I climbed out the passenger door of the Skymaster as the team of professionals gathered around. I set my weapon against the fuselage while unscrewing the cap to a flask of Jack Daniels. Which I handed right over to Rico, who took a long swallow and then passed it over to Jacob, the flask went around and it sure helped to lighten the mood. I picked up the Remington when I heard it in the distance. We hadn’t been on the ground for more than fifteen minutes and a Blackhawk helicopter was coming in fast, lifting its nose at the seemingly the last moment before a crash was assured and landing soft.
Tom Sunday, accompanied by Bob and four guys dressed in black complete with helmets, goggles and face masks jumped out and came over towards us. Jacob ambled over to the tail of the Skymaster, his rifle held loosely at the grip, in his right hand. Rico ducked his head and took five steps before clearing the front of the wing, about half way to the tip. Delwood and I, we stood at the open passenger door of the Skymaster. Sunday seemed a little pissed, as he walked up.
Dolworh tossed the nearly empty flask to Sunday, saying
“Lighten up, amigo, we’ve made your day.”
The State Deptpartment operative reached out and caught it deftly with his left hand, held it close to his ear and shook it, before tossing it back to Delwood.
“It’s to early to be celebrating, your job’s not done until I take delivery.”
I was looking at the four‘Men in Black’ each had the white star of the Mexican Federal Police on their body armor, presenting a suitable target, and each carried a M-4, combat slung across their chests.
Sunday’s sullen mood seemed to brighten and his mood improved considerably when I stepped aside and he saw the cargo, trussed up in the back of the 337. I stepped forward, holding the Remington in my left hand and raising my right to shake Bob’s hand, clearing an angle on the advancing Mexicans as I did.
Sunday motioned to one of the Mexicans, who hustled over and climbed into the plane. That’s when Bob said,
“
“Sunday called his liaison n the Mexican side after he met with us, they had a platoon on standby, hell they were moving when the bonfire started, you must have just missed ‘em.”
“Wonders never cease, Bob, wonders never cease. When did they decide to turn ‘em over to the Mexicans, any idea?”
“Not me, Jack, I have no idea a to that. You’ve made delivery, what the Feds do with those two, and why... who the hell knows. You may be interested in something that Sunday let slip, his liaison in Mexico, Coronal Roberto Valdez. I really do need to retire, that’s the truth of it.”
As the men in black removed the cargo from my plane, Tom Sunday signed a receipt for the two of them and was informed that he’d be contacted by lawyer Daggett with the payment particulars, which was appropriate seeing as how lawyer Daggett represented my employer, a Panamanian corporation.
Mag Seven Security – ‘Why buy guns when you can hire Men’
The newspapers in Mexico declared that Operation Lince Norte was a public success; passing on the military reports relating to the seizure of 6.5 million pesos, which is worth about five hundred an forty thousand dollars, US. They also reported that over twelve hundred weapons had been seized, along with three tons of marijuana. Almost forty thousand dollars in U.S. currency and more than two hundred and sixty vehicles had also been confiscated. All in what should have been a crippling blow to the Los Zetas operations on the streets of Nuevo Laredo.
Beyond those publicly acknowledged successes, the covert actions of Coronel Valdez and Fire Team Filiberto were credited with the capture Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, a founding member of Los Zetas and head of their operations in San Luis Potosí. The official story regarding the capture of Rejon subsequently credited it to the Federal Police in Mexico City.
Federal Police agents showed off their prize, Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, (a.k.a. Z-7, El Mamito), to the public in Mexico City. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini).
Along with Jesus there was another important member of Los Zetas was captured in a separate action, Valdemar ‘El Adal’ Quintanilla Soriano, who was a major money mover and cash launderer, referred to as an ‘accountant’, for Los Zetas.
It was reported that ‘Adal’ had been captured after a gun battle between Mexican Army troops and members of a Zeta cell in the municipality of Agualeguas, Nuevo Leon, just north of Monterrey. The Army reports that the battle resulted in the deaths of ten gunmen. In addition to the dead gunmen, the Army reported the seizure of ten military style assault rifles, five vehicles, military uniforms and tactical gear. There were over two thousand rounds of ammunition and ten 40 mm grenades seized. According to the public reports six of the gunmen were killed in the house, another four were found in defensive positions outside the main residence. The capture of ‘Adal’, after the gun battle, led to the seizure of almost one million dollars in US currency, by the men of the Alto Mando, none of which was ever mentioned in the reports made to the public
It was all going good, in the Greenback Valley of the Sierra Ancha Mountains, lawyer Daggert was moving foward on collecting the bounty on the two miscreants we had captured, he reported there did not seem to be any real complications, and the moneies would be paid as soon as the Congress raised the debt cieling. The loot from the raid had been divied up, NenaDe Laredo was, in a word, amazed. I warned her against extravagance and it worried me, but she had earned her share, fair and square. Ricardo’s share was paid by way of an Anonymous contribution to Article 19, rather to Ricardo, himself.
Then I got this in an anonymous E-mail ...
