CHAPTER 23: ON ICE Mitch Marr told Terry that "Operation Screw Worm" was on hold indefinitely, if not permanently.
"So what am I supposed to do?" Terry asked. "I've got my whole family here. I'm set up and in place. I've signed a lease on a new home. I have to move tomorrow. I'm ready to go."
"Take a vacation," Marr advised. "Drive around Mexico. Get ta know the country. Enjoy, good bourbon is only two bucks a bottle here. I'll authorize ya some expense money 'til these guys figure out what they wanna do, for sure."
Marr then turned and walked away, leaving Terry in shock and disbelief to mourn Cooper. He needed to find a newspaper or something to confirm what he had just heard. It wasn't that he didn't believe Marr, he simply couldn't accept what he had just been told.
The training in Arkansas had been undertaken for the sole purpose of avoiding the type of catastrophic exposure the Hasenfus incident would now reveal. "They had better be beaners," Barry Seal had said when talking about the necessity to quickly train Latin pilots for the aerial resupply operations. What had gone wrong? And why weren't "beaners" piloting the plane? From what Marr had said, there was an American survivor to interrogate. Cooper had mentioned the name Hasenfus back in Arkansas thinking it was someone Terry might have known back in Southeast Asia. The blood had drained from Terry's face. He walked back into the kitchen where Janis was practicing her kitchen Spanish with the maid.
"What's wrong?" she said, immediately realizing something had happened. "You look like you just saw a ghost!"
"Bill Cooper's dead!" The words did not come easily. "He was shot down, from what Mitch just told me. I'm gonna jump in the car and drive out to Patrick's house and see if I can't get something on satellite TV from the States. The papers probably won't carry this until sometime tomorrow."
At the Juin house, he learned from the maid the family had gone to the beach. He was asked inside and turned on the TV to watch the American news reports. It had happened all right. It was the usual media feeding frenzy, interviews with State Department spokespersons and reporters having endless consultations with each other.
A United States "military" plane had been shot down and Daniel Ortega was claiming it contained weapons and CIA personnel. It was worse than Mitch had told him. This was proof, Ortega had charged, that Reagan was "lying to the American people and Congress about his true, aggressive intentions ... it is clear the U.S. intends to invade ... The United States clearly does not want a negotiated peace." An emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council had already been demanded by Nicaragua.
As Terry drove home, he activated his pilot's checklist mentality and was contemplating his possible exposure from all this. What, if anything, did Hasenfus know about him and "Screw Worm?" Had Cooper told him anything?
"What's the worst that can happen" was no longer just a rhetorical question for Terry. He was now adding things to that list of unpleasant possibilities. For now, he needed to reassure his wife, get some rest, and analyze his liabilities and options. The ensuing 24 hours would decide a lot of things.
The next day was still moving day. Diana Aguilar showed up early with the Mexican helpers and the moving truck to relocate them to their new house at #20 Linda Vista, a picturesque lakefront property that literally meant beautiful view.
The family had looked forward to moving day with eager anticipation.
The new house Diana found for them was much larger and comfortably suited to the family's life style. There were even quarters for a live-in maid. Unfortunately, the shoot down crisis was robbing them of the happiness and excitement they had anticipated.
Moving did indeed turn out to be exciting, but for all the wrong reasons.
Diana Aguilar was in a total buzz about the Hasenfus affair. As she poured herself a cup of coffee, she highlighted what she had witnessed on her TV and was clearly relishing in the knowledge that the U.S. got caught with its pants down. Aguilar, a Californian, had lived in Mexico for most of her adult life, and had adopted the Mexican view that the United States was, as the Ayatollah once said, "The Great Satan". Her philosophy represented that of most of the expatriates and artists living in Mexico who had adopted a left-wing attitude toward America: the United States was a meddler and trouble-maker in Latin American politics that sided with the oligarchies to keep the poor people repressed and in line.
They did not like the Sandinistas, but they felt the U.S. should stay out of Nicaragua and let the Latin Americans deal with their own problems. After having spent several months in Mexico and listening to these views, Terry was beginning to agree with them. He saw no contradiction in this because he believed his efforts would result in the anti-communist Nicaraguans having sufficient weapons and skills to force Ortega to the negotiating table.
"Where do you keep the Kahlua?" Diana asked as she rummaged through the kitchen cabinets. "I need to calm down. They finally caught this damn Reagan doing what we Mexicans knew he was doing all along. I hope this time the American people crucify this son-of-a-bitch. It seems like all you Americans want is war, war, war."
"The Kahlua is in the cabinet to your right. And Diana, you talk like you're a Mexican. Aren't you still an American, or have you been down here too long?" Terry asked, wanting to pick a fight. "Come on, let me teach you about the balance of power and how we'll never be able to co-exist in peaceful harmony as you ex-hippies all think." President: What? What? What is it? What?
Ambassador Alexi: The fools. The mad fools.
President: What's happened?
Ambassador Alexi: The doomsday machine.
President: The doom ---? The doomsday machine? What is that?
Ambassador Alexi: A device which will destroy all human and animal life on Earth.
President: All human and animal life?
Ambassador Alexi: ... when it is detonated, it will produce enough radioactive fallout so that in 10 months, the surface of the Earth will be as dead as the moon.
General Turgidson: Come on, de Sadesky! That's ridiculous! Our studies show even the worst fallout is down to a safe level after two weeks.
Ambassador Alexi: You've obviously never heard of cobalt thorium G.
General Turgidson: No, what about it?
Ambassador Alexi: Cobalt thorium G has a radioactive half-life of 93 years. If you take, say, 50 H bombs in the 100 megaton range, and jacket them with cobalt thorium G, when they are exploded, they will produce a doomsday shroud, a lethal cloud of radioactivity, which will encircle the Earth for 93 years!
