Hostage Nation (38 page)

A little before midnight, the Operación Jaque team members were falling asleep when a Black Hawk helicopter noisily arrived. Its crew had special instructions for the group. Less than twenty-four hours before the mission was to commence, César had sent a message requesting that a total of six guerrillas accompany the hostages to what he thought would be Alfonso Cano's camp. The Operación Jaque mission commanders were worried that without weapons in the helicopters, the situation could turn ugly and the six guerrillas might overtake them. The team decided that to prevent César from being able to take the others on board, only one of the helicopters would land. With a maximum capacity of thirty, there would be room only for César, one of his subordinate commanders, the nine team members, the four crew members, and the fifteen hostages.

The unexpected change turned out to be fortuitous. The second helicopter would hover above the site, and in the case of clouds or bad weather, it would provide a clear communication link from the helicopter on the ground to a U.S. platform airplane monitoring from forty miles away. A Colombian military source who was part of the mission says that the helicopter pilots were to speak in code because the FARC would almost certainly be listening to their communications. “The second helicopter was also important to ensure the deception,” says the source. “Because in the other liberations, there were always two helicopters, and the terrorists were expecting two helicopters.”

Skies were clear on the morning of July 2, but the Operación Jaque team knew that at any moment, a procession of black clouds could obscure the landscape. They ate breakfast and received orders to prepare. The mission would begin in a few hours, and although they had rehearsed every step again and again, a frantic atmosphere pervaded
their preparations. All dressed in the clothing of their respective role: Pilots donned matching beige jumpsuits; “delegates” wore vests with the Misión Humanitaria Internacional logo on the back; the “journalist” and “cameraman” wore red T-shirts and black vests adorned with the logo of Hugo Chávez's television network, Telesur; the “guerrillas” dressed in black T-shirts emblazoned with the popular revolutionary image of Che Guevara; and the “Arab delegate” wore a Red Cross bib over his shirt. (After the mission, the use of the Red Cross symbol in a military operation elicited criticism from some humanitarian organizations.)

The morning began stressfully for the Colombian intelligence agents, who were stationed on a mountain post, impersonating the guerrilla radio operators. Because of interference caused by bad weather, a final message to César was significantly delayed. Finally, the message reached him. “The head of the commission is a Señor José Luis Russi.… 
La carga
should go tied up. We are waiting here for you to tell us when they arrive.
Saludos
, Jorge.” At 12:30 p.m., the team received word; they peeled tarps off the helicopters, loaded in, and the operation took off.

Nearly forty-five minutes later, among acres of waist-high coca bushes, the hostages waited with great speculation. Earlier that day, Betancourt had heard that the hostages were going to be taken to another front. One of the hostages mentioned to Betancourt that they should hijack the helicopter to avoid being taken to another hostage camp, after which Betancourt secretly handed him her scissors and nail clippers. Once again, the guerrillas gave the hostages new clothes—T-shirts that said, ¡SÍ
AL ACUERDO HUMANITARIO!
—YES
TO THE HUMANITARIAN EXCHANGE!
Again, they refused to wear them.

As the helicopters approached, the hostages became even more unnerved because the guerrillas forced them to hurry
toward
the helicopters, while for so many years they'd been made to run and hide when they'd heard any aircraft overhead. “Keith and I stood frozen, weighing our options. Nearly everything in me said to run, but something held me back,” wrote Gonsalves. “Maybe it was just the idea that as far as we knew, the FARC had no helicopters. Whoever was coming in would likely be better than the guerrillas.”

As the Operación Jaque team hovered above the scene, there was a
moment of panic with the mission crew, as well. All of the hostages were supposed to be in white T-shirts so that they could be easily identified, which is why they had ordered César to have the shirts made and to have the hostages wear them. Now, from above, the mission commanders couldn't even tell if there
were
hostages on the ground. Torres wrote that the helicopters made three circles and called by radio to the guerrillas, who were supposed to give them an okay to land, but they couldn't raise the guerrillas on the radio. With great trepidation, the Misión Humanitaria Internacional team decided to land.

