Part 1 of 2
CHAPTER 15: TRIP ON THE DARK SIDE
It was Friday evening, December 13, 1985, just 11 shopping days until Christmas. Barry Seal couldn't know he had little more than two months left to live and his telephone voice was filled with excitement.
"Glad I caught you, Santa Claus! It's time for the trip to my brother's place. I've checked winds aloft and they're predicted to be one-niner-zero degrees at thirteen thousand five hundred feet. We should plan on leaving from my place day after tomorrow at 1400 hours. You may want to bring a RON (remain over night) kit and remember, there's no phone at his place. You'll want to remind Janis, so she's not trying to contact you there."
"Sounds good to me. Will I need a hunting license (a coded reference to a passport requirement) where we're going?" Terry asked.
"Yeah, but I'll take care of that. This trip's on me, and my brother is really anxious to meet you. I'll call my brother and tell him we're coming. Adios Papa Bravo," Seal ended, as usual, with a chuckle.
This cryptic conversation set in place a pre-planned sequence of events that Seal and Terry had devised at SOBs, a week earlier. All Terry had to do was remove "one's" from each of the coded elements of the message. Ever since the FBI/McAfee event that had led to Aki Sawahata's problems, Barry didn't trust Terry's home phone. Seal and Terry felt that McAfee was mentally disturbed and he had probably listed Terry as being a "known associate" of Sawahata. Therefore, they had worked up a way to relay coded flight plan instructions for their secret trip to Panama.
As Seal spoke, Terry jotted down some specially coded details on a telephone note pad:
190 degrees-1 = 90 degrees
13,500 feet-1 = 3,500 feet
1,400 hours-1 = 0400 hours
day after tomorrow = tomorrow.
To decode Seal's information, Terry merely had to remove" 1" from each item. This meant Terry was supposed to be waiting to intercept Seal's plane on the 090-degree radial of the Monticello, Arkansas VOR (navigation fix) at 3,500 feet at 4 AM the following day.
"His brother" was Seal's reference to a CIA handler who was setting up the meeting in Panama. His reference to a RON kit was his way of advising Reed they might be gone more than one day. The lack of a telephone at his brother's place meant for Janis to understand there would be no way for Terry to be contacted by phone while he was out of the country. "Papa Bravo" was to be decoded as P.B., or simply a cryptic way of "calling the play" -- or piggy-backing. Terry would have to tell Janis he wouldn't be at the dinner table for a few days, something routine for a spook's wife.
Seal's voice had exuded excitement and Terry was sharing the feeling. Ever since his return from Mexico four months earlier, Terry had been "consulting" for the Agency and developing an in-depth business plan that would utilize a machine-tool proprietary as a cover for a weapons transshipment operation in Mexico. Operation "Centaur Rose" in Arkansas had proved to be a successful prototype of what the Agency wanted to develop and expand upon, either in Mexico or some other "offshore" location.
The CIA had decided that operating outside United States borders would reduce the nuisance factor that had come into play in Arkansas, where "snoopin' and meddlin'" by the local law enforcement groups had resulted, as in Mena, in too many prying eyes. This problem had been compounded by a major turf war which had developed between federal agents who held diametrically opposing views of who Barry Seal really was.
Perhaps in hindsight, the "drug cover" given the operation had not been an excellent idea. In theory, it was to have been a way to allow the FBI to be the "controlling" investigative body, giving the appearance of leading an investigation against the operation. This was to provide federal security, thereby keeping state and local law enforcement out.
With this carefully orchestrated disinformation program, if an outsider later read the FBI's case files on Mena, they would appear to be the result of a criminal investigation. But, in reality, the FBI had been using its vast resources for containment and cover-up; the equivalent of a shadow shadowing a black operation. *
But the Agency-selected counter-intelligence F.B.I. agents assigned to Jade Bridge and Centaur Rose had lost control, and it had become literally, a law enforcement feeding frenzy. This had forced the Agency to assert its control with the Justice Department, as well, to prevent arrests and prosecutions.
