Ghosts of Panama: A Strongman Out of Control, a Murdered Marine, and the Special Agents Caught in the Middle of an Invasion

Naval intelligence agents working the most dangerous beat in the world - the narco-state of Panama in the late 1980s - struggle to penetrate the dictator's organization and protect their families on the eve of invasion.

Panama, 1989. The once warm relationship between the United States and Panama's leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega, has eroded dangerously. Newly elected President George H. W. Bush has declared the strongman a drug trafficker and a rigger of elections. Intimidation on the streets is a daily reality for U.S. personnel and their families. The nation is a powder keg.

Naval intelligence service agent Rickey Yell has worked the job in Panama since 1986, and lives there with his wife Annya and infant child. Like most NIS agents, he's a civilian with no military rank with a specialty in working criminal cases. This frees him to work without the handicap of a rigid chain of command. The stakes of such tradecraft are high for the agents and informants alike, with the promise of torture and death for those caught. Disguised as a civilian, Yell routinely encounters Noriega himself at events meant to defuse tensions.

The dynamic changes suddenly when Yell inadvertently develops an intelligence source with unparalleled access to the Noriega regime. In an instant, the agent is thrust into a world of spy-versus-spy, of secret meetings and hidden documents. Yell's source - known as "The Old Man" - warns when Cuban military personnel arrive and identifies anti-American officers within the Panamanian Defense Forces, provides information about an imprisoned CIA asset and helps track Noriega's movements, agitating for the dictator's kidnapping. The reports created by Yell and his NIS colleagues shape the decisions made in Washington D.C., CIA headquarters in Langley and the innermost sanctums of the Pentagon.

The powder keg is lit on December 16, 1989, when a young U.S. Marine is gunned down at a checkpoint in Panama City. Yell and his cadre of trusted agents deploy immediately to investigate the killing, and what they determine will decide the fate of two nations. With the weight of war on his shoulders, and fully knowing that it will put his family in danger, Yell passes along the information to American generals. When President Bush hears the details they uncover, he orders an invasion that puts Yell's family, informants and fellow agents directly in harm's way. Faced with this new horror, Yell must now connive a way to get his family clear without violating orders to keep the looming invasion a secret.

Using a blend of research and interviews with the NIS agents who were directly involved, Ghosts of Panama reveals the untold, clandestine story of intelligence professionals placed in a pressure cooker assignment of historic proportions.