12
Honduras
1983–1984
Against my GS-11 objections, I was ordered to use my Barracudas to blow the bridge at Corinto. For the mission, I picked my four best Barracudas. We planned to attack it at night with two boats, each with a crew of Spanish Nicaraguans and a pair of Miskito divers. This was one of those cases where regional racism and ethnic acrimony went overlooked and the assumption at the top levels of command was that the mission and enemy would smooth over whatever differences existed locally.
That was a tough lesson to learn for all of us, but I could see issues developing right away. The Miskito Indians have spent generations being oppressed by other Nicaraguans, whom they referred to as the “Spaniards.” To ask four of them to operate on the other side of the country, far away from the inlets and beaches they knew intimately, was already asking a lot. Asking them to work with non-Miskito boat crews was a bridge too far. Because of the racial dichotomy, the divers and boatmen never met until mission time. We picked an island off the coast of Honduras and worked out an attack plan with two other advisors, Leon, an up-and-coming SAD officer, and Jim W., a former U.S. Navy SEAL. Headquarters constructed a tabletop mock-up of the bridge that was almost as accurate as us being there. It was there that we would also train the divers on the use of the proper explosives.
The bridge was a much trickier target than the pier we’d destroyed. Long and built atop hundreds of pilings, from the outset, it would take a lot more blast power than our first effort to drop enough of the bridge to foul the harbor channel. To take it out, each team would need to emplace three charges on three different pilings. We acquired some non-U.S.-attributable explosives and trained our divers to secure them into position using bungee cords.
While we trained, we stayed at an abandoned resort called Spy Hill, of all things. The Miskitos worked like pros and were eager to learn. The days were long—water work is hard—and during downtime, there was no entertainment or escape. But we never heard a peep of complaint from my crew.
To get the divers to the bridge, fiberglass boats were imported from the States. They were extremely fast with open decks and a small bridge. For short periods, they could reach almost sixty miles an hour in good seas. Their speed would no doubt be an asset, but they proved mechanically unreliable and very finicky to operate. Each boat consisted of two boat crewmen and two Miskito divers.
I flew into a small Honduran island in the Gulf of Fonseca not far from Corinto, bringing the Miskitos with me in the Huey. It was there that the boat crews and divers finally met and received a full briefing on the target and mission. They would need to navigate through the gulf with full view of the extinct volcano that became the Cosigüina Lagoon, then turn south and run down the coast for about forty kilometers to reach the entrance to Corinto Harbor. This had to be done in darkness, so the margin for error was very thin. At a minimum, the attack teams were looking at a four-hour round trip to infil and exfil. Once they arrived in the target area, the boats would enter farther inland via the inlets, and when close enough, the dive teams would deploy and swim to the bridge, place the explosives, and then navigate back to the rendezvous area.
When the briefing ended, I could see nobody was happy. This would be a difficult operation in the best of circumstances, as getting to the bridge would require considerable stealth to avoid detection. The timeline was cutting it close, and if anything went wrong, they stood a chance of being out on the water at daylight, which would put them at the mercy of the Sandinista navy and air force if they were detected.
Nevertheless, we launched the mission as briefed, the boats speeding across the bay toward Corinto in the late afternoon so by the time they reached Nicaraguan waters, it would be nightfall. We’d need every minute of darkness to pull this off.
The rest of our team, including my good friend Leon, who was the senior officer in charge, and Jim, my two pilots, and I remained on our little island base with our Huey. I manned the radio all night, monitoring for any communications. Radio silence was in play with the boats, so the last thing I wanted was to hear them on the airwaves.
After sunset, they cleared the Gulf of Fonseca without incident. They swung south and hugged the coastline, but the closer they got to Corinto, the more shipping traffic they encountered. Dodging the boats out there slowed their progress and threw the schedule off. Truth was, the amount of activity totally surprised us; there was no indication of that in the pre-mission intelligence we’d received.
