Chapter 2

After returning to the main camp at Esquel, Argentina, Polk and Robinson met with the rest of the Win DX team to formulate a strategy. Then Bud and Grady turned in to one of the tents for some shut-eye. In the remaining daylight, Pat, Brian, and Ted would place the remote audio sensors and transmitters on the three peaks triangulating the villa where Handley stayed. In addition, two cameras far more sophisticated than your typical security cameras were focused on the front of the villa where a green Land Rover was parked, and the access road as well. These cameras were also Infrared equipped, and could follow a warm body from room to room.

After dark, Bud and Grady would go in close and plant more devices on the walls and the vehicle. From there, they could keep an eye on the subject, and monitor conversations as well as communications, from the base camp. If they tried to flee, four team members would be flown to a point six miles down the mountain from the villa, and parachute in to intercept them.

On the return trip to the main camp, Win DX team leader Ted Morrison reflected back on the morning they all (except for a few) met after breakfast to fly the Carvan to the Olmstead Ranch southwest of Houston, on the Coastal Prairie. He and Patricia Daniels rose early and ventured out into the minus 11-degree pre-dawn to travel to her apartment in Onandaga, south of Syracuse to get her things. Pat grabbed a duffel bag and a box, leaving her roommate $250.00 and her parents' address to send the rest of her belongings she already packed.

They arrived back at the airport at 9:45 on the morning of December 13, 1999 to begin the eight and a half-hour flight to the Texas Coast. Pat sat in the command seat with Ted and Bud trading off to avoid fatigue from the long flight. The Grand Caravan's Avionics did most of the work, yet there was always the chance of a mid-air collision with someone straying from their assigned course or altitude.

They would arrive after dark, but Chris Olmstead explained that her Daddy had installed lights along the airstrip that you could turn on and off with the plane radio. She began to explain a few things about the Olmstead Ranch that the team would need to know. First it was her Daddy's money that kept her going. He was a 60's era Texas "Oil Baron" that just happened to run a few hundred head of Herefords on his "spread".

Her late husband Tom preferred their home in Belaire, a Houston township, where he could be close to his bank where he was one of the Vice-Presidents. Chris's brother happened to be in Oklahoma City the day of the bombing meeting with an Energy Department official and was killed in the bombing. When the eyewitness acounts were starting to conflict with the "media fed" versions, Tom and Chris started to contact these witnesses themselves. Many had been visited by FBI agents that told them they saw something more in line with what they wanted the public to believe.

The Form 302's or reports they had originally filed had been "redone" to coincide with the lone bomber theory. Soon "John Doe Number Two" was explained away until after the 9-11 attack when an Al-Quaida operative named Jose Padilla was arrested as the "Dirty Bomber". Then people began to have their memories jogged and would say, "He is the 'John Doe Number Two' we saw!" In fact, co-conspirator Terry Nichols' wife's maiden name was Padilla.

For the most part, FBI agents are honest men and women trying to do a difficult job. That there could be a few selectly placed individuals in the Bureau manipulating things to suit the "party line" so to speak is scary. At the time, there was legislation being pushed through Congress to restrict so-called Domestic Terrorists, in this case, Militia Groups. The focus of this had to be on such a group or person, and not on anyone of Middle Eastern ethnicity.

After the Olmstead's third visit to Oklahoma City, two men who identified themselves as BATF agents visited them. The men threatened to arrest the couple for "interfering with a Federal Investigation" They were told in very threatening terms to back off for their own safety. Two days later, Tom Olmstead was killed in a car accident caused by his "driving under the influence." Tom and Chris never drank alcohol. Chris vowed to get justice in her own way, and that is what brought about her bankrolling the Win DX team.

Ted came to the website seeking facts about the TWA Flight 800 crash. To both he and Pat, it sounded more like a Surface to Air Missile hit than a center fuel tank that just happened to explode. As in the Oklahoma City event, witnesses stopped talking under threats by the authorities. Pat's sister in law was on the plane along with her niece Jessica, who idolized her aunt. The feeling was mutual. They were on their way to Paris on a group trip, when the explosion changed everything.

It was much easier, and less threatening to blame it on faulty equipment, than to cause a panic in the airline industry as occurred after 9-11, and actually have to find someone responsible and take action against them. A war during an election year was just too inconvenient. The message was becoming very clear however, anyone could kill American citizens and there would be no consequences. All of that was about to change.

With a fuel and dinner stop along the way, the team was beginning to get to know one another and each member's assets. They were all pretty much in agreement that Tim McVeigh was a "show suspect". While he possibly had contacts to the actual bombers, the facts led them to believe he could be persuaded to "give up" the real guilty ones. Like Ted suggested, the time was after that group was out of the White House.

At 2015 Central Time Chris switched on the landing lights at the Ranch, and Pat brought the team's plane in for a gentle landing. The Texas Coastal Prairie weather was much warmer than that of Upstate New York, although much windier. Chris Olmstead led the team members to the "Guest House", soon to be the Headquarters for Win DX. Once inside, Chris said, "I'd like y'all to meet another member of the team."

