The Dark Ages Trilogy: Ignoble

By Sturmen Krieg

A joint DEA-Panamanian interdiction operation collapses under the weight of internal betrayal and culminates into a fiasco of human devastation. From the decimation of a US drug interdiction team to the elimination of an entire Colombian village, IGNOBLE reveals the depravity of those who are a part of a US-Colombian coalition in league with the Zorrilla drug cartel.

Team Bravo leader, Captain Alexander Scott Richter, watches his team disintegrate, man-by-man, while trying to pursue mission objectives. With the help of his long-time colleague, Sergeant Major Clifford Ramsy, Richter realizes mission success – but Bravo’s success proves too costly in human life on all sides.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9780996426800

Book preview

Twenty-Five

One

The air hung heavy with the scent of rotten vegetation. The aroma nipped at the captain’s nostrils like the stench of an open mass grave. And it was hot, so damn hot he felt the sides of his head ache. Captain Alexander Scott Richter, Team Bravo leader, weighed the mission while drawing in another stifling breath. He caught a whiff of his three-day body odor. He looked up and throughout the operations center.

The general-purpose tent failed as a nucleus for information flow. It was even less suitable for the conduct of daily air-ground operations. The makeshift dwelling was, however, all that Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) could, or would, provide the alien teams. Command tacitly accepted the paramilitary ventures as part of its Caribbean interdiction strategy, but with SOUTHCOM’s reserve also accompanied sparse support.

Richter observed the tent’s limits and recalled that the shelter’s twenty-by-twenty-foot dimensions appeared vast when vacant. However, once burdened with a field table and two chairs for each staff section, a radio section, cots for shift workers, a water buffalo, and a four-by-four-foot sand table, there was little room left for maneuvering.

As he waited for the one remaining team member to arrive, Richter scanned those present. Staff Sergeant Stan Marcoli stood opposite him. Marcoli leaned into the table’s edge and shared a cigarette with Sergeant Greg Parker.

Rex Bard fingered his lucky coin while recapping his village exploits to Norm Sanford. Max Colfield stood to the side perusing a paperback. Ray Copeland appeared half asleep, still trying to recover from a three-day R&R in Anguilla. Sergeant Arthur Gable leaned over the sand table, critically eyeing every aspect of the terrain display. William James stationed himself a few steps back from the group, quietly eying the men before him.

Though no longer brandishing authentic rank, the men retained their previous military grades for the sake of group cohesiveness. This mainstay was an unshakable idiosyncrasy of the team’s pillar of professionalism, the sergeant major. He stood right of Richter and viewed his men with an analyzing eye. On Sergeant Assaf’s arrival Sergeant Major Ramsy set the tone for the mission brief. All right! Cut the chit-chat.

Captain Richter watched the men go silent.

Seeing his men in a receptive state, Ramsy yielded the floor. Floor’s yours, Captain.

Richter used a broken twig to direct the team’s focus to a terrain feature. DEA claims a high-yield bust, so we can expect plenty of firepower. We’ll approach the objective from the northeast, flying nap-of-the-earth. It’ll give us some protection from observers and cover from radar. Sergeant Gable, your cipher and authentication tables.

As Richter handed the communication electronic operating instructions (CEOI) to Gable, the radioman grew enthusiastic. All right! Now we can communicate, he said. Bust Zorrilla’s ass.

Spotting overconfidence in Gable, Ramsy decided to temper the soldier with down-to-earth reality. He had worked with such zealots in the past, three wars’ worth, and was always wary of them. For Ramsy, Gable’s display was not admirable. It lacked thoughtfulness, caution.

Make damn sure whoever you transmit to authenticates, Ramsy said. I don’t want another canal zone fiasco. And don’t make up your own radio language. Use the brevity matrix. That’s what you got it for. Got it?!

Gable’s humility surged. Understood, Sergeant Major.

Keying on every word uttered by his top NCO, Richter pondered momentarily the events of that mission. He recalled that the west-canal failure had resulted from improper communications security (COMSEC). No one had suspected the allegedly ill-equipped drug runners would enter their radio net and fill the airways with bogus information. The operation culminated into a total information and mission breakdown. They lost a fully-teamed helicopter that day: two regular army pilots, one crew chief, and a door gunner. As he weighed the incident, Richter commented under his breath. Yeah, no more fiascoes.