Using their speed and the darkness, the boats did manage to infiltrate to the drop-off point just outside the entrance to Corinto Harbor. That’s when things started to go terribly wrong. The Miskitos, spooked by the number of patrols and civilian vessels about, feared the Spaniards would bail on them as soon as they hit the water. They refused to deploy. A furious argument broke out. Threats were exchanged, and lots of finger-pointing took place in the moment. Ultimately, they scrubbed the mission, and both boats started to exfiltrate. But to evade Sandinista naval patrols, they had to maneuver quickly. In the darkness, they became separated. One boat dodged the Nicaraguan vessels by hiding in mangroves, but the second suffered engine trouble and was bobbing like a cork in the Gulf of Fonseca. They radioed to me that they were trying to limp into the coastal mangrove swamps to hide and effect repairs when the engines died.
Although they carried suitable weapons to defend themselves, they would not survive long without propulsion. If a Sandinista patrol found them adrift in the gulf, they’d be killed for sure. Both our boats were out of action, and sunrise was only a few hours away.
It was time to improvise. I went to my Huey pilots, and along with Leon and Jim, I briefed them on my desperate plan. I resorted to my hard-earned pararescue training. After I explained what I wanted to do, Leon did not hesitate even one second and immediately approved my plan; no risk-averse leadership here!
I asked our base logistics guy, Papo, to find me some rope. I told Jim I needed some explosives. He rustled up a C-4 satchel for me, which I would strap to my chest. I threw together a couple of bags of spare parts, including spark plugs, for the boat engines. I also grabbed a couple of five-gallon cans of water and gasoline. I bundled the tools and parts into waterproof pouches that would float when they hit the sea.
While I worked, Papo came back with four lengths of rope, and said, “Major Alex, everyone’s asking what you’re doing.”
“We’re gonna go get ’em back!”
We tied four lines to the Huey’s floor-anchor points, two to a side, then coiled them onto the Huey’s deck. We then fashioned some homemade harnesses into makeshift STABO rigs. The STAbilized BOdy extraction harness was a device that allowed military personnel to be rescued by helicopter from field locations that prevented the conventional landing and boarding of a helicopter. Bowline knots and carabiners completed the rigs.
I figured if we could not get the boats restarted, we’d pull everyone off onto the Huey and use the C-4 charges to scuttle the boat. The mission may have failed, but at least we’d get our people back, and the damn Piricuacos would not be able to add a fast boat to their arsenal. Not on my watch!
I explained to my pilots what I needed them to do. We’d go out to the stranded boat in the gulf, do a low-and-slow pass toward it so I could jump out into the water with the gear. I’d swim to the boat, climb into it, and we’d see what the issues were before determining whether or not to evacuate the crew and destroy the vessel.
It was a classic PJ tactic, one that I’d practiced countless times. But outside that brotherhood, I am sure this sort of stuff sounded crazy to normal humans.
I climbed aboard the Huey equipped with a snorkel, mask, and fins, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Two pounds of C-4 was strapped to my chest, while I made sure to secure my PPK in my ankle holster, mainly for good luck, as she never left my side. If we were caught and boarded by the Sandinistas, it would be my last-ditch weapon.
We took off and headed out over the water. It didn’t take us long to find the first boat adrift in the Gulf of Fonseca, since the crew accurately reported their position. Our pilots swung around and made the low, slow pass at fifteen miles an hour at about thirty feet. On that first run, I kicked out the bags of gear, tools, fuel, and water. They splashed into the sea not too far from the boat.
We needed to do this quickly. A helicopter buzzing around in Nicaraguan waters surely would attract unwanted attention from Sandinista patrol boats. If they caught us out here, we’d be in serious trouble. The Huey had no door-mounted machine guns like the Vietnam-era birds. It would be us with a few AR-15s against machine guns.
The pilots reversed course and calmly set up the second pass. I stood in the Huey’s doorway, back toward our line of direction, waiting for the word to jump. Though it had been years since I was in the air force, I’d done this so many times in training, all the steps returned to me in the moment. I went through my mental checklist, knowing that if I did this wrong, I could end up landing on my back or head. Hitting the water like that would be like falling onto concrete.
Tuck in arms and head nice and tight. Mask on, hand over it.
I took a final look over my shoulder. The boat was a short distance ahead. I could see the gear bags bobbing on the surface. Time to go.
Lead with your butt, step backward out of the bird.
I felt myself falling. The blue waters of the gulf sped toward me. I kept my body positioned so my heels and fins would hit first, then my ass, then my back. A split second later, the water engulfed me as I torpedoed into it with an enormous splash. My fins quickly slowed my descent, and I looked up at the surface and began swimming for it.