The helicopter carrying the crew touched down at 1:15 p.m., while the second helicopter hovered a few thousand feet above. Dozens of armed guerrilla troops stood threateningly in two rows and watched with interest as the people dressed as humanitarian workers and Telesur journalists began to disembark. César and Enrique, who were dressed in civilian clothes, carefully approached the strange-looking foreigners, but they relaxed when they saw two “guerrillas” in Che Guevara T-shirts who addressed them with a common guerrilla greeting: “What's up, comrade?” César also felt confident, he said later, “because the helicopters looked just like those used when the Venezuelan commissions came to pick up the other hostages.” As soon as they were off the aircraft, the “Telesur” team approached César for an interview. He relaxed, thinking he recognized one of the journalists as the person who had covered hostage releases in the past. “I thought he was the journalist that wrote a book about the guerrillas, Jorge Enrique Botero. And when I saw him, he looked just like the journalist, so I felt confident.” In his best impersonation of a pushy television reporter, one of the creators of Operación Jaque went immediately to César and said, “Can we ask you just one question?” César protested. In the scene being shot by the imposter cameraman (the entire mission was actually being recorded and the video was later released by the authorities), César says coyly, “It's not my place to make statements. No, we will talk in the helicopter.” The video shows César with a wide grin that exposes a row of perfect white teeth under a thick black mustache. The guerrilla commander didn't seem at all nervous: he just appeared tickled to be the star of the show. The fake reporter kept insisting, “Just one question. Just one question.” César again said that he didn't want to give an interview.
Then he told the person he thought was the delegation leader to bring the humanitarian team inside one of the houses to have a drink. The leader was thinking of how to handle César's invitation, knowing that it could put them in a dangerous position, when India, César's radio operator, came running with an urgent message, which she said was from Mono Jojoy: They had to get the helicopters and hostages out immediately. The men pretending to be the reporter and the cameraman distracted the guerrilla troops with their filming while the remaining participants talked with the hostages and tried to get them ready to board the helicopter. But convincing the hostages to go with this strange crowd was not as easy as the team had anticipated. The hostages, having been hardened by all of the FARC's games, did not want to go, especially when the supposed humanitarian workers said that they were going to have to handcuff them before they got on the helicopter, something that concerned the guerrillas as well. “That got César's attention,” says attorney Rodolfo Ríos. “He said, ‘Why do the members of the Cruz Roja Internacional [International Red Cross] have to tie them?' He asked one of the foreigners, ‘What's going on here? Why do they tie their hands?' Then the foreigner told him, ‘This is the routine procedure of the humanitarian action.' So César said, ‘Oh, okay, then.'”

The man pretending to be the Australian delegate tried to move the Americans away from the others so he could speak to Howes in English. “Are you U.S. Army?” Howes asked the blond man with the strange accent. The man knew that what he was about to say could jeopardize the entire mission, but he knew if he didn't act quickly, the Americans would refuse to get on the plane, so he answered in a whisper, “We're Colombian army.” Immediately and loudly, Howes said, “Okay, we're going,” and agreed to be handcuffed with the plastic ties. Stansell wrote: “I could hear Tom's voice above the engine noise: ‘Everyone just be calm and cooperate. This is just a precaution. Get in the helo quickly so that it doesn't burn too much fuel.'” The video shows the team's “nurse” and some guerrillas securing the hostages' wrists with plastic zip ties—a necessary precaution they'd decided on to prevent the hostages from making an attempt to take down the helicopter before the rescuers could reveal who they were.