What if it is another canal zone, Captain? asked Marcoli. What then?

You just make sure that doesn’t happen, said Ramsy. If you got traffic, know who you’re talking to. If you’re not sure, break off transmission. Gable! That’s your radio. Without it, we can’t talk. If we can’t talk, they’ll forget we’re alive. Am I clear?

Loud and clear, Sergeant Major.

And know your target before you pop ‘em, Marcoli, warned Copeland.

Hey, I didn’t know they were CIA, Marcoli replied. If you remember, that was just south of San Isidro. What the hell were they doing in Costa Rica, anyway?

"What were we doing in Costa Rica?" said Will James.

Except for Richter and Ramsy, Team Bravo broke into laughter. All of the men knew that, had the Costa Rican militia known of their presence, a patrol would have been deployed to neutralize them. Such were the political and combat intrigues that characterized the Central and South American interdiction game.

Regimes shared the same lofty aspirations when eye-to-eye; that being, to eliminate cocaine production and narcoterrorism within their regions. However, in the absence of confederates, each poverty-stricken state extended a tentacle for whatever wealth was within its reach.

No one deluded themselves, the Department of State, the Justice Department, the Department of Defense, even the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) all knew precisely where they stood, in the center with all sides aimed on them. Money spoke louder than statesmanship, and cocaine was big money.

Ramsy failed to appreciate James’ comical side.

At ease!

The team reduced to silence. Richter resumed.

I’d like you to take particular notice of the rally points (RP) in your operation order. If we’re hit we’ll disperse, then reassemble at the respective RP. We’ll wait one hour, then call for extraction, whether you’re there or not. Mike, you have the honor of accompanying our host.

Sergeant Assaf defensively raised his hands. Why me, he thought. They’re nothing but a bunch of new meats. He understood the team required communication with the host nation’s troops, but Parker, too, had a language ability.

A seven-year US Army veteran from Palmerton, Pennsylvania, Sergeant First Class Michael Assaf was a twenty-eight-year-old former Green Beret who served two tours with the 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam. Subsequent to Vietnam, he rotated to Saudi Arabia, where he spent two years as an Arabic translator.

His last assignment brought him to the canal-zone as an advisor to the Panamanian National Guard. He completed his enlistment while still in Panama and chose to remain in country under civilian contract to the DEA, ultimately connecting with Team Bravo.

Assaf affirmed his directive as congenially as his volatile personality would permit.

Great! My turn to baby-sit federales, again.

It’s their country, said Richter. Like it or not, we’re here at their invitation. Granted, they’re somewhat inexperienced at this, but in this business you’re green until you take fire.

Besides, they can’t give us their seasoned troops, Marcoli added. Who’d get the stuff through for ‘em?

Yeah, the young ones are still idealists, Copeland broke in. They’re not greedy, yet.

Bet within two missions, most of those kids are recalled. Any takers? Bard challenged.

Bard, you’d wager your own mother’s panty size if you thought you could get even odds, said Sanford.

"I don’t know my mother’s panty size… I don’t want to know my mother’s panty size."

Sanford shook his head.

Why isn’t this mission a Colombian operation, Captain? Sanford asked. They have DEA assets.

Reiner said the Columbian DEA contingent is experiencing resource problems. SOUTHCOM’s holding back logistics, cutting costs. They decided to – broaden our teams’ sphere of influence into Columbia.

Nice way of saying we pick up the slack, said James.

Panamanian troops in Colombia? pressed Sanford. God help us if they see ‘em.

Yeah, well, it is the way it is, Richter said.

Seeing the operational review moving left of the subject line, the sergeant major realigned the team’s focus. Each of you will have a strip-map of the objective and of the immediate area of operation. All of you, I hope, maintain an operational compass. You’ve got ten minutes to memorize those RP coordinates. If any of us are captured, I don’t want those numerical locations written down. Got it?