My head popped up. I gave the Huey crew my thumbs-up and kicked over to the supply bags. They were heavy, but fortunately not waterlogged. I grabbed a line from them and towed them over to the boat. It was slow going in moderate swells, and I really had to kick hard with the fins to make progress. I finally reached the boat, where I was greeted with four astonished looks.
Who jumps out of a helicopter almost thirty feet overhead? A former USAF PJ, of course. The Miskitos and boat crew had never seen anything like that before. Neither had the guys in the Huey, for that matter.
The men pulled the gear aboard, then helped me over the side. Meanwhile, our pilots flew the Huey over the horizon, but still in radio range so as to not attract unwanted attention. As the morning wore on, the crew swapped out spark plugs, filled the gas tank from the five-gallon jerry can I’d brought along, and monkeyed around with the engines until both fired up again.
We navigated back to our secret island base without incident. When we returned, we learned the second boat was still beached somewhere in the mangrove swamps north of Corinto. They’d been unable to get their engines started.
There was no way we were going to leave our guys behind. We decided to use the recovered boat and go find our lost crew. If we couldn’t get their boat running, we’d just tow them out. I took our Cuban Bay of Pigs veteran naval captain, plus another Agency officer adept at maritime operations. Beyond my 9mm, my PPK, and my AR-15s, we’d have little defense against a Sandinista patrol vessel armed with heavy machine guns.
I was now on my second day with no sleep. I recalled PJ Chief Master Sergeant Fisk’s motto, “The only easy day was yesterday,” accompanied by the usual: “Suck it up, Prado!”
Hooyah, Chief!
We hastily put together a plan for the rescue. Afterward, I climbed back aboard the boat wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt. The Cuban and the other Agency officer we called “Speedy” climbed aboard with yellow rain slickers and hats, something I’d not even thought about for myself.
Big mistake. As we pushed out into the Gulf of Fonseca, we encountered heavy seas. By the time we broke out into the Pacific, the swells were running up to twelve feet high. Our small boat pitched and rocked, slammed down into the troughs between the swells to soak us with spray. By the time it got dark again, I was soaked to the bone and losing body heat.
Pounded by the seas, we pushed on, trying to find our lost men. The boat was equipped with HF and VHF comms, and I had brought a handheld Icom radio. As the boat slammed down on the back side of the swells, our main radios went out. We lost direct comms with our missing men on the stranded boat, but we could still relay messages to them with the Icom.
Suddenly, a flare shot up over the water a few miles away. Clearly, they’d heard the radio chatter and were out looking for us now. We pressed on, in total light discipline, pushing south as the waves hammered us, hoping to pinpoint the location of our lost boat.
More Sandinista patrol vessels appeared around us. We couldn’t see them, but they popped more flares that arced through the night sky like comets. In the distance, a light machine gun opened fire, hoping to entice a response by their “recon by fire.” Another one let loose a long stream farther out in the darkness.
They were either shooting at phantoms or trying to spook us into returning fire. We didn’t have anything that could reach them; plus our only hope was stealth now that the heavy seas negated much of our speed advantage. After a while, the shooting and the flares stopped.
We continued on, the heavy seas masking our presence as well as we could, no lights and minimal radio use. Still no sign of our missing boat. By now, I was becoming hypothermic in my wet clothes as the seas lashed us with unrelenting fury, but adrenaline and my training were still kicking in: FIDO (F*** It and Drive On)!
A wave crashed into us, sending the boat reeling. A cascade of seawater drenched the bridge and threw me off my feet. My Icom went flying, hit the deck, and shattered. I followed it down, and the impact knocked the breath out of me.
Though by now we had a pretty good idea where the other boat was, based on our brief comms and related triangulations, we had to abort. Without comms, there would be no rescue that night.
As we turned for home, I noticed our Cuban captain and Speedy were both relatively dry, thanks to their slickers and hats. Momentary anger flared in me. Why didn’t anyone think to give me one of those bloody things?
By the time we evaded the patrols and reached the Honduran end of the Gulf of Fonseca again, I was in bad shape. By this point, I’d been awake for two days straight. Now, the post-adrenaline dump robbed me of my remaining strength. I knew I had to figure out a way to warm up. I was shaking uncontrollably from hypothermia.
Adapt, improvise, and overcome.
