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

10 OUT OF CAPTIVITYI’d been driving in and doing the initial radio check, Keith had gone tothe U.S. embassy. Keith and I were to be the rear seaters on this mission,but given Keith’s experience on the job, he was to be the missioncommander that day. In a sense, this was a practice mission for me,giving me more time behind the camera actually operating the equipment.Keith had called me the night before to go over some procedures,and with our scheduled 0700 departure, I knew that he had to be at theembassy by 0500 hours to meet with our Tactical Analysis Team (TAT).They would give him our target package—the places we’d be flyingover and photographing and videoing—for the day, and these targetscame straight from Southern Command, one of the groups within theDepartment of Defense that guided our missions. Because of the securityrisk of being in possession of the targets, we always had to go to theTAT on the morning of the flights.I’d done all this before, and when Keith and I flew together, we alternatedwho did the preflight at the airport and who went to our TAT atthe embassy. On that morning it had been Keith’s turn, and when I sawhim sitting with the two Toms, he had a familiar look on his face.“They were late?” I asked.“Yep. I can’t believe I have to sit there and wait. What am I doinggetting my ass up at ‘o dark early’ if I just have to sit there for twentyminutes? That’s twenty minutes of beauty rest I could have had.”“You could have used that,” Tom said, smiling at Tommy J and me.Keith pointed at me.“That hat, bro. That’s not really working for you.”I tugged at the brim of my Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Bowl Championhat and smiled at the thought of the team finally going all the wayafter so many years of futility. I tried to think of something to say inreturn, but watching Keith twirl a couple of CDs around his index fingerhad me mesmerized for a bit.Before Keith could go on to explain whom he was going to be listeningto today, a couple of Colombians walked in. We did our work only