A PUFF OF SMOKE, AND THEN CHAOS AT 4,000 FEET DRUG WAR OVER PERU

Missionary worker Jim Bowers peered uneasily out the front
passenger window of a Cessna 185 floatplane. To his right: a Peruvian
air force fighter jet. It had been tailing the Cessna for about 15
minutes.

Suddenly, there was a puff of smoke from the fighter. Bullets pierced
the missionary plane in machine-gun fashion. The jet flew under the
Cessna, reappeared on its left and fired again.

A bullet hit the Cessna's left wing, where fuel was stored. A fire
erupted and rushed through the fuel line into the plane. Flames shot
up from the floor of the cockpit, engulfing pilot Kevin Donaldson's
feet. A bullet struck his right leg, shattering two bones.

Sitting next to Donaldson, Bowers felt the breeze of a bullet speeding
past him. He handed his infant daughter, Charity, back to her mother,
Roni, and opened a window to let out smoke. Their son Cory, 6, leaned
forward to stick his head out the window, gasping for air.

The bullets kept coming. One hit Roni Bowers in the back, continued
out her chest and into Charity's head. Roni slumped forward in her
seat. Charity fell out of her lap. The plane, on fire, plunged toward
the Amazon River.

"They're killing us!" Donaldson shouted in Spanish to the control
tower in Iquitos, Peru. "They're killing us!"

As U.S. and Peruvian authorities continue to investigate why the
missionaries were mistaken for drug traffickers and shot out of the
sky, the horror that unfolded aboard the crippled Cessna on April 20
is just now becoming clear. Through more than three dozen interviews,
documents and an unreleased tape of a cockpit conversation on a
CIA-operated surveillance jet, USA TODAY has pieced together new
details on the last moments of the mis-sionaries' flight and their
activities in Peru.

It likely will take officials months to determine why the Peruvian
fighter was given approval to spray the missionaries' Cessna with
bullets, despite doubts voiced by U.S. representatives in the nearby
surveillance aircraft. That jet was part of a multibillion-dollar
anti-drug program designed to stop the flow of cocaine into the USA.

The U.S. government has suspended the program, and Congress has
indicated it will launch a broad review of U.S. drug-interdiction
efforts in South America. Meanwhile, U.S. and Peruvian officials are
blaming each other for the shootdown.

For now, what is clear are the piercing images of tragedy for a family
whose "call to God" made them Baptist missionaries in what essentially
is a war zone -- and the faith they say is allowing them to press on.

Cheerios over the Amazon

The morning of the flight, the missionaries had been in Letitia,
Colombia. Storm clouds were approaching, and they were eager to return
to their houseboat in Iquitos, Peru.

It had been a successful trip. The Bowerses had taken Charity, whom
they had adopted in December, to Letitia to obtain a Peruvian
residency visa. (As foreigners, they were required to get the visa at
a consulate outside the country.)

But they had much work to do back home. Living and traveling on a
houseboat, they ministered regularly in 56 villages along a 200-mile
stretch of the Amazon. At each stop, they preached the Gospel at
thatched-roof churches, handed out aspirin, antibiotic creams and
anti-lice treatments to villagers, and even played a game of
volleyball or two with some of the other 40 missionaries in the country.

It was the life that Jim and Roni Bowers had always wanted. Since age
13, Roni dreamed of "serving the Lord in the mission field," she wrote
on the Web site for her missionary group, the Association of Baptists
for World Evangelism of New Cumberland, Pa.

The same went for Jim Bowers, who had followed his parents, Terry and
Wilma, into mission work along the Amazon. In 1993, the association
had posted Jim and Roni Bowers to Iquitos, a thriving port city of
300,000. At the time, they told a friend that "God has prepared us for
anything."

On April 20, the floatplane carrying the Bowerses and their children
took off at 9:38 a.m. local time after being delayed by poor weather.

Donaldson, himself the son of missionaries, took the plane to an
altitude of about 4,000 feet and settled back for the two-hour flight.
Bowers kept Charity occupied by feeding her Cheerios and pointing out
cloud formations.

Unknown to them, a drug surveillance jet, owned by the CIA and
operated by one of its contract crews, had spotted their plane. Since
1994, the CIA has flown drug surveillance missions throughout Peru and
Colombia in an effort to stem the flow of cocaine. U.S. officials
credit those flights for a nearly two-thirds drop in coca production
in Peru since 1995.

To mask the CIA's involvement in the surveillance effort, the U.S.
crew was working for a front company called Aviation Development
Corp., a 45-employee business based at Maxwell Air Force Base in
Montgomery, Ala., U.S. officials said.

The three U.S. crewmembers were accompanied on board by a Peruvian
military liaison officer.

'Don't shoot! Don't shoot!'

After spotting the plane, the CIA crew recommended to the liaison
officer that the Peruvian air force dispatch a jet to intercept it.
Minutes later, Bowers, with Charity on his lap, saw the Peruvian A-37
fighter jet approaching from the right side of the plane. He told
Cory, who was sitting directly behind him, to look at the jet because
it was different from the small planes he was used to seeing.

Bowers was feeling uneasy, his aunt, Dot Herman of Whitehall, Mich.,
recalled later. Missionaries in the region are well aware that since
1994, the Peruvian air force had attacked more than 30 suspected drug
planes in the air, and that some of its pilots had reputations for
being "hot dogs."

Donaldson notified the control tower at Iquitos airport of the jet's
location and continued flying straight at a level altitude.

About 15 minutes later, the U.S. crewmembers aboard the nearby
surveillance jet recommended implementing "Phase 1" and "Phase 2" of
their standard intercept procedures: attempt to identify the suspect
plane and undertake warning steps. The crew, realizing that the
missionary plane was not trying to escape from the jet, as a drug
plane would do, told the Peruvian officer that they would not
recommend doing anything beyond those two phases.