A reporter who wrote crime and police stories in the Mexican port city of Veracruz was found dead Tuesday morning, but officials made an early denial that she was killed for her newsgathering.
Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz worked at Notiver, the same employer of a columnist who wrote critically about politics and was killed in an ambush in his home in late June, along with two members of his family, as The Times reported.
Yet state authorities denied in a statement Tuesday that Ordaz was killed for her "journalistic work," hinting that the motive behind her death was "links to organized crime" (link in Spanish). The statement did not elaborate.
Black Jack Hawkins - The Backstory
The backstory to the Border War, and of ‘Black Jack’ Hawkins will be addressed through the recollections and stories of the people involved, in some cases ‘Black Jack’ was there, in others all we have are rumor, innuendo, reasonable assumptions and dots that can be connected.
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By the same token the truth of these matters is hidden behind the smoke billowing from a House of Mirrors on the shores of the Potomac River. So after consultations with legal experts and longtime friends and associates in the Intelligence and Security business, the truth will be told in the form of fiction.
Names have not been changed to protect the identities of the parties involved.
Though not all of those named really exist.
“That's what fiction is for.
It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.”
- Tim O'Brien
Black Jack’s border story starts in the Yucatan of Mexico, in both the city of Merida and the island of Cozumel. My father had been working for a series of international companies one of which was The Tupman Thurlow Co. From there he joined IBEC, which was part of the Rockefeller conglomerate, a company where there were members of the Rockefeller family were personally involved with him in the daily management of operations. While working at IBEC he spent a lot of time in the Yucatan, in Merida, Progresso, and Cozumel, and I had the opportunity, as a young teenager, to accompany him down to Mexico a few times.
He left the New York corporate scene in 1971, the family moving to Scottsdale, Arizona which was a totally different lifestyle than we’d had been living in either Rye, New York or Weston, Connecticut
I finished High School in Arizona, spent some time at the local Community College before
joining in the boom and bust cycle of the construction business. It was in 1978 that the Arizona economy took a dump. I had been working steady as a framing carpenter for a few years and then, one day in 1978, there just were no more houses to build. No more slabs were being poured, there was a depression, the boom had become a bust and believe you me, it was a depressing situation.
My brother spoke of a friend of his that had joined the Army, and received a signing bonus of $2,500 dollars when he did. So it was of to the recruiting office, to check out the possibilities. I took the tests and was told that I was qualified for any job that there was, in the US Army. The three Military Occupational Specialties that paid the $2,500 bonus for a four year enlistment were Infantry, Armor and Artillery. None of which struck me as things I really wanted to spend the next four years doing, which is probably why they were offering enlistment bonuses. Truth was I had no real idea what any of the jobs entailed, but my uncle had been a tanker, in Germany during the ‘Nam era, and had not liked it. The Artillery held no interest for me and I did not know much about the Infantry.
I asked about what other jobs that qualified for a bonus were available and there was one, Combat Engineer, the MOS was designated 12B, but it only paid $1,500. When I asked what they did, the recruiter did not know, so we looked in his book for the job description. Road building, chain saws, explosive demolitions, and combat construction were all mentioned, so I signed up, choosing to go to Fort Hood, Texas to be a member of the 1st Cavalry. First stop though was Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for both Basic and Advanced training, it was wrapped into a single packaged program which took about four months to complete. The only thing that stands out, in my memory, was that it snowed on Easter Sunday, at Fort Leonard Wood.
From Missouri I went to Texas, to Bravo Company, Eighth Engineer Battalion of the 1st Cavalry, where I was assigned to drive a Gama Goat, a chauffeur and radio operator for the platoon leader, a young Lt who had joined the ROTC program at Colorado State and really did not want to be in the Army, at all. He was a pleasant enough fellow, though , and when we went to Germany for ‘Reforger 78’ we spent as much time sight-seeing and visiting ‘Guest Houses’ as we did playing war. In fact it seemed to me that our primary mission was delivering food to our three line squads which were dispersed across the German country side.
After returning to Fort Hood from Germany I was told that there was an open position for an Engineer at the Horse Platoon and was told to volunteer, which I did. That led to spending the next four months riding horses, shooting black powder pistols and being pretty bored by the whole thing.
I had bought an old 1960 Ford pick-up truck, three speed on the column, six cylinder, stepside. Then moved off post, looking for fun in all the wrong places. A buddy of mine from the Horse Platoon had just come the Ranger Battalion and was sure that he could call the Sergeant Major there and get me out of Fort Hood and into that program; he promised it would not be boring.
While contemplating the opportunity to become an Airborne Ranger I received orders for the 518th Engineer Company, 193rd Infantry Brigade, Canal Zone. When I asked my Ranger buddy what he would do if presented with those two possible paths, he said, without a moment’s hesitation … “Go to Panama!”
