Chapter 45: Sunday Afternoon Chats

Sunday I made it a point to visit each of the Five, as well as the two extras from the house, plus the spy and the two guards from the airplane. That was really all I could get to.

If you want to get useful quality information from somebody the worst thing you can do is brutal physical punishment. It is a waste of time and they resent you so they lie and shade the truth. You have to build a rapport with a proper mix of brain-bending punishment when merited. Well, my grandfathers were going to ruin that tomorrow using the damn bullwhips in a primitive ritual to show the people they were safe. Maybe the people needed that. Plus, I was on my honeymoon so I had neither the time or the information to get the detail needed. I would be limited to trusting my interrogators, using information and extraction techniques they were taught against the Five is various ways. I didn’t have many people to do this type of work. They were good at their job, so it would just take time.

I was curious to get some basic information, so I started with the two guards who were with the Chinese captives. Each man was brought to an interrogation room bagged but otherwise naked. They stood, one hand cuffed overhead, so they felt very exposed. I spoke Spanish but let a few English words get out. (My men all spoke old Spanish, which had the prisoners confused.) The last thing my men said as they left me with each prisoner, was “here is you cattle prod sir, all charged up.” Then they sparked it. For a naked man, hanging by one hand, it is a terrible sound.

At the sound of the spark every one of them moved their free hand to a particular place, one you can probably guess. I guess I would do the same.

First I tried building rapport. I told each prisoner that they got one question, at the start, for free, which I might answer. After that any question I chose to answer would cost them a prod sparking they didn’t want. Mostly they would answer my questions. If they did it would be a pleasant chat. If not then all the goodwill would go away very quickly.

I did tell them everybody from the main house was “in hand” and was looking at a real bad time for the rest of their miserable lives. Then I said, “Ask your question.”

In every case the prisoners asked to know where they were. Just as I expected.

Most folks would, it is natural. Generally one does not give the captive information, unless it will be useful for the future. I was actually hoping for this question as a way to cut off hope, so I gave a speech. “We had been flying you toward Asuncion, but didn’t go all the way. Instead we stopped at the airbase and went someplace ... close by, someplace very private. You should know, China and the US both take a very dim view of human trafficking.”

It was common knowledge in South America that, after 9-11, Paraguay gave blanket immunity to US soldiers within the country. Also, the US made financial payments to Paraguay as part of the war on terrorism. Soon after that an unknown number of Green Berets and support troops moved into a remote but strategically placed large airbase in northwest Paraguay. The local government refused to acknowledge the base as a “black site” but the US military stayed and paid. Communist activists in nearby countries (like Brazil and Argentina) began to worry about a very late night visit as they watched for black stealth helicopters in the night. Maybe some of them left town.

The two guards reacted differently. One, who was clearly a trusted and confident leader, shut up tight after his first stupid question. (The knowledge really did not help him, and might not be true, so it was really stupid.) He would not even give his name for a time. After a short conversation with the cattle prod I let him imagine what new experiences tomorrow would bring. “It will be much, much worse. You will find things you never felt before.”

The other guard, Mauricio, was the opposite, he gave his name and was hard to shut up. He claimed he only did what he was told, that he had not been with the Five very long, that this was his first “ship pickup.” He intended to quit when his contract was over. (We discovered his 3 month probationary contract started a month ago.) After that he answered a lot of questions. I even got him a chair and a glass of water for our time together.

He admitted spending the night at the cheap port brothel with one of the girls. “None of them looked good, I took the ugly one because I figured she had seen fewer guys. She stayed with me all night, so she considered me a good guy.” That actually checked out, but the ‘good guy’ thing was relative, given a chance and a dull knife the girl who was named Xha Win would have gladly carved her name in his chest.

I stayed away from the “Pizarro” theme and worked on the Chinese females as an angle. He knew the Five ran two brothels, they were running short of girls and they were going to “try out” the new women at the Troma location. He was told not to mark any of them because they might be sold to drug dealers as mules. As soon as he saw they were all Chinese he “knew it was all so wrong.” He was eager to give away his whole chain of command.

He named each of the Five plus the two extras and all the guards. The guard he was with was called “Hawk.” As I figured he was sort of a sergeant who scheduled men, led drills, and saw to special jobs, like an NCO. The woman with the Five was Solange and they all called her their sister, which he admitted was confusing. The lawyer, Iker, had been with the family for some time, he was treated as Solange’s friend, although he had seen Solange naked in bed with at least “three of the Five.”

I mentioned that she slept with one of the Five last night and he said she rotated through all of them, plus the lawyer.

“She is so attractive, you know? I did not want to look, but I had too. She didn’t mind throwing me a pose. But looking more than a few second can be dangerous if you are caught.”

All he knew about the Chinese captive who made a fuss was that “it would happen, and Hawk (the other guard) would handle it. Hawk liked to make her wait. I guess they had been lovers but now hated each other.”

