Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (9 page)

 
          
There
are no secrets between us,” Gachez said, spreading his hands. We are a family,
I have always told you everything.” He turned to Escalante. “You remember, my
friend. I introduced you to Jose eight months ago in Havana ...”

 
          
Escalante
thought for a moment, then an incredulous expression spread across his chiseled
face.

 
          
“You
mean those
children?”
Pena said.
“You’ve hired those
es- cupiros
to
fly for you?”

 
          
Aes,
I have,” Gachez said, trying not to show his irritation. “I introduced them to
you
over a year ago and you thumbed your
nose at them. I told you they had ideas, plans that could make us
all
rich. You chased them away like an
old lady chases away chickens from her back porch.” He stood and began to pace
around the conference table. “Now I am supposed to share their services with
you?”

 
          
Keep
your Cuban brats,” Pena said. “I only wanted to know what your secret was. Now
that I know . . .” But he was worried.

 
          
“They
were no more than children,” Escalante said.
“They
are the ones that have penetrated the American Coast Guard’s
detection network?”

 
          
“The
Cuchillos are young, smart, resourceful—and loyal,” Gachez said. Their services,
of course, are at the disposal of any member of the cartel, but they are in my
employ. I will be happy to negotiate a fair and equitable price for their
services.”

 
          
“I
thought so,” Pena murmured, motioning for more cognac.

 
          
Gachez
ignored him. “We can go up on deck and talk business,” he told Escalante, and
they left without another word.

 
          
Pena
accepted another glass of liqueur. So Gachez had hired the Cuchillos. A bold
step for Gachez, who usually surrounded himself with blood relatives, like some
immigrant Italian mafioso. A bold step . . . but one that seemed to be working.
How to argue with success? It would bear additional investigation. There might
indeed be more to this than an experiment—this actually might be a move by
Gachez to grab the initiative and move up to the head of the Medellin cartel.

 
          
In
spite of the occasional conflict between the families, the cartel’s strength
was in part because no family actually ruled over the others. Most large
shipments from Colombia included product from each of the families, so if the
shipment was lost or intercepted no one family would overly suffer. The coca
plantations in Peru and Bolivia were roughly the same size. The distribution
networks were accessible to all members of the cartel, and each family head
held an equal vote in all cartel matters. They shared the risks and the rewards
equally .. .

 
          
Crackdowns
by the U.S. Customs Service and Coast Guard had put pressure on the families to
maintain shipment levels, and in the past several months the families had
answered the pressure with smaller shipments of cocaine paste through more
risky smuggling routes such as overland through Mexico, and by riskier methods
such as containerized cargo. Some shipments were out of the cartel’s hands for
days, even weeks, which increased the risk of discovery and interception.

 
          
But,
Pena thought, if Gachez could get large shipments into the United States by air
or sea drops, in spite of the crackdowns, he was for sure positioned to head
the Medellin cartel. And since the cartel had rejected the Cuchillos several
months earlier, they belonged to Gachez—he could legally contract their
services out to the rest of the cartel. He could actually make a profit on the
smuggling business without risking a proportional amount of his own product.

 
          
Something
like that could
not
be tolerated.

 
          
Zaza Airfield,
Verrettes
,
Haiti

 
          
It
was a short if solemn ceremony executed with military precision. At dawn eighty
soldiers marched to the flagpole in the center of the small airfield’s
headquarters building. With the Cuban national anthem blaring on loudspeakers,
the four-man honor guard mounted the colors and, just below the flag, unfurled
a small triangular black flag. The two flags were then hoisted and the soldiers
saluted the colors until the last notes of the Cuban anthem,
La Bayamesa,
echoed away. The black flag
would remain with the standard until dusk, signifying a day of mourning for all
those at the small airstrip.

 
          
The
commander of Zaza Field, Colonel of Aviation Agusto Salazar, dropped his salute
and listened to the crisp sound of his soldiers lowering their salutes in
unison, then moved forward on the front porch of the concrete-and-stucco
headquarters building and came to parade rest position, a signal to his adjutant
to order his troops similarly.

 
          
Salazar,
looking very much the flying hero, favored riding chaps and tall black leather
riding boots over a flight suit and flying boots. His shirt was covered with
patches and cloth ribbons, crowned by the Soviet-style flying wings over his
left breast pocket—Salazar was a graduate of the Soviet Union’s premier
military flight training school and was qualified in a dozen different fixed-
and rotary-wing aircraft, including some of the USSR’s newest and most advanced
weapons systems—from the MiG-29 fighter to the Antonov 225 heavy cargo
transport to the Mil Mi-28 attack helicopter. It helped that Salazar was taller
than most of his Latino compatriots by a head, with long dark hair and a thin
neat moustache.

 
          
Actually
he might have been mistaken for a foppish Hollywood- style refugee from Central
Casting, trying to look dashing and heroic, and indeed many of the young
aviation cadets under his command at the flight training and support base had
been known to call him “Colonel Pepper” or “Colonel Earhart” behind his back.
They were wrong. Salazar’s dark eyes had their own message, matched by a black
temper.

 
          
“We
have suffered a tragedy,” Salazar was now saying. “Loss of comrades is always a
tragedy, the greatest for this unit since its inception a year ago. We shall
never forget those who died at the hands of the murderous Americans in the
service of their country.”

