Centra Spike, the Army's secret unit, had its Beechcraft twin-engine planes performing essentially the same mission as the CIA's planes, but at a much lower cost. Centra Spike considered the CIA's radio telemetry inferior.
The Centra Spike team drew from the Army's vast talent pool, recruiting operators with both language and technical skills. These operators designed improvements to the system in the field, sending detailed suggestions to engineers in the United States. When Escobar switched from using standard cell phones to digital phones in 1989, for instance, it had taken the unit only 15 days to adapt.
There was always a race to send information back to Bogota and Washington. Pena remembers seeing the CIA and Centra Spike men actually racing from a meeting to be the first to telephone back new information.
Escobar's knowledge of electronics and law enforcement capabilities far exceeded the Middle East terrorists and Central American guerrillas Centra Spike had chased in the past. When Congress had begun authorizing more secret funds for Centra Spike after its early successes in Colombia, it was painful to the CIA. Now, with Escobar at large, the two units were competing head-to-head.
One problem for Centra Spike was that it reported to the CIA station chief. So even delivering fresh intelligence first was no guarantee of getting credit for it.
The Centra Spike operators were furious when a report from the National Security Council congratulated the CIA for useful information that in fact had been gathered by Centra Spike. Because budget dollars would grow more scarce in 1993 and the years ahead, it was more than just galling to see the CIA taking credit for the Army unit's success. It was a threat to the unit's survival. The Centra Spike commander, Maj. Steve Jacoby, complained bitterly to Ambassador Busby.
A competition was arranged: The rival units ran a series of field trials to see which could do a better job of pinpointing targets. They set up phony targets over Medellin and flew a series of missions in late 1992.
The contest wasn't even close. Centra Spike pinpointed signals to just under 200 meters. The best the CIA plane could do was more than four miles, even after trying three separate telemetry methods. That settled things, and the CIA backed off its claims for Majestic Eagle.
Centra Spike got another boost in congressional funding, and the operators looked forward to new equipment in the coming year that would double their system's accuracy as they tried to close the gap in the hunt for Pablo Escobar.
The Americans based at the Search Bloc headquarters in Medellin occupied a small room where they slept on cots or air mattresses. They covered the walls with giant photo-maps of the city of Medellin and surrounding areas.
Whenever the American electronic eavesdropping experts from Centra Spike would forward the coordinates for a target, 'Col. Santos,' the Delta Force chief and his men would locate the exact spot on their maps. Col. Hugo Martinez, the Colombian commander of the Search Bloc, was always glad to receive the information, and usually acted upon it, but he was too proud to permit the Americans to help plan his assaults.
For Santos and his squad, usually six U.S. Army Delta operators and Navy Seals who rotated in for shifts, the mission had become a sometimes numbing routine. They spent most of their time holding classes for Search Bloc members, or in their small rooms playing cards or video games and counting the days until they got to go home.
Two CIA agents and a Centra Spike technician normally shared this cramped space. Whenever DEA agents Steve Murphy or Javier Pena rotated through, usually for a day or two at the end of the month, they stayed there as well. The Americans were allowed to wander outside the compound's barbed-wire fence to visit the little stores or restaurants inside the main checkpoint, but otherwise they were forbidden to leave the compound.
Despite Ambassador Morris Busby's strict orders, the Delta operators and DEA agents left the compound anyway, usually for Search Bloc assaults. Over time, the Americans became illicit forward observers, heading off with a new set of Centra Spike coordinates, searching for a convenient observation post where they could watch a suspected hideout, sometimes for days.
Usually they went along with Col. Martinez's assault forces, operating global positioning devices that they knew how to use better than the Colombians. Such sojourns were unauthorized, but the Americans believed they were essential for earning the respect of Martinez and his men.
Escobar's reputation was so frightening that the Search Bloc initially would only go after him with a large force. In time, Col. Martinez began employing smaller units for assaults, as Delta suggested, but always the sound of approaching helicopters or vehicles was enough to send Escobar fleeing.
'The last hundred yards' became a refrain among the frustrated Americans, a gap some feared the Search Bloc would never learn to close. The Delta operators were eager to set up a solo American raid, perhaps four or five men. They believed they could nail Escobar their first time out.
Santos had to calm them. If one of them were killed or injured it would end the mission - not to mention their careers. But concerns about getting in trouble with the U.S. Embassy or with the military chain of command weighed unimpressively against the risks the Colombians were taking every day.
Pena and Murphy felt the same pressure to put themselves on the line, and also went along on raids. They continued, according to members of the Search Bloc, even after they were ordered to stop. It was hard to continually urge the Colombians to put themselves at risk, then wave good-bye to them from the safety of the compound.
The Americans would ride in on choppers with Martinez or one of the other Colombians leading an assault. There were occasional firefights, but few members of the Search Bloc were killed on such raids; most of the unit's casualties came when off-duty members were killed by Escobar's assassins.
Sometimes Search Bloc commanders would ask the Americans to accompany them with a video camera to record payoffs to informants. There was such suspicion about corruption that the agents were asked to keep the camera focused on the bag of money from the minute it left the base until it was handed over to an informant.
When word of unauthorized excursions reached the U.S. Embassy, there was usually trouble. Murphy was told once, 'If you do it again, you will be back in the United States before your luggage arrives.' But with so little else to do inside the compound, it was hard for the Americans to sit back and watch.
The Search Bloc was, after all, trained, financed and even clandestinely guided by Americans. As Col. Martinez later described his feelings, the whole thing was in that sense an American production.
