Bogota Backscatter: A Novel by the Author of an Unlikely Journey

By Frank Stephenson

"Bogota Backscatter" is a sequel to the first work of historic fiction entitled "An Unlikely Journey" and, like the first novel, depicts one mans struggle with the U.S. Governments hidden agenda(s) and the ongoing struggle within himself to find his place in life. Fred Sager, a Ph.D. geologist assigned to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, travels to Bogota to assist the local scientists interpretation of the horrendous January 1999 earthquakes. In no time, he also finds himself attracted to a Chinese lady, also a geologist, and also there on temporary assignment. But is she really there to help her geology brethern, or does she lead a dual life?

The following is a brief excerpt from the book:

He looked at Adolph and asked, Did you understand any of that gobbledygook?

Yes, it was quite well articulated, in fact. Adolph replied, his somber expression lighting up with a smile and I assumed he had decided to pay attention to what was being said after his last lapse of concentration. Even though Fred isnt a petroleum geologist, most of us learn the basics of that branch of the discipline in undergraduate school. Fred is good that way; he retains everything except what he had for breakfast, or where he put his car keys.

Sounded like doubletalk to me, Tweedledum mumbled, so what exactly are you saying then, that Okradana geologists are mistaken about the location of a rather large deposit of oil? That theyre looking in the wrong spot?

Thats a distinct possibility. I said. He failed to answer. Ill bet both of these yo-yos are attorneys, theyre sure as hell not geologists.

How do we know youre not lying? Intentionally trying to throw us off the track? Causing us to delay operations, screwing us around? Tweedledum demanded, his voice becoming a bit hoarse and raspy now.

You dont know. I replied, with a modicum of self-satisfaction in my intonation. Youll have to take my word for it.

If youre lying, would you say youre lying? He asked.

No, I wouldnt. If I were lying, I wouldnt tell you I was lying, that would defeat the purpose of lying in the first place. I said.

Where should they be drilling? Where is this oil reserve? He asked.

I dont know. I said.

Does this Chinese gal know? He asked.

Do I know if she knows? I replied.

If she knows would you tell me?

If she said I that could tell you, yes. I said.

And if she said that you couldnt? He barked.

Then I would say that I didnt know.

As youre saying right now. Well, at least youre truthful. He replied, scratching his head and pacing nervously about in front of Adolphs desk. From the expression on Adolphs face, I could see that Tweedledums response had him baffled.

I try. I said, again studying the quizzical look on Adolphs wrinkled face.

Even when you lie you seem to be truthful. Tweedledum said, Wait a minute, were talking in circles here.

Did you know that the ancient Egyptians didnt like pigs? I asked, trying one last time to break his spirit. Otherwise, they couldve invented ham.

Dr. Sager, how about some straight answers to our questions? Feigning his frustrations now, trying to conceal the fact that he knew that I knew that he was playing a game he was supposed to better at than me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 24, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462818921

Frank Stephenson

Frank A. Stephenson is a professional forensic engineer. Born in Helena, MT., he finally realized that everyone does not own two sets of tires, three sets of clothes, antifreeze, ice scrapers, a snow shovel, so he moved to Phoenix. He is married to Brenda and has four grown children: Patty, Scott, Ashley, and Jennifer.

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Copyright © 2003 by Frank Stephenson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This novel is a work of historical fiction. It contains names of real people and historical events are described. The book also describes events and characters that are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance of such nonhistorical persons or events to actual ones is purely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

SOURCES AND REFERENCES

To Frankie Ann Staffenson and her husband Robert Staffenson, of Bozeman, Montana, for many decades of love, care and kindness. Two, more wonderful relatives, I could have never known if I were to live forever.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE USUAL CAST of characters deserve my gratitude for their patience and understanding: my wife, Brenda, and my daughter, Jennifer, for although they knew where I was for hours on end they left me alone to concentrate on my work; to Jacqueline Chait for her help editing; to my friends for their words of encouragement; and last but not least, to Steve Sherman of Stockton, CA for teaching me how to improve upon the written words of others, so that I may become a better writer myself. Thank you all.

Colombian Cartel logo

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PREFACE

THE BULK OF this novel takes place during the first three months of 1999. Most of the events contained herein are a matter of public record and thus, accessible. Nevertheless, the sources and other references used herein are listed at the end for the reader’s convenience.