I agreed that happened sometimes. Loving somebody on the job is hard.

It seemed to me that this fellow could be useful so I decided to push him on one point - when and how was the money collected from the brothels.

He said that Hawk always visited them on Mondays, after the busy weekend. Hawk always took three soldiers wearing body armor to make sure there was no trouble. Mauricio went about half the time so he knew the locations and routines, but he might not have all the details. The first visit was at noon, and the second, in the port, was at four. One of the Five flew the helicopter and took the money.

The helicopter was always expected and very recognizable. There was never trouble because they were well armed, their hosts knew that if the guards saw a weapon the brothel guys - who were contractors - were all dead. The helicopter was marked as medical, so “cops and military were never a problem, it could be a real emergency.”

Since the brothels were open for business as usual he did not see any reason for it to be any different this weekend.

I told him we would talk again, and when we did he would owe me a favor.

I immediately told Thomas to get the truth twins working on breaking Hawk right away, holding Mauricio in the next room to check what Hawk told them. They were to put Hawk to sleep, make it seem like it was late Monday, and then get the truth from him fast. Since he would think they were past the deadlines, he might be more inclined to give it up.

To break Hawk quickly the truth twins were given a free hand, getting the facts, then double-check and using punishments to correct the story. We would have people take Hawk’s place getting the money, they would say that “Hawk was not available - he came down with something Chinese.”

Actually, the money from the weekend was not the main concern, that would go to the girls when we freed them. But with criminals and corrupt authorities in the picture, any change of routine would be read by somebody as an opportunity to take advantage, and we did not want that until we were done with the Five and had freed the girls. Also, it was a way to get a look at the operation.

Both brothels were relatively isolated, which played to our advantage. Using the Eurocopter EC145 for the stops would be seen as bona fides by the people at the brothels, the helicopter and it’s markings would proclaim our men were from the Five. Our Huey, fitted with a door mounted heavy machine gun, could orbit the brothel if there was a problem.

We learned that at both locations the girls were kept in a cellar underground. I was not ready to mount a rescue operation without more details, that was not a priority. The point was to confirm the girls would be out of harms way if gunfire erupted. On the other hand, if the girls could be freed, my men, including our people who were still in each city, would secure them.

Next I greeted each of the Five by name, got the obvious question, and repeated the “air base on the way to Asuncion” line, then asked if they wanted to say anything. With less that 12 hours in captivity they mostly stayed sullen and silent. But the thought that they were not in Peru, in a place that officially did not exist, played on their minds. All of the Five had been bagged before the lawyer was cuffed, so they were probably counting on him to be free so he could help them with the authorities, using the law and bribes.

However, at a US black site, whatever friends they had could do nothing for them. The chance of making the “visitors list” was too risky for anybody to try. Everybody south of the Rio Grande knew that the US dropped in and physically removed a friendly nation’s leader (Noriega) and the same thing could happen to anybody who was a big enough pain in the ass.

Pedro was the youngest of the Five, with a basic management degree he worked as a hospital administrator. He said something about “hoping they could avoid this type of thing” by staying out of the cocaine business.

I assured him that bringing the Chinese girls to Peru drew the attention of three nations: China, Peru, and the US. Also there was INTERPOL. However, because the police were NOT involved, due process ... well, he could draw his own conclusion.

He never thought of that. His mind went to bad places. I let him.

After the Five I talked to the “sister” Solange. She was attractive enough, late 30’s but obviously worked at it, and was rather confident considering that she was naked on display in a tiny room with me. Interestingly, she shaved her pubic hair, but left her underarm hair. She did not ask where she was, she reserved her “free” question until she thought of something relevant, which didn’t happen during our first meeting. The only time she engaged me was talking about where she came from. She honestly didn’t know and it bothered her.

The Five were made up of one set of three brothers (Francisco, Gonzalo and Pedro - all fathered by John) and another set of two brothers (Juan and Hernando - all fathered by Franco). They were cousins, their fathers were the two Alono brothers (the anglo names were a parental choice) who married a pair of convent-raised best friends (Inez and Isabel) selected by their parents. Wealthy people still used semi-arranged marriages. All lived in the same house until the grown children (two medical doctors, two pharmacologists, and one hospital administrator), moved as a group to another city based on a unique chance to start at the top. Now they lived in two adjoining properties - two houses each with a guest house - that were fenced and guarded together.

Solange did not know who her mother or father was. For anyone outside the family the story was that a widowed or unmarried long-time servant gave birth to her and died soon after, the family took her in as a ward. This was the story the records showed. Her looks suggested that she shared a father with one of the Five. As a woman Solange was not educated beyond the age of 16, after that she essentially helped run the family home, and slept around. The fathers, Franco and John were her first lovers, followed by her older brothers. She was a “birthday present” for each of her younger brothers when they came of age, and each year thereafter she was a “birthday girl” which struck me as kind of sick.

“Who do you get for your birthday?” I asked.