Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

Choices and Challenges7back into Fast Eddie’s, where I saw Keith sitting with Tom and TommyJanis at a table in the rec area.Keith had indirectly been a part of my decision to come to Colombia.I had first met him when he came though Key West with another aircraftthat California Microwave had set up to do drug interdiction work.Keith was one of the people responsible for overseeing the upgradesnecessary to convert the Cessna Grand Caravan into a surveillanceplane. For a few years, his outfit at California Microwave had providedmy company with the raw intelligence I turned into reports. The firsttime I met Keith I was struck by his presence. At six foot two, he wasnearly four inches taller than I was. He still wore his hair in a Marine’sbrush cut, and his authoritative voice was just slightly tinged with aFlorida drawl. His ability to convey both a seriousness and a good-ol’-boy casualness was impressive. He’d been there and done a lot of that,but he only told you about it when you asked.From the start, I liked and respected Keith, but despite our first meeting,I knew him more through reputation than firsthand knowledge.Still, the respect must have been mutual, since later on he told me thathe and a common friend of ours had recommended me for the job atCalifornia Microwave. When I joined the crew in Colombia, he saidhe’d been hoping the company could find someone like me—someonewith experience in knowing what the various agencies did with the rawintelligence these field operations gathered.In lots of ways, Keith and I couldn’t have been more different. As anortherner geographically and temperamentally, born to two first-generationimmigrant parents, I tend to be a little bit quiet and reserved. Ilike to keep the peace at the expense of expressing my views or desires.Keith had no trouble making his opinions known, and he had theknowledge and experience to back up his claims about the work wewere all doing. He’d been in Colombia for four years, first working forDynCorp, where Tom had also worked. Keith had also worked in otherparts of the Colombia mission—interdiction through U.S. customs,