Richter looked around the table. He saw acknowledgment on the face of each man. They might buck him, he thought, but they’d never consider a confrontation with the sergeant major. He looked at his watch and concluded that the brief went satisfactorily. That’s it. Time check: 0515. Be on deck and loaded in ten minutes. Liftoff: 0530. Any last questions?

No questions followed, and Richter did not expect any. Team Bravo possessed exceptional people, each professional in conduct and attitude, most of the time. They knew their jobs, and few complained when the shit hit. Other team leaders wished they had as much.

Richter recalled Team Alpha had lost its leader three weeks before. But more troubling for their boss, Agent Reiner, was a want for the entire Alpha complement. Alpha maneuvered into the southern fringe of the Gulf of Panama, just west of the coastal town of Jaqué. It failed to link-up for extraction and became officially listed as missing a day later. Colonel Treadwell sent Team Echo, Chuck Ballard’s team, to investigate.

Echo located Alpha’s leader not far from the phantom team’s designated pickup zone (PZ). His body rested in a shallow stream, snagged among overhanging branches. As they pulled their comrade from the water, Chuck recognized the three bullet holes in Jake’s back.

Chuck failed to uncover anything in proximity to the body that suggested a firefight had ensued. He ordered his men to search the forest up to fifty meters from where Jake lay. Again, they failed to uncover any evidence of hostile action. The foliage was not bent or broken. There was nothing on the ground to suggest a scuffle, no expended casings, no discarded weapons or equipment, no bodies. Suspecting that whatever took place occurred further upstream, Chuck directed a portion of his team to cross the rivulet and follow the opposite bank. After traversing both banks for roughly a kilometer, Team Echo returned to where it had left Jake and called for extraction.

The autopsy disclosed Jake had drowned, his lungs filled with water. This, of course, meant Jake was still alive when he either fell into, or was dumped into, the stream. The hasty postmortem also revealed that Jake was shot with 5.56 mm rounds, standard M-16 ammunition, the basic-load armament for all interdiction teams.

No one ever heard from the other missing team members. Eight men vanished into the jungle, and whether their absence was by default or design was anyone’s guess.

But his men were different, Richter knew – or hoped. As he watched the last man step from the operations tent, the captain felt that, unlike so many others who were contract-hire, his men were a cut above. They cared about themselves and for the men they fought alongside. He was lucky to have them.

Two

Richter stood at the entrance of the operations tent. He looked at his watch. It showed 0527 hours. He saw how the ashen twilight disclosed their encampment’s Spartan character. Everything appeared in dim shades of gray. The scene reminded him of photos he saw of the Mount St. Helens destruction in a month-old Miami Herald a few weeks earlier.

He heard the pilots induce ignition. He listened to the ascending whine of the UH-1 rotors and considered their trademark sound. Their distinct shallow popping was unavoidable. The blades snapped at the air with an audible signature no field soldier could mistake. He listened to the familiar rhythm while scanning their shoddy fortification.

The staging area was wholly inadequate, much the same as the under-spaced tent he had just exited. The installation’s location was a tactical blunder, but that was Treadwell’s issue.

By the morning light, Richter studied the surrounding terrain. The camp sat in the western foothills of the Serranía del Darién Arc. The site lay vulnerable from all sides, particularly from the east. The hills varied from 400- to 700-foot elevation, and stood accessible to anyone who wished to establish an observation post (OP). He likened the facility’s placement to that of Dien Bien Phu in ‘54. Always seize the high terrain was the first lesson in tactics at the NCO school, and later reiterated when he attended OCS. For some reason, the colonel dismissed the basics.

Lieutenant Colonel Bradford Aaron Treadwell, a 1963 graduate of the Iowa State reserve officer training corps (ROTC), was one of the last combat officers to leave Vietnam in 1973. By then an infantry major, Treadwell assumed the post of an assistant brigade training officer at Fort Drum, New York. Promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1975, he accepted command of an infantry battalion with the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

In 1979, he was approached by the Department of Defense (DOD) and asked to take part in a pilot drug interdiction program sponsored by the Department of Justice (DOJ), and overseen by the DEA. Instantly recognizing the potential for command/authority chaos between DOJ, DOD, and DEA, Treadwell had reservations about involving himself in such a bureaucratic wrangle. However, the new assignment did present itself as a challenge, and if the project demonstrated positive results, Treadwell knew an opportunity for accelerated promotion to bird colonel was a very strong possibility.