General Turgidson: What a load of Commie bull. I mean, after all ...
President: I'm afraid I don't understand something, Alexi. Is the premier threatening to explode it if we carry out the attack?
Ambassador Alexi: No. It is not a thing a sane man would do. The doomsday machine is designed to trigger itself automatically.
President: But surely you can disarm it somehow.
Ambassador Alexi: No. It is designed to explode if any attempt is made to un-trigger it.
President: Automatically?
General Turgidson: It's a Commie trick! We're wasting valuable time! Look at the big board! They're getting ready to clobber us!
President: But this is absolute madness. Why should you build such a thing?
Ambassador Alexi: Some of us fought against it. But we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time, our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned your country was working along similar lines. We were afraid of a doomsday gap.
-- Dr. Strangelove, directed by Stanley Kubrick
He knew that would get her going. What the hell, he felt like a good argument. At least it would get his mind off things. The Reeds and Diana moved to the garden and engaged in a heated debate as the Mexican workers lethargically loaded their belongings onto the truck. Terry and Janis had decided to continue with their lives as if nothing had happened, just taking one day at a time. Anything else, Terry was sure, would bring attention to himself.
Before sunrise that day, he had visited Marr to confirm their earlier understanding, namely that Terry's personal overhead would be covered by the Agency as the CIA, Washington and the world began coping with the political shock waves that were sure to come.
So far, Marr was convinced that Hasenfus knew nothing about "Screw Worm" and could not compromise their upstart operation regardless of how tough the interrogation in the Managua prison might be.
"I know this guy," Marr had said. "He's a pretty tough cookie. He may tell 'em a little. I would. Ya just need to sit tight and, like I said, take an extended vacation on Uncle. I've already talked to Gomez, who's talkin' to Washington and they figure any kind of abrupt change in your behavior might bring attention to ya. Go on about yer machinery business in a very low-key nature. Don't be signin' any legal agreements beyond what you've committed for already. Tell your Jap and commie business partners that we're gonna go slow on this for awhile. I'm sure they'll understand.
Here's ten grand more and there's more where that came from. I'm gonna be leavin' for the States for awhile, so I won't be here. If there's an emergency, do as you've been told and go see Darrach (the American consul in Guadalajara), but don't use the front door at the embassy. Just give your code name to the guard and they'll let ya in."
This had made Terry nervous. "Where are you goin' Mitch? You're not gonna leave me here all alone, are you?"
"Terry, there's no use shittin' ya, I got a drinkin' problem that I gotta take care of," Marr said with resignation in his voice. "My wife's not comin' back down here unless I dry out. She's checkin' me into one of those damn clinics up in the States. It's probably best. I need ta get my head screwed back on straight so I can be useful to you and the Agency. I don't mind tellin' ya, Coop's death has brought me back down to earth. This is pretty serious fuckin' business at times. I guess we all need ta be reminded of that occasionally."
Terry realized that some good had already come out of Cooper's death, a positive for every negative, as always seemed the case. Marr was now going to dry himself out and, if the operation did continue, Marr would hopefully become more professional and shun the party mode that had developed by the reactivation of the "over the hill gang." An old comrade had died and now an aura of seriousness was starting to develop. Terry had relayed Marr's instructions to Janis before Aguilar arrived that morning.
She was still going strong as she sat and drank the Kahlua.
"Well, considering who you used to work for, I would expect you to have nothing but an American warmonger view on this," Aguilar said referring to her knowledge of Terry's military background. "Diana, cork the Kahlua," Terry told her. "You've had enough and we're not going to solve the world's political problems sitting here arguing on a beautiful morning in Ajijic. Besides, we gotta be moved out of this house by tonight, and at the rate these guys are moving, the new baby will be here before they're finished. Let's get on with it."
The romanticism of Mexico had definitely drawn Terry and Janis closer together than they had ever been. The EPT test Janis had taken showed positive; she was pregnant. They were ecstatic, there was going to be three little "Reedlets". Terry only wondered why James Bond was never confronted with this issue?
Terry viewed the up-coming birth as his final contribution to the world's population, and hadn't realized that getting Janis pregnant was a Latino sign of being genuinely macho. The gardener, Geronimo, now held Terry in true esteem. He had become one of them. Now they would call him padron.
One of the first tasks after moving into the new house was to find the right obstetrician for Janis. After much consultation with the aristocratic women the Reeds were beginning to socialize with as a result of Terry's business dealings, she was referred to Dr. Roberto Lopez Ramirez. He was a Caesar Romero look-alike who had been educated in both Mexico and the United States. His practice catered not only to the upper crust Mexican women, but Americans traveling to Guadalajara to give birth there, as well. There, they would be assured of more personalized care at a fraction of the inflated American cost.
Janis, at first, was apprehensive about having her baby born in Mexico. But Lopez' charm matched his professionalism and she was soon at ease with him and the Mexican medical system. He personally took her on an escorted tour of the Mexican-American Hospital to overcome any preconceived notions about "Third World" medicine.
Also, Terry selfishly saw future business advantages of having a Mexican-born child. As a Mexican citizen, the child could own land outright, which foreigners such as himself could not do at that time and, more importantly, own one hundred per cent of a Mexican corporation. The child some day, he told his wife, could be his joint-venture partner and their legitimate tie to Mexico. Terry decided to use this time to do a first-hand market survey and acquaint himself with the rest of the country. This down time could be spent analyzing Mexico's manufacturing base while also exploring Mexico more fully through a native's perspective.
Because the Juins were friends and seemed to have a flexible schedule, they seemed the perfect couple to help the Reeds discover the real Mexico. But before beginning their odyssey, proper transportation was needed. It was now mid-October and the Reeds decided to travel to Kansas City and purchase a motor home to serve as their "land yacht".
