secure his name in history.
It was raining hard as they descended through heavy cloud into the capital’s El Dorado International Airport. As flight 194 from Pasto taxied across the tarmac four companies of military police and a team of plain-clothes intelligence agents – one hundred and fifty men in all - took up positions in and around the terminal. If their information was correct, on board were four senior members of the Irish Republican Army, heading home after two weeks training Marxist guerrillas in the tactics of urban warfare. Among the disembarking passengers three unkempt fair-skinned men stood out. The intelligence agents had their quarry squarely in their sights. Or most of it. But where the hell was the fourth Irishman?
Captain Raül Abono of the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad waited till the last passenger had exited the plane, muttered an expletive and followed the three men to the international check-in desk in the hope the missing Irishman might show up. But he didn’t. Abono watched the trio check in for the Air France flight to Paris with a growing sense of unease. Their boarding passes in hand the three men climbed the stairs to the first floor departure lounge, an airless hall lined with cafés, newsagents and tacky souvenir shops. They were heading for passport control, technically leaving Captain Abono’s jurisdiction. Abono scanned the crowd in panic, searching for the missing fourth Irishman. But he wasn’t there. Just as the three approached the departure gate, on a signal from Abono, they were surrounded by a group of plain-clothes DAS agents who asked to see their travel documents. Their fake passports matched the names supplied by MI6 exactly. The three men were stunned. They looked at one another in amazement. But they didn’t speak. It was too late now to concoct a credible cover story.
Captain Abono formally arrested the three suspects on provisional charges of travelling on false British passports. They were hustled into separate cars and driven to the headquarters of the army's notorious 13th Brigade for questioning by seasoned hands-on professionals. Under independent interrogation one man claimed to be a botanist on a specimen-hunting trip. A second asserted he was in Colombia to advise the FARC on the intricacies of the peace process. McGuire told them nothing. He demanded to see a lawyer. The one point on which all three agreed was that they had no knowledge of anyone named Declan O’Brien.
Back in his office Captain Abono made a call to his local MI6 contact at the British Embassy. Declan O’Brien might be missing but nonetheless the operation was a considerable triumph. The DAS, the CIA and MI6 now had a rich vein of intelligence into the IRA/FARC connection and the Colombian authorities would not be squeamish about how they milked it. The notorious 13th Brigade would see to that.
Within an hour of the arrests a dedicated hot line was set up between the White House, Downing Street and Government Buildings. The Satcom link was kept open twenty-four hours a day and used exclusively for the case of the three men and the resulting intelligence fallout.
Washington, Dublin and London each had a different perspective on what they all recognised as a potentially explosive situation. In London it was regarded as a triumph to have fingered the IRA selling expertise and material to a rich and dangerous client. In Dublin it was a public relations disaster, calling the good faith of both wings of the Republican movement into question and jeopardising the peace process. The Irish government immediately went on the offensive and sought undertakings their citizens’ human rights would not be violated. In Washington the menace was taken far more seriously. The FARC was acknowledged as second only to Al Qaeda in the threat it posed to the United States. Yet the FARC’s potential was infinitely greater than Al Qaeda’s. With an income of two million dollars a day from
It was raining hard as they descended through heavy cloud into the capital’s El Dorado International Airport. As flight 194 from Pasto taxied across the tarmac four companies of military police and a team of plain-clothes intelligence agents – one hundred and fifty men in all - took up positions in and around the terminal. If their information was correct, on board were four senior members of the Irish Republican Army, heading home after two weeks training Marxist guerrillas in the tactics of urban warfare. Among the disembarking passengers three unkempt fair-skinned men stood out. The intelligence agents had their quarry squarely in their sights. Or most of it. But where the hell was the fourth Irishman?
Captain Raül Abono of the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad waited till the last passenger had exited the plane, muttered an expletive and followed the three men to the international check-in desk in the hope the missing Irishman might show up. But he didn’t. Abono watched the trio check in for the Air France flight to Paris with a growing sense of unease. Their boarding passes in hand the three men climbed the stairs to the first floor departure lounge, an airless hall lined with cafés, newsagents and tacky souvenir shops. They were heading for passport control, technically leaving Captain Abono’s jurisdiction. Abono scanned the crowd in panic, searching for the missing fourth Irishman. But he wasn’t there. Just as the three approached the departure gate, on a signal from Abono, they were surrounded by a group of plain-clothes DAS agents who asked to see their travel documents. Their fake passports matched the names supplied by MI6 exactly. The three men were stunned. They looked at one another in amazement. But they didn’t speak. It was too late now to concoct a credible cover story.
Captain Abono formally arrested the three suspects on provisional charges of travelling on false British passports. They were hustled into separate cars and driven to the headquarters of the army's notorious 13th Brigade for questioning by seasoned hands-on professionals. Under independent interrogation one man claimed to be a botanist on a specimen-hunting trip. A second asserted he was in Colombia to advise the FARC on the intricacies of the peace process. McGuire told them nothing. He demanded to see a lawyer. The one point on which all three agreed was that they had no knowledge of anyone named Declan O’Brien.
Back in his office Captain Abono made a call to his local MI6 contact at the British Embassy. Declan O’Brien might be missing but nonetheless the operation was a considerable triumph. The DAS, the CIA and MI6 now had a rich vein of intelligence into the IRA/FARC connection and the Colombian authorities would not be squeamish about how they milked it. The notorious 13th Brigade would see to that.
Within an hour of the arrests a dedicated hot line was set up between the White House, Downing Street and Government Buildings. The Satcom link was kept open twenty-four hours a day and used exclusively for the case of the three men and the resulting intelligence fallout.
Washington, Dublin and London each had a different perspective on what they all recognised as a potentially explosive situation. In London it was regarded as a triumph to have fingered the IRA selling expertise and material to a rich and dangerous client. In Dublin it was a public relations disaster, calling the good faith of both wings of the Republican movement into question and jeopardising the peace process. The Irish government immediately went on the offensive and sought undertakings their citizens’ human rights would not be violated. In Washington the menace was taken far more seriously. The FARC was acknowledged as second only to Al Qaeda in the threat it posed to the United States. Yet the FARC’s potential was infinitely greater than Al Qaeda’s. With an income of two million dollars a day from
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