Believing Mena to be a major drug-smuggling mecca because of Seal's cover as a trafficker, a state police investigator would later testify that stake out operations at the Mena airport by a joint task force included even agents from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Nothing had been accomplished, because they did not realize that the CIA used Seal as a diversion to distract them from what was really happening at Nella, just under their noses 12 miles away. And, by the time the stakeout even began, the training operations at Nella had already been shut down and some of those involved at Nella were being groomed for bigger and better opportunities in Mexico.
* * *
Mexico had been "numero uno" on the agenda at the meeting at SOBs as Terry and Seal renewed their friendship after several months of not seeing each other.
Seal, like Terry, had been very busy with other things. Terry wasn't aware of the fact that Seal actually had been put into the federal witness protection program and had become the government's chief witness in a series of high profile drug trials reaching from Las Vegas to Miami. He had proved to be one of the best undercover agents the government had ever developed and was an extremely effective witness.
His testimony helped convict Norman Saunders, the Chief Minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands, whom Seal had ensnared on tape while giving Saunders a $20,000 bribe to protect drug trafficking in his tiny island nation. During this time, Seal had been kept under wraps in Miami, and sometimes in an underground one-room cell for his own protection. This was the ultimate hell for a man who hated confinement of any kind.
Terry did not know any of this when he met with Seal that December night in 1985 in Little Rock, but it was clear from the onset of the meeting that Seal was anxious for a change of scene.
"Goddam! You must have hit a nerve with that business plan of yours," Seal had proclaimed. "You've really got these people's attention, which ain't easy to do. I think if we handle this right, this is something we could work on together -- and out of this fuckin' country! I don't know about you, but I'm gettin' real fuckin' tired of the U.S."
It was apparent from Seal's comments that he had been in touch with the people at SAT or someone reading Terry's confidential reports.
"So you've been in touch with Johnson?" Terry asked. "I was afraid my reports were going into some black hole in outer space. I've been getting no feedback and was beginning to wonder if they were interested at all."
"This is way beyond the interest phase. Not only do they wannna pursue this ASAP, but their plans down there could make 'Bridge' and 'Rose' and Mena appear as small as the tits on a Vietnamese hooker."
Seal was still chuckling as he began to sketch out an operation on his napkin that would possibly be located in the center of Mexico. The map was familiar. It looked just like a diagram Terry had sent to Johnson.
"That looks just like the routing diagram I sent to Johnson. Where arms could come in from all over the world, 'cool off' and be transshipped back out of Mexico."
"Well, if that's the case, I guess John Cathey and my handler are takin' credit for your work product. 'Cause this is what they're interested in. And what interests me is they're gonna need somebody ta move all this shit. So, Captain Reed, let's just retire to Mexico and live the life of fuckin' Riley down there. You can teach me Spanish and I'll teach you how to fly a 130. Deal?" He paused and gulped down a soda, then continued. "Let's start right now. How do you say 'I want a blow job' in Spanish, anyway?"
Terry picked on Seal's mention of a "handler" other than Cathey, and was glad to hear Cathey was looking at his reports. "Who's this other guy you are referring to?" Terry asked.
"He's my main man out of the country -- Leroy. He's tryin' to set up a meetin' between you, me and this Gomez character you met in Vera Cruz," Seal answered. "Can you get away for a meetin' to discuss all this, face-to-face, if I can get it set up? They're wantin' ta act on this real fast. And you and I need to take advantage of that. And this time, you're through workin' for peanuts. I'll do all the talkin' when it comes ta money. Fuckin' GS weenies! This is really gonna cost Uncle Sam, an' this time you'll probably get your jet."
It all sounded good. Finally, Terry thought, it was payoff time. The hours sweating in the cockpit with the students at Nella were behind him. He had begun to feel at last that he'd made the right decision passing up Bill Cooper's offer to move to El Salvador and join the Enterprise there as a flight instructor.
