Ballesteros & Pena

After it became apparent that recapturing Escobar and his henchmen was going to take time, Javier and I settled into a routine. I continued to wake up at three or four in the morning, never looking forward to that ice-cold shower that could bring back the dead. We’d hang out between the U.S com room and the Pablo hotline phone center. We ate our meals at the casino and grew to enjoy what there was of them. (I swear, at times I was so hungry when I left the mess hall that I could have eaten a cockroach like Steve McQueen in Papillon.)

We jogged, shared novels, and even got a chance to check out recent cinema releases. Like I mentioned, the Delta guys had some pretty cool stuff that may pale with what exists today, however, in the summer and fall of 1992, it seemed top shelf. We took turns watching ‘Basic Instinct’ on a miniature video apparatus that was so small that to watch the screen, it was necessary to drape a blanket over your head. I must admit, I rather enjoyed the chance to see an American movie. It was welcome break. I was so starved to see anything other than Colombian programming that I would have watched an “Ernest” movie and liked it.

The intel teams kept going out at night, identifying targets. Plans were made as were assignments, many of which I was not privy to – need to know – that sort of thing. In hind sight, I’m glad they kept me in the dark.

The Élite Corps mounted up in the morning and did their thing, coming back in the afternoon. We sorted through the material they brought back. I identified and collected tracing data on the guns and explosives. It had all become rather routine. However, there were times when something unusual would occur and the Colombians came to me for my supposed expertise.

Before I continue, I must mention that the reputation I had developed with the Colombian police and military gave me credentials I did not deserve. While it was true that I had distinguished myself as a weapons and explosives identification expert and had been touted by my Colombian counterparts at the highest levels as an intelligence savant, I was not the kind of weapons or explosives expert the rank-and-file believed me to be.

On one occasion, the Colombians brought back a safe they took from one of the cartel’s business associates. They didn’t have the combination, so they asked for ideas how to open it.

I used to be an explosives instructor (today they are referred to as certified explosives handlers), so they came to me for help. I was at the U.S. com room when they came to see me. I had to be honest and told them that I didn’t think there was anything I could do and recommended a locksmith. One of the SEALS that was there suggested drilling a hole in the safe and inserting C-4 to open it. He went about taking measurements of the safe and inserted them into a formula he had handy and presented it to me.

Basically, it was a good idea – if you just wanted to open the safe. The overpressure created by the blast would force the pins keeping the safe closed out of their slots and voilà – the safe would open. However, there were a couple of problems I pointed out, the obvious problem being that the blast would damage whatever was in the safe including computer disks (remember, we’re talking 1992), tape and video recordings, and any other device that could contain evidence or significant intel. The other problem was that C-4 is incendiary and could burn documents, money, and any other paper contents of consequence. We needed whatever was in the safe intact and uncharred.

On another occasion, a plainclothes team of National Policemen I didn’t work with was brought to me by a plainclothes officer with whom I did work. They had an RPB Mac-10 .45 caliber machine pistol with a silencer that no longer functioned properly. Naturally, they expected me to fix it. After all, I was their neighborhood ‘weapons expert.”

I looked at the silencer. By its condition, it was apparent that it had not been opened in who knows how long. Another thing that was blatantly obvious was that the threads had been stripped and the officers had to physically hold the silencer in place to fire it. I have never had any training in gunsmithing. However, I have worked enough illegal silencer cases to be familiar with how they work. Many of the silencers I’ve seen are improvised, using simple metal tubes stuffed with wire scouring pads. Having one of these (without registering it with NFA) in the states will get you ten years in the joint. Deliver it and that’s an additional ten years. If it can be proven that you built it – add another ten. Like the saying goes: ‘Don’t try this at home’.

I told the team that I was not that kind of gun expert but agreed to help. After I explained how some of the silencers I’ve seen use scouring pads, we went to the shop to take a look. I put the silencer in a vice, unscrewed it, and proceeded to pour out a torrent of wire scouring pad dust. There were kids from the neighborhood where the school was situated that always seemed to be around. I gave one of them some Colombian pesos and asked him to get me a bag of scouring pads. After he came back with the bag, I stuffed a few in the silencer and screwed the lid back on after applying a healthy dose of gun oil. We found some plumbers tape in the shop and I applied it to the threads. We took the machine pistol and silencer to the gun range and shot it. It worked perfectly. I gave them the bag and recommended that they change out the scouring pads as often as they could for maximum effectiveness. I saw one of them weeks later and asked how the silencer was working. He gave the ‘O.K.’ sign and said, “they never heard us coming.”

Those are the two incidents that stand out among many. Like I said – it all became routine and faded into the white noise of my memory. The urgency of being on standby at the school, waiting on the Search Bloc to bring in prisoners, contraband, guns, or explosives also loss momentum as the months dragged on. Meanwhile, there were other concerns and obligations for both Javier and I requiring that we leave Medellin to attend to them. So, we did so long as one of us remained to handle anything that might come up. Later, Murphy would join the rotation.

The Colombian Army was eager for me to resume my lectures at the War College. So was the Colombian Naval Infantry, who wanted me to deliver lectures to their intelligence officers working on the North Coast. The local branch of the Judicial and Investigative Police (CNP-SIJIN) in Manizales asked me to come and train their officers there. Now that was a scary trip. They came to collect me at the police school in Medellin. They loaded me and the guide books I prepared into their Montero and gave me two Belgium grenades they told me to use if we ran into a guerrilla checkpoint, which apparently was a real possibility.

The colonel at the 20^th Brigade (Intelligence) wanted my help in unravelling a Michigan-based conspiracy to traffic Ruger Mini-14 rifles. An agent from Miami needed my help relating to a prolific Colombian gun trafficker based in Barranquilla. My Venezuelan intelligence contact had pressing intel he wanted to pass to me personally and the colonel in the U.S. Mil Group based at the Colombian equivalent of the Pentagon needed my help investigating a suspected illegal source of U.S. M72 LAWS rockets.

While all this was happening, headquarters began asking for more and more memos explaining why it was necessary for me to work in Medellin. It was clear that they were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with idea of my being on the front line of the Colombian drug war.

But that’s a whole other story.