Too often in our busy lives, we fail to see cause and effect even though we try, each in our own way, to keep up with current events. Relating one news story with another becomes increasingly difficult when, after it has been inevitably spun inside out, the facts are distorted and filled with misinformation thanks to the media’s collective efforts to sell more newspapers or top the ratings on radio and television.

The U.S./Mexico border is the primary point of entry for cocaine shipments being smuggled into the United States. According to a recent interagency intelligence assessment, approximately 65 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States crosses the Southwest border. Cocaine is readily available in nearly all the major cities in the United States. Organized crime groups operating in Colombia control the worldwide supply of cocaine. These organizations use a sophisticated infrastructure to move cocaine by land, sea, and air into the United States.

In August 1997 the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reported that two separate but related operations, Operations Reciprocity and Limelight, targeted two trafficking cells that were controlled by the Amado Carillo-Fuents Organization (ACFO), a high-level trafficking syndicate headquartered in Mexico. These were significant cases because they illustrated how drug traffickers from Mexico were assuming a dominant role in cocaine distribution within the United States.

Colombian drug trafficking organizations have increasingly relied upon the eastern Pacific Ocean as a trafficking route to move cocaine to the United States. Law enforcement and intelligence community sources estimate that 65 percent of the cocaine shipped to the United States moves through the Central America-Mexico corridor, primarily by vessels operating in the eastern Pacific. Colombian traffickers utilize fishing vessels to transport bulk shipments of cocaine from Colombia to the west coast of Mexico and, to a lesser extent, the Yucatan Peninsula. The cocaine is off-loaded to go-fast vessels for the final shipment to the Mexican coast. The loads are subsequently broken down into smaller quantities to be moved across the Southwest border.

According to the Federal-wide Drug Seizure System (FDSS),

U.S. federal authorities seized nearly 135 metric tons of cocaine in 1999. According to a recent interagency intelligence assessment, cocaine production has not declined. The decline in cocaine seizures is primarily attributed to the decrease in the size of the average load transiting the Southwest border and an increase in the number of drug loads moving between ports of entry.

The large oil companies’ ties to the White House are legendary, if not infamous, and seem to be independent of political party. For example, take Vice President Gore’s ownership of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in Occidental stock. Then there’s the twenty thousand dollars in income Gore receives each year from Occidental as payment for mining rights to Tennessee property that has never been, and is not likely to ever be drilled. Gore’s connections to Occidental and the Clinton administration’s promotion of that company’s oil interests, particularly in Colombia, have raised a covey of questions, particularly about the real motivation behind U.S. initiatives concerning a $1.3 billion military aid package patriotically labeled ‘Plan Colombia’ that nearly all Colombians are against.

January 1999 was a time when Al Gore, then Democratic Presidential hopeful, should have used a color-coded map to track our country’s involvement in Colombia. True, aid supplied by the United States to this violent Latin American drug producer, marketer and distributor, carried the federal administrative label The War on Drugs and, regardless of its being a gross misnomer, at least everyone knew what it was supposed to mean on the surface and voicing anything but unconditional support for it meant becoming a social outcast or worse.

There’s no doubt that cardboard Al was leery of his solid ties to Occidental Petroleum and should have colored them red for dangerous. Should those ties come to the fore prior to the election, it would cast a rather large, tepid monkey wrench into his plans— color those dark green for the environment, of course—to occupy the White House in January 2000. It is amazing what complicated lies some people will believe, especially when the truth is simple and obvious but nonetheless rejected by those same people as simplistic.

Occidental’s long time support of the Vice President’s political career and the hundreds of thousands of soft money dollars contributed to the Gore campaign included the donations of executives and their wives and families of tidy sums on the order of ten thousand dollars a pop.

Occidental Petroleum’s legal victory in late 1998 to resume drilling in what is known as the Samore bloc in Colombia, reversing a previous decision by Colombia’s Constitutional Court, came as a result of a closed-door, ass-kissing deal between the Clinton Administration and Colombia’s then President Pastrana. From my perspective, color that deal black—for blackmail, or bribery.

Let’s not forget Gore’s tight friendship with Occidental’s CEO, Ray Irani, who gave one hundred thousand dollars to the Democratic National Committee after spending a night in the Lincoln bedroom, followed by a state dinner at the White house for Colombian President Pastrana. Did I say Pastrana? Oh my, what a coincidence.

