To achieve the required transformation, the corps established a special project in 2004 to create a new force patterned after the famous WWII Marine Raiders. That new unit had grown from an idea to operational status since then and was an evolving component of the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) fighting force.

  Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC) stood up in 2006 and since that time had grown and developed into a uniquely capable contribution to the arsenal. However, despite the success to date, the SEALs still were getting most of the maritime special operations missions.

  The commandant needed to get his men into the Special Operations Coomand or SOCOM order of battle. He wanted to finally convince the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the SOCOM commander that his MARSOC guys were ready for full equality on the battlefield.

  “You should get out of here, Jake. You have an operations order to write. Do you need any help?”

  Jake smiled. “You bet, George. I appreciate any help you can give me. The mobility piece is a bear. We need to define the parameters, establish the potential assets to support Operation Green Dagger, and transmit warning orders. If you can do that for me, I’ll focus on the OPORD to Tampa.” Both men left the room and got to work. Despite their passions, they were Americans first.

  Medellin, Colombia

  Hernando Chavez stood on a pure white balcony overlooking the city, quietly smoking a fine cigar from his private collection. He was tall for a Latino and still in good shape from twice weekly racquetball sessions. He had a handsome face, with the high fine facial bones of his Spanish ancestors.

  Even though he was one of the richest men in the world, he knew something was missing in his life. Gone was the thrill of the early days, when running coca leaf and protecting his jungle processing plants filled his hours with danger and the promise of personal combat.

  Chavez wasn’t the smartest businessman ever to ply the coca trade, but he’d evolved to become the most ruthless. Those days were gone. His businesses continued to grow as if on autopilot; he wasn’t involved anymore. He lived a life of luxury, a pampered aristocrat without a true challenge to stimulate him.

  As a young man, Chavez would roam the deep green jungle of Colombia like a conquering conquistador. Marking territory for himself, boldly calling out his competitors, and shrewdly identifying locations for future processing facilities.

  If anyone got in his way, he eliminated them. It took years and a lot of luck, but his efforts paid off. Flying under the RADAR just enough to avoid federal intervention until one day he was too powerful for them to even try.

  In a moment of insight, Chavez realized the value of cultivating an alliance with the country’s disenfranchised, the poor, the downtrodden, many of whom had gravitated to the rebel movement, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, better known as the FARC.

  This insight and his diplomatic skills led to a symbiotic relationship with the FARC guerillas. They protected his property from rivals and the Colombian military, and he funded their growing paramilitary operations. It worked beautifully.

  In time this unholy alliance allowed Chavez to bind the FARC to him, allowing him to roam freely throughout Colombia, safe from both his enemies and from the government. Any official who asked too many questions about Chavez’s activities soon wound up dead. Then there were the Americans.

  The Americans were trying to help the Colombian government in their fight against both the drug trade and the FARC. They knew about Chavez, his drug kingdom, and his funding of FARC operations.

  They’d charged him in absentia and were vigorously seeking to extradite Chavez from Colombia to face American justice. However, no matter how hard they tried, they found that serving those warrants in a country Chavez owned was an exercise in futility.

  Few knew that Chavez’s main purpose in traveling abroad so frequently was his need to organize his financing and distribution channels in Europe and Asia. The American CIA was probably aware of some of his global reach, but he doubted they knew everything about his intentions. Chavez owned vast estates in at least five countries.

  His record keeping was meticulous, and he trusted no one to do this mundane task, preferring to do the work himself as he always had. He conducted himself as a legitimate businessman in each of these countries and had greased the palms of all the important players in each to provide a deterrent to the Americans.

  The proceeds from the Chavez coca trade were laundered several times through various banks in the Cayman Islands, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. He owned these banks, which made the laundering simple and neat. Chavez used a sophisticated encrypted software program that made it virtually impossible to trace any of the laundered dollars back to him.

  Once clean, he took the laundered money and gave most of it to selected money management people and investment advisors in the US, Great Britain, Germany, and Dubai. They invested in the world’s fastest growing companies, hedged currencies, bought natural resources, and multiplied his wealth.

  It took money to make money and Chavez made a lot of money. The last step involved the use of dividends, interest, and sale proceeds. This flow of funds went to more than thirty countries, to brokers who handpicked choice real estate properties and built an impressive portfolio worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

  It was safe to say that only the income generated from his legitimate investments had grown to rival all the money he was making on the front end of his operation, the coca trade itself, and that was the problem. The efficiency and legitimacy were making him richer every day, while he sat on his ass feeling useless, his mind going to mush. His semi-retirement had become a form of a death sentence. Then, just when he was as depressed as he could be, the Americans gave him something to live for.