The visit to Missouri served a dual purpose; the children visited with their grandparents while the Reeds picked out the new motor home. They then "set sail", bound for Guadalajara byway of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Terry wanted to visit John Desko, his old comrade from Task Force Alpha whom he hadn't seen for more than a year. Terry still considered John his only true friend since their bonding traversed divergent experiences shared in the Southeast Asian war.
Terry had a reason beyond friendship for wanting to see Desko. There was a possibility, considering the non-stop headlines being generated out of Washington about the fallout from Cooper's crash, that the Agency would wash its hands of "Screw Worm" and force Terry to make a decision about his future.
Southern Air Transport had become the center of two major investigations, one by the Federal Aviation Administration and the other by U.S. Customs. Cooper's photo ID card, found in the wreckage by the Sandinistas had been issued by SAT, a CIA proprietary in Miami. The FBI also had joined in the investigation and Oliver North, whom Terry still did not know was John Cathey, was intervening with the Justice Department to have it stopped. [1]
For Terry's part, he could not understand why Cooper would be carrying something so sensitive. It was totally out of character for a seasoned spook veteran like him. Air America planes, and particularly their crews, had been completely sanitized for Agency work in Asia. It just didn't add up, and Terry was beginning to sense something very, very wrong with all of this.
The S.O.P. (standard operating procedure) for "deniable flights" called for the following: all data plates showing aircraft serial numbers were removed so that they could not be traced to a particular federal agency; the crews carried no ID at all; even their flight suits were sanitized and bore no rank or insignia; and only basic maps and charts were carried and these were destroyed at the first sign of trouble.
If positive identification had to be made of a downed airman, the official identification records known as SAR (search and rescue) cards, were retrieved from the pilots' home base. This classified card contained very personal information, such as maiden name of mother, first automobile owned, etc., and was used for "authentication purposes" if positive I.D. had to be confirmed by radio communication during the SAR process. The flyers' dental records and X-rays were also available for identification of their bodies, if it came to that. It continued to haunt Terry. Could Cooper have been that sloppy? Daniel Ortega had been smart enough to reveal the SAT I.D. card to the American media. They did the rest, and the feeding frenzy was under way. The predators could smell the raw meat.
Janis and Terry, though, were far away from the escalating tumult in Washington. They were mobile and free to roam. They had fallen in love with Mexico and its lifestyle and each other all over again, and desperately wanted to stay there and live successfully off the local economy. Terry was developing an idea about being the middleman, or manufacturing broker, in bringing together American retailers with Mexican manufacturers. This concept was just developing along the U.S.-Mexican border and Terry was already discovering the diverse manufacturing base located deeper inside Mexico that was anxious to find American partners to market their products or services. When the Reed motor home pulled into Albuquerque that day, Terry was thinking of the various products Desko needed on a daily basis to supply his company.
"No, I'm not going in there," Janis said to her husband as their motor home came to rest behind Desko's warehouse. "That place gives me the creeps. Every time I go in there, I'm afraid the place is gonna blow up or I'll be raped by some Hell's Angel biker who's shopping in there."
"Oh, come on and get out of the car, Janis," Terry coaxed. "You know he's my best friend and he's a hell of a nice guy. Quit exaggerating about all the evil equipment John sells. Most of it's police equipment and besides, I like this stuff, too."
"Post-Vietnam stress syndrome, here we go again," Janis said under her breath but loud enough for her husband to hear. As they walked toward the door, Terry spotted Desko's pristine, white 1978 BMWR-100 RS parked next to the owner's custom Harley-Davidson Sportster. And then there was the 1000 CC ragged-out Suzuki that one of the female employees, Allie Helmer, rode.
"Good, the gang's all here," Terry said to Janis who was still wearing a frown but reluctantly following with the children in tow.
"Haquel is the only reason I'm going in there," she snipped referring to the owner's daughter. Janis considered her the only sane person inside.
Upon entering the Quartermaster Sales' facilities on West Menual in Albuquerque, one is struck by what looked like a Hollywood prop room for an S&M movie. The first thing that catches one's eye is a giant map of Southeast Asia hung from the ceiling and emblazoned with six-inch high words: "Kill Jane Fonda, Pinko commie Bitch." [JANE FONDA] You know, people say,
"Well, you keep going back. Why are you going back to Vietnam?" You have to keep going back to Vietnam, because I'll tell you what, the other side does. They're always going back. And they have to go back, the hawks, you know, the patriarchs. They have to go back, and they have to revise the going back, because they can't allow us to know what the back there really was.
-- Sir! No Sir!, a Film by David Zeiger
Adorning the walls near the ceiling is a selection of posters advertising weapons and SWAT team gear, most being draped across dominant, and barely-clad, Amazon females holding weapons of death and destruction. These combined with posters of heavily-modified Harley-Davidson motorcycles depicting women wearing skin-tight leather established the mood of what adventures might lie ahead for the adventuresome customers. High above the counter was a sign that said: "No more Vietnams. And don't forget the POWs. We'll never rest until they're all accounted for."
WHEN I RETURNED FROM VIETNAM I was asked, "Do you resent young people who have never been in Vietnam, or in any war, protesting it?" On the contrary, I am relieved. I think they should be commended. I had to wait until I was 35 years old, after spending 10 years in the Army and 18 months personally witnessing the stupidity of the war, before I could figure it out. That these young people were able to figure it out so quickly and so accurately is not only a credit to their intelligence but a great personal triumph over a lifetime of conditioning and indoctrination. I only hope that the picture I have tried to create will help other people come to the truth without wasting 10 years. Those people protesting the war in Vietnam are not against our boys in Vietnam. On the contrary. What they are against is our boys being in Vietnam. They are not unpatriotic. Again the opposite is true. They are opposed to people, our own and others, dying for a lie, thereby corrupting the very word democracy.