My SERE school training kicked in, and I went below to search for anything that I could use to get my core temperature back up. In one of the boat’s lockers below the small cabin, I found some flotation devices wrapped in plastic. I pulled them out, tore the plastic off, and stuffed the plastic up my shirt. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Then I crawled inside the storage locker, closed the door, went into a fetal position, and stayed there until we made it back to our island. When we docked, I struggled to my feet and walked straight to a shower, shoes, pants—everything but my sidearm. I stayed under the warm stream, shivering like a leaf in a storm, for almost half an hour.
The next day, we went out heavily armed in six fast boats and recovered our lost team without incident. That was one piece of good news in an otherwise dismal mission. I was later awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit for my actions to save the first boat and crew. At the time, it was small compensation for a failure I could see coming from the moment the plan was conceived back at Tegucigalpa.
Failure is always to be learned from, and the Corinto operation taught me a number of vital things I carried with me through the rest of my career. To execute any kind of black operation, you must go into it with a team built on trust and mutual respect. If that is not established, or if trust breaks down among the team members, nothing good will follow.
Having reliable, rugged, and simple equipment is equally as important as trust.
Those boats were unusually fast, but we knew they were fussy and required a lot of TLC to keep functional. In the heat of the moment, both of them failed, and it nearly cost the lives of eight good men.
Fortunately, we scored a major success not long after this operation ended that balanced the failure with a much-needed Contra victory. Thanks to the arrival of massive logistical support and increased in-country air assets, we now possessed the capability to resupply our Contras camps more efficiently and more frequently. From where these reinforcements came, I never learned. I’d also learned never to ask questions—especially when it came to our new aircraft.
Of all the different components of the FDN, the Miskito were some of the most loyal and airtight. Their homeland had been taken over; their people forcibly removed from their villages. Torture, rape, and murder were common. The survivors of these depredations flowed into Honduras to tell their stories and redouble the Miskito Contras’ sense of purpose.
While the Sandinistas had moles in every other camp, they were less successful in establishing a network within the MISURA—they were simply too detested, and the tightly knit communities knew who was who. As a result, the Miskito were picked to launch one of the earliest, major Contra offensives of the war.
In the waning weeks of 1983, while the world’s situation grew ever tenser as the superpowers confronted each other, we stepped up our training effort with the Miskitos. More weapons and ammunition flowed to their ranks. We taught them basic logistics, then infiltrated across the border to pre-position supply caches in what would become their line of advance once the offensive began.
The FDN planned to use the MISURA to move south into Nicaragua to recapture the Miskito gold mines and cut the highways to Puerto Cabezas and Bluefields. Once established on the other side of the border, the Miskito were to conduct raids and ambushes against any Sandinista reinforcements sent by Managua.
In the days leading up to the start of the offensive, I ran myself ragged trying to handle a million last-minute details. We’d never attempted the size and scope before, so we were blazing new ground. The Sandys didn’t make things any easier; as we flew over the area, we took fire, and our Huey’s tail was hit by several bullets.
The morning the offensive began, a small force of Miskitos infiltrated across the Coco River—the frontier between Honduras and Nicaragua. They established a foothold on the south side, paving the way for several thousand Contras. I watched the main force cross the Coco River in everything from rafts and their native panga canoes to small boats. They looked like ants crossing on leaves. It reminded me of the stories from school of Washington’s footsore, half-frozen army crossing the Delaware River to strike at the British in Trenton, New Jersey, during the darkest days of the American Revolution.
The Miskito made it across the Coco, then pushed on to their first objectives. They ran into entrenched Sandinista army units protecting outposts and critical road junctions. Hard fighting ensued, but the Miskito would not be denied. The Sandinistas buckled, then ran. The advance continued.
The early days consumed most of the supplies we’d forward-cached in the jungle. After those ran short, we used ratlines of men carrying supplies from Rus Rus and other points to where we could fly into and resupply the MISURA. In short order, the Miskito achieved all of the FDN’s objectives. The highways were cut. The areas around the gold mines retaken.
The Sandinistas soon realized this was something different—far more than a hit-and-run raid. Alarmed, they struck back with their newly acquired Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters. Old Soviet MiGs made repeated strafing runs. Flying the Huey in the area became a dangerous game as a result of all the Sandinista air support sent to counter the Miskito operation.