Today Colombia’s known oil reserves remain fewer than those of the world’s major oil powers but only twenty percent of the country’s potential oil territory has been explored due to the violence. President Andrés Pastrana’s administration sweetened the pot, allowing foreign companies a larger share of profits from Colombian oil operations and, as a result, Ecopetrol recently awarded a record thirteen new exploration and production contracts.

In yet another recent development, a deposit about fifty-five miles southwest of Bogotá was announced and an international consortium led by Canadian Occidental Petroleum expected as much as three hundred million barrels from the Boquerón oilfield, making it the nation’s third-largest deposit—if true.

Unfortunately, the petroviolence that inevitably follows, weighs heaviest on the local civilians. Disasters resulting from pipeline attacks have killed people and wreaked environmental destruction. In 1998, seventy-three people died after an ELN bombing of Ocensa, the BP Amoco pipeline. The blast resulted in setting the northwestern village of Machuca, Antioquia ablaze for days to come.

A former U.S. Special Forces intelligence sergeant, retired in 1996 from the unit that trains Colombian anti-narcotics battalions said it best: The main interest of the United States is oil. ‘Plan Colombia’s’ purpose is defending the operations of Occidental, British Petroleum and Texas Petroleum and securing control of future Colombian oil reserves.

The more I learned about the situation, the more I resented going on this boondoggle and thus the title of my misadventure: Bogotá Backscatter; with ‘backscatter’ being correctly defined as a deflection through an angle of greater than ninety degrees measured with respect to the original direction taken. Then again, I have always had trouble staying on track. Ask my boss.

CHAPTER 1

CLYDE WAS DEAD; expired; passed on; no longer with us; cold and rigid; deceased; extinct; departed; perished; gone; no more; still; lifeless; inanimate; extinguished; obsolete; passé; Yes, Clyde was history but at least he didn’t suffer, as people are prone to say at times like these. If anything, he was a bit euphoric when he checked out.

It all started on a joyous note, when the lovely Natalie Dalrymple, our twenty-something staff biologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, who also functions as office secretary and part-time amateur psychologist to some nine geologists, became a mother. Natalie gave birth to triplets on New Years Eve, at ten p.m.1998, a beatific occasion for all concerned, indeed.

Two days later, however, shortly after Natalie returned home with her husband and their three adorable infants, Natalie’s parrot, faithful friend, companion and loyal pet, Clyde, keeled over. It happened a few scant minutes after the bird caught his first glimpse of the three little darlings. According to the local vet, Clyde suffered a heart attack. No, it wasn’t a Monty Python skit. A sedentary bird living on a self-induced steady diet of sunflower seeds and cashews, the poor thing apparently had the shock of its life after seeing the triplets, reminding me of an adage my grandmother taught me.

In addition to Clyde’s death, two other seemingly unrelated events that also occurred in January 1999, fueled grandmother’s saying and made me an even stronger believer in the theory that ‘bad things happen in sets of three’ or is that a superstition?

We were preparing for Clyde’s funeral—Natalie insisted on a ceremony—when the news broke that two United States Drug Enforcement Administration officers were kidnapped from their hotel in San Cristobal, Venezuela. Both men were seasoned veterans of that agency, armed, and not inclined to make mistakes. A few days later parts of Columbia were devastated by one of the worst earthquakes there in more than a century. The quake measured slightly over six on the Richter scale and it would not be the final tremor to be felt there during that fateful week.

Attempting to connect the dots from these seemingly ‘unrelated’ events didn’t occur to me for the longest time. In fact, I didn’t have the foggiest notion they were related. But when it was all over even the poor, departed parrot got into the act in a way which, given the nature of the world we now live in, shouldn’t have surprised me. In the end and best of all, perhaps, is that I learned a great deal about myself and the inner workings of the Federal Government that pays me to live and work in Hawaii. I also became intimately acquainted with the evil men are capable of inflicting upon other men. Oh yeah, least I forget; I fell in love … twice.