The door to the good ole boy club, he felt, was finally opening. Apparently, he had been doing things right. Maybe the life of a foreign asset, something he had always coveted since Asia, was now attainable.
The remainder of the meeting was devoted to outlining the needed codes for a piggy-back operation. In addition to the normal piggy-back procedures, which were to be conducted in matching 400-series Cessna aircraft, Seal said that, after the aerial "swap," the two men would rendezvous at Love Field in Dallas, where Seal would have his Lear serviced and ready to go. The Lear, he said, would be used for the balance of the trip south. It was clear Seal was seriously concerned about security, which puzzled Terry.
"If we're going to have a meeting with the Agency, why all the added security of a piggy-back?" he asked. "Who are we trying to avoid?"
"The other fuckin' Feds," Seal snarled.
* * *
At precisely 0400 hours, Terry was holding in the standard right-hand race track holding pattern on the 090-degree radial of the Monticello VOR looking for the green and red navigation lights of Seal's Cessna which should be approaching from the west at 3,500 feet. He was monitoring Memphis Center frequency on his No. 1 radio, waiting to hear Seal's voice report to Air Traffic Control as planned. His No. 2 radio was set to their secret, or discreet frequency of 122.97. That would be used for private air-to-air communication between the two Cessnas throughout the piggy-back maneuver. ATC on the ground would be unaware the two men would be communicating air-to-air or plane-to-plane.
Aircraft radios are normally wired in such a way that the pilot can only listen to one radio at a time in order to avoid confusion. But Seal's planes were custom-wired with avionics packages courtesy of Ultra-Sonics, Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, and Homer (Red) Hall, Seal's avionics expert, thus allowing both radios to be monitored simultaneously.
At 0402 hours, Terry heard Seal's voice transmitting on the normal ATC Center frequency.
"Memphis Center, this is twin-Cessna November six-niner-eight-eight-niner, level at three thousand five hundred trackin' inbound on the two-six-five degree radial of the Monticello VOR showin' twenty DME, squawkin' twelve hundred."
Seal's position report to the center included a precise location in mileage from the ground navigation fix, which was the 20 DME to which Seal had referred. The 1200 code was a frequency set into Seal's transponder indicating the aircraft was on a visual flight plan. Aircraft on a visual flight plan need not communicate with the center. But Seal had established radio contact for identification purposes and to create a record of entering and leaving the center's airspace. What the center would not be aware of was that while Seal's plane was under their control, another plane would take its place. The plane initially "handled" by the center would depart undetected and the rendezvousing aircraft, or Terry's, would proceed on Seals' original flight plan. One plane takes another's place, but no one other than the two pilots is the wiser.
"Roger, twin Cessna eight-eight-niner. What can I do for you?" the ground controller responded.
"Center, how do you read my transponder?"
"I am painting you eighteen DME from the fix, ground speed one-four-zero knots, squawking one-two-zero-zero, level three thousand five hundred feet. What else can I do for you twin-Cessna eight-eight-niner?"
"Oh, nuthin'. It's just that my transponder light appears to be intermittent, and I was wonderin' if y'all were paintin' me OK."
The light Seal referred to was an indicator on his transponder that lights up each time the center bounces a radar beam off of the airplane. This is referred to as having your transponder "interrogated." There was nothing wrong with Seal's transponder, he was simply establishing radio contact with the center in order to establish a record of his arrival and departure from their "window" of controlled air space.
"Everything looks fine here, sir. But, would you like a transponder check?" ATC replied.
"Yeah, that'd be great."
"Roger, twin Cessna eight-eight-niner, squawk ident."
At which point, Seal pushed the ident button on his transponder causing his radar blip to "blossom" or enlarge on the controller's radar scope. This enabled the controller to distinguish it from other aircraft on his screen.
At the same time, Seal also switched his transponder from the altitude reporting mode, mode C as it is called. ATC would no longer be able to determine the plane's altitude.
