Chapter 1
Master Sergeant Michael Owens, Delta Force-USA Retired, sat at a table overlooking the Atlantic drinking the third Bourbon and water of the morning. He vowed to himself that this would be the last until his brother's boat was tied up at the pier and he had his sister-in-law and nieces bedded down for the night in their hotel room. He was glad that his brother had decided to come down to South America for the family vacation this year. Mike hadn't seen his brother since he had come to South America right after Somalia. He shook his head and turned his thoughts back to his brother. He knew that if he started thinking about Somalia again that he wouldn't be able to stop with just three Bourbons and water.
Mike Owens had fourteen years in the service, twelve of them in Delta Force, when he was sent to that cluster fuck called Somalia. He had known from the start that Somalia was trouble. There was no clear mission and Washington was trying to convince the world that our soldiers would never hurt the Somalis, they were there as friends. Aidid and the other warlords showed America who was really in charge of Somalia. Aidid kept his soldiers supplied with the local drug that was much like cocaine. The soldiers would sit around and chew the leaves all day. After the drug hit their bloodstream they felt that bullets would never hurt them and they would charge into battle with no thought for their own lives.
The massacre at Bahkara Marketplace should never have happened. The politicians had decided to run the operation from Washington. It became clear the Washington's main mission was to avoid pissing anyone off. There was not enough intell on the operation and, since the UN had equal voice in all operations, America had to clear everything with everybody and Aidid knew about every move that the Americans made before the troops going on the mission did. The UN forces refused to participate in the mission and later hesitated for a while and discussed, at length, whether to help rescue the pinned-down Americans. Mike suffered four wounds in the battle and was given a medical discharge because of the damage to his leg. He could still function pretty well, but the leg would occasionally let him know it was still there and wasn't happy about what had happened to it. As he left the base with his discharge in his hand he threw his medals in the dumpster next to the first bar that he came to. Every one of the men that died that day deserved them more than he did. He would never forgive himself, good men had died and he was still alive.
Mike scanned the Atlantic searching for his brother's boat. The boat was supposed have been there yesterday. There had been no radio maydays or other radio transmissions from his brother so maybe his brother had run into a storm or had decided to make a stop along the coast somewhere. Mike debated whether to get another drink. He sure didn't want another one if his brother was going to get here soon. His fucked-up logic prevailed and he ordered another drink.
The waiter took Mike's order from a few feet away. Mike Owens was given a wide berth when he was drinking. When he was drinking he would start thinking about Somalia. When he would think about Somalia he would get angry. When he would get angry no one or nothing around him could be sure that he would not take his anger out on him, her or it. He had few friends in this out of the way place and he liked it that way.
He was tolerated because he spent his money well. By the end of the month his retirement pay was gone and he would start on the next month's pay. He had money from the money that his father had left him when he died. His father had worked in a factory all of his life and was always able to cover the bills, but never had much left over. Mike's brother had refused to accept any of the money from the estate and had given the entire estate to Mike; it amounted to a little over two hundred thousand dollars. It sat safely in the bank in the USA. There was only himself to worry about so he didn't need much money.
Mike scanned the horizon for his brother's boat one more time. There was a small harbor off the Atlantic and a small town had sprung up on its shores. The town became known as Casasantanas, which means Satan's house. It was aptly named. It was one of the few towns in this part of the world that didn't have a church. Mike had picked this town because it was out of the way and the tourists hadn't found it yet. The town was poor and the people of the town made their money fishing and smuggling. The drug dealers had moved into town about five years ago, but kept pretty much to themselves. Mike only had one run-in with the drug dealers. A minor player had come over to him one night while Mike was drinking and thinking. The young man started waving a pistol and jabbering about gringos until Mike broke his neck and dragged the young man's body out into the street. He found out later that the drug dealers didn't take revenge on him because the young man was going to be killed anyway because he was so hooked on his product that he was getting to be a liability. After that, the drug dealers left him alone.
Mike checked in with his brother about once a month, other than that he had little contact with his past. He and his brother had fought each other at the drop of a hat when they were growing up, but don't mess with either one of them or you could expect a visit from the other brother soon. You didn't mess with the Owens boys. Robert, he hated to be called Bob, was the older of the two by three years. He had gone to college and had a degree in business.
Robert Owen was one of those natural-born salesmen. He could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo and then convince the Eskimo that he had to have the icemaker option too. Robert decided to get his real estate license and quickly became the number one real estate agent in the state. He didn't like working on weekends, so he decided to go into commercial real estate. He became a wiz at commercial real estate. In a short while his salary was around a million a year. Robert went to Europe on vacation and met the woman that was to become his wife. She was a real estate tycoon's daughter who had been modeling in Europe. They fell in love and got married after only four weeks of courtship. They had two daughters within the first four years. The girls were now eleven and fourteen. The last time that Mike saw a picture of Eve, he saw that she was still a knockout and the girls were going to be just like her. Robert and Eve worried about Mike and told him so every time that he called home.
He heard a motorboat and stretched to see if it was his brother. The boat pulled into the harbor and Mike heard the motor shut off after a few minutes. He could not see who was on the boat from where he was sitting. He was trying to decide whether to have another drink went he saw someone approach his table from out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and saw Jake Tyler walking up to him. Jake sat down without saying anything. He looked at Mike for a long time.
"How's it going Mike? I haven't seen you up at the embassy for a while."
Jake was an ex Navy Seal. Mike and he had been on a few missions together and Mike had saved his ass once. Jake would never forget it either. He watched out for Mike, although Mike didn't know it. Jake was in a position to help Mike some. He was an embassy employee, but Mike knew that his real job was CIA. This area of South America was a hot bed of drug activity but the Embassy and the CIA had not been able to make much of a dent in it.