CHAPTER 2

Near the Shore of Milolii, HI—January 23, 1999

THE EXPERTS SAY that if you want your child to learn to swim, you should begin the lessons when the infant is about three or four minutes old—or maybe it was three or four months old—we geologists are taught to think in terms of ‘mya,’ or ‘millions of years ago,’ so we tend to have a bit of a problem with our sense of time, starting with the Hadean Eon, four billion years ago. The Quaternary Period, or the ‘age of man,’ began around two mya, in case you’ve forgotten.

Anyway, the theory is that before they’re born, infants are captives in a dark, balloon-like sack full of water, therefore they already know how to swim, in a manner of speaking, so get them into the pool before they clutter up their natural coordination and mindset with lots of secondary things like regular breathing, crawling, thumb-sucking, eating mashed potatoes and strained carrots, pissing in a pot and the like.

Take pigs for example. Pigs are good swimmers. The problem with pigs is the ends of their hoofs are so sharp that if they have to swim too far or too fast, they slice their own underbellies to shreds and the pig will bleed so profusely that it will pass out and drown anyway. Why, for heavens sake, I would think of pigs drowning at a time like this is perfectly logical; after all, I’m trying my best at this moment not to panic.

It so happens that the outrigger occupied by my friend, Jonathan, and me has just been capsized by an enormous wave. Its bigger brother wave right behind slammed us down into the bottom of the shoreline so convincingly, that any second a powerful riptide could suck us out to sea and into the beak of a giant squid, waiting not too patiently, on the cold, dark bottom. Presto, said squid has Fred Sager for brunch and Jonathan Van Polanen for dessert. Next stop, Davy Jones’ locker.

So, you see, although the pig can swim, it will die anyway. Jonathan and I can swim quite well, thank you, but we’re going to be squid bait soon, so what does it matter? I was in fourth grade when I learned to dog paddle and the reason my parents waited so long is only now becoming apparent some forty years later.

At this point, it would be sacrilegious not to mention the requisite good news, bad news: The good news is the prizes Jonathan and I had found on our treasure hunting adventure, two of which were now safely ensconced in their own cloth sack, that is to say an empty—naturally—Crown Royal Whiskey bag, were wound tightly around my left wrist. The bad news is that these ‘treasures,’ mysterious sculptures each fashioned from solid gold, or at least so I had hoped, at about one pound each, represented additional weight that was not what my body, much less my left arm, needed right now because I believe Neptune was trying to show me who’s boss at the moment.

With this in mind, when the opportunity came about to grab the wooden pontoon of the outrigger with both arms, I seized it. By now the waves had pushed us closer to shore and several natives were beginning to wade knee deep into the sea. No easy task, given the ferocity of the sudden windstorm that seemingly came from nowhere. During the next five minutes, which seemed to last about one trillion years, give or take a few—you will forgive me for not attempting to actually time this—I held on for dear life and tried, in vain, to spot Jonathan, who had not yet surfaced. Or so I thought.

With one last Herculean-like regurgitation the giant waves heaved the thirty-eight foot outrigger out of the water, through the air and toward the beach just as fatigue set in and I lost my grip on the slippery pontoon. Timing is everything. I did, however, learn that the human body does not bounce well on wet sand, the inherent moisture adsorbing the impact, no doubt, but it could be the subject of some debate, or perhaps a geotechnical engineer could enlighten me on that one. I’ll have to think about it.

Soon, it would be time for the outrigger to return from its shallow orbit. And it did; splat, right side up, not far from where I was sprawled out on the beach counting stars in broad daylight. ‘Excellent,’ I thought, ‘gravity isn’t just a good idea … it’s the law.’ Later, and to my sadness, I also learned that the outrigger came down and split Jonathan’s tanned, hairless head open. It looked to me as though he was killed instantly. You might say he went the way of all pigs that hurry trying to cross the Nile but that sounds a tad disrespectful.

His treasure was in his pants pockets; three cloth bags of uncut jewels, old gold coins and other valuables. In a trice, they made their way to my pants pockets although legerdemain was never one of my strengths. Jonathan wouldn’t need them wherever he was headed and our native rescuers were giving a lot more priority to preventing the outrigger from escaping and incurring more damage than worrying about two middle-aged Haoles that couldn’t paddle hard enough to get out of their own way.