-- "The Whole Thing Was a Lie!," by Donald Duncan
This was a veritable supermarket for survivalists. In addition to accommodating walk-in customers, the store catered, for the most part, to mail-order markets and distributed SWAT team paraphernalia to police departments and to federal agencies all across the United States. Although not primarily a gun shop, one could purchase any and all gun accessories known to man: night-vision scopes, laser sights, magazines, ammunition, holsters, belts, bandoliers, stocks, flash suppressors for gun barrels, and bayonets. Popular sellers were self-defense items: brass knuckles, nightsticks, mace, and taser and stun guns. In addition was a complete line of clothing that included camouflage and black fatigues, boots, hats, body armor, bullet-proof vests and "industrial strength" camping equipment. "Hey guys, what are you doing in town? I was afraid that Mexico had swallowed you guys up," John Desko said as he looked up from his desk. Grinning, he picked up Duncan and gave him a big hug.
"John, does GI Joe really live here like Daddy said?" the awe-struck little boy asked.
"Gosh, Duncan, you just missed him. Hey, this calls for a celebration," he yelled to Allie, a 90-pound woman who was wearing one visible pistol on her hip and a second one tucked inside her boot. Allie ran the shipping and receiving end of the company's thriving mail-order operation.
As he locked the door to the shop, he told Allie to pull out the large plastic garbage bin and start icing down the beer.
"It's party time. I'll go tell Bob you're here."
Bob Provance, the owner, was a man whose biker image belied the real person. Beneath the pseudo-biker look, which normally included a healthy growth of hair and beard, a bandana, Levis, T-shirt, leather vest, motorcycle boots and a chromed chain belt, beat the heart of an astute businessman and close friend of Desko's. He had found that the many
Walter Mitty civilians of the world harbor a craving for military paraphernalia. And Provance was no stranger to operating most of the equipment he sold.
In actuality, he was a highly decorated
Vietnam veteran who served with the U.S. Army's elite "Black Tiger Division" in Nha Trang, South Vietnam. Provance saw ground action while performing in a combat role with the 44th battalion, 4th training brigade, his company commander being the famous Captain Gerald Devlin.
Both Desko and Provance worked hard to project the image of survivalist oriented, soldiers of fortune. But Terry knew that beneath the facade were two men who had discovered a way of making a good living doing what they really liked, namely purveying to the world of "mercenaries." And, they had the added benefit of keeping themselves surrounded by guns, the latest in expensive toys.
Provance, happy to see the Reed family, pulled the blinds, locked the doors and put the "closed" sign outside. It was time to party.
"Terry, stop him, stop him," Janis screamed, trying to get her husband to rescue Duncan who had just pulled the pin on a hand grenade sitting on Desko's desk.
"Calm down, Janis, it's just a joke!" giggled Raquel, Provance's 22-year-old daughter, who was a quintessential wholesome and "normal"-looking woman.
With that, Desko picked up the dummy grenade mounted on a wooden board that said: "Complaint department, please take a number." Duncan was by then holding the red tag attached to the grenade's pin, which said "No. 1."
Provance laughed. "This is our hottest mail order item this year, Janis. It's only a joke. Get it? We don't sell explosives. Have a beer and tell me about Mexico!"
Janis breathed a sigh of relief as the Reed's were toasted by this engaging group of characters. Desko then whipped out his latest creation. He had seized on the marketing potential of the front-page news by using it on his latest bumper sticker.
"Whatta ya think, Terry, want one for your motor home?" Desko said holding it up. It read: "Free Hasenfus/Kill Ortega." Terry wished he could confide in Desko the truth about what he was doing in Mexico. By doing so, he would become an instant hero to the Quartermaster Sales gang. Bob would probably have closed for the remainder of week, and done some serious partying.
As Janis observed the camaraderie between these Vietnam veterans, she felt a slight jealousy since these men seemed to be able to talk in their own special code. Much of their feeling and communication was in what was not said. She was reminded of a line she had heard in a movie whose title she had long forgotten.
"Women never get to share anything so important as a war," the heroine had said.
If she didn't know these men, which included her husband of five years, she would think she was watching the road company of The Dogs of War, a movie about mercenaries. It disturbed her to think that before falling in love with her husband, she had viewed most Vietnam veterans as "sickos," and not as they truly were: Men who had been done an injustice by their country, and especially their leaders.
As the conversation shifted to gun control and the National Rifle Association's view of it as a "communist conspiracy to disarm Americans," Janis and the children gravitated toward Allie, who was opening soft drinks for the children.
"What kind of gun you carryin' down there in Mexico Janis?" Allie asked her. "We just got in a good selection of used Smith & Wesson .38-caliber airweight specials. They make great girl guns, especially if you have the hammer shaved like mine so you can carry it in your boot. Make Terry buy you one."
"Allie, just being around guns makes me nervous," Janis told her. "I'll leave all that up to Terry. My role in life right now is packin' diapers and wet wipes, not pistols. It's still sort of a secret, but I'm pregnant again. We're going to have a Mexican baby."
"Hey guys, Janis says she got pregnant by a Mexican!" Allie blurted out across the shop.
A now blushing Janis had to explain to the group what she meant.
The women then turned their conversation to the subject of life in Mexico, the men focused theirs on the business purpose of Terry's visit. Having discovered the textile industry of Mexico,
Terry was telling Desko and Provance about the significant cost savings they could experience by having their most popular clothing items custom-manufactured in Mexico. They requested quotations for comparison and agreed to consider Mexico as a source in the future, if things were as Terry claimed.