Terry, of course, had been silently monitoring this radio transmission between Seal and ATC and had used Seal's position reporting to locate the approaching aircraft visually from its navigation lights. Terry's plane had no lights on and was at minimum terrain clearance altitude below the surveillance envelope of the center's radar. The center was totally unaware of Terry's presence.
He had been maneuvering his plane to intercept Seal's flight path. This had been accomplished easily because Seal ran his engines at 55 per cent of their maximum power and Terry had used this time to assure himself visually that Seal had not been followed. If this had been the case, he would have alerted Seal on their discreet frequency and the mission would have been aborted.
"I'm below you and almost in position, your tail is clear. Stand by for a hack," Terry told Seal on the discreet frequency while Barry was faking the test of his transponder.
"Twin Cessna eight-eight-niner this is center. Sir, your ident looks fine, but I've now lost your Mode C. It does appear you have an intermittent problem of some sort," ATC said.
"Roger, center. I'm dual transponder equipped and when I get time in a minute, I'll switch over ta the other one and we'll see what she does."
"Roger, twin Cessna, whenever you're ready."
By disabling his plane's altitude reporting capability, Seal's transponder now no longer would tell ATC his true altitude. This would be important because Terry's plane soon would make an abrupt climb to Seal's altitude and once directly behind him, Seal would turn his transponder completely off and dive his plane for the deck. His electronically enhanced radar blip would completely disappear from the scope.
At precisely the same moment, Terry would switch on his transponder and squawk an ident mode. Terry's large radar return that would suddenly appear on Center's screen would mask any secondary return generated from Seal's plane during his diving maneuver away from Terry.
Terry was now in place below and behind Seal and gaining air speed as the distance between the two planes decreased.
"Thirty seconds to hack," Terry said to Seal. Then, "twenty." Then "ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, hack."
Seal had now synchronized his clock with Terry's, and knew that he now had exactly one minute until Terry's plane would be in position directly behind him and slightly below. Without causing a mid-air collision, it would be Terry's job in this dangerous maneuver to get his airplane close enough to Seal's in order "to count the rivets" as Seal had taught him. It required the same flight precision demanded of the aerial stunt teams and each pilot was entrusting his life to the other.
It would be up to Seal then to execute a right-wing over, or half of a split-S course reversal maneuver taught to fighter pilots to dive in on unsuspecting targets below. This would separate the two aircraft as quickly as possible.
Seal and Terry's eyes were both locked on their cockpit clocks as the second hands approached 12. At ten seconds til, Terry began the count down, "ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, execute." At precisely that second, Terry switched on his transponder, which had been off, pushed the ident button and turned on his Mode C, or altitude reporting capability.
Seal switched his transponder completely off and at the same time abruptly turned his plane beyond 90 degrees of bank angle and dove for the surface in the reverse direction.
If all had gone well the controller on the ground would never see more than one radar blip. For all he knew, he had only assisted one airplane with a transponder problem.
"Twin Cessna eight-eight-niner, this is Center. I'm painting you now at ten miles east of the fix, tracking outbound on the zero-niner-zero degree radial squawking ident and your mode C is now operational, showing you at three thousand five hundred feet. It appears that this transponder is a good one."
Seal, not Terry, now replied to ATC so that the controller hears the same voice.
"Roger center, thanks for the assistance. I'll be seein' ya."
"Good day, sir and have a nice flight."
The switch had been flawless.
Seal continued to fly at low altitude to Dallas Love Field below radar detection. There he landed and waited for Terry as they had earlier agreed. Terry continued flying on to Seal's original VFR flight-planned destination, Greenville, Mississippi airport, pretending to be Seal.
Once on the ground and sure that no one was following him or, even more important, that no one was waiting for him, Terry flew back to Little Rock and landed at Adams Field. It had already been a long morning and the sun was just beginning to rise as Terry boarded a Southwest Airlines flight at 6 AM for Dallas' Love Field. There, he took the shuttle bus to the general aviation side of the field and rendezvoused with Barry.
