Relentless

By Dennis O’Keefe

During his nearly twenty years of providing personal security, Case McIntire had never lost a client. Now here he is, wounded and left for dead in a Colombian jungle. With most of his security detail killed, including his guide and his client, and three others have been kidnapped.

Case has no weapons, food, water, transportation, or communications. His reputation was his rice bowl, and he damn well wasn’t going to allow anyone to pollute his rice bowl, so he has to get his people back. In doing so, he has to fight narcotraficantes, mercenaries, and the elite Colombian Army.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543465440

Dennis O’Keefe

About the Author Written by award-winning author Dennis O’Keefe, this novel is a page-turner and will have you on the edge of your seat.

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was breaking day, and the lights of the five-car caravan had been off for the last ten minutes.

Case McIntire watched as the morning fog periodically opened and closed its gossamer gown to seductively expose, then hide, the gravel road ahead. The dense jungle was bad enough, but the on-again, off-again fog that drifted amongst the mango, coca, and baobab hid everything that was not actually on the edge of the roadway. Worse yet, the fog created the illusion of movement, and sometimes, the slightest movement of a bush was all the warning he would have.

It was like Vietnam all over again and in every respect. Thick jungle, heat, humidity, and the rain. Always the rain. Like Vietnam, the enemy could be anyone or anywhere. The drug lords would kill you just because you happened along. The FARC, the ELN, the M-19, the EPL, the ADO or the Ricardo Franco group, and Quintín Lame Damn. It could even be the corrupt government who was supposed to be your ally. Worst of all, experience had taught him that it could even be your own people.

He swept his eyes ahead and to either side but knew that even if there was something out there, he would see nothing. Case nodded. Just like Vietnam. One moment, tranquility, the next moment, violence, explosions, death, pain, and blood. Blood everywhere. Blood on him. Blood on the streets, blood soaking into the dirt. Blood covering the torn corpses of children. Even the air heavy with the stench of blood, burned flesh, cordite, urine, and feces. Yes, he thought, Just like Vietnam. God, I hate this place!

The packed gravel road had been washed out in spots from the passing storm, and they were, by necessity, moving much slower then he thought was safe. From the beginning, this operation had been a disaster waiting to happen, and at their reduced speed, they would be sitting ducks if things went sideways.

Static crackled in his ear mic, and he shifted his weight so the 9 mm 92SB Berretta that he carried over his right kidney didn’t pinch so badly. Though an excellent weapon, he really didn’t like the Berretta, for it was too thick, and in spite of its aluminum alloy frame, it was only a half-ounce lighter than his preferred CZ 75. The CZ was smaller, and though it held one less round than the Berretta, it was solid steel and very reliable. Of course, his really preferred weapon was his old slab-sided .45 ACP 1911. But the Americas, being about the only countries in the world to use it, the ammunition was scarce, and any gun that was empty was nothing more than a club. No ammo, no gun, so he was stuck with the diminutive 9 mm that, in his opinion, was only good for killing rats.

At least they allowed him his riot gun and had given him a 12-gauge Remington Model 870. Unfortunately, the one he’d been issued had that damnable folding stock that’s only value was if one had to jump from an airplane.

Other than that, it was his favorite weapon and with the nine .33-caliber pellets in each double-aught round, the weapon gave him greater firepower than did the full auto MP5 carried by the driver and the others.

Roberto said, We should be crossing a bridge soon.

Case only nodded. Bridges always worried him. An explosive placed against the pilings beneath the waterline would be impossible to see, and they had neither the time nor the equipment to send a diver down to check each one.

The Oldsmobile rounded a bend, and he saw a small wood-and-cement bridge. He could see beyond the bridge as the road disappeared into a defile approximately two hundred meters to the west.

He looked closely for bent grass, reeds, and disturbed pebbles to suggest there had been any recent human activity that would alert him had the bridge had been tampered with. He knew, of course, that if professionals had wired it, there would be no visible evidence.

His eyes turned to the muddy river that crossed under the bridge before turning west to run parallel with the road until it reached a small hill cut through by a defile. At that point, the river turned north again to disappear into the fog-shrouded jungle.

He allowed his eyes to drift to his driver. His name was Roberto Franco from El Paso, Texas, and was on loan as a driver and guide from the American consulate in Bogota.

Roberto had told Case to call him Bob and had confided that he had spent over ten years in the country as part of the DEA drug interdiction program before retiring. He’d remained in Colombia as a civilian contractor to the American consulate and was fluent in Spanish, English, German, and Portuguese, but most importantly, he knew the country like the back of his hand and Case was impressed.