With business matters out of the way, the talk turned to fast motorcycles, fast cars, and fast women. All three men were happily married, but a private discussion of women was somehow mandatory.
Provance took the opportunity to produce his latest bumper-sticker creation that read: "If it has tits or wheels, it will cost you money." Janis found no humor in it. The Reeds accepted Desko's invitation to spend the night at his home. Over dinner and considerable reminiscing, the old friends agreed that they would meet again in Mexico the following summer, provided the Reeds were still living there.
Later, as Terry drooled over John's immaculate 500-CC Penton dirt bike in his impeccably clean garage, John asked, "So what kind of firepower are you carryin' to neutralize the banditos down there?"
"I was hoping to come by your shop in the morning and buy a couple of items before leaving town," Terry replied.
"Come on down. I'll get you fixed up with whatever is necessary".
The next morning, Terry met with Desko to make his weapons purchases. He selected a nickel-plated 9 MM Smith & Wesson for himself and, per Allie's suggestion, the airweight special for Janis. That, along with several boxes of ammunition and a selection of survivalist-oriented items, gave Terry a more warm and fuzzy feeling for what dangers might lie ahead while camping in Mexico.
Yup, he and Desko again agreed: That's why they had fought the Vietnam War; to protect the American way of life, which included owning guns.
With the motor home now loaded for the trip south back to Mexico, Desko's wife began to get teary-eyed, while standing on the lawn in front of her manicured suburban home. "We're gonna worry about you guys traveling on those dangerous roads down there. We'll pray for you. You let us know if we need to come rescue you. I won't come, Terry, but I'll send Bob and John."
Desko stood on the opposite side out of view of his wife, rolled his eyes and shook his head. After having spent an entire year on a remote jungle air base with Terry, he knew Terry would not be exposing his wife and children to needless danger.
"No shit, if you do have any problems down there, call me," Desko said reassuringly. "I'll call in an air strike. Just let me know what kind of ordnance you want delivered. Better yet, me, Bob and the gang, would love to live out Let's Go Get Harry, [the movie in which a group of friends rescue a kidnapped American from foreign terrorists]."
"Mai pen rai, kuip," Terry answered in Thai, which means "don't sweat it."
During the four-hour trip on 1-25 to the border, Terry mulled over the meaning of the special relationship he shared with Desko. It was just one of those automatic things. You didn't have to work at it, it just happened. It did give Terry a sense of security knowing he had a friend like Desko.
After motoring through El Paso, the usual Third World harassment by the Mexican customs inspectors now awaited them.
In the customs booths were men dressed in tight and unkempt dress resembling bus drivers' uniforms and bedecked with medals for unknown achievements.
The Reeds wondered what these medals were for. Had Mexico won a war? Not that they could recall. Terry concluded that they were probably rewards for gringo-baiting and bribe-negotiating. As their motor home waited on the Rio Grande bridge to clear Mexican customs, Terry appreciated the nooks and crannies a motor home afforded in which to conceal the newly purchased handguns. He had not confided to Janis they were hidden in the R.V.'s waste tank for fear of making her more nervous. Border crossings always had that effect on her, even when they had nothing to hide. They cleared customs with no problem despite the hidden booty and the Hasenfus bumper sticker.
The motor home was an instant hit in Mexico, but the bumper-sticker had to go.
Immediately upon returning to Ajijic, Terry went by Marr's house for an update on the crisis. The Marrs weren't there, but Maria, the maid, informed him that "Senor Mitch es muy enfermo en un hospital en Los Estados Unidos. No se cuana regressar" (Mitch was sick and in a hospital in the U.S., and she didn't know when he would be returning). Terry knew what that implied.
Feeling like he was now "flying blind" and on auto pilot, and with no new instructions, Terry decided it best to "drive around Mexico and get to know the country" as Mitch had suggested.
The Reed's began mapping a practice camping trip to the Pacific Coast, to familiarize themselves with the motor home and get accustomed to guiding the large vehicle over the narrow roads which were normally jammed with heavy truck traffic. They set off with the maid on a planned round-robin trip with two stopovers, to return to Ajijic several days later.
"You never fly into combat in untested equipment and untested skills," Terry always cautioned. To Janis, just packing the proper items for two small children to live in Mexico's radically diverse climates was a major undertaking.
Terry had come to have nothing but respect for Mexican drivers, who displayed courtesy and unquestionable skill in maneuvering their vehicles over less than desirable roads. In the short time he had been there, Terry had grown to sincerely believe that the State Department was spreading disinformation concerning Mexico's interior. The U.S., he was now sure, didn't want Americans to discover what a paradise it truly was.
The propaganda about crime, hunger and economic collapse was simply not true. Instead, he and Janis had discovered a country with a true national identity no longer found North of the Border. Milk, tortillas and medicine, basic human needs, were subsidized and guaranteed by the government. That, he believed, was why the people appeared so passive and content, displaying no threat of an armed revolution. The Reeds were discovering first hand that the American system seemed to be driven by one evil catalyst -- CREDIT. The pressure Americans felt for their daily, aggressive performance could be summed up by the words of one bumpersticker Patrick Juin loved to sing: "I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go."
Juin had invited them to join him and his family at a beach hotel north of the resort town Manzanillo near the quaint village of Boca de Iguana. Prior to arriving, all the Reeds knew was that Patrick was a friend of the hotel's owner and the Juins were living there for the tourist season.
The Juins had moved to the beach in order to run their new business of giving gringos a bird's eye view of the incredible coastline from Ultra-Light flights. The Reed's were not expecting what they would soon find.