Their plan was to be in the air at 0800 hours in Seal's Lear jet N 13SN heading south.
All went flawlessly, and, as Terry's bus pulled into the general aviation parking lot on the north side of Love Field, he could see Barry overseeing the refueling of the Lear. The twin Cessna he had flown in to Love was tied down on the transit parking ramp. Terry hoped all this hocus-pocus of the piggy-back flight had been worth it. He knew Seal was security conscious, but it was still amazing the lengths he would go to ensure there was no tail. It was 7:30 AM.
"Your left engine on the Cessna is losing some oil," Terry said as they boarded the Lear and buckled in. "You better get it checked out when we get back."
"How do ya know?"
"Because it deposited residue on my windshield when I was tucked in behind you."
"Jeeesus Christ! You must have been awful close to me."
"Hey, you're the one who said get close enough to count the rivets. There's exactly 26 holding on your tail hook," Terry laughed.
The Lear's engines spooled and it started its take off roll at exactly 0800 hours as planned. As the airspeed rose to 125 knots indicated, Terry rotated the aircraft as Seal in the right seat called out "V-l, check, cross-check, positive rate, gear up, turn and burn."
Terry banked the plane to the south as Seal briefed him on their planned 400-mile trip to Brownsville, Texas, where they would take on fuel and file a phony flight plan to Campeche, Mexico, a city on the western side of the Yucatan Peninsula. Seal told him they would file all the flight plans in Emile Camp's name and in his honor, since Barry had Emile's pilot's license and voter registration card from Slidell, Louisiana.
"Here's your huntin' license. You file the flight plan in Emile's name once we get to Brownsville, and then we'll cancel once we're in the air over Mexico." "Oh, we're not goin' to Campeche?"
"No. We'll be flyin' direct to Ilopango (in El Salvador) for fuel and then on to Howard Air Force Base in Panama." Terry was excited.
Terry knew that Mexican Customs would not be a problem. Jets entering Mexican airspace do not have to clear at the port of entry, which in this case would have been Matamoros. Had they been flying a propeller-driven plane, they would not have been able to penetrate Mexican airspace as they crossed the Rio Grande coming out of Brownsville and "just keep on truckin '" as Seal had said. Flying jets certainly had its advantages. Terry knew they would not need Emile's identification unless an emergency forced them to land in Mexico since there would be no identification inspection by the Mexican Federales prior to leaving the U.S. He could tell Seal was an expert at exploiting the world of regulations and had done this many times before. He wondered if there was a loop hole in the rules Barry wasn't aware of?
"Keep this thing below eighteen thousand and we won't even file this leg," Seal said as they departed Dallas airspace.
All clever choices, Terry thought. By staying below 18,000 feet there would be no legal requirement to file a flight plan to Brownsville. The only punishment for not climbing to a higher altitude would be that the Lear's model CJ610-2 GE engines would suck fuel like crazy at this lower altitude.
"Don't worry about the fuel burn," Seal said. "This trip is on Uncle Sam."
After the brief hour trip to Brownsville, Terry (now Emile Camp) went inside the general aviation terminal to check weather and file their phony flight plan to Campeche. He felt a little uneasy using a dead man's pilot's license number. But, as Seal had joked earlier, "Emile won't mind. Where he's flying they don't need licenses."
After filing the plan, Terry joined Seal on the ramp where he was chewing out the "line boy" for not topping off the tanks completely.
"Son, the next time someone tells ya ta fill his fuckin' airplane ... I suggest ya do just that ...all the way ta the fuckin' top. Know what I mean? A friend of mine ran outa gas and died. A pilot can't burn air for fuel. So get your ass ova' here and top this baby off. I bet she'll hold another five gallons per side. And don't forget the Prist this time." Prist is a fuel additive used to prevent the growth of algae in fuel tanks when flying in humid and tropical climates.