He seemed capable and rarely spoke unless it was important. This was a good sign, for it suggested that his mind was on the job.

Case felt the washboard rumbling of the tires against the uneven planks as the Oldsmobile mounted the bridge, and he absentmindedly noted the muddy river below. It was no more than twenty feet across, and the saw grass that covered the banks could hide an army. Strangely, the muddy water was devoid of any wildlife.

All the scores of other ponds, creeks, and lagoons that they had passed before had been teeming with the ducklike common loon and the pied-bill grebe, and he casually wondered if the water had been poisoned by insecticide or some mining industry somewhere upstream.

That was unlikely, for most water polluted by chemicals killed both animals and algae and was either crystal clear or an unusual color. This river was the typical stinking, mosquito-infected, muddy crud.

Without forming a conscious thought, a feeling of uneasiness began gnawing at the back of his mind.

His cold blue eyes took in the driver’s hands and noted whiteness around the knuckles that had not been there moments before. His eyes moved to the man’s face and saw that his jaw was set and wondered if the driver was feeling what he was feeling. There was something wrong. Something was out of place. What was he missing?

*

The smell of ozone mixed with the aroma of over 1,200 species of vascular plants, lichens, creosote, palm, and hibiscus competed with the stench of the stagnant water with its rotting vegetation. The odor was both pleasant and unpleasant and unique to the rain forests of Colombia.

The leaves were bathed in a dazzling array of tiny jewels, as the moisture collected from the night’s storm reflected the rays from the few shafts of the early morning sun, and the droplets gently flowed to the lowest point of the leaf, growing larger until gravity ripped them from their perch to fall like tears to the loamy soil below. The plopping sound of moisture striking the ground provided the only respite from the leaden silence.

The creatures sensed something, and all had frozen in place. A sense of dread that pervaded the forest was intangible and unmeasurable but very real.

It was not the surreal green hue of the shafts of sunlight that reflected from the plants or even the waifs of fog that steamed from the moist ground and rose until it cooled, then bent and twisted as it snaked its tortuous path among the plants. It was something more—it was a sense of death.

The helmeted basilisk clutched the limb of a mango, and the lizard’s black pupils inset in yellow eyes darted from front to rear, then from up to down as it silently surveyed the scene.

The sandstone outcropping protruded thirty meters below the ridge and, except for a small clump of vegetation, was barren and certainly could hold no secrets.

Yet the image belied the reality, for before dawn and while the lizard was laying its tracks in the clay below, a man had silently rappelled from the ridgeline to the outcropping.

He was completely covered with mud from the forest, and as the mud dried, the image of the man faded into the rock. The vegetation tied to the brown net covering his uniform and the brown burlap wrapped around the rocket launcher melted into the few ferns that bravely protruded from the crevice of the rock.

Though the man made not the slightest movement or sound, the basilisk knew. It didn’t know what it knew or why it knew, but its primal instincts told it that something was out of its natural place, and except for the darting of its yellow eyes, it remained frozen in place, unmoving.

The man was slight of build and less than average height, but except for his eyes, the mud hid his features, and his age was indeterminate.

But the eyes were enough to speak a lot about the man. They were hazel and neither hard nor soft, angry or jovial. They were simply flat, uncaring, unreadable, and without depth—the look of a corpse. Some that had peered into those eyes had been left with disturbing memories. For others, there were no memories at all.

The man went by the nom de guerre El Presidente. Of course, that was not his real name, but in his business, one was prudent not to use a name that had a history, especially if that history had relatives or friends attached to it. Of course, save one, he had never in his life had a friend, and that one, he had eaten.

Though many years had passed since that fateful day, it was as fresh in his mind as though it had been yesterday.

He had been born Humberto Salazar Carillo, in the town of Juticalpa, 150 miles northeast of the capital of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, sometime in the year of 1962.

Humberto’s parents had been taken away by the police when he was only a child, never to be seen again.

His paternal grandfather and his aunt Celeste had taken him in and raised him as a son. A son that was treated like a man but beaten like a servant, especially if his small frame didn’t cut enough firewood to fill the wagon that was sold in the village for only a little more than ten lempira per load.

This meant that his days were long, and the marks on his buttocks and legs attested to the fact that the sixteen hours a day spent in the humid heat were not always enough.

His aunt had somehow obtained a rooster and several chickens, and Humberto had adopted the magnificent rooster as a pet and playmate. The rooster was so grand and strutted so proudly; Humberto called him El Presidente.

