J.R.: After Max’s arrest I had unfinished business with Barry Seal. Fabito slipped into Miami to emphasize how important it was to kill him. Whatever damage Barry had done to the Cartel was done. He’d spoken. At this point, getting rid of him was symbolic. Any successful group of criminals has to kill guys like Seal on principle—just to show what happens to a rat.
The Cartel wasn’t the only group that wanted Barry Seal dead. The U.S. government gave him a death sentence, too. Look how they treated this guy. They bust him for flying in some Quaaludes, and so he can work off his charges, they get him and me flying guns to freedom fighters. Then they send him to Nicaragua in a plane with hidden cameras to take pictures of Pablo Escobar loading cocaine. Pablo’s supposed to be the most dangerous man in the world, and they parade Barry Seal on the news as the guy who ratted him out? A normal guy who sets up a top criminal gets witness protection. What do they give Barry? A federal judge in his Quaalude case orders Barry to move into a Salvation Army halfway house a couple miles from the airport where he used to meet the guys who are now coming to kill him. The government did everything but put a bull’s-eye on Barry’s back.
Barry was a freewheeling guy. He didn’t worry about personal protection. But even with a guy who doesn’t want security, if he’s an important witness, the government will order him into protective custody. Not Barry. The government practically put the gun in our hands.
I knew why we wanted him dead. I don’t know why they wanted him dead. Was it for smuggling guns to Nicaragua? They never came after me for that. I don’t know what Barry did to piss them off, but it probably had something to do with the fact that he went on TV and talked about flying our C-123s for the CIA.*
When Rafa brought hit men from Colombia to kill him, I told him they could find Barry driving his Eldorado on Airport Road between the Waffle House and the Salvation Army. They were nearly across the street from each other. I had Rafa draw them a map.
MICKEY: I met the Colombians whom Rafa had brought to kill Barry Seal. They were about as bright as Huey, Dewey, and Louie or the Three Stooges. They weren’t hit men. They were gofers with guns.
J.R.: Rafa gave these wild Indians a pair of MAC-10s that he’d test-fired in Max’s garage,† and they flew commercial to Baton Rouge. They checked the guns through. They took the map we gave them and followed Barry from the Waffle House to the Salvation Army. They shot him in his Eldorado.* The Colombians were arrested within hours. They all got convicted for life. They never talked. They were good Colombian rednecks.
People say that a search of the briefcase Barry Seal was holding turned up a piece of paper with Vice President Bush’s direct phone number written on it.† A lot of good that did Barry.
* In 1985 Peabody-award-winning journalist John Camp filmed Seal in an interview he gave aboard a C-123. Seal disclosed details of his role in the CIA sting against the government of Nicaragua, and the interview aired on WBRZ in Baton Rouge in 1985.
* Seal was shot to death on February 19, 1986.
† Ballistic tests matched the guns used to kill Seal with shell fragments found in Mermelstein’s garage.
† The story of Bush’s phone number being on Seal when he died was widely reported but has never been verified.