Literally exhausted, I made it back to the area from which we departed and sat down to compose myself. In a moment of prayer for Jonathan, I reflected on the first time I met him in the Hilo fish market one brilliantly-sunny Sunday afternoon. Wanda and I were searching for an Indonesian man in a black tee shirt with ‘Year of the Dragon’ printed in white on the back. Jonathan, the man inside that shirt, blew Wanda away with his posh British accent; she was expecting Pidgin English at best.

Speaking of being blown away, several months later Wanda blew away to the East Coast in hopes of succeeding in the ‘let’s pretend world of master spy’ within the CIA quagmire and miasmas of bureaucratic gobbledygook.

Jonathan and I became best friends in the months and years following Wanda’s unexpected departure, sharing a lot in common in spite of our divergent backgrounds. The unwanted baby of a back street hooker in Jakarta, Jonathan was but a few days old when found abandoned in a trash barrel that tipped over in an alley behind a men’s clothing store. The owner of the store, an expatriate from the U. K., took him in and raised him as if he were his own child, giving him the last name of the woman that was his mistress at the time. Twenty-two years later Jonathan graduated from the Imperial College of London with a degree in literature. He never returned to Indonesia and had no desire to, not that anyone blamed him in this day and age.

I’m not exactly certain when he moved from London to Hawaii but it really doesn’t matter. He joined the Honolulu Police Department, the HPD as he calls it, and went on to eventually become the Assistant Police Chief some fifteen years later.

One fine Thursday morning a man posing as the insurance supervisor for the HPD showed up at Jonathan’s house whilst Jonathan was on duty. His pretense was simple; he needed information for the family’s dental plan. The man’s name was Ha Soo Kim, or ‘Stone Face’ Kim, as he was known within the vastness of Chinese Triads. Once inside Jonathan’s home Stone Face pulled a gun, locked Jonathan’s two children in the bedroom closet and told Cindy, Jonathan’s wife, to take off her clothes. He then proceeded to tie her hands to the headboard of the bed, then raped and sodomized her. When he had satisfied his brutal sexual desires he went into the garage, found an axe and chopped both of Cindy’s feet off at the ankles. The severed feet were found just outside the front door. It was meant to be, supposedly, a sort of cruel calling card of his.

At some point thereafter Stone Face proceeded to disembowel Cindy with a linoleum knife and slit the throats of the two children.

There was some disagreement amongst HPD forensic investigators as to what happened next but a fire that never reached the bedroom area consumed part of the house. Although the fire was probably started to destroy any DNA evidence that might be obtained from Cindy’s body, it wouldn’t have worked; there were several latent fingerprints left behind that were identified as Ha Soo Kim’s. Anyway you look at it, Cindy and a boy and a girl aged nine and eleven were brutally murdered. Jonathan lasted another six months before he quit the HPD and became a lone fisherman on the Big Island. I think I was the only friend he had left in the entire world, not that he would admit it.

They never caught Stone Face, the slime ball who changed Jonathan’s life forever; most people believe he fled the country. Now, Jonathan, too, is gone. I will miss him dearly but perhaps he’s been reunited with the family he loved so deeply and missed with a mind-splitting pain that never left his waking thoughts.

The wind was more ferocious than ever now, with giant waves crashing all around the small beach. The noise of it all was enough to send most men to their caves. Even the natives were acting as if the world was coming to a swift and certain end. On top of it all, I began to feel sick to my stomach and wanted to crawl behind a tree and retch my guts out. But I couldn’t move, stunned by this horrid turn of events. Suddenly a premonition overcame my thoughts and I decided: fuck the recent past, it was time to get the hell out of here whilst the getting’s good as they say, whoever ‘they’ are.

Ten minutes later, as I was navigating the metallic-blue 1952 Ford half-ton pickup Jonathan and I had restored last year toward highway eleven, a singular unmarked car with a small, blue, battery-powered blinking light on its rooftop sped past me in the opposite direction. This led me to believe it was the local law enforcement person on the way to investigate a death, Jonathan’s, to be specific. Not to worry, I thought, the tailwind is favoring me, not the cop. I still thought it strange that Hawaiian policemen drive their own cars on duty, just didn’t seem right to me.

It’s not that I was against cooperating with the authorities, that is exactly what I intended to do … after my newly found treasures were safely tucked away in my cottage and after they found out my identity, if they ever did, and only after they came to my front door with a warrant; come to think of it, a warrant for what? Illegal treasure hunting? Finder’s keepers, that’s what I always say, right?