The rooster often followed Humberto around, and when his aunt was distracted, sometimes Humberto would place El Presidente beneath the covers of his bed.

Over the years, the hens got older and quit laying, and Aunt Celeste was merciless. If the chickens didn’t lay, they were food. Eventually, all the hens had quit laying, and as nature would have it, one by one, each disappeared into the pot.

After a while, El Presidente himself became so old that he could not have pleased any hens even if they could afford to buy more, and one day, it became his turn to face his destiny.

The fateful day arrived, and his coldhearted aunt sent Humberto for his friend. He knew that he must obey or suffer another beating, so the burden was his and he was sick.

He sat for the longest time on the front steps, watching the rooster, and finally called to his friend who strutted over to him. Humberto gently picked him up and stroked his red comb as the rooster cuckled, Humberto’s hand slid to his friend’s throat and squeezed, then he flung the bird around twice before the headless body fell to the ground.

Its flapping wings, reacting to the shorted circuits in its brainstem, drove the headless body in a staggering circle, spraying the hard-packed earth and Humberto with its crimson blood.

He remembered staring at the rooster’s bloody head in his hand, expecting to feel sorrow, revulsion, or guilt. Instead, he felt nothing. The head was simply an object, not unlike the wood he cut from living trees—no more and no less.

As he stared at the object in his hand, he wondered if this was the reality of death and if death was the real purpose of life. An endless chain that served no purpose, except to perpetrate a boring repetition of the same relentless cycle.

That evening, they had a fine stew that Humberto ate with relish, and he enjoyed the pleasure of a full stomach and wondered why he felt nothing for his only friend.

From that day forward, he no longer hated his grandfather nor his aunt and even accepted the beatings without complaint, for like El Presidente, his life was simply part of the same system of life devouring life, neither sad nor happy, good or evil. It simply was.

As he became older, his analytical mind told him that life must have more meaning than one predator feeding upon another and began searching for answers.

He had read every Bible and the works of every philosopher that he could find. He read Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, and others. He had even read all the quatrains of Nostradamus, not once but several times, and none had provided a single answer to his many questions.

As great as they and other fools perceived themselves to be, their introspection helped him not at all nor had it even helped them, for as much as any beggar, today, they were all rotting in the ground, and dead was dead. Whether pauper or king, all were destined to feed the plants and scavengers.

In the end, he’d reconciled himself to the boring fact that there simply was little difference between life and death, each an integral and necessary part of the other.

He tried to take his dark thoughts away from unanswerable questions by turning his mind to the money that, over the years, he had sequestered in many banks. He thought that it would be much, but he could not bring himself to care, and his mind once again turned inward.

Whether one was rich or poor, life was but a moment in time and too soon forgotten. How arrogant of the human species to believe that of all life, they were the only ones created in the image of a god! What god would create such a creature whose only drive was survival and the lust of power or an egotistical attempt to place their mark in history. The arrogant belief that man was created in the image of God, or was it the reverse? Had man created a god in the image of himself? He tried to calculate odds of placing one’s mark permanently on the calendar of time.

How many had gone before him? Billions? Trillions? Hundreds of trillions? How many were truly remembered beyond their death? There were only a few, and of those few, most were remembered not for their greatness but for their evil.

This thought turned his mind to consider the concept of good and evil and wondered whether he was one or if he was the other or if there was any such state of being.

El Presidente remembered the poem Reflections, but fittingly enough, he did not recall the author.

I saw a thing I wish not to see. In this reflection … My left is now my right.

So odd … So strange … a puzzling sight.

Then it came to me, am I but a reflection? A fleeting image? Merely a thought?

A creation of mind … Now here … Now gone … A passing moment … lost to time?

As fate would have it, like all others, he’d become who he was. Not by choice but neither by force. Like a beetle from its pupae, he’d simply evolved. Like his rooster El Presidente, he was simply a small part of the events of time.

When it had become necessary for Humberto to fade from the books of those marked for arrest and probable death, on nothing more than impulse, he’d chosen for his nom de guerre, El Presidente. Over the years, this name had found its way into every killing book of over twenty countries.

His attention was diverted to the red fire ant that crawled slowly up his left sleeve. He watched it as it crossed the drying mud to the back of his hand.

The ant reminded him of his stay with the Yukpa people who found them a delicacy. Well, perhaps not the fire ant, but the big-headed cutting ant was certainly a treat, and their very favorite was the black lemon ant found on a particular species of the wild lemon tree.

