Hostage Nation (31 page)

Because of his well-known access to the hostage camps, Botero was in great demand in Washington, D.C. He was approached numerous times by FBI agents who wanted to meet with him. For the most part, he had succeeded in evading them. Gary Noesner continued to push for a meeting with Botero as well, and Botero finally agreed. For Botero's part, he wanted to get access to the American families to interview them for a book he was writing, and he felt that Noesner was the person who could make it happen. Botero also wanted to understand
how the kidnapping case was being handled from the side of the U.S. government, and Noesner was not a U.S. government agent, which Botero considered an advantage, since he wanted to avoid contact with government operatives. He felt that FBI agents or others would try to convince him to take messages to the FARC, putting him in the dangerous position of being an intermediary on the part of the U.S. government. Noesner was very happy finally to have Botero's ear, and Northrop Grumman executives “were open and receptive to the idea of having Botero's help,” says Noesner. “Up to that point, we had nothing. All the contacts and efforts that my company [Control Risks] and I had made through the church and the Red Cross and others—we were only getting way out on the fringes. We couldn't penetrate deep into the FARC organization, and Jorge had that access.”

Botero also felt fortunate to make the connection with the former FBI boss. “When I met Gary, I was immediately struck by his intelligence. It was obvious he had a lot of experience, and a lot of ideas on how to get the FARC to release Tom, Marc, and Keith.” Noesner's plan was that Botero get another interview with the hostages, then deliver the video to him before U.S. agents got hold of it. Noesner knew the U.S. government was still backing a rescue attempt, something that he was very concerned about, believing it would get the hostages killed. He hoped that if the proofs came out in the media, it would generate helpful publicity that might pressure the U.S. government to negotiate for the Americans' release. Gary was also determined to do his job well, and that meant doing everything he could on behalf of Northrop Grumman. What the company wanted was for the families to have some peace of mind, to realize that something was being done to get the hostages released, or at least to know that Stansell, Gonsalves, and Howes were still alive. He was not used to having so little success on a case, which was incredibly frustrating.

Before Botero left for Bogotá, Noesner arranged for him to meet with Northrop Grumman's director of security, Patricia Tomaselli. Tomaselli had never met the American hostages, but she felt very moved by the case and was dedicated to doing whatever she could to help free them. Tomaselli hoped that, at the very least, Botero could deliver messages to the hostages from their families. Every six months
since the kidnapping, Northrop Grumman had helped the families write letters and record audio messages, in the hope that there would be some way to get them in. They had tried several routes, including the Red Cross and some FARC informants, but so far, they had not had any success. They had also had the families record messages to play on the radio programs for hostages. However, the company had no way of knowing if the messages were ever received or if the men had access to a radio.

Tomaselli gave Botero letters from each of the hostages' families, and three letters from Northrop Grumman, one to each man, stating that the company was doing everything it could and promising to take care of the men's families. She also gave Botero a CD with the audio messages. When Botero was alone, he put the CD into his computer. The first message he heard was from Kyle Stansell to his father. “I'm a freshman in high school now. I'm, like, six two now—about one hundred and sixty pounds. We miss you a lot. You're in our prayers.… I think about you all the time. I miss you.” How can it be that a child has to tell his father what grade he's in? Botero thought. The messages brought tears to his eyes. As many times as he'd heard someone leave a message to a father, a mother, or a child who was being held hostage, he never got used to it. He took the families' letters and the CD and hid them in his backpack. The letters written by Northrop Grumman and the envelope with the company's logo he tore into tiny pieces and flushed down the toilet in the apartment where he was staying, which belonged to a Colombian journalist friend. He could not risk going into FARC territory looking like an envoy for a North American defense contractor.

In January 2007, when Botero next met with Raúl Reyes, he gave the guerrilla commander the letters from the families and a copy of John McCain's memoir
Faith of My Fathers
that he'd picked up in Washington, D.C. He felt that the words of a U.S. presidential candidate, someone who had also gone through a long period of captivity, might bring the men some solace and hope. Botero knew that the hostages were probably hundreds of miles from Reyes's camp, but he was confident that the letters and the book would reach the Americans. He had seen that the guerrillas had a robust network of couriers who
delivered goods, letters, cards, and gifts throughout the jungle, and Reyes had taken the package readily and noted the contents in his notebook. Noesner had also asked Botero to let the guerrillas know that the families wanted to find a “solution” to the kidnapping. What Noesner had inferred to Botero was that the company wanted to explore all possible options. In essence: If the guerrillas were starting to realize that the exchange was not going to happen, would they accept a ransom for the hostages' freedom? Noesner knew that the U.S. government might not allow a ransom to be paid, but he also knew that getting the FARC to ask for something tangible in exchange for the release of the hostages—something that could open up a dialogue—could be helpful. Botero told Noesner that he would pass along the message, but he wasn't hopeful that the FARC would be interested.