Terry had grown to respect Seal's demand for perfection when it came to the world of aviation. He, too, knew that a pilot couldn't assume anything had been done properly when it came to servicing an airplane.
"Aviation is very unforgiving," he could hear his instructor-examiner John P. Brown saying from his training days at Mizzou Aviation in Joplin. And to prove it, on a wall behind Brown's desk was a picture of an old plane impaled upon and still stuck in the only tree that was visible for as far as the eye could see. A monument to what can happen anytime a pilot drops his guard ...for any reason.
"Most aviation accidents can be prevented while still on the ground," he could hear the looming, somber, and often intimidating Brown still saying. Terry admired Seal for living by this rule, even after all the flying experience he had amassed. He may be a "calculated risk taker", but he certainly knew how to "reduce" the risks.
The white Lear was airborne and heading south at 10 AM with "Emile Camp" at the controls and Barry Seal on the radio. Once on their flight plan, and in Mexican airspace, at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, Seal went to the rear of the aircraft, grabbed two pilot map cases and dragged them to the front. These were the same type of cases Terry had seen earlier in Seal's Aero Commander that blew the engine in Texarkana. Inside were custom aluminum boxes containing sophisticated electronics, some of which Terry recognized.
"GNS-500s. Damn, those things used to cost a half-million apiece and you've got two?"
"Nuthin' but the best when you're workin' for Uncle." Seal quipped. "And these ain't your normal 500's. They're modified ta do "special" things. With these babies, we cannot only pinpoint our position via satellite within about 10 meters, we can find the window to the Bermuda Triangle. That takes accuracy, son."
GNS-500s are navigational radios that continuously read the aircraft's position in latitude and longitude via digital readouts. This, coupled with their capability of storing and processing complex flight plans and denoting wind speeds at various altitudes, and determining ground tracks would give the jet the ability to fly without making contact with ground controllers. Earlier in his aviation training, Terry had attended an advanced navigation class in St. Louis, which taught the operation of this system, but he never thought he would see two of them worth more than $1 million in the same portable box. This was the same type of sophisticated navigation system aboard the Korean 747 airliner, Flight 007, shot down by a Soviet MIG in September, 1983. That aircraft had only one GPS (Global Positioning System). Seal had two to guarantee pinpoint navigation accuracy.
Under the control panel on the co-pilot's side, Red Hall had installed a secret power buss that Seal accessed with a jumper cable to power the GNS- 500s. With another jack, Seal connected the antennas, hidden within the fuselage of the plane, to the radios in the box making everything operational.
Terry sat in awe as he watched while Seal remove a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and punched in the coordinates of the entire flight plan.
"OK, I'll just hook up the ground and satellite communications equipment in this other box and it'll be time for us to 'disappear,''' Seal chuckled.
As he opened the second box, Terry saw an array of electronics and radios with ultra-high radio frequency ranges totally foreign to him. On a sticker in the middle of the control panel was a service note, saying: "Direct all service inquiries to Summit Aviation, Middletown, Delaware."
Once power was supplied to these radios, Seal pulled a microphone from the box, smiled at Terry and said: "Now you're gonna know what it's like to fly into the Bermuda Triangle and just fuckin' disappear."
What Seal was preparing to do was to "blind" a Department of Defense satellite designed as a sentry to give advance warning of incoming hostile weapons systems. This would provide a window through which the Lear could fly through undetected. At the same time, Seal said, secret military surveillance tracking stations manned by U.S. Army intelligence personnel would emit large bursts of energy to jam the U.S. and Mexican ATC radar.
Terry felt he was seeing the results of all the Star War countermeasures technology. This, he now realized, was how Seal's Operation Jade Bridge aircraft, codenamed Dodger, had been able to enter and leave the United States without being detected. If there had ever been a doubt in Terry's mind about who Seal was, and how high he was connected, it had been put to rest forever. Seal got his flight plan authorizations not from someone on the ground, like most pilots, but from satellites out in space.