He had found the lemon ant to taste of lemon through and through, but the big-headed cutting ant had a lingering chemical taste that he found offensive and wondered if the taste was the formic acid they were known to produce in their system.

He studied the small creature and knew that if he ignored it, it would eventually satisfy its primitive curiosity and wander away. Having little to occupy his mind, he blew on the ant, then casually watched as it sank its mandibles into his flesh.

El Presidente knew the bite was only to anchor the ant while it sank its stylist into to the flesh and that the first sting would be only the beginning. After the ant was firmly anchored, the insect would dance a curricular pattern, inflecting sting after sting.

He could have easily brushed the insect away, but that would require movement, and besides, what was the point, and it was a needed distraction to his boredom.

He ignored the white-hot pain as the alkaloid began its work and casually watched as the ant withdrew its stinger and moved the rear of its body to sting a second time.

Someone had told him that the stinger was nothing more than a modified ovipositor, and he smiled at the thought that if this was true, the sex life of the ant must be complicated indeed.

The ant stung for the fourth and the fifth time, then as though bored and disappointed in its own impotency, it casually wandered its way off his hand and back into the forest.

El Presidente felt the toxin course through his hand and into his wrist. Though not pleasant, it was at least a sensation, and in a secret corner of his mind, he actually enjoyed the stimuli.

As though his mind had turned a switch, he put the entire episode out of his mind and squeezed the ACL-APX, a French recoilless rocket launcher, more tightly against his shoulder.

He pressed his eye against the sighting reticle and held the crosshairs steady at a spot in front of the bridge 20 meters below and 200 meters to the east. He knew that his target would appear well within the 580-meter effective range of the 80 mm warhead. Because of the condition of the road, the enemy, by necessity, would be moving slowly. In one respect, this was good, for a target moving slowly was much easier to hit, but in another respect, it was bad, for it would give the enemy more time to scan the ridgeline, the canyon floor, and any area between that would readily hide a person.

He could not see the ambuscade where the others were waiting, but he knew that the motorcade would round the bend and cross the small bridge. The target would then travel two hundred meters before entering the narrow defile to the west and just below his position.

When the lead car entered the defile, he would destroy it with his rocket, hopefully blocking the narrow pass. This would be the signal for the others to blow the bridge, and if things went well, the motorcade would be trapped.

His Rhodesian, South African, and Irish mercenaries had proven themselves time and again, but the troops from the Lanceros battalion assigned to him by his clients were an unknown.

He dismissed them as a nuisance and would be happy if they simply stayed quiet and out of the way. He was confident that his team was all that was required to make short work of the senator’s security. The rest in the entourage would pose an even lesser problem.

That is, if the target reacted as they should and if they showed at all.

If! There was always that word if. How could a word so small play such a huge role in destiny? It decided not only life and death but all things, including the weather, the air that he breathed, and even the birth of galaxies. All created by nothing but chance and all dependent on that word if.

What if one of the vehicles had a mechanical failure, causing a delay? What if the senator was able to obtain another helicopter and wasn’t even with the motorcade?

What if their security spaced their vehicles so that all would not cross the bridge before the lead car entered the defile? That would force his men to blow the bridge before they all crossed, possibly leaving some to escape the trap. If that happened, they could have a real fight on their hands.

If! What if?

But he had chosen this group carefully, and he knew they were the best at what they did. If his intelligence was correct, the senator also had the best, and if so, it would be the best against the best—the hammer against the anvil.

This was almost poetic and perhaps even destined. If one had no enemy, one must create an enemy. He remembered a quote from the Iron Mountain report, Allegiance requires a cause and a cause requires an enemy that defines the cause, and it must be genuinely formidable.

An irresistible force against an unyielding object is what forms the sword and that was as it should be, for the sword was destiny, and from the sword, all life must perish.

Of course, before being placed between the opposing forces of the anvil and hammer, the metal must first be softened by being put to the fire, and when annealed, the opposing forces could shape the metal into any shape decided by the arm that placed the anvil and held the hammer. The metal could be beaten into a plowshare or a sword of death, and it mattered little, for the sword became only what had been decided before it was formed.

His brief stay in the People’s Republic of China taught him a variation of the same concept. The hammer drives the nail, and the hand welding the hammer must move in two dialectical directions. One back to prepare for the strike and one forward to drive the nail. Opposite motions of the same hand. Good and evil working in concert to shape the future, and the poor nail had no choice but to be driven. Hammered down and to be never thought of again, except vaguely as one of many required to hold together the master’s house.