Inter Press Service reported that at first César protested leaving his guerrilla unit and wanted another guerrilla to go in his place. But the two “guerrillas” with the mission reassured him that Alfonso Cano needed him: “Okay, Commander, the idea is that you come with us; you are in charge. You are the person that the superiors need. The Secretariat needs to talk to you.” It was apparent that César had chosen his second in command, Enrique, to accompany him on the trip. As the two boarded the helicopter, the crew members knew that the guerrillas were always armed and that it would be imperative to take their guns away. “You can't bring any weapons in the helicopter. This is a humanitarian action,” one of the crew said, pointing at a sign that had just been made days before showing a machine gun in a red circle with a line through it. “You have to leave your guns.… Give them to us. The pilot will keep them.” Enrique reluctantly handed over his 9mm pistol. César removed a weapon from his backpack and relinquished it to the crew. Just before departing, a member of the crew stepped out of the plane and set two cases of beer on the ground as a gift for César's troops, who stood watching. Moments later, the helicopter lifted off. The entire mission on the ground had lasted only twenty-two minutes.

One of the guerrillas was videotaping as the helicopter flew overhead, carrying their commanders, César and Enrique, to what they believed would be a meeting with FARC high commander Alfonso Cano. On the video, one guerrilla, seemingly unconcerned that anything is awry, remarks, “The comrades have left, man.” The video (which was later obtained and broadcast by an independent Colombian television station) shows the conversation quickly turning to the cases of beer left by the fake aid workers. A female voice off camera happily says, “You know what he said to me, the guy from the Red Cross? He said, ‘Take this as a little gift. Good-bye, comrades!'”

Almost immediately after the helicopter lifted off, one of the team members grabbed César in a choke hold and repeatedly slammed his head into the fuselage. César, fighting him off, tried to get up. “César was hoping to rush the cockpit, tackle the pilot, and make the plane crash,” says Rodolfo Ríos. “And at that moment they started hitting him. He was knocked out by a slew of fists from the crew.” Gonsalves was sitting directly across from César with his hands and feet bound. “I
did notice that Keith had broken his binds off,” Gonsalves told CNN, “and all I saw was a scuffle right next to Keith.… I got up, tried to get up to get to Keith because the scuffle was right next to him, and I wanted to try to keep him out of it … in the chaos and excitement, I couldn't move, I was tied.” Several of the hostages, including Stansell, joined the melee and attacked César, while Enrique was subdued in the front of the aircraft. The man playing the part of the doctor grabbed a hypodermic needle and jabbed it into César, who was unconscious seconds later. “One of the aid workers grabbed me, kind of put his arms around me and put me down, and he said, ‘We are army. We are army.' And that's when I found out I was free,” said Gonsalves.

All of the hostages reacted with euphoria and disbelief. “It was like somebody just released from a tar pit,” said Thomas Howes. “You're just suddenly free. I was dazed by it. The second thing I thought was, Man, I'm in a Russian helicopter. I hope this damned thing doesn't crash, because I want to make it through to enjoy this freedom.” For a moment, Gonsalves thought he was dreaming because he'd dreamed of freedom so many times. “And to think that, to actually think that it was going to happen, it was difficult to take it in.” There were exclamations of joy, euphoric shouts, hugs, laughter, and sobs. Betancourt was afraid the helicopter would crash from all the jubilant jumping up and down, and she tried in vain to calm the others, “Be still! Calm down! Sit down!” she yelled at them, praying to God that they wouldn't fall from the sky.

An hour later, the helicopter landed at the military base in San José del Guaviare. The mission team members jumped off the helicopter as a jubilant General Montoya, the commander of the army, hugged each of them as they ran from the helicopter to an awaiting plane. “Mama, I'm alive! I'm free! Mama, the army rescued me,” said Betancourt, speaking to her mother by phone for the first time in nearly six and half years. Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Thomas Howes were immediately flown to Bogotá and welcomed by Ambassador Brownfield and a group of U.S. military personnel, contractors, and intelligence people before being transferred to a U.S. Air Force C-17. Several hours later, they headed to Lackland Air Force Base, in Texas, and then were transferred in a Black Hawk helicopter to the Brooke Army Medical
Center, in San Antonio, where they were to be “reintegrated” with their families. The newly freed Colombians headed to Bogotá and stepped off the plane to be enveloped by their family members amid the collective euphoria of millions of Colombians who followed every detail of their homecoming by radio and television. “Thank you, Colombia! Welcome to freedom!” shouted one of the newly freed hostages to an ecstatic crowd of well-wishers and members of the media.