Despite the weight thrown at them, the Miskito were there to stay. In the months that followed, the MISURA Contras reestablished themselves in their own liberated homeland. The Sandinistas tried to drive them back into Honduras with repeated counterattacks, but they failed to dislodge them from their positions inside Nicaragua.
It was a huge victory, one that took the pressure off the other Contra groups to the west, as the Sandys were forced to pull units out of their areas and use them to counter the Miskitos. Meanwhile, the FDN troops were also doing more than their part, fighting feverishly under the command of El Tigrillo (a legendary commander with loyal and devoted fighters), Mike Lima, Benito, and many others. It was clear that a new phase of the Contra war of liberation had begun. The Sandinistas had lost the initiative.
Yet even as we gained momentum, we experienced perilous moments and setbacks.
As the Miskito offensive continued, the Sandinistas deployed more troops to deal with the threat. They launched counterstrikes that consumed MISURA supplies and kept the Miskito fighters in near-constant contact. Their need for resupply slowly outstripped our capacities to deliver it.
Another Miskito leader, Brooklyn Rivera, decided to seize on the moment and generate internal dissent against Stedman Fagoth’s leadership. Rumors swirled that Stedman was stealing funds meant for the troops and was siphoning supplies for his own personal gain. While this had happened earlier on with the Argentines and a few senior FDN ranks—something I made the camps aware of early on after my arrival in hopes of seeing it change—Stedman Fagoth was not among those doing such things.
Still, these were men who had seen the FDN leadership in Tegucigalpa confiscate their tiny monthly salaries for years. They’d seen the other camps get the lion’s share of the supplies simply because of the racial animosity toward the MISURA. The rumors seemed plausible.
One afternoon, our base in Tegucigalpa received a distress call from our new surrogate—a retired SF sergeant—at the MISURA base camp in Rus Rus on the Honduran side of the border. “There are six commanders and six hundred men here to kill Stedman Fagoth.” Our surrogate packed up all our crypto gear and made his way back to Tegu in haste.
I had met with Stedman that morning in Tegu and knew he had just boarded a light plane to take him to Puerto Lempira. From there, he would drive to the Rus Rus camp in a truck. He’d been in Tegucigalpa trying to secure more resupply for his men. Now, he was returning to them and walking into an ambush.
At our base in the capital, Ray was deeply concerned. A Miskito insurrection would take down the offensive and quite possibly neutralize the most effective Contra force as its leaders battled for control of it.
I knew these men. I knew I could talk to them and find a way to solve this before it devolved into chaos and murder.
“Chief, please let me go out there,” I said.
We talked it over. The Chief of Station got on the phone with us and asked me, “Are you sure you can do this?”
I was pretty sure.
“Yes.”
Ray looked at me with his wicked smile and said, “You’re cleared hot, Alex.” I could feel his confidence in me, and that steeled me for the task.
There was no time to spare. By then, we had a Hughes 500 Defender light reconnaissance helicopter at our disposal. I jumped into it with one of our pilots, and we raced to head off Stedman and get to the camp first.
We landed halfway at one of our forward bases to quickly refuel. The Chief of Base there asked me, “What the hell is going on, Alex? An insurrection?”
I wasn’t sure. He asked me what I was carrying, weapon-wise. It would be me going to talk to six hundred armed Miskitos, so I thought the question was pretty irrelevant. “This isn’t gonna be resolved with bullets.”
He nodded. I smiled and added, “I’m good, but I’m not that good.” We both shared a laugh, tinged with anxiety.
We pressed on and intercepted Stedman before he could get to the camp. “Alex, what are you doing here?” he asked when I found him.
I said, “What, you think I would leave you in a time of need?”
He lowered his head and then smiled; no further words were needed among the two of us. Stedman was a good man, and the trust between us was solid.
I explained the situation to him and told him to stay put. I’d go forward and talk to the mutineers.
We got to the base camp after dark. As soon as I arrived, I checked in with Ray to let him know I was at least alive for the moment. Then I went off to find out what was going on.
Most of the six hundred men who mutinied remained on the Nicaraguan side of the Coco River, but the six rebellious commanders and perhaps fifty or sixty men had entered the camp. I found them around a bonfire, their chests crisscrossed with bandoliers of ammunition. The six commanders had all sorts of gear dangling from chest rigs. They looked ready to fight.