Karl Marx referred to the concept as dialectical materialism. At least, that was what he had been taught during his studies at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow.

Marx preached that by applying opposite forces to fired metal, destiny, like the sword, would continue to progress toward to a preordained conclusion, and that conclusion would be utopia.

Of course, the metal or, more accurately described, humanity’s feet, must first be held to the furnace until it became malleable enough to be shaped. Thus, it is necessary to stoke the furnace when possible, spread suffering and discord throughout the world. Only then will the final product be completed.

The drying mud cracked as El Presidente’s mouth became a slit as he thought, Utopia my ass!

He knew that there were those who still believed in that madman and so be it.

It never occurred to their dim little brains that if Marx was correct, there was no such thing as good or evil nor was there any such thing as an enemy, for what was perceived as the enemy was nothing more than the opposite motion of the hand driving them deeper into servitude.

Both friend and foe were indistinguishable, and it mattered little whether he was one or the other. He was only an unimportant part of a much larger process.

He idly mused whether his end would be today, and if so, what had been his purpose? Again, a verse of the poem floated through his mind.

I cast a stone upon the silent surface of a peaceful pond. The ripples of eternity flow.

To forever and beyond. But now it’s still. The ripples gone. That I cast a stone, I’d have never known.

I asked, "Is this life? … But a ripple … now here … now gone?

But for what purpose if forgotten and never known?

He knew that it mattered little whether his end would be today, tomorrow, or sometime in the future, for when the time was upon him, he would simply slip into oblivion and be soon forgotten.

Like others before him, others would follow, and whether good or evil, they would only be allowed to exist if they served the master that pitted one against the other for their own redundant lust for power. How boring!

This barren outcropping would attract little attention, but only if he did not move and so, he did not, not even to empty his bladder. He was still as death, and even to the most discerning eye, he was one with the rock.

A faint rumbling brought him back to the present. At first he thought that it was thunder but quickly realized that it was too rhythmic. It was tires on the bridge! Vehicles! They were coming! It was time.

*

The Oldsmobile left the bridge and was back on solid ground, and the rumble changed back to the crunching of tires against gravel.

Roberto was feeling tense, for it would only be moments before he would be a very rich man. As soon as the last car crossed the river, the bridge would be blown, cutting off any escape to the rear, and by this time, the lead car would enter the narrow cut in the mountain where his employer would have a bus blocking the road. They would have no choice but to surrender, and he would be captured and ransomed off like the others.

Hopefully, no one would play hero, and other than a small inconvenience, they would all be back in Bogota within days. For a little information and a few days of playing the jungle captive, he would receive $100,000 in a numbered account in the Cayman Islands.

*

Case checked the passenger mirror and noted the second car was just now mounting the bridge. Due the bend in the road, he could not see the senator’s car but knew that it would be next.

His eyes scanned the road ahead and the dense forest on both sides and saw nothing. Not a thing. Not an animal or even a bird in the sky.

Then it hit him. It wasn’t what he saw! It was what he didn’t see. That was what was wrong! Something was out there!

****

Chapter 2

David Chaffee was in the third vehicle from point and sat to the left of the senator in the rear seat. Normally, he would have had one of his men in the right front seat, but the senator insisted on having his translator, Shelly Bellencourt, accompany him.

Of course, there was nothing that needed translating, but she was as cute as a spotted bug, and though her presence reduced his firepower in the senator’s car, he really couldn’t blame the old horny toad. He knew that Case was right: in the senator’s mad dash to screw the translator, he was screwing up the entire detail.

He was two cars short of the minimum of the number required for a detail such as this one. Normally, he would have had a scout car five minutes ahead, followed by the point car one minute ahead of the motorcade. The lead car would be with and in front of the main group. Behind the lead car would be the vehicle carrying the photographer and any reporters. Usually, the car carrying the principal would be the third of the main group, with any medical personnel following immediately behind the principal, then all others following behind, and the last car providing a rear guard. With no scout or point car, they were running a huge risk. To rub salt in the wound, the Colombian military was engaged with FARC west of their position and the main roads were closed. That meant they had to travel the unmapped back roads. He had assigned only Case and their driver from the consulate to the lead car. This had not been an accident, for historically, if anything went down, the lead vehicle would usually be the first taken out, and he wanted to keep the casualty rate to a minimum. On the other hand, the point must consist of someone who was familiar with the route and at least one of his most trusted agents.

This wasn’t a political choice or the luck of the draw; it was simply the way things were.

This meant that next to the protectee, the driver on point was the most important person