 
          
Salazar
was also an actor. These were children, he reminded himself. Only children
would really accept this nonsense. But they were also skilled and fearless
pilots. Extreme youth helped. Live today, for tomorrow we may die, and so
forth.

 
          
Salazar
was the commander of the unit “Cuchillos,” Spanish for “knives” or “blades.”
The Cuchillos was a unit of dropouts, men and women dismissed from Cuba’s
regular flying training units in the Revolutionary Air Force. Because all had
compulsory military duties to perform after graduation from high school, the
dropouts were usually placed in reserve units close to their hometowns, where
they were required to complete their military training—three years on active
duty, ten years in the ready reserves and the rest of their lives in the
inactive reserves or local militia.

 
          
But
becoming a pilot in Cuba was often a political decision—it had little to do
with flying skills and more to do with who one’s parents were or how
influential one’s family was in Castro’s regime. And the favored, well-educated
kids were rarely motivated to spend much time in the military, which often
meant that the best pilot candidates were discarded while the pampered kids
became the pilots more skilled at kicking around enlisted men and going to
all-night parties than dogfighting.

 
          
But
Salazar, although a fervent Communist and harboring an intense hatred for anyone
or anything having to do with Americans, eventually found himself a willing
member of a large cocaine and marijuana smuggling ring, run by the General of
the Revolutionary Army Renaldo Ochoa Sanchez. At first the smugglers had the
full cooperation and permission of the Castro regime—as long as Castro was
getting his cut of the profits—but when Ochoa’s popularity and wealth began to
match, then threaten to exceed Castro himself, Ochoa and his loyalists were
executed. Salazar himself escaped the purge and fled to nearby Haiti with his
secret bank accounts secure.

 
          
Using
his wealth and power as an ex-Cuban officer, Salazar bought an appointment as a
district militia commander of central Haiti and placed in charge of providing
air support for the corrupt, quasidemocratic regime. It was the perfect cover
for a drug smuggler. With his new official credentials, he was able to procure
military hardware from a variety of sources and equip his unit far better than
the poor government of Haiti could ever afford. He took the washouts and
rejects from the Cuban reserve units and placed them in his secret unit at Zaza
Airfield. He trained them in dilapidated old turboprop and jet fighters,
broken-down cargo planes and any other flying machine handy. Eventually he hired
on experts in other fields like paratroopers, forward combat controllers, air
traffic controllers, weapons and even demolition experts. In less than a year
he had created an army air wing comprised of men and women who averaged only
nineteen years of age.

 
          
“Our
brave comrades could have escaped with their lives,” Salazar went on. “They had
accomplished their mission, they could have returned to base without further
risk to themselves. But they saw that their comrades were under attack from
American secret police units. They ignored the risk, turned their aircraft
around and attacked, creating a diversion that allowed our freedom fighters to
counterattack. They escaped, the mission was a success but our brothers took
heavy ground fire and were shot down. I have reports that there were survivors
but that they were tortured and then executed.”

 
          
Their
reaction was better than expected. Even the few doubters in the group, the ones
who otherwise recognized propaganda when it was being spoon-fed to them, could
not help but be swept up in the tide of anger all around them.

 
          
“American
Coast Guard and Customs Service have declared open war on the men and women of
Cuba
,
and
on this organization,
your
family.
The Coast Guard pretends to be a life-saving service. Not so. They are just
another part of the military that rules the United States. The Customs Service
pretends to be a peaceful government agency. In fact it is composed of armed
thugs and mercenaries who extort tribute from citizens and collect bribes and payoffs
from law-abiding foreigners. They are hired criminals with guns and badges.
Remember, however, that they are well armed and tenacious, like hungry
mongrels. Do
not
underestimate them.
Learn their tactics and their weapons. The memories of our fallen comrades, of
the horror of the way they died must not be forgotten.” Of course, putting the
pictures of the dead Shorts crew up in every classroom and hangar in Ver-
rettes would help, too.

 
          
“You
are the Cuchillos! Be proud and you will defeat your enemies and take control
of the skies.”

 
          
Salazar
saluted the cadets, then turned and walked briskly back into headquarters to
his office. He sat down at his desk and propped his jack-boots up on the
smoothly polished desktop. His paneled office walls were decorated with all
manner of weapons from Oriental swords to exotic machine guns—all fully
functional—plus an entire wall of throwing knives. The knives, in fact, were
his favorite. He withdrew one knife from his boot, hefted it for a moment, then
hurled it at the door to the outer office. Right on target, as usual. To
celebrate he pulled a nasal atomizer out of a pocket and took a quick snort of
cocaine. High-grade. Not too much, he told himself. A tiny bit helped him to
forget that he was stationed in the asshole of Haiti, in exile from his beloved
Cuba.

 
          
There
was a quick knock on the door to the outer office. Salazar put the atomizer
away. “Come.”

 
          
His
adjutant, Field Captain Enrique Hermosa, swung open the door. “Did you call for
me, sir?” Salazar motioned to the back of the door, and watched as Hermosa
retrieved his knife from the thick wood and handed it to him. He slipped it
back into his right boot as Hermosa poured strong Colombian coffee for the
commander.