I arrived at the barracks at Fort Kobbe and settled in. The 193rd Infantry Brigade was one of the first prototypes of the Modular Brigade Combat Team, although I did not realize it at the time. The 193rd was a fully functional, stand-alone combat formation, complete with Infantry, Armor, Engineers, Artillery, an Aviation and Airborne complement all rolled into a singular command structure under Brigadier General K.C. Leuer. The 193rd was a lean mean fighting machine.
The First Sergeant at the 518th was a Special Forces veteran, born and raised on the border of Arizona and Mexico, in San Louis. He had been over on the Atlantic side, at Fort Gulick, with the 3d Bn, 7th Special Forces Group but had been told that he had to move on up or get out. He could no longer postpone taking a promotion to E8. The problem, for Sergeant First Class ‘Maggie’ Magdaleno was that there were no E8 slots for Engineers in the Special Forces. He had to become the First Sergeant for the 518th Engineers or retire, he chose to come to Fort Kobbe and the 518th Engineers. Good thing for me!
First Sergeant ‘Maggie’ Magdaleno was often called upon by his friends on the Atlantic side to supply bodies for the Opposing Forces and such, for the School of the Americas and the Jungle Operations Training Center at Fort Sherman. It was my first introduction to the men of the Special Forces, the ‘Green Berets’. Working with those fellas could be described in a variety of ways, but suffice to say that boring would never be one of them. During the next two years I spent lots of time on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, the Primary NCO Course, the Jungle Operations Course, Sniper School, the School of the Americas and numerous Opfor maneuvers in support of the fore mentioned activities.
It was in October of 1979 when the first coup de etat occurred in El Salvador; the US was soon knee deep in the muck and mire of the conflicts in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. I had a front row seat at the show; little did I realize that soon I’d be an actor on the stage.
My military career was moving right along, a promotion to Sergeant, E-5 was forth coming and they sent me to Airborne school and then to the Ranger course, all in 1980. My private life was centered off base, both in Panama City and in Colon, on the Atlantic side. I was spending an increasing amount of my ‘off time’ with Panamanians, my Spanish was improving quickly. I was soon involved in a variety of local recreational adventures, surfing, scuba diving and socializing with the local ladies. Life was good, real good.
It was in February of 1982, I had just gotten married to a Panamanian woman and was contemplating my future. The Army was offering a career, but I really did not fit into the stratified environment of the Regular Army. The ‘Career Consultant’ was telling me that I would be going to Drill Sergeant school and then on to Fort Leonard Wood where I would be spending the next two or three years turning recruits into soldiers, the thought was not very appealing. I had an offer from a Panamanian associate to form a private security firm, but it seemed to me to just be some kind of scam, probably leading to illegal activities involving the huge quantities of cocaine that were transiting the region. This was the time frame when the rise of the Colombian cartels, to include Pablo Escobar and his Medellín Cartel was just beginning to be felt outside of Colombia.
The battle for El Salvador was just getting started, it had been during the past year that Archbishop Óscar Romero had been assassinated and the four nuns from the US were raped and murdered. There was substantial political pressure in the US Congress to scale back US involvement in El Salvador. In Nicaragua the anti-Sandinista forces were consolidated under the banner of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the FDN. While in Guatemala the US was delivering helicopters to the government in its’ battle with the insurgency there. Again there was growing political pressure in Washington to disengage.
I was at Napoli’s, a restaurant that was a favorite amongst US servicemen in Panama, as it was close to the old Canal Zone, near Gorgas Hospital and the clubs in the area we referred to as the ‘Triangle’. It was on a Sunday morning, and I was eating alone at a table on the outdoor patio when two men in cheap suits walked up and sat down at my table. They said that I had been
referred to them by ‘Maggie’ who by that time had transferred back up to the States, to work at Colorado State University, with the ROTC program.
The suits knew I was ‘short’ and had not yet reenlisted, when they asked why, my reply was simple. I wasn’t concerned about ‘Career Paths’, I was more interested in ‘Party Plans’. One of the suits smiled, the other frowned, just a matter of horses for courses, I guess. Their pitch was pretty simple, they needed qualified civilians to work with the local militaries in El Salvador, Guatemala, and the insurgent rebels Nicoland, and since I had been at involved with the formation of the Salvadorean Army's 'Atlact'i
Battalion at the School of the Americas, I was considered ‘qualified’. The offer was, I thought at the time, lucrative in that they were offering $2,000 a week, which was more than I was making in a month with the US Army. So, by the end of breakfast I was four weeks away from leaving the US Army and going to work for, well, neither of the suits mentioned what US government agency they represented and I didn’t bother to ask.
Six weeks later I was a civilian, wearing jungle fatigues without unit shoulder patches or rank insignia on the collar, flying north out of an abandoned US airbase on the Atlantic side to El Salvador in DC-3. Jose "Chepon" Robelo, was the pilot, I later learned that he was the chief of the Contra ‘air force’ on the Southern front. I got to know ‘Chepon’ pretty well; he was my first flight instructor. We refueled in Costa Rica and then flew on into Nicaragua, into the area along the Atlantic coast. The Sandinistas had been forcefully relocating the indigenous Miskito people from that area and moving them to the interior of the country.