As their motor home pulled off the main coastal highway and lumbered down the unimproved dirt road through the palm groves and toward the beach, Janis feared they were getting lost. "This can't be right. Patty said they were living in a five-star hotel that has 200 rooms. The holes in this road can swallow up a small car."
Thirty minutes and five miles later, the ocean finally came into view. Nestled among the coconut trees was an eerie, dated, Third World-type hotel complex that had the appearance of being abandoned and in desperate need of maintenance. Parked under the covered entrance where a doorman normally would be standing were the Juins' two vehicles and three Ultra-Light aircraft with their wings folded.
Abandoned described it, all right. What the Reeds learned was that the hotel belonged to a wealthy Mexican businessman who had built it some 20 years earlier. The hotel had been shut down and Juin was providing security from vandals by living there, thereby giving him a cost-free base of business operations.
The hotel was to have been the prototype for a number of resort "sex hotels" the owner planned to build in the world's most beautiful places. His plan was to take the Club Med environment one step further and eliminate the haunting fear of every male vacationer: Am I going to spend all this money and not get laid?
His master plan was to build a plush, elegant five-star romantic setting situated near, but not directly in an already popular tourist location. Male vacationers there could not only escape the pressures of society, but create a hedonistic society of their own, without the stigma of having to negotiate with a prostitute. After having previously selected their female companion from the hotel's photo "menu," which would have been mailed in advance to the prospective vacationers, they were guaranteed not only that their nagging question be truly answered in the affirmative, but that they could also put a face on their fantasies. All this at a packaged price that included airfare and baggage handling. The creator of the resort had thought of everything.
Juin was not sure why the hotel had failed, but his wife Patricia suspected it had something to do with the developer's spouse discovering the hotel's existence. Both Patrick and Terry concluded that the hotel's failure had surely set back societal advancement by light years. So much for machismo idols.
As the adults sat in the gargantuan lobby drinking their Bohemia darks, sunlight flooded through the massive domed skylight onto its marble floors where the children were racing their tricycles from one end of the lobby to the other.
"Mommy, this floor is a fast race track! Can I ride my trike inside when we get back home?" Duncan asked, leaving skid marks as he came to a halt in front of his parents."
After explaining that this wouldn't be acceptable behavior at home, and watching her 4-year-old do a wheely across the lobby toward the marble inlaid fountain, Janis realized she was getting accustomed to out of the ordinary sights. She decided to just take it all in stride. This was an adventure.
Patrick explained the details of his new business and introduced Terry to his Ultra-Light pilot employees, one an American and the other a Frenchman. The new business concept was simple and highly lucrative. From the hotel's sand-packed runway, he could service other tourist hotels up and down the coast, which included Fiesta Americana, Club Med and Las Hadas. For $10 U.S., you got a 15-minute ride over the ocean and surrounding countryside. Juin would be making money for something he would be doing anyway, relaxing at the beach and flying his Ultra-Lights. When Juin learned that Terry's "silent partners" were reassessing their business commitment in Mexico, allegedly due to the peso devaluation, he begged him to become his partner so that he could expand and service the entire coastal tourist trade. Terry found the offer tantalizing.
Later that evening as he grilled huachinango (red snapper) over the open fire on the beach, basting it with fresh lemon and garlic, he watched another of Pacific Mexico's intoxicating sunsets as his children frolicked in the surf. But a nagging thought disturbed his reverie.
"What are you thinking?" Janis asked as she approached in the diaphanous dress she was wearing over her bathing suit. Pregnancy had not yet changed her appearance, but had added a glow to her complexion that accentuated her sensuality.
"I wish I had the ability to slow down and try out a lifestyle like this .... but I don't," he replied sadly. "I just know it would drive me crazy after awhile. I guess I'm just driven to be successful. Let's pack up in the morning and get back to Guadalajara's pollution before I begin to like it here."
"I'll bet you'd stay if this hotel was still operating," she said with a grin.
The following day, they headed toward their next destination, leaving the Juins with the understanding that the two families would soon make a motor home trip together through some of Mexico's more remote industrial areas. The Juins said they would be returning to Ajijic by Halloween to attend the annual private masquerade party hosted by a mysterious and wealthy Mexican woman who was an heiress to a department store fortune. Mexican custom allowed the Juins to invite the Reeds even though they had not gotten a direct invitation from the hostess.
When they reached home, Terry returned to Marr's house for a status check. Maria informed him she had no news about Senor Mitch. Terry felt uneasy.
The Mexican papers were now filled with speculation about the Yankee scandal that was developing in the U.S. Strangely, the American media seemed to have lost their initial enthusiasm in covering the story, but Daniel Ortega continued to receive extensive coverage in the Latin American press as he raged on about the Yankee imperialist pigs.
Terry felt sure "Screw Worm" was doomed and that he had better start firming up his own personal business plan for Mexico if they wanted to remain there without the Agency's assistance.
For the Reeds, each day was becoming like another chapter in a book and they were becoming as close as the pages. They were not only discovering the true Mexico, they were learning to have old-fashioned fun.
But to off-set their more relaxed lifestyle, Janis had encountered a problem in Mexico that was driving her up the wall. She was discovering that controlling a Mexican maid was a full time job. It was late October and she had just fired the third maid since arriving in June. This one had run up a $400 phone bill to her cousin in California. Janis decided this time she was going to take the Juins up on their offer of letting them conduct the job interviews.
Managing a domestic staff was the least of Oliver North's problems, though. He knew that he had to create some sort of diversion of his own, and fast. And it was not the diversion of money to the Contras from Iranian weapons sales that then-Attorney-General Edwin Meese referred to three weeks later in his White House press conference.