They entered a stairwell in the large house that led to a concrete bunker that measured 24' x 30' with a steel and lead reinforced ceiling. The bunker had its own sleeping quarters and bath. Sitting before an array of nineteen-inch computer monitors was a dark haired man who sported a short goatee, dressed in a sweatsuit and Reeboks.

He arose and walked to the team members and extended his hand, "I'm Brian Westin," he introduced himself. "Welcome to the Command and Control Center. With this equipment I can tap into nine different surveillance sattellites at any given time and passively monitor what they see."

He showed the nine monitors. Then he led them to another area that was eavesdropping on telephone, two-way radio, and similar transmissions. "These four computers sift through and translate Farsi, Chinese, Korean, and Tex-Mex Spanish," Brian continued. "If they detect any keywords, the software immediately locks the signal and begins recording, while the monitor and a speaker pages me. There is some heavy-duty traffic going on over in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and South Florida about hijacking some airliners. They are always taliking about that, but I think it would bear some watching. Don't even ask about Korea and Red China. I shut them off a couple of times because I didn't sleep for five days over some of the stuff they are cooking up for us. Hell, even the Mexican border is going to be real trouble someday."

"This is some pretty high tech stuff," Ted said. "Is this what you did?"

"Roger that, Sir," Brian answered. "I was Crypto for twelve years. I was mainly in Korean, and Chinese, but later learned the Arabic on my own. The Air Force and I parted ways shortly after the TWA and Egypt Air jets went down. It seems my lady CO didn't like me hearing what I heard and reporting it. They went so far as to erase my files to cover things up. I figured there had to be a better way of dealing with these people, so when my enlistment was up in May, I got out, and came to work here. I understand that you are the first of the group that will actually 'reach out and touch someone' over this stuff?"

"We will do our best," Bud told Brian. "We seem to agree that each mission will be 70% planning and 20% excecution, with the remaining 10% being luck!"

"That's a realistic outlook for it," Ted added. "Before we get anyone, we need to have a LOT of intelligence background."

"Well I am already keeping tabs on three for you," Brian said. "You guys do look beat."

"Come, on," Chris said, "I'll show you to your quarters. Breakfast is at 0730." The "Guest House" had four baths, two upstairs and two downstairs. There was a large living area with a 48-inch screen TV, and plenty of comfortable furniture. A side room held the gym and fitness center, and another held a small indoor pool and a sunken Jacuzzi large enough for eight adults.

Ted and Pat were up at 0615 the following morning, and were taking the "walking tour" of the premises. Pat was already inspecting the white and gold Cessna 185 with the amphibs, meaning it had wheels that retracted into the pontoons so it can land on a runway or in the water. It was in very good condition for being eleven years old.

From a large house on the north side of the well-maintained gravel strip, came their hostess and two women who cooked for the "hands" as they were to be called. Chris still only ran about fifty "head" of cattle lately, and those "hands" were in another pasture separated by a four-strand barbed wire fence. All the Ranch Foreman knew was the "Guest House" was off-limits unless he was specifically directed to go there by her.

"This looks to be a good two thousand feet," Pat commented about the gravel landing strip. "Maybe a little more."

"Twenty-one hundred feet to be exact," Chris chimed in. "Daddy built it back in 1978 when he had his Piper Commanche. He got caught in what turned out to be a hurricane between here and Yucatan six years ago, and he and Mom went down in it. I sure miss them. That bunker we were in last night? That was built for a hurricane or tornado shelter,"

"Do you fly the 185, Chris?" Ted asked.

"Sometimes I do," Chris replied. "Not very often though."

"I am very impressed with the spread you have here," Ted commented.

Chris chuckled, and said, "We sold most of it off after Mom and Daddy died. It's still more than I can handle."

About that time "all the snow geese and blue geese in the world" flew over in wave after wave lasting almost forty minutes. "Place is infested with em, if any of you like to hunt," Chris added. "There are rice fields all around us, and winter wheat fields as well. They fly that way in the morning, and back in the evening to roost. They are noisy, but I sometimes feel like they are beckoning me to a far off place."

"I know what you mean," Pat said. "We definitely need to watch out for them when we fly."

"Let's go see who else is up," Ted suggested.

Later they were given a tour of the area by Chris and were given the use of three vehicles. Two Chevy Silverado Pickups, and a Suburban. Luke and Sandy arrived nine days later, and went through the orientation procedure. By the following March, the Win DX team picked up a former NSA agent that Brian had known. He was a "field agent" known only as "The Deacon" for his solemn look.

"Deke" as he came to be called, was a six foot four African American man in his late forties. It was rumored that he killed over two hundred people with his bare hands while undercover in Haiti, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. He didn't like to talk about it, and all he ever said was, "They were all really bad guys." He didn't offer details, and his teammates didn't ask. Deke carried a Bible on his person at all times, and was quite solitary. Although he moved slowly and deliberately about, when he "moved" it was a blur!