  Chapter Nine

  The primary architect of the American campaign to kill or capture Chavez was the general in command of US Southern Command stationed in Panama. General Alexander had proven to be highly effective in working with the Colombian military and police. He helped them plan and coordinate their efforts; and with the help of the FBI and CIA, he’d helped them to find the moles within their own organizations.

  The general also had brokered a joint Colombian-Venezuelan effort to defeat the FARC along their shared border, interacting hand-in-hand with United States special operations units to deftly cut off the flow of young recruits joining the FARC from Venezuela.

  The disaffected students were easy marks for the communist revolutionary propagandists. They fed their fears and confirmed their phobias while filling their empty heads with the vision of a communist utopian paradise. All they had to do was join the worldwide revolution. The message was simple, deceptive, and it worked.

  At first, the clumsy attempts of the Americans were nothing more than an inconvenience. A nuisance intended to capture a few headlines in the war against drugs for the politicians back home in their campaigns to get reelected. But things were different now.

  The drug problem rose until it approached epidemic proportions. The problem was debated: supply side or demand side? Which was to blame and which was the right place to deter the trade?

  The Americans decided to focus on the supply side; it was easier to execute drug interdiction missions than to face the more complicated challenge of jailing or rehabilitating millions of users in the United States. A few public messaging ideas were implemented and pursued halfheartedly, but the new war on drugs was going to be a real war and it would happen outside America.

  Never before had the Americans used their special operations and intelligence capabilities to such great effect. The change in the environment was sudden and violent. The Americans were everywhere at once, hitting the crops, the production labs, the distribution points, and the transport system that moved the bulk product into the United States.

  Chavez took losses. He immediately realized that the Americans were deadly serious. He sprang into action. He called his leadership together in Havana and outlined a counter to the American attack on their livelihood.

  It worked. It took time and they had more losses, but eventually the tide turned. Chavez and his top management developed new ways to hide the crops and the other facilities.

  They moved raw coca offshore to ships and then to neutral locations in South America and the Caribbean, where the Americans were restricted or denied arrest authority. They also devised new ways to smuggle the end product into the United States, using air and sea transports flagged under countries friendly to the United States and originating from anywhere but Central America.

  The war slowed down to a grind. Then the Americans changed their strategy. Instead of attacking and eliminating production infrastructure, they began to target the heads of the various cartels.

  Chavez himself was now a target. The Yankees were out to get him, to ruin him and to destroy the empire he’d built so meticulously. It was clear to him then that waiting passively, without taking action, was a losing proposition. He wouldn’t be a victim.

  First Chavez needed better information: more details about the military and government units tasked with bringing him down. He went even further; he wanted to know where they lived, the names of their wives and children. In this effort, the Cubans proved invaluable.

  Cuban intelligence was arrogant, but they could be bribed. Besides, the Americans were a common enemy. They sent a massive amount of data based on years of deep cover intelligence operations. Now Chavez was ready to respond to the American’s aggression.

  Unlike the Colombian military, the American professionals in the military and intelligence agencies were difficult to bribe. They were well paid, patriotic, and well-educated. He might be able to bribe a few low-level players--TSA lackeys at the border or ports--but no one significant. This left him with one path: retribution against soft targets.

  His planners provided him with several scenarios, and eventually, Chavez settled on using terror. Terror was the tool of last resort, a tool for the weak, those unable to change the world through force of arms or revolutionary upheaval.

  He considered and then rejected the direct approach of simply assassinating American leaders. Taking out one or two key people might work in a third-world country, but America had lots of generals and politicians. They would simply replace and move on as if nothing happened.

  After much deliberation and analysis, Chavez and his top lieutenants decided the best way to make America stop their attacks was to make it more painful for them to continue them. Americans were sentimental and had always been open to being manipulated when hostage-taking was involved.

  He would begin a reign of terror and use hostage-taking as both the offensive and the defensive strategy. The Americans would yell and stomp, but they would never bomb a potential hostage location. This gave Chavez the leverage he needed. This gave him an actionable plan.

  The American people were easy to manipulate and influence. Their media would keep a hostage crisis in the news every day, magnifying its effect tenfold, and strangely insinuate that their own government was at fault, the root cause of the crisis.

  Their media would insist that the Americans themselves created the conditions that led to the kidnapping, all the while demanding that their government do everything possible to secure the release of the hostage or hostages.

  All Chavez had to do to start the chain of emotional self-flagellation was grab an American. Any American would do, he supposed, but then it occurred to him he could kill two birds with one stone.