"I need you to come up to the capital with me, Mike. There's something we have to do."
"Sorry, my brother's on his way in with his family. If it's about somebody that you want me to take care of for you, no. I'm out of that shit now. You've got young guys that can do it better than me."
Jake put his hand over his friend's hand, "Mike, Robert's not coming. The Navy found his boat floating out in the Atlantic."
"What do you mean? What happened?"
"Everyone on board was dead. Everything of value had been striped off of the boat. They tried to scuttle it, but something floated over the bullet hole that they made in the hull and slowed the water coming into the boat. The Navy was able to save the boat."
"Now, Jake! Tell me what happened now! Who did it?"
"Pirates, Mike. Come on. You'll have to identify the bodies. We can go up in my boat. God, I hate to be the one to bring this news to you, Mike."
The trip up the coast to the capital was made in silence. Jake looked at his friend and was worried. Mike's face was a blank. There was not a trace of emotion on his face. Mike just stared out over the water. Jake knew that someone would curse the day he was born when Mike found him.
As they walked into the building that housed the morgue, Jake took his arm, "Mike let's make it quick. Just a fast ID and get out of there. It's pretty bad."
Mike pulled his arm away and walked into the building. Jake ran to catch up and led the way to the morgue. All four bodies were lying on tables out in the open. Jake took the sheet covering each body and showed Mike the corpse. He nodded his head each time, signifying that the bodies were the bodies of his family members. He now had no family anywhere in the world.
Jake put his hand on Mike's shoulder to lead him out of the room. Mike turned quickly and shoved him hard up against the cabinets. The wind was knocked out of him and he went down to the floor. He sat there. He knew better than to get near him again. Mike had to get it out of his system.
Mike walked over to the body of his brother and pulled the sheet off of him. His brother's body had several bullet holes in it. When he pulled the sheets off the bodies of his sister-in-law and his nieces he saw that they had been raped and mutilated. The eleven year olds body showed that she had been raped and made to perform oral sex on her captors. The pirates had cut off the breasts of his sister-in-law. Mike walked over to the windows and looked up at the sky and shook his fist at the sky.
"How much more do you want from me? You want to play games? Hide these bastards all you want, I'll find them and send them to you in pieces."
He put his head against the window and started to cry. Jake covered the bodies and waited until Mike finished crying. After about a half an hour the tears stopped and Mike stared out of the window, not seeing anything. Jake walked over to him and took his arm and led him out of the building.
They started down the street. They walked in silence for a while. Mike saw a bar ahead and ducked inside as soon as they reached it. He walked to the table that was farthest away from any of the other customers. Jake stopped at the bar and got a bottle of Bourbon and glasses. He warned the bartender to leave them alone. The bartender looked at Mike's eyes and nodded that he understood.
"Who did this?" Mike asked as Jake sat down.
"A freighter saw two boats tied up and threw their glasses on them because it looked suspicious. When they saw what was going on they radioed the government and the locals got there after everyone had been killed. They saw the men that did it, but there was no way to prove it. The pirates were about two miles from your brother's boat when the government boat saw them. As the Navy boat passed them, the men on the other boat gave them the finger and started catcalling to them. The Navy saw your brother's boat listing to the side and raced to save whoever was still alive on board, but of course, everyone was already dead"
"Who did this?"
Jake looked at him and shuddered. He had never seen the look on anyone's face that Mike had on his. Jake saw cold, cast iron rage that was boiling white-hot inside of his friend. Mike seemed very calm on the outside and Jake was afraid that someone in town would die tonight if they pissed Mike off for any reason.
"It was Ernesto Guevara's men. He's a distant relative of Che Guevara. Ernesto was really Che's first name. Ernesto's grandfather came down here to fight with Che Guevara. When Che was killed, the grandfather became a small-time drug manufacturer. After he died Ernesto's father took over the business and got into the distribution end of the business. As drug dealers go, Ernesto's father was a pretty good guy. He cut everybody in on the action and wasn't too violent unless somebody came after him. Ernesto had his father killed so he could take over the business. Ernesto is one bad dude. There's probably not a crime known to man that he hasn't committed. By the way, his name is really Raul. He changed it to Ernesto to get some sympathy votes for himself."
"Where is he?" Mike asked in a low, hard voice.
"His headquarters is about sixty miles south of you. His place is so well protected that the Army won't even go there. Mike, I know you're going after him. I know that I can't stop you. You also know that it's suicide for you to go after him in your frame of mind. Take your family home and give them a proper burial and then come back here. Get your head screwed on right while you're back in the states. I promise that I'll do some checking around and I'll give you what help I can when you come back."
They drank for a while in silence and Jake started to go for another bottle. Mike grabbed his arm and shook his head.
"I've got things to do. I'll be back here in a couple of months. Get what information you can on this guy. I'd appreciate it if you could get me what I need to go in there and do the job. I'm going in alone. I don't want you to tell anyone that I'm going in."
Jake nodded his head, "I've arraigned for an Air Force plane to come in and fly you and the bodies back to the states. I'm supposed to give you a bill for that service, but I won't. Just remember, don't come back here until you get your war mentality back. If you're caught, there is nothing I can do for you. The Embassy will have to say that they don't know you and that you're doing this on your own. I can't even try to save you if you're captured. You understand that don't you?"
Mike nodded his head. He didn't really care. He knew that he would
probably die in the jungle, but he would take a few others to hell with
him.