See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism by Robert Baer Read Free Book Online Page B

colonel, whispering in the colonel’s ear,’ A civilian, sir’ - no doubt saving the five of us from being awarded Purple Hearts.
    The five of us had parachuted into Tidewater Virginia on the final exercise of a four-month paramilitary course, the last phase of the DO’s yearlong training cycle and probably the most intense, grueling, expensive training offered by the US government, short of something like the SEAL basic course. The next stop for many of us would be an overseas assignment.
    Our exercise mission that night was to meet what was supposed to be an agent on the lam and escort him to a waiting boat. The meeting point was only a mile and a half away from the landing zone. From there to the inlet was less than a mile. What’s more, we had twelve hours to do it all, and if the agent wasn’t at the meeting point right on time, we weren’t supposed to wait for him. A walk in the park, or so we thought.
    It took Alan about five minutes to find us on the map and plot a course. We’d studied the terrain from satellite photographs and a couple of aerial reconnaissance shots. There didn’t seem to be any major obstacles. Alan thought it would take less than an hour to get to the meeting point, but we decided to get as close to our destination as was prudent and wait there.
    It was lucky we started early. About ten yards into the trees we ran into a wall of bramble, vines, and wild berry bushes. We had one machete between us, and the brush might as well have been made of cement. Alan started hacking through it first. After about half an hour, his hands were too bloody to continue, so Eric took over. We continued that way, taking turns, for the next two hours. So much for getting to the meeting site in an hour.
    As soon as we got through, we collapsed on the ground, exhausted but heartened by what appeared in the darkness to be clear sailing ahead. Alan got everyone up after about ten minutes. Peter started off on point. As he walked along, he systematically checked for trip wires by putting the back of his hand on the ground and raising it slowly above his head.
    We were making good time until we hit one of the most putrid swamps I’d ever seen. On the bottom was sucking muck; on top, thick saw grass. We quickly decided we couldn’t walk around it. It was too big, and we would have been thrown badly off course. Alan checked his compass, pointed at a big tree on the other side of the swamp, and stepped into the muck. We followed in single file, sinking to our necks.
    The only pleasant thought I could summon when we got to the other side was that there was no fool big enough to follow us across. If they were going to catch us, it would have to be from the front. We threw ourselves on the ground, bleeding from the saw grass, for another fifteen-minute breather.
    A little after midnight, we arrived at a low hill flanked by several large boulders. Peter, Curt, Eric, and I were to wait there while Alan went ahead to pick up the agent. We couldn’t be sure we had not been compromised. If an ambush was waiting, there was no point in losing the whole team.
    At 0330 we got up and started to move due east and then north to intercept the route Alan would be taking with the agent. At the rallying point, Eric and Curt waited at the bottom of the ravine Alan was to follow, while Peter and I climbed the slopes to make sure we weren’t being tracked in parallel ravines.
    An hour later, I heard faintly one then another person moving with difficulty through the bottom of the ravine. No one had mentioned that the agent was seriously overweight and ill. We took turns holding him up by the arms and even carrying him every ten minutes. By the time we came to the gravel road, I felt like I’d just spent the last twelve hours in Everest’s Death Zone.
    It was now a little before six. Dawn was starting to crack, and we had yet to find the boat - if it was still there. Alan went ahead to check the inlet. We had just sat down in some