Four years into the crisis and no closer to a hostage release, the government remained static in its policy. A letter from National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley to Northrop Grumman's vice president, James Pitts, indicated the government's continuing trajectory in dealing with the crisis: “I want to reiterate our commitment to rescuing our American citizens and update you on our efforts to bring your employees home safely.… The Department of State and Defense and our Embassy in Colombia, together with National Security Council staff, continue to review our strategy to ensure we are fully leveraging all intelligence and available national resources and capabilities to locate and rescue our Americans.” Ever since the kidnapping, Gary Noesner had been pushing Northrop Grumman executives to take a stand against the government's refusal to look for any solution other than a rescue, and finally, his ideas were gaining credibility within the company. Along with Northrop Grumman's security team, Noesner helped craft a reply from Pitts to Hadley, stating the company's concern over the risks of a rescue attempt and asking that “the government should thoroughly explore alternatives, such as the use of intermediaries or other diplomatic avenues. I recognize the difficulties involved in such alternatives; however, with four years having passed since the kidnapping and given the inherent dangers in a military rescue, it is critical that other options be pursued.” The letter included a request for a
meeting with National Security Advisor Hadley, but according to Noesner, the meeting never took place.

In August 2007, with the case at a standstill, Noesner and Botero met again in Washington, D.C. This time, Botero had an idea, and he would need Noesner's help. Botero had been trying to get the FARC to agree to let him make a documentary film about Jo Rosano's search for her son, Marc Gonsalves. Botero had used the same narrative structure before, filming the travels of Marleny Orjuela, who was able to secure the release of her cousin and hundreds more in 2001. Afterward, Orjuela became a constant crusader for the release of the rest of the victims, holding rallies and lobbying the government to do something on behalf on the hostages. Recording Orjuela's travels, Botero says, was “my way of narrating the drama of these people and getting the public interested and moved by the topic.”

Jo Rosano's story seemed a perfect way to bring the attention of the American public to the plight of the hostages. “I was hoping to take Jo to the deepest parts of the jungle to find Marc. I wanted to film that reunion. If we weren't able to reach Marc, I could film Jo traveling many regions of the country in search of her son. I was hoping that I could film something very emotional, something that would shake the opinion of people in the U.S. so that people there would call for a negotiation to free them.” When Noesner heard Botero's proposal, he implored Botero not to go forward. “My concern went back to my FBI days. To me, sending an American citizen into harm's way was always something that frightened me. I was worried that the FARC would—for some twisted reason—decide to grab Jo.” Noesner had been involved with a Lebanese hostage crisis in the 1980s. During the ten-year-long case, Terry Waite, an American envoy helping with negotiations, was captured by Hezbollah in 1987. “You always worry that you're sending someone into danger or encouraging risky behavior that risks their life.” Noesner was especially concerned because of Rosano's precarious health and her emotional state. He also felt that Jo was especially susceptible to being manipulated in different situations and probably couldn't handle such an arduous trip. “She has to be given enormous credit for being a mother really devoted to doing whatever's
necessary to get her son out. I could certainly understand why Botero wanted to make the documentary. I just felt it was my role to inform him that there were some downsides to it.”

“At first, I was furious when Gary opposed my idea so strongly,” Botero recalls. “I had already practically convinced the FARC to grant me access, so I felt like we were on the verge of making progress again.” Botero admonished Noesner for treating him like a subordinate. He could easily have called Rosano, whom he'd met several times, and asked her to go to Colombia, but it would have been logistically very difficult without Noesner's blessing. “Later, I understood he had good arguments. I thought, Maybe I wouldn't have been able to handle this woman who could be so emotionally volatile. Maybe I would have been putting her in danger and would also have endangered myself.” The mountain, once again, seemed immovable.

T
wo months before the June 4, 2007, retrial of Simón Trinidad, Thomas Hogan, the judge who presided over the first trial, would step down from the case. The surprising turn of events came about after a pretrial hearing, when Ken Kohl let slip that he had spoken to the jury foreman to find out why the first jury could not return a guilty verdict. This was news to Trinidad's defense attorney, Robert Tucker, who had no idea that Hogan had secretly authorized Kohl to contact the jury foreman. The ex parte contact between Hogan, who was the chief judge of the U.S. district court, and Kohl was prohibited because the law states that if one party to a case communicates with the judge, the other side has a right to present its argument at the same meeting. Tucker pressured Hogan to disqualify himself, since his “impartiality could reasonably be questioned.” Hogan announced that he had done nothing wrong, but for the sake of proving to the Colombian people that Simón Trinidad was getting a fair trial, he would resign. For his part, Kohl was unrepentant about the underhanded move: “When we prosecute the case the second time, we want to make sure that the jury finds the defendant guilty. The government naturally wants to do its homework,” he said.

The retrial of Simón Trinidad was to be essentially the same as the first trial, with one startling new development: John Frank Pinchao, a hostage who had escaped from the same camp where Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell, and Marc Gonsalves were being held, would testify. To free himself from his captors, Pinchao, a member of the National Police who had been captured in a raid in 1998, had worked for weeks to break a link in the chain around his neck by prying it with a small stick and continually twisting it until the link finally broke. Then he spent a harrowing seventeen days trekking through the jungle, mostly without food or water, until he ran into an antinarcotics patrol. Pinchao's account of the hostage camp and his life in captivity gave some relief to the families of the Americans; all three were in relatively good health, he said, although Marc Gonsalves was suffering from hepatitis. About Ingrid Betancourt, who was also in the same camp, Pinchao said that she was faring far worse than the gringos; she was thin and ill, and she was chained by the neck to her bed every night—a punishment for numerous escape attempts. And not only did she suffer abuse at the hands of the guerrillas; she was harassed by some of the military hostages as well. However relieved Pinchao was to be free, those that he'd left behind were clearly weighing on him. “I hope they make it back soon, one way or another,” Pinchao said in his first press conference after his escape. “I know that someday they will see the light of liberty. I would like to send all of them a hug from here. I ask God to protect them. I know they must be paying the price because of me.”