IN LATE JULY, I flew down to Bogota with Gary and the rest of the element, eight of us in all. We deplaned at El Dorado Airport into the almost liquid warmth of a humid evening, all wearing civilian clothes. A group of officials whisked us to the embassy, a gray four-story structure hunkered in downtown Bogota like a fortress.
Gary and I were to meet with Busby in the “vault,” a room normally located on an embassy’s top floor, fortified by a soundproof, bulletproof Lexan bubble. No bullets in, no secrets out. When we arrived, DEA agent Joe Toft and CIA station chief Bill Wagner were already there. Busby, a tall, smooth gentleman, made the introductions. As we all took seats, he and I caught up on old times. How were things at Delta, he wanted to know. I asked him about the counterterrorism fight at State. Then we got down to business.
Busby laid out the complexities surrounding Escobar, much as an analyst would: A brief history on how Escobar came to be at La Catedral. His history of violent and indiscriminate retaliation against officials who tried to rein in the cartel. And the intricate web of corruption permeating every level of Colombian government. He ended on a hopeful note: The sea change in Colombian politics and society possible under Cesar Gaviria’s presidency.
“Gaviria, unlike his predecessor, is truly committed to shutting down the drug trade in Colombia,” Busby said. “The credibility of his administration is at stake. It’s critical that you find Escobar. Do you have any limitations on what you can do?”
“General Joulwan wants to make sure this is a Colombian operation,” I said, referring to the new SouthCom commander. We had stopped in Panama on the way down and met with George Joulwan, a man with a reputation as an effective leader who used a lot of football metaphors because he thought of himself as a coach. During our meeting, Joulwan told me Delta’s role was to support the Colombian police and military with training and intelligence, along with some weapons and equipment.
He was crystal clear that the Colombians were to be on the front lines. Delta was to be invisible—a ghost.
Now, in the vault, Busby said he agreed with Joulwan: the Colombians had to be the public face of the hunt for Escobar. “But you guys are going to have to get up to Medellin and work with them, train them,” he said.
I told them we were prepared to do that, and to offer logistical and intel support. “We have pretty good SIGINT,” I said, meaning signals intelligence collected via electronic surveillance, communications intercepts, and telemetry. “What we’ll need is any kind of human intel we can get from DEA and CIA. Any reports they can provide would be very helpful.”
Busby glanced at Bill Wagner, the CIA station chief. “We’ll provide all we have, plus they can work in our space here,” Bill said. Busby seemed pleased.
We turned to the DEA agent, Joe Toft. Long and lean with a tanned leathery face, Toft was a veteran frontline agent, accustomed to the bloodbath that was the South American drug war. And yet, with all he’d seen, he considered Escobar the most notorious and lethal cocaine trafficker who had ever lived. Toft, I would learn, saw the drug lord’s “escape” not as a problem, but as an opportunity to finally hunt him down. Still, I was unsure how the DEA viewed Delta’s involvement.
“Yeah, we’ve got some sources,” he said. “We can get you some information.”
Toft was hard to read. I couldn’t tell whether he really meant to help us, or was just telling us what we wanted to hear. You could never tell about interagency turf wars.
I turned back to Busby. “We’ve got some assets up at SouthCom,” I said. “If we need to, we can send them down.”
Joulwan had a P-3 surveillance plane up in Panama that could fly down and perform a high-altitude aerial stakeout over Bogota, transmitting SIGINT and imagery.
“If you don’t have anything else,” I said to the ambassador, “we’ll get our guys briefed and start moving.”