They were not happy to see me.
I approached them without even my rifle and greeted them. I made a point of being cordial but cold. They regarded me with distrust. Some looked openly hostile.
For an instant, I wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. These guys were pissed off, and they just might be stupid enough to take their anger out on me without thought of the consequences. If that happened, I’d have no chance. Moments like these in real life are not like those you see in action films like True Lies, where the good guy always faces insane odds and kicks everyone’s ass. In real life, skill, courage, and determination can only go so far against weight of numbers.
Though uninvited, I sat down and got straight to the point. “What are your grievances?”
At first, nobody spoke. I suppose they were trying to size up my intent. I waited, patiently, my face a mask. This was the ultimate game of poker, and I was damned if I were going to tip my hand.
One of the leaders spoke first. When I listened without comment, others began to chime in. Each one leveled a torrent of accusations against Stedman. He was stealing their salaries. He was hoarding or selling their supplies. There was bitterness in their words that could only come from men who’d been fighting for weeks and beating their enemy, only to feel like their own leaders were subverting their efforts and not sharing their hardships.
The latter was ridiculous. Stedman led from the front more than most. He’d only gone back to Honduras to secure what his men needed in person since every other effort had failed.
When they finished, they looked even more resolved. With the grievances out in the open, the mutiny felt justified.
I’d have to change their mind on that. Teddy Roosevelt used to say, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Wise words for such moments.
At length, I spoke. “You guys have known me for years. We have trained together. We have fought together.”
The anger softened in some of the faces around me. Just a bit, but still noticeable.
I’d struck the right chord. Now I needed to exploit it.
“I’m going to make you three promises, and you know they are solid.”
They listened expectantly in the firelight. Some of the men had been eating off banana leaves. Now, they stopped to watch me intently.
“First, Stedman has not been stealing from you. Our resources are limited, and the other camps still need supplies, too. They are all fighting right now to support you, and the Sandinistas are pressing everyone hard. We’re stretched thin. But Stedman is doing everything he can to get more sent your way. He’s not screwing you over.”
I watched the reaction. Faces set, hard expressions. This was not what they wanted to hear.
“Second, you are part of a democratic effort. If you don’t like how Stedman is running things, call a tribal council and vote him out of power. It is as simple as that.”
No reaction. The anger returned in some of the faces. Others seemed to consider that point. There was some hesitation, perhaps confusion on what to do next.
It was time to use the stick. “Third, if you touch one hair on Stedman Fagoth’s head, I will personally lead the troops who will hunt you down and kill you. All of you.”
The men reacted as if I’d just slapped them. Shock registered through the firelight. Here was the payoff for the years of personal investment I’d made with these men. They understood I could be their biggest ally or their worst nightmare. I was not a man to be fucked with. They’d seen how I could fight through countless weeks of training and missions together. They knew if bitten, I would always bite back.
While they were off balance, I softened the message. “And I promise you one more thing. You’ll get resupplied within twenty-four hours.”
I got up and left to let them think it over. Nobody shot me in the back, so I figured that was a good sign. I walked over to the communications hut and called back to the base in the clear.
“Hey, Chief,” I said to Ray, “I got a tough one for you, boss. I need resupply first light tomorrow. I gotta have lots of beans, bullets, and medical supplies.”
The next morning, several World War II–era C-47 transports landed in Rus Rus and delivered everything I’d asked for. How the hell Ray managed that miracle overnight, I will never know. We made sure Stedman delivered the supplies to the mutineers. The rebellion died, and Stedman survived.
The mutineers returned to the fight in Nicaragua. I returned to base.
In March of 1984, my time with the Contras in Honduras came to an end. Ray had been a mentor to me through my many years in the jungle. I learned so much professionally from him that I would always be grateful. He had been my biggest supporter and advocate from the outset and had looked out for me professionally. In early ’84, he approached our Chief of Station and discussed my future. “Prado doesn’t have a college degree. We need to professionalize him and get him to the Farm.”
The COS agreed. Ray contacted Dewey Clarridge and said the same thing. Two hours after that phone call, I was told I’d just been sponsored to go to George Mason University.
I’d been a paramilitary trainer for almost four years. Now, it was time for me to become a spy.