Within 5 years there was a pit mine 50 yards deep dug into the side of the mountain. To keep the pit dry the stream had been widened to a small, artificial lake serving farming to the north and the mine to the south. The town, north of the stream grew when the government built heavy bridges, a dam and a highway for the ore trucks. They also took a flat piece of land, about a mile north of the town, and built a single 6,000 foot runway. Guz built a small hanger for his private plane, there was no control tower.
The Guz's home and a shanty town for the hundreds of workers was south of the pit. The home was three stories, made of native rock, and with three escape tunnels including one that had an entrance on the second floor, it was concealed in the chimney brickwork. The house had no windows on the first floor, Guz had an unreasonable fear of robbers or a worker uprising so he wanted his home to be a fort. He hired American "cowboys" as his security force, he thought the language gap would keep them loyal.
As the crow flies, the house was about a mile from town. However, because of the lake, the mountain and the highway, the walk between the house and the town was around 2 miles (for a fit person who could climb) or more than 3 miles if one could not climb the steep intervening hills and wanted to stay on the road.
The seam of copper was not as rich and as deep as Guz hoped, when it ran out suddenly he found himself overextended and lost everything to a group of predatory creditors, vicious men who dressed like bankers and thought themselves clever. They were sure the mine was mismanaged, with a rich seam just waiting for them when copper would be more valuable due to demand. So they invested in modern mining equipment and dug a lot of ground, all without copper. They went broke, proving at great personal expense the seam was really played out and the pit carved in the side of the mountain was worthless, along with all property in the area.
Bigger creditors gave the clever men a taste of their own medicine.
The house itself was nice, but because there was nothing of value nearby, the only view was the ugly mine pit, it sat empty for years. Finally, with access to a STOL plane and/or a helicopter, the isolation had value to the Five.
The Five had picked up the estate cheaply as an isolated retreat where they could play with their young female Asian imports without any interference from the law or the unlawful. The house was large enough that all of them had plenty of privacy. There was no police or military presence to bribe, and with nobody to rob there were no criminals, so they only needed a caretaker to take care of the property. They outfitted the house to modern luxury standards (soundproofing, sauna, security cameras, etc.). The only thing they skimped on was communication assets - they assumed the 1930's phone line would always work. They widened, leveled and paved a long section of the driveway and parking lot allowing a STOL plane like their Twin Otter or a chartered Caribou to land directly in front of the house for easy Asian takeout. Aircraft parked in the pit, under two large open hangers they were well protected from the elements.
Our first priorities for the mansion were to locate the escape tunnels and communication links. One mission disconnected the phone wire (a single line to a junction box on the highway), then used a forged letter "from the owners" to allow two visitors to interview the caretaker and his wife about the property. The letter suggested that the property was being considered for sale, so the caretaker and his wife were eager to ingratiate themselves to our people as they gave a tour of the house, including the escape tunnels. They hoped to keep their jobs. Cell phones were useless in the area but the Five might have a sat-phone so we brought a jammer. We were sure the FCC would not object.
The caretaker and his wife kept the house clean but they actually lived in the guard's building next door, which could house 20 men. Part of the arrangement was that the couple had to vacate the property while the Five were around.
They said two guards would arrive by truck on Friday August 15, around Noon, with fresh food for the owners stay. The couple had to be packed up and out by then. They expected to stay with friends in Troma for 2 weeks or longer, the Five really did not want them to see what was going on. Trucks and aircraft would arrive from Moyobamba on Friday and Saturday. Normally the Five were only in residence for a week, but this time the stay would be longer and some additional tents were planned. There would be many visitors expected.
We knew the Five planned to invite an army to the house, we had copies of the emails. They would have to be housed someplace.
There was a newly constructed fenced area - gravel with concrete pads for buildings or tents - behind the house, it had gone up less than a week ago. The caretaker had no idea why it was built, but construction had taken only two days. The ten-foot high fence, topped with barbed wire, was clearly to hold the larger-than-usual shipment of Chinese girls. Our assumption was that the more attractive captives would go to the whorehouses and the extras would be used as incentives for training their army.
There were also a half-dozen jail cells in the house basement, installed when the Five bought the property. Presumably the best Chinese girls would be kept there, for when those late-night urges might strike the Five during the next few weeks.
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Troma was the location that gave us the largest advantage with the fewest possible problems, so we planned for the worst there - an assault. We wanted to overwhelm any forces that intervened. A huge advantage was the isolation, both sides had to play with what they brought, they could not get reinforcements in time to make a difference. We brought our reinforcements with us from the start.
Our spot up a mountain that was at about 12,000 feet, overlooked the valley, and was not accessible for a ground vehicle. Over two nights the helicopters slipped in some troops to set up camp, including an artillery piece, some radar and some anti-air assets. With that we owned the area, we could destroy any target we could see. Peru has real mountain troops who could attack our position, but they would take heavy casualties if they did - and the Five didn't have access to elite troops, who were safe in their barracks hundreds of miles away.
During the week before August 15th, at night once the caretaker and his wife went to bed, some of our scouts entered the escape tunnels exits and rewired the lights with what looked like bombs. When activated the bombs had blinking red lights, wires, and what looked like explosive. On a simple radio signal the tunnel lights would go out, and the "bombs" would start to blink. The 3 escape tunnels from the house branched into 5 exits. We could not have the Five exiting the house and turning the quick roundup into a time-wasting hunt for assholes.
