Trying to cut through all this noise - it was hard to tell what was true and what wasn't - the embassy was fortunate to have Maj. Steve Jacoby's secret electronic eavesdropping unit, Centra Spike, in the air high over Medellin. On July 24, just two days after his escape, the unit picked up Escobar talking at length on a cell phone. They pinpointed his location to an area about four miles from the prison, in a wealthy suburb of Medellin called Tres Esquinas.
Evidently assuming that the government could not yet have him under surveillance, Escobar was doing a lot of talking, using as many as eight cell phones. Already, he was providing solid leads for the Delta manhunters.
Col. Boykin boasted to Colombian National Police Col. Oscar Naranjo that he and his men would find Escobar within the week.
The Delta soldiers who arrived in Colombia just four days after Pablo Escobar left his prison in July 1992 had initially hoped to hunt down the notorious narco-terrorist themselves. Given the clumsy track record of the Colombians, it seemed the best chance of finding Escobar quickly.
Delta specialized in this kind of quick strike. The men trained constantly and could move rapidly anywhere, day or night. They preferred orders that explained the what and why of a mission without precisely spelling out the how. This time the initial order was, vaguely, to assist in the hunt for Escobar, who had escaped from prison just four days before.
Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison, commander of joint special operations at Delta's home base at Fort Bragg, N.C., was a veteran of covert operations. He had worked on the infamous Phoenix program in Vietnam, which targeted Viet Cong village leaders for assassination.
That was long before Executive Order 12333, the prohibition on U.S. government involvement in assassinations. The order, which originated during the Nixon administration after congressional hearings exposed excesses in intelligence operations, had been updated under Presidents Carter and Reagan:
2.11 PROHIBITION ON ASSASSINATION
No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.
2.12 INDIRECT PARTICIPATION
No agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden by this Order.
Gen. George Joulwan, commander of the U.S. Army Southern Command in Panama, had been emphatic in his instructions for the Escobar operation. He knew how easy it was for these 'black' special-operations forces to fly beneath the Army's command radar. Joulwan knew that the Delta men wanted to do the job themselves, and probably could, but he was more concerned that in achieving the military goal of eliminating Escobar, they would create a political storm more destructive than Escobar himself.
'No, you're not going to do it yourself,' Joulwan had instructed Col. Jerry Boykin, commander of the eight- man Delta team sent to Colombia on July 26.
Officially, the team members were flying to Bogota merely to provide advice and training. Of course, if they managed to kill Escobar in such a way that the Colombians got credit, no one was going to complain. But no such order was articulated, and Morris Busby, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, was set against it anyway.
Sensitive to the precarious position of President Cesar Gaviria, the ambassador explained to Col. Boykin the political storm that would erupt if Delta operators were discovered running around in black masks shooting people. Given Escobar's penchant for spectacular violence and his well-armed bodyguards and assassins, the chances of an American getting killed or captured were high.
The ambassador simply wanted the Delta men to lend their expertise, to provide intelligence, analysis, training and operational assistance. If the Colombians took all that and then went out and shot somebody while trying to arrest Escobar, the U.S. mission would stay comfortably within the law.
The Delta operators were not to participate in raids. They were to remain at the National Police command posts in Medellin, the main one at the Carlos Holguin police academy, and the other inside the prison where Escobar had been held. Busby wanted the team members to get out there and show the Colombian police how to track down this fugitive, pronto.
They had to act quickly, before Escobar had a chance to rebuild his operation. In the four days since Escobar's escape, he already had begun reassembling his hit men and bodyguards and setting up the system that would allow him to live comfortably on the run.
Busby tried to convey urgency. He and his embassy staff had been working round the clock since the escape.
On Monday, July 27, Col. Boykin and the ambassador met with President Gaviria, while two high-ranking Colombian police commanders met at the U.S. Embassy with the newly arrived Americans. One of the Colombians was Lt. Col. Lino Pinzon, the man assigned to head the Colombian search effort for Escobar.
The Delta men inflated their ranks. They did not want the Colombians thinking a mission as important as hunting down Pablo Escobar would be relegated to midlevel soldiers. So Lt. Col. Gary Harrell, one of the largest line officers in the Army, with an aggressive personality to complement his linebacker physique, was introduced as a general.
Col. Pinzon, who already was unhappy with the Americans' refusal to allow him to see their command center inside a steel-lined vault on an upper floor of the embassy, clashed with Harrell.
Harrell was a country boy with a direct style. He had a handshake that people warned you about. Pinzon was something of a dandy, a stylish officer with a crisp salt-and-pepper crew cut who played a good game of tennis and kept a manicurist and pedicurist on his staff.
Pinzon was told of an American surveillance team's phone intercepts that had pinpointed Escobar at a finca, or estate, on a hilltop in a wealthy suburb of Medellin called Tres Equinax. He scoffed at the idea that the fugitive could be found magically by plucking his phone calls out of the air, but agreed that if another call came from the same place, his forces would be ready to move in. Four members of the Delta team would fly to Medellin the next day to help plan the assault if it came.
One of the first two operators to leave for Medellin was a man known to the Colombians as Col. Santos, or simply Jefe (Chief). None of the Delta men used their real names. While Boykin was the commander, and Harrell was initially in charge in Medellin, it was Santos, whose real rank was sergeant major, who would stay on for