"Are you sure this is a bad guy?" a CIA crewmember asked the Peruvian
officer as they followed the floatplane, according to a tape of the
cockpit conversation.

"No," the Peruvian officer responded. But, for reasons unclear to U.S.
officials, he radioed the military base in Pucallpa for permission to
fire on the small plane.

"But he's not taking any evasive action," a CIA crewmember said. "To
ID the tail number is very important."

The Peruvian jet, sent up to intercept the civilian plane, reported
the tail number; the Peruvian officer relayed it to the base. Without
waiting for a response, the officer asked for permission to go to
"Phase 3" -- a shootdown.

"Phase 3 authorized," the Peruvian military base responded.

"Jeez!" the CIA pilot said.

Seconds later, Bowers saw the first puff of smoke coming from the nose
of the fighter jet. Bullets began striking their plane.

"Kevin!" Bowers yelled into his headset. "We're being shot
at!"

As bullets continued to pelt the Cessna, Jim Bowers passed Charity
back to her mother -- a move that would cost the child her life.
Donaldson pushed the control stick down, plunging the plane toward the
Amazon. But his right leg was so badly injured that he couldn't
operate the rudder, which controls the plane's movements to the right
and left. Bowers searched the cockpit for a fire extinguisher. As the
plane descended, the jet continued to spray it with bullets.

The CIA pilot, upon hearing Donaldson's screams for help, yelled,
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"

The Peruvian officer told the air force jet, "No mas" -- no more. By
then, about 50 bullets had struck the plane.

'Mommy has just left her body'

The Cessna's left wing struck the water first. The plane's large
pontoons rocked it back into position. It skidded about 50 feet, then
burst into flames.

Accounts provided by the victims' family members and associates
indicate that Donaldson opened the door and got out. The river around
him, covered with spilled gasoline, was on fire. He tried to grab a
life vest, but it had been punctured by a bullet. He stepped onto a
pontoon, which was filling with water, then jumped into the river to
escape the burning wreckage. Unable to use his wounded legs, he
dog-paddled to the other side of the plane.

Jim Bowers lifted Cory out of the plane and onto a pontoon. Take off
your shoes, he told his son. Cory could get only one shoe off.

"Mommy has just left her body, son," Bowers told Cory. "She and
Charity are in heaven. Don't worry. You'll see them again. Now, Cory,
I need you to swim. We're going to swim."

He put Cory on Donaldson's back, and the two began dog-paddling away
from the wreckage. As Cory turned back to watch, Bowers dragged the
bodies of his wife and daughter out of the plane. He placed them into
the river, jumped in and held onto their floating bodies as he treaded
water backward to escape the flaming wreckage.

"Be ready to duck if it explodes!" yelled Donaldson, who was afraid
his bleeding leg would attract flesh-eating piranhas, which are common
in the Amazon. They calculated the distance to shore: too far to swim.

Suddenly, the left pontoon, now filled with water, caused the plane to
lean to one side and flip over. Seconds later, the flames died out.
Exhausted, Donaldson, with Cory on his back, paddled back to the
wreckage. They held on. Bowers followed, dragging the bodies of his
wife and daughter.

"Help us, Lord," Donaldson cried as the three survivors held onto the
wreckage. "Help us, please."

About 30 minutes later, a group of Peruvians who had seen the crash
arrived in motorized canoes. They took the victims back to the beach
near the village of Huanta. There, Bowers put a tourniquet on
Donaldson's leg.

As the CIA surveillance jet circled overhead, a Peruvian air force jet
flew low over the beach to survey the crash site. Frightened by the
jet, Cory began to cry.

Later that day, the bodies of Roni and Charity Bowers arrived at a
morgue in Iquitos. Bowers was taken to a hotel for questioning by
police. Two days later, he and Cory, still shaken, returned to be with
family members in North Carolina.

'Could it be God had a plan?'

On Friday, nearly 1,300 worshipers gathered at Calvary Church in
Fruitport, Mich., for the funerals of Roni and Charity Bowers. The
Bowers family worshiped there before going to Peru.

One white and bronze casket, containing the bodies of both victims,
was on a stand in front of the stage, covered with a spray of roses
and baby's breath. One of the many flower arrangements near the casket
contained four dozen roses and a card that read, "From the government
and people of Peru."

Manuel Boza, Peru's consul general in Chicago, was moved to make an
impromptu speech. "There are moments when really it's very difficult
to find the words that could appropriately and adequately express our
sentiments or emotions," he said. "Certainly, this is one of those
moments."

The climax of the service was a 30-minute eulogy by Jim Bowers, who
spoke in quiet, nearly inaudible tones.

"Why thank God?" he asked. "Could it be that God had a plan for Roni
and Charity? I didn't believe it at all right after. But two or three
days later, I began to see it was possible."

He conceded that their deaths were "absolutely senseless." But then he
recalled what he said were small miracles: None of the bullets hit him
or Cory. A bullet hole in the Cessna's windshield helped create a
draft that cleared smoke from the cabin. And "neither Cory nor I were
afraid. We were able to think clearly and act quickly."

He said that Roni, who was buried Sunday with her daughter near her
parents' home in Pensacola, Fla., would have forgiven the Peruvian
pilot who killed her. "Those people who did this were used by God for
his purposes," Bowers said. He compared them to the Romans who
crucified Jesus.

"I'm hoping it will result in an increase in missionaries. I'm sure it
will," Bowers said. "People are challenged now to go do what Roni did."

That, apparently, is what Roni would have wanted. "When we, as
believers, get to heaven, we won't have to ask, 'Why?' " she wrote on
the Web site. "It will be worth it all. For where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also."