The real diversion ended up intertwining a major foreign policy initiative with the scandal that was erupting and had to be contained. What better way to contain it than to shroud it in secrecy and blend it with true national security interests? Putting a humanitarian edge on it and masking the scandal behind the release of the American hostages in Beirut was a stroke of genius by the CIA. After all, who could denounce such a morally correct mission?
North was working overtime with the White House. He was on his way to Israel trying to work out the problems connected with another secret shipment of arms to the Iranians. His trips coupled with increased hostage negotiation activities became the foundation for grafting the illegal Contra support operation to national security interests in the Middle East. From this, the term Iran-Contra was invented. And the media later signed on, taking the bait, hook, line and sinker. By Halloween, Terry was beginning to breathe a little easier. It had been nearly four weeks since the shoot down and maybe this would all blow over despite the fact the previously slumbering American media, which was getting its information from a Beirut weekly, was pressing hard now for more details. But
Terry was amazed that so far nothing had surfaced at all about Arkansas' involvement. Was the investigation at a dead end?
Arkansas, he knew, was where all the trails would lead if someone was smart enough to follow them. He was fearful that perhaps some of the weapons on board the Cooper plane might be traced to factories in the Hog State. Weapons without serial numbers should create serious questions if the Nicaraguans were smart enough to know what to look for. And not only had there been pilot training in Arkansas, Terry knew that somewhere in Rich Mountain Aviation's maintenance records in Mena there had to exist a paper trail showing repair work performed on aircraft used for the Contra program. And what about the hundreds of millions of dollars in cash that Seal had dropped on Arkansas?
What if investigators began following the money trial between the "drop zone" at the Triple-S Ranch outside Little Rock and into the Arkansas Development Finance Authority by way of Lasater & Co? These undocumented transactions and unexplained injections of cash into the Arkansas financial community could spell imminent disaster for everyone involved. Terry's memories of Watergate centered on Deep Throat saying: "Follow the money."
And how was CIA's Hasenfus holding up? By now he had a team of American attorneys and was starting to change his story and play down his connections to the U.S. Government. [2] This would certainly test CIA's ability for scandal containment and damage control. The federal spin doctors had to be working overtime.
Terry speculated that if the Agency could masquerade the whole tawdry mess as a national security matter, they might just pull off the deception. It certainly seemed their only option.
* * *
On that Halloween afternoon, his attention was focused as well on his costume for the masquerade party that night. The Juins were back in town and the four of them had a date to meet for an evening's celebration, Latino style.
The Reeds had decided to go all out and get absurd with their costumes and had created "his and hers" potted palms as their theme. The look was achieved by attaching eight foot palm fronds to the interior of a bottomless wicker basket, large enough to be worn around the legs, with feet protruding, thereby allowing the wearer of the "plant" to walk around.
As Terry put the final touches on the costumes, Janis was having difficulties of her own. She was furiously clearing out the personal effects of the newly-hired, live-in maid. She had just discovered the children riding their trikes around the swimming pool while the maid was preoccupied in an intimate conversation with her boyfriend through the back fence. She was history!
After making last minute babysitting arrangements with the Juin's maid, the four adults finally arrived at the picturesque estate near the lake. The Reeds were taken aback by the hostess' live giraffe, a member of her menagerie. The hostess, in true aristocratic Latin tradition, did not attend her own party until nearly midnight.
When the orchestra arrived around 8 PM and the professional sound equipment normally found in recording studios was being set up, Terry was beginning to realize he had never before been to a real party.
The guests, dressed in extravagant costumes that looked as though they had been rented from a Hollywood studio wardrobe, outgrew the capacity of the elegantly decorated home and began spilling out into the courtyard and onto the lawn. A live band provided the music and, during breaks, blasted the entire valley with a recording of Latin America's idol, Franco, singing the song of the year: Todo La Vida.
The merriment, drinking and dancing continued non-stop until the Reeds realized they had reached the limit of their endurance. There was a ritual that usually preceded a party like this, one with which the Reeds were not familiar. The practical thing to do in order to survive this type of revelry, they were told, was to sleep until 6 PM the day of a party, arrive around 10 PM and indulge until sunrise. The next day should be spent sleeping. You lose at least 24 hours when you party properly, Juin would tell them.
At 2 AM, just as the mobile tacito cart, the Mexican equivalent of a New York hot dog stand, and its owner arrived to begin serving food to the 300 people, the award for the best costume was given to the Reeds, to the dismay of many partygoers who had outspent them, but had lacked true originality.
November dawned for Terry with a hangover, from the party and from the Hasenfus incident. He had to come down to earth and attend a business meeting November 4 with Fenue in Mexico City.
Gomez already had met with Fenue a number of times and Fenue and his company, Technoimpex, had been clued in on the capitalistic, profit-making opportunities ahead. The Hungarian knew that the machine-tool company was to be a front for weapons shipments and that things right now were on hold because of the Hasenfus incident. Fenue had no knowledge of how connected Terry had been to the pilot who had been shot down and killed or about his true activities back in Arkansas.
Fenue knew basically that Terry was running a cut-out for the CIA just as Fenue was running one for the KGB. Strange bedfellows, he thought, they simply viewed each other as peers. But the two men agreed that this time should be used to mutual advantage and to continue developing their joint marketing analysis, at least through the first half of November. That way, if by chance all systems became "go", they could launch into the actual sales activity phase.
Just as the Reeds and the Juins were preparing for their first joint motor home trip, Mitch Marr reappeared in Ajijic, dried out and seemingly ready to get down to work. He relayed to Terry in their meeting that there had been discussions in Washington about getting "Screw Worm" back on course and gearing up for weapons shipments. Marr kept saying everyone was "cautiously optimistic" that the Mexican operation had not yet been compromised by the shoot-down and the ensuing investigations.
