In early 2003 three employees of the defense contractor Northrop Grumman were hired by the State Department to fly over Columbia and photograph cocaine laboratories hidden with its jungles—sorties that took them over territory dominated by a 12,000-strong rebel army known as the FARC. On Feb 12, their Cessna’s single engine died, forcing them to crash land in dangerous territory. FARC rebels swarmed the wreckage, killing the American pilot and a Colombian crew member who tried to escape. The three survivors, contractors Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes, surrendered and were marched at gunpoint deep into the emerald forest. The Columbian government sent 150 soldiers on a rescue mission. But before they located the American hostages, the troops—young, poorly paid, and culturally backward—stumbled upon an unbelievable find, a buried cache of $20 million in cold, hard cash. Duty and discipline were overshadowed by this unexpected wealth and everything it could buy, in