Treadwell established the site near a north effluent intersecting the Rio Chucunaque. The converging systems coupled just south of the encampment. The staging area stood as little more than an outpost, and was seldom manned by more than 80-100 personnel. Richter speculated it would take no more than a company element to force the camp’s inhabitants into an entrapping wedge inside the confluence. He recalled mentioning such to the colonel. Treadwell thanked him for his input, discarding it completely.

Richter looked right and saw the morning haze hovering low over the airstrip. Spotter and cargo planes principally used the oil-and-dirt-packed airfield. Except for Rick’s O-2 Skymaster, a derelict DC-3, one lost Cessna 152, and two chopper pilots mistaking the short strip for a helipad, he could not recall when the makeshift runway was last employed meaningfully.

He adjusted the M-16 sling at his shoulder. Again, he looked at his watch. It showed 0529 hours. Richter felt, operationally, things went well. The old aircraft stood warmed up and the men had completed loading their gear. And, as always, Treadwell stationed himself at the helipad.

As he approached the helipad, Richter recognized military protocol as imminent. Treadwell displayed a steely-eyed, piercing glare, his silent way of begging for a salute. As Richter was no longer a regular, he regarded military courtesy between the brass and himself as absurd. However, while closing with the installation commander the captain delivered the customary gesture. Good morning, sir! said Richter.

Is everything ready, Captain?

Yes, sir. We’ll depart in less than one minute.

Treadwell looked beyond the captain and saw two NCOs who appeared to be in a heated disagreement. He returned his glare to Richter, revealing a doubtful expression. Sure ‘bout that?

Richter turned and watched the sergeant major and Parker advance on the helipad. Ramsy shoved the soldier, clinging to Parker’s collar as he guided him toward a helicopter. Parker tried to resist. He attempted an occasional wild punch, but with no effect. On reaching the helipad, Ramsy released the soldier.

Both men faced-off. Parker stood in a partial crouch, his rifle held before him. Ramsy stood straight, facing Parker with unflinching eyes.

Born and raised in Brighton Beach, New York, Staff Sergeant Greg Parker was the epitome of soldiering. Like Assaf, he served with Special Forces and was a seasoned Vietnam campaigner by his nineteenth birthday. He had won the Silver Star and two Bronze Stars for valor in three separate incidents. He spoke French fluently and had a working knowledge of both Vietnamese and Spanish.

Ramsy viewed the helicopters and saw the team stalled. Time to dispense with the gunslinger mentality, he thought. What the hell’s the matter with you, Parker? he asked. Where’s your dignity?

Parker stood fast. Screw dignity, he countered. I don’t wanna die.

Doesn’t make sense, Ramsy said. This isn’t your first mission.

No! And it ain’t gonna be my last.

Richter and Treadwell resumed their discussion. As the colonel provided his pseudo-pertinent mission input, the NCOs once more diverted the officers’ focus.

Their exchange confused Richter, as the whirling rotors muffled most of Ramsy and Parker’s exchange. The captain watched as the sergeant major’s fervor intensified. You contracted for this mission, and…

Fuck you! retaliated Parker.

The sergeant major believed he knew the source of Parker’s refusal. He had seen such symptoms before. He had encountered many combat veterans who had distinguished themselves in the field, and then one day put it all aside. Parker had begun to acknowledge his mortality. Ramsy fully understood the dilemma, and he truly felt compassion for the man. But like any other mission, this one took priority over the personal feelings or fears of the individual.

Parker, these men depend on you! said Ramsy.

These men are hired killers, just like you.

Parker looked to the waiting helicopters and saw his comrades peering back at him. No one yelled or motioned for him to join them. No one showed signs of disapproval. Like Ramsy, they, too, knew what Parker was experiencing; that being an identical queer sensation that most of them had encountered once or twice in their pasts. All of the men realized that, on occasion, courage dangled from a very thin thread. Sometimes fear