I think by this point my team must be some of the most-cursed folks on the planet. In every country on every continent we go to, we’ve been threatened with eternal punishment, divine condemnation, ill fortune, dark omens, medical malady, and familial trauma, including even by the people we were sent in to help. Generally I let the hexing and swearing roll off my back, but there’s something I can’t ever seem to let go of when we go up against homegrown cults like what Santa Blanca has: the distribution of faith.

El Sueño has done a lot of work to mold the perception of the peoples of Bolivia, with radio programs extolling his virtues and churches calling him a saint—messaging that flies in the face of the unrelenting campaign of terror he’s been leveling against the very peoples he claims to care about. He’s gone so far as to work with one of his head priestesses, La Santera, to rewrite the holy books of the Santa Muerte cult—sect? offshoot? localization? I’m no religious scholar—to include him into their very ideology as a man ordained by God doing to save Bolivia through his actions, and that all of the sins he commits here on earth are for a greater, sanctified purpose.

While the people at the bottom of the cartel pyramid—usually those who have been forced into helping them by threats or a lack of alternatives—don’t pay the religious indoctrination much heed, and the people at the top know it’s all a scam to coerce loyalty and fervency in their followers, those in the middle all seem to be true believers. The cartel gave them some power over others, either newer cartel recruits or the local populace, and being constantly and consistently fed the same—skewed—worldview, they often start to internalize it all. They come to believe that they are helping restore peace, honor, godliness, or some other positive descriptor to their country, and that their actions in the cartel, no matter how horrific from the outside, are all furthering their holy mission.

My team isn’t here to win the hearts and minds of the cartel—scare some into leaving, maybe, and certainly killing quite a few who prove to be more stubborn—but even if we were, it would be difficult for us to. There’s an old saying that you can’t use facts to move someone from a position they didn’t use facts to get into, and ultimately that’s Pac Katari’s problem, if he ends up being the savor his rebels feel he is. By the time we’re done there are going to be a whole host of dispossessed former cartel members—not important or impactful enough to be on anyone’s hit list—who are likely to spend the rest of their lives looking fondly on their time in the cartel, and the lies they were spoon-fed day and night.

There is something to be said about the fervency with which the people defending the mausoleums and holy sites the cartel is building, however. While officially America isn’t interfering with “local politics” down here, and all credit has been and is being given to the local rebels for our exploits, rumors certainly fly about my team and our ability to blow in like a bitter wind, leaving nothing but death and devastation behind. These high-mountain true-believers see it not only as their assigned duty but as their sacred purpose to protect the shrines and monasteries extolling the fabricated divine connections of the cartel’s senior leadership.

The constructions are high and remote enough that there’s no easy or invisible approach; even if we stole a Unidad helo our cover would be blown almost instantly, quickly before our fuel tank was ruptured by bullets. That means the only way up is on foot, dropped off at a staging area by committed rebels or sympathetic locals who know the mountainous areas well.

Gaz raised the most inane question on our last scrambling hike through the Andes. “Maybe after this job we hit up a cocalero and get some of that legal cocaine, for any altitude sickness we may be feeling?”

I knew they were half-joking but I still had to put my foot down. “You know the first thing that’s gonna happen when we get back stateside is us peeing in a cup. Nose-candy is out of the question, you know that.”

They shrugged and kept hiking.

We’ve been given incredibly leeway in how we choose targets, how we accomplish our goals, and what our operating parameters are, but whatever “fun” my team is thinking of having can’t come at the expense of the mission. We’re not here on sight-seeing tourist visas—we’re here to dismantle and put an end to a drug cartel that has seized the Bolivian government, military, and citizenry.

I don’t personally care what anyone, on my team or otherwise, gets up to when off-mission, but we’ve been on the clock since our feet first touched soil, and we won’t be done until our final debrief back in Langley or Dallas or wherever they’re going to put us to cool off.

Wherever they put us though, it’s surely going to be warmer than the biting wind blasting over these mountain peaks; as the team spreads out to line up our initial shots I know I’m not the only one wishing I still had feeling in my fingertips.

Header image by Patsakorn Keaophengkro from Pixabay, a great source for royalty-free stock images