Marr expressed the belief that the Reed's front operation was now a necessity if the Contras were to continue being supplied. He knew for sure that all re-supply activity out of El Salvador had been curtailed, he told Reed. Marr was confident, based on his talks in Washington, that the Agency needed a new source of arms delivery to be developed and put into place regardless of what Congress did with their yo-yo actions towards the Contras. He said Cathey had told him that CIA Director William Casey had invested too much time and money on preparing the ground work for "Screw Worm" to abandon it now.
The Agency, Cathey had told Marr, was working on a secret plan that hopefully would contain the scandal and divert media and congressional attention away from Mexico. Marr told Reed to continue with "whatever you're doing" until further notice. "Don't worry, the expenses are on Uncle". It was great to actually meet the real Mitch Marr. This one was articulate, much less vulgar and behaved more like a "take-charge pilot type".
It was unnerving and saddening to discover through Marr that Bill Cooper's remains had still not been laid to rest. Marr told Terry it was driving Cooper's wife and daughters crazy not having a proper funeral, but, for some strange reason, the State Department would not release the corpse to the family.
Terry drew more expense money, and set out with the Juin family on a small fact-finding trip to Cuernavaca. After visiting several industries that included the Nissan truck factory located there, the two families returned by way of the Mexican resort area of Valle de Bravo, west of Mexico City. The breath-taking beauty of this area, where Juin had once lived, further convinced the Reeds that they had found their hidden paradise. He now hoped the State Department would continue spewing out its misinformation and propaganda so that not too many ugly Americans would discover their secret and screw it all up.
Even though Terry had lived abroad before and Janis had traveled extensively throughout Europe, both were just beginning to see their country from another perspective. Through the eyes of the Juins and others, America's arrogance and dictatorial policies toward Third World countries were just coming into focus and the Reeds didn't like what they were seeing.
In many respects, Mexico was taking much better care of its social problems and had retained and was building upon a very unique institution being discarded by Americans -- the family. By the U.S. Government trying to force American attitudes, values and way of life upon Latin America, the Reeds were beginning to wonder if this wasn't, in fact, a giant step in the wrong direction. The Mexican people, for the most part, seemed truly happy, content, and did not rely upon the government to cure their ills. They turned instead, inward, to family, church, friends and the Community, like the days in America when Terry was young.
It was simple -- Patrick reminded him once again. America's problems centered around their Yankee aggressiveness based on over-extended credit and that leads to "I owe, I owe so it's off to work I go." And yet, strangely, that's the kind of life Patrick's wife yearned for. It was at times a peculiar and argumentative group, motoring around Mexico, analyzing the world's social ills.
With the rule in effect that all four would speak only Spanish to one another half the day, and English the rest, it was turning into a cultural exchange on wheels and both families were pleased to see how quickly the children were learning each other's language.
Upon returning to Ajijic, Marr had good news for Terry. "Gomez wants you ta be in Mexico City for a meeting he has set up for December 4th. Meet him at the Hotel Century in the Zona Rosa. The address is Liverpool, number 152. You'll like it there. It's a spook hangout.
"And, Oh yeah, he said ta bring the Jap's money," Marr instructed, referring to Frank Fujikawa's "capitalization" of Machinery International, Inc.
By this time, Attorney General Meese had set in place what Marr had referred to earlier as Casey's "secret plan" to contain the scandal and divert attention away from Arkansas and Mexico. Meese, at a White House news conference on November 25th, 1986, had revealed what he said was "the diversion."
Meese said funds from the sale of U.S. weapons to Iran were being diverted to aid the Contras. The investigation was continuing, but a National Security Council staff member by the name of Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North had done this all alone. Somehow, Meese indicated, North had taken over the entire government bureaucracy without anyone else noticing. Incredibly, just about everyone bought it. Meese never said specifically if anything was wrong with the diversion and was evasive when pressed by reporters on this scandalous behavior. He replied that the U.S. had no control over the diverted funds because they were "never the property of the United States." But if these funds were not American funds, whose were they? Meese speculated the money belonged to the "party" that sold them to Iran -- and that was Israel.
So was the diversion itself a diversion?
"What's to prevent an increasingly cynical public from thinking that you were looking for a scapegoat and you came up with this whopper, but it doesn't have a lot to do with the original controversy?" was a question posed to the attorney-general.
Meese replied he was laying out "the facts", but did not say anything more about the "original controversy" for the rest of the press conference. [3] Nor was he asked.
Meese had thrown out enough peanuts to send the trained monkeys in the White House press room scurrying to pick them up. Somehow they overlooked the fact that this really didn't make sense. And the inquiry ended there. North, of course, knew the truth, though he was not remembered for being particularly adept at uttering it.
North himself remarked later in his book, Under Fire, stated: "The diversion was a diversion."
23-1. Chain of command for Richard Secord's "black flight division" within the Enterprise. Had Terry Reed accepted the offer to join William Cooper, a line would probably be drawn through his name too. (Source: House Select Committee to investigate covert arms transactions with Iran) 23-2. FBI four page classified message alerting various Bureaus of pending Senate investigation into the October 5th, 1986 shootdown of the C-123 in Nicaragua. Note the connection that has already developed (by November 3, 1986) between the Iran-Contra scandal and Barry Seal's Mena operation. The common thread: the CIA provided aircraft used in both black operations. _______________
Notes: 1. Dutton testimony, Hearings, 100-3, 239-40, 280; North testimony, 100-7. Part II, P. 105; Deputy FBI Director Oliver (Buck) .i.Revell deposition, 6/11/87. 60-71.
2. The New York Times, October 17, 1986.
3. Theodore Draper, A Very Thin Line, Hill and Wang, 1991, P. 544-46.