Early morning on Friday the 15th the caretaker couple rode a donkey cart away from the location, heading to their friend's house. They had to take the long way because their unhappy donkey was doing the walking. Thirty minutes after they were off the property two guards drove up to the house in a pickup truck. They started to unload into both the house and the barracks. During the rest of the day two large (army surplus) trucks, two SUVs and the Global Ranger helicopter arrived, bring two of the Five, their girlfriends, and 4 guards.
After unloading, each of the ground vehicles were moved between the house and the barracks, leaving space clear for the aircraft that were expected. It was convenient but stupid because it creates cover for anybody sneaking up. Why set sentries, then make their job impossible?
It didn't matter if, after the long drive and the hard work unloading, the sentries are going to sleep anyway. It was clear evidence of how little experience the Five and their ex-military guards actually had.
Saturday the Twin Otter airplane landed on the driveway and taxied up to the house. It carried 6 guards, the 3 remaining members of the Five, their girls, plus the other man and woman we had spotted but not identified. Interestingly, the woman in the couple was shown respect by the guards, but the man wasn't. At this point we had pictures from the scouts of all the main characters so my people were able to check them off on arrival. Only two guards were unaccounted for, we assumed they would herd the Chinese captives from the ship at Salaverry to the airport where the Five had chartered a Caribou for Sunday to fly them to the house at Troma.
The command staff and I had gone back and forth talking about which airplane which would pick up the captives Sunday morning. The Caribou that had been chartered by the Five would be a tight fit for the number of girls they had, and we could not insert more than one person on the Caribou. Alternatively, with a small bribe we could divert the charter Caribou and substitute our own Hercules, then hope that the guards either did not recognize or did not care about the change. That would give us more control of the situation, but there was a risk.
The issue was workload. The Hercules had to land at Troma before dusk Saturday with the M-113 and a Hummer. If the Caribou was used for the girls and was diverted to the Colony, the Hercules could sit at the Troma airstrip all night, then reload the M-113 after we had the Five - a total of 2 flights. But if the Hercules was going to be used for the girls it had to fly to the airport near Salaverry early Sunday when the girls were brought from the ship, then fly to the Colony to unload the girls, then fly back to Troma to get the M-113 - a total of 5 flights. More trips meant more chance of something going wrong. The plane was old. Still, the pilot was confident about any mission she was assigned.
Captain Thomas saw both plans as risky, so he wanted me to make a final decision about the Hercules before my departure from Van Nuys Saturday night.
I decided on Wednesday before the wedding to go with the Hercules and divert the Caribou to a cargo run for us. The charter company got paid twice that way, so they liked the idea. They even gave us a discount, because we did not put asshole armed guards on their Caribou.
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The cities of Salaverry and Moyobamba where the Five lived, worked, and did business were all large enough that there were local police, military and criminal organizations in place. The Five were, more or less willingly, partners with all these unpleasant armed people who would complicate any attempt to take them.
However, when the Five went to the sleepy remote town of Troma, the police force was one part-timer, and when he saw the Peruvian military uniforms on our troops he would get out of sight less he was pressed into service.
At the Troma property, away from prying eyes, the Five were free to audition their new Asian acquisitions in privacy over a few days. They would be protected by their regular security team of a dozen former military, all people with military jobs as cooks and truck drivers and the like. They were all larger guys who shot well on the practice range, and were good at following orders to be on time and dressed properly. But none of them had seen real action, and all were released from the military by the age of 30 because their officers knew they could not be counted on to return fire when shooting started.
In addition to their private security troops, the Five had invited another 50 men to arrive on August 20 for 10 days of training so they could "go all Pizarro" in an assault on the Colony and the Tribe. With more than 40 Chinese girls on hand for training one could imagine the troops would anticipate practice in hand-to-hand night action with females in the assault.
The Five wanted to take our mountain to build an impossible-to-assault mountain brothel, much like the one in a Bond movie. (Telly Savalas played one iteration of Bloefeld in the 007 movie between Sean Connery and Roger Moore.) Part of the plan was enslaving the people of the Colony as a construction work force, much like the Spanish used natives to build their churches. I did not know any more about their plan, like how they would get their forces to a place so isolated. But I was sure we would have to time to talk about details once they were in our hands.
For us, the obvious time to attack was Sunday morning, August 17, well before the 50 guys showed up. With luck they entire compound would be asleep and hung over when we arrived.
The Patron chartered a red eye flight from LA to get me on site on time to insure that the Five's plan, whatever it was, did not go as planned. If our plan worked then once the Five were captured I intended to quickly strip them of every sol (Peru's currency) they had before they paid the ultimate penalty for their crime, and did a good deed on their last day, feeding the Andes condors of our mountain. I figured their net worth at about $25 million when we were done squeezing them dry. I was wrong.
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Chapter 42. The Five Make A Choice
Sunday August 17, 2008
Outside of Troma, Peru
When our chartered jet arrived in Peru from LA we transferred to a pair of the Patron's Cessnas. (He used Cessna 208s, a popular single engine, high wing aircraft.) The charter jet could not land at Troma in the dark, but the Cessna pilot had been there and my troops set up some landing lights for a pre-dawn landing. An hour later we were on the ground at the Troma airstrip. Irene, Qwit, Chin and I had changed clothes in-flight. As soon as the plane was stopped all but Chin jumped into the waiting Hummer and drove to the house where things were well under way. We were briefed during the drive.