Once at home, casting a casual glance in the mirror, I saw that my chin was sporting a new gash, my lower lip was split and my left eye was starting to puff and turn a nasty yellow-green. It would be a full-blown black eye by Monday. Nevertheless, it was early Saturday evening, another gorgeous day in paradise, present circumstances not withstanding and time for Fred Sager to down a cold beer or four while brooding over the loss of his best friend and deciding where to hide the new treasures; the loot I secretly hoped would make me independently wealthy and no longer a slave to an eight to five job with the U.S. government. The trick will be to remember where I’ve hidden them after the fifth beer.

Ah, but not to worry; in England, today is ‘Feast Day of St. Emerentiana,’ a patroness of those suffering from digestive disorders. Eliza Smith’s 1758 work, "The Complete Housewife, contains a recipe for a good vomit" that undoubtedly would have been popular among the gourmands of Imperial Rome. Now let’s see; where did I put Smith’s book …

Between 1945 and 1986 earthquakes caused half of all the deaths due to natural disasters—approximately 1,200,000 fatalities—and of all the types of natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, volcanic eruptions, etc.), earthquakes cause more deaths per disaster.

CHAPTER 3

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory—January 25, 1999

IT’S MONDAY MORNING and the first person I run into is none other than Sam Chen Lee, the HVO’s star seismologist. He, like everyone else that day, spotted the gash, the split lip and the puffy black eye. Normally a stoic, inscrutable little man, he stopped me in the hall to ask, Has Wanda returned? Then he chuckled, eyebrows raised in case by accident it turned out to be a legitimate question instead of a timely jab at my former significant other. True, Wanda and I had a rather stormy relationship but I don’t remember it being quite that violent. At least when she left Hawaii she offered to sell me her cottage in Pahala, a relatively cozy structure I now call home.

"No, wise guy, Wanda is not back. I replied. I got this battling evil dragons set upon us poor Haole trash by your blithering, slant-eyed, slope-headed ancestors." I wasn’t smiling when I spoke and pointed to one of the dragons in the design on the front of his flowered red and white short-sleeved shirt. If anything my tone of voice was a bit terse but by now Sam should be used to that sort of mood from me on a typical Monday morning, whatever ‘typical’ means.

Where? Hogan’s Hangout I’ll bet. He quipped. The little bastard must be looking to get his miniature nose flattened even more. Then he would definitely look like a profile of the Sphinx.

Smartass, I mumbled, grabbed some coffee and watched as Sam performed one of his customary Mach-3 military-style about-faces and stomped down the hall. Promptly at nine o’clock my supervisor called. This was not going to be my day but then Mondays never were.

My fervent, unspoken prayer was simple: that this conversation was not happening. My supervisor, Bruce Coreless, affectionately known as ‘Clueless Coreless,’ had only just now and not too subtly informed me that I was being temporarily reassigned to the special investigative unit located, for the time being, in Farmington, New Mexico.

The purpose of this disruption of life in paradise was supposedly related to my prior work on contamination in groundwater in the southwestern United States, a not too favorite assignment of mine during my tour of duty in our esteemed Federal Government’s Phoenix office.

Wait! Now what was the pointy-haired boss on the other end of the telephone saying? I would have to go where first? Colombia? Is he crazed? Yes, he’s barking mad, that’s it. Perhaps this was an extemporaneous folie à deux. It didn’t matter; most of the office managers from coast to coast knew Bruce was not only clueless but gutless as well. Adolph Bartoo, Bruce’s boss, once told me to be patient, listen quietly and when the opportune moment comes, tell him to jam it up his ass. Of course, Adolph was quite juiced at the time, Regional Christmas party and all that.

Bruce went on to say that, through the estimable efforts by a litter of politicians in Washington, arrangements had been made for the United States to participate with an international team of scientists assisting the Colombian Government in their worried analysis of the recent fatally disastrous earthquake. The team, officially classified as a special delegation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, would meet in Bogotá, and Bruce was trying to coerce me into participating. Not only was that particular part of South America earthquake-prone, it also had several active volcanoes and I, whether accurate or baseless rumor, had inherited my late boss’s reputation as the resident volcano expert. As far as Bruce was concerned this was my duty as an American, as an employee of the Federal Government and, where applicable, nothing short of a religious undertaking.

As