of the Prado plateau retained more of their Muiscan heritage than the people in areas more colonized by the Spaniards. As a result, the people of Prado were proudly independent. That independence was why over a thousand people answered Padre Paco's call, and assembled in front of Our Lady of Redemption Church, on the morning after their Parrish Priest and the others were taken hostage. Father Ortega stood on the steps of the church, and adressed the crowd with a bullhorn.

"My brothers and sisters, Father Gonzales along with many women and children can't come join us in prayer this morning, so I say we take our prayers to them. I say we go to the airfield and pray for their release, and that we also pray for the souls of their captors."

The crowd murmured in agreement. In only minutes, young Father Ortega was at the head of a solemn column of townspeople trekking towards the airport. As the walk progressed, more people swelled their ranks. Two of those new additions were Gabe and Selena. The couple was heading in that direction anyway on their way back to the caverns of the Columna Carlos Sanchez.

John Riley and his hired mercenaries saw the crowd clogging the road north of town and detoured toward the South to avoid whatever was about to happen at the airport. It would add a hundred miles to the trip back to Bogotá, but it would also insure they were not connected, even accidentally, to any more unpleasantness.

The DEA agents were watching the scene unfold from the dining room of the hotel. They were keeping a low profile as events played themselves out. When the senior of the two agents saw Gabe and Selena join the throng, he gestured towards them through the window and related what he'd learned about Gabe when he called back to the DEA night desk in Washington the evening before.

"I checked Mr. Ballard out last night and learned some very interesting shit about him. I had the night desk run a NAC (national agency check) on him, and he popped up all over the place. In addition to being a genuine war hero, he worked for the spooks over at the CIA. Our overnight Agent-in-Charge called his counterpart at the CIA, and tried to get some more info on the guy. The CIA wouldn't tell him anything, except that Ballard was about the last guy on earth we wanted to be fucking around with."

The junior agent digested what his boss said and asked, "So what are we going to do now?"

The senior agent shrugged before replying.

"We are going to sit on our asses in this nice little hotel until Ballard is gone and Nuñez has done what he needs to do. After the dust has settled, we bring in the new choppers and it's back to business as usual."

Father Ortega was leading almost two thousand people, when he turned off the road onto the airfield. Ortega had worked out what he would do as he walked, and set about putting his plan into action. He briefed the first twenty or thirty people behind him, and deputized them to get everyone in a single file, following him. Instructions complete, he slowly started walking towards the camp of the Tiger Battalion. He hadn't taken more than a dozen steps, before a jeep came careening towards him. The jeep stopped in front of him and an officer about his age jumped out.

"What is the meaning of this, Father?" the officer asked.

"We have come in peace to pray for the safety and freedom of Father Gonzalez and the others you have kidnapped," Ortega replied.

The young officer was nonplussed by Ortega's statement, but forged ahead anyway.

"Those who are in our protective custody are being treated well and will be released soon. Colonel Nuñez personally guarantees this. I am afraid you must leave here now, Father, and take your people with you. This is a war fighting camp, after all, and we have already been attacked twice by the FARC."

Father Ortega looked the young officer in the eye and answered him.

"We will leave this place when we have finished praying, Lieutenant, and not a second before. I remind you again that we are unarmed, and mean you or anyone else no harm. If your colonel wants to speak with me about the release of the hostages you are illegally holding, I will be right here."

Then with a wave of his hand in a gesture to follow him, Ortega started walking around the perimeter of the camp, about fifty feet in front of the razor wire. A single line of villagers trailed behind the priest until the entire encampment was surrounded. When Father Ortega reached his starting point, he passed the word for everyone to join hands and hopped onto the bed of the parish's pickup truck that had followed the procession to the airfield. Father Francisco had loaded the pickup the night before with a portable altar and everything else needed to conduct a service. Before the officer could react, Father Ortega gave the sign of the cross and started Mass.

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit..." he intoned sonorously into the battery-powered bullhorn.

Gabe and Selena watched all this in amazement, as they continued to walk up the road. Two hours later, they were back at the caverns, relating the events to Comendadora Zorra.

Colonel Nuñez was as astonished as the young lieutenant, when the townspeople encircled his camp and the priest started conducting Mass. Nuñez would have loved to stop the whole farce in its tracks, but the young priest was busy heaping blessing on his soldiers as they knelt inside the razor wire. Nunez turned his head, when the crowd buzzed as the older priest and his other captives exited their tents to participate in the service. Father Ortega smiled and called out to his superior.

"Father Gonzalez, it is wonderful that you could join us, because I will need your help celebrating the Eucharist. Please come up and join me, I'm sure your hosts will understand the need with all of our people and his, who wish to receive the Holy Communion."

Father Gonzalez made the sign of the cross, gathered the other hostages around himself, and looked at El Tigre. When the Colonel nodded curtly, he walked his flock out of the gate and joined his remarkable young protégé. As the old priest left, Nuñez decided that the act of freeing the priest and his other hostages might be just the gesture needed to at least insure the townspeople's neutrality. To reinforce that idea, he walked out with them to celebrate the Mass.

Captain Delgado, the commander of the Tiger Battalion Company occupying the mountaintop across from the airfield, was much relieved when the night passed without an attack by the FARC. He was even more relieved when the second company trudged up the mountain to join him. After a short rest, the two companies moved out towards the South. Half way down the southern slope of the mountain, they split apart, Delgado's company turning East, then North, to clear that side of the mountain, while the other company turned West and North to do the same.

Captain Delgado radioed the base camp and informed Major Pasada of their situation and location. Pasada acknowledged the message and said the blocking force was in place and concealed at the pass between the two mountains. Three fourths of the soldiers of the Tiger Battalion were now on the field of battle within twenty-five hundred meters of the Carlos Sanchez Column.

Near the top of the mountain of caverns, the guard at the waterfall entrance smiled at the handset of the captured radio, as Delgado made his intentions clear to Major Pasada. Delgado and Pasada had no idea that their radio traffic was being monitored, because they had changed frequencies just that morning. Unfortunately for them, neither realized that one of the captured scouts had revealed the new frequency after some less than gentle persuasion from Sergeant Morales. The guard cranked the telephone at his post, and passed the news to Captain Ortiz in the orderly room.

Ortiz relayed the news to Commander Zorra, who passed it on to Gabe and Morales. Gabe nodded and explained what was happening.

"They are doing a systematic sweep of the other mountain, looking to either engage any of us they find, or drive us towards the unit in the pass. I think now would be a good time to try drawing them up towards us. Why not attack the blocking force from the rear to let them know we are over here and see what happens?"

Commander Zorra approved Gabe's plan and went back to strengthening the defensive positions in front of the main entrance. Gabe took the VSS 'Vintorez' sniper rifle, six soldiers and Selena with him to ruin the day of the blocking force down in the pass. Along the way, Gabe stopped and adjusted the battle sight zero of the sniper rifle.

While Gabe was carefully making his way down the southern slope of the mountain, Sergeant Morales was distributing ammunition and hand grenades to the remainder of the platoon. Commander Zorra had done the same for her platoon earlier in the day. When the rearming was complete, Morales went out to help fortify the positions in front of the main entrance. Morales figured that within forty-eight hours, it would all be decided, one way or the other.
Joe J & Wet Dream-Girl
Chapter 17