"You get ready to switch transponders to standby. I'll call our guys in Cuba on a secure frequency," Seal said to Terry.
"Sea Spray, this is Lear one-three Sierra November, thirty seconds from the window. How do you read?"
"Loud and clear, Lear," came the voice from the ground. "We've been expecting you. We're showing you being handled by Mexico City Center squawking zero-seven-four-two, level flight level three-five-zero (35,000)."
"That's a Roger. Give me a hack for the trip on the darkside. We're ready to go."
"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, hack."
Seal had zeroed the LED clock on the dashboard of the Lear and pressed the 'ON' button as the controller called "Hack."
He turned to Terry, "When that clock reads 30, switch both transponders to standby, hit the speed brakes and let's dive this bitch to the deck. Use your emergency decompression check list."
Seal immediately went to Mexico City Center frequency, "Mexico City, this is Lear one-three Sierra November requesting hand-off to Campeche approach." The Mexican ATC authorized Seal to leave his frequency and go to Campeche's, thus terminating Mexico City's service.
Thirty seconds later the ground controller announced "your portal time is sixteen forty-five zulu. You're black." Terry saw that the transponder "interrogation" light was no longer working. As the Lear buffeted with its speed brakes extended and its altimeter indicating 20,000 feet per minute descent, Seal got on the radio to Campeche approach and said: "Campeche approach, we are Lear one-three Sierra November, cancel our flight plan to your destination. We are goin' somewhere else."
At this point, they no longer existed as Lear 13SN heading for Campeche from Brownsville. Now, they were self-navigating under no one's ground control. They would now swing out of Mexican and Cuban airspace by circumventing the Yucatan Peninsula and establish a course of 230 degrees to Ilopango, El Salvador.
Terry leveled the plane out at 10,000 feet and started reviewing the approach charts to Ilopongo, now about 600 miles away. The fuel burn at low altitude was horrible, but Seal didn't care as he had factored in the tail wind component supplied him by the GNS-500s.
Now they were flying "on the darkside" mused Terry and asked Seal about the term. It had a science fiction connotation.
"Yeah, some spook technocrat stole it from 'Close Encounters,'" Seal said referring to the movie. "It was originally conceived as a way to hide the whereabouts and destination of Top Secret military flights, including Air Force One. But once they got it perfected, the Agency saw it had lots of uses." Seal went on to say it was rumored in the spook world that this technique of literally falling off the edge of the earth was used not only by the Agency as a way of hiding agents who became too hot, but by unscrupulous people who paid for such disappearance. Perhaps this was part of the Bermuda Triangle myth, Terry thought.
Seal began connecting and activating portable low-frequency receivers called ADFs (automatic direction finders). These were needed to receive signals from low-frequency transmitters common throughout Central and South America. If these devices had been permanently installed in the plane, the Federal Aviation Administration would have flagged this aircraft as one that operated in that area and would have brought unnecessary outside scrutiny.
At 1300 hours, they landed at Ilopongo and took on fuel from the Salvadoran Air Force, whose armed guards surrounded the aircraft. Cold Cokes and flight lunches were brought out for the two men. No one signed for the fuel and no money was exchanged.
There was no flight plan in -- or out. They were handled by ATC as a "special flight." Terry realized that what he had suspected was true: the CIA owned El Salvador just as they had owned Laos.
As the plane taxied out for takeoff, Seal instructed Terry to stop the Lear in the pre-takeoff runup area. He had a little "cosmetic work" to perform before the leaving. Once stopped, Seal got out and removed a Mylar masks bearing the plane's tail-number. Once removed, a hidden number of N83JA was exposed. Upon reentering the cockpit, Seal chuckled, "One last little detail taken care of. The world now figures that the Bermuda Triangle swallowed up 13SN."
Once again airborne, they were headed for their real destination, Panama.