  What better target than the architect of his problems, General Alexander of the United States Southern Command? The mastermind of the attacks against Chavez’s coca operations and his family was not only a good target, but he also was responsible for the loss of Chavez’s only son, Rodrigo. From a hidden location somewhere in Panama, the general and his murderous staff had plotted the demise of Chavez and his guerillas.

  The general didn’t personally murder his son, and he likely didn’t intend to kill the boy; but he did plan the air strike and gave the orders that resulted in Rodrigo’s death. In Colombia, there was only one way to right this wrong: a blood feud now existed between himself and the American general. The general just didn’t know it yet.

  After careful planning, Chavez himself handpicked the operatives to conduct the attack and kidnapping. The intelligence was easy to gather. The Americans had patterns. A few weeks after choosing the target, Chavez got a break. The Cubans contacted him with the general’s schedule; he was coming to Colombia.

  The Americans traditionally moved with pomp and a sense of haughtiness that irritated Central Americans, but this time the habit benefited Chavez. The special armored sedans used by the US embassy in Bogotá were accessible, and with a few bribes, easily tagged with GPS tracking devices several days before the general arrived in-country.

  Chavez’s leaders had informants everywhere, but the GPS trackers were the ace up his sleeve. The day before the general’s arrival, Chavez guaranteed there would be no interference from the local police or military units by distributing a few well-placed bribes.

  The general finally arrived, and the three armored sedans were moved to the airport two hours before the American plane landed. Plenty of time to rally the strike team and get them into position on the main street leading from the airport to the US embassy in the capital.

  Everything fell into place as Chavez watched the plane’s arrival via a direct video feed. A camera on top of a nearby commercial building had a perfect view of the landing, and he watched as the entourage exited the plane, entered the cars, and headed for the airport entrance.

  The ambush site wasn’t covered by surveillance cameras, so he waited by the phone to hear the report. The plan was executed flawlessly, but the firefight was more prolonged than Chavez had expected.

  The target’s bodyguards had turned out to be US special operators, and they were unwilling to die easily. Twelve out of the twenty-man team he sent in were now dead. Two or three of the survivors were severely wounded and struggling to stay alive.

  His elite fighters were hard to find. Intelligent men who were loyal to a fault and capable of professional discretion were valuable. He made a mental note to recruit replacements as soon as possible. Chavez left the balcony and walked into his sitting room. Now the Americans would understand. He was going to extract a heavy price for their interference in his affairs.

  Chapter Ten

  The Colombian Jungle

  Auger was thrown violently to the ground and repeatedly stomped on by a guerilla. The air whooshed out of his lungs and he struggled to breathe. Other men stood nearby, laughing and goading their friend while they screamed obscenities in Spanish.

  How much pain could this gringo handle? Auger didn’t understand much of what they were saying, but he did know he had to get to his feet or they’d break his ribs.

  With his hands tied behind his back, Auger struggled to roll over until he was face down on the ground. He scooted back until he was at last resting on his knees, forehead pressed into the hard dirt. The attack did not abate. One of the Colombian guerillas began whacking him across his back using his rifle barrel. If this didn’t stop, they’d cripple him. He needed to end this somehow.

  Stand up! Auger’s mind screamed the command. The senior chief ignored a particularly brutal blow and pressed himself into an upright kneeling position. He ducked a wild stroke aimed at his head and got to his feet. Standing, his full height intimidated the smaller men. The Colombians backed off a few steps, assessing the situation.

  He was an impressive physical specimen, but it was the look in his eyes that gave them cause for concern. They had the guns and the numbers, but all of the young men moved back a bit, giving him some room. One of the guerillas indicated by pointing with his rifle that he should walk around to the front of the truck.

  Auger could barely see around the rusty vehicle. He made an effort to survey his opponents, their strengths and hopefully their weaknesses. There was a group of fighters, four or five at most, gathered near the front of the truck. Auger took muster. Counting the two or three goons having fun with him, there were a total of six to seven armed men guarding him and the general.

  He quickly assessed the situation. He was now somewhere deep in the jungle, possibly hundreds of miles from any town or city. Even in his battered condition, a dash through the jungle might work, but then what? He took stock of his captors. The guerillas were relaxed, even comfortable. That usually meant that they were on home turf--no immediate threat from the Colombian military and plenty of friends operating in the area.

  No, he would bide his time. Running would end badly. Besides, his mission was to protect the general. He had no idea what the older man’s condition might be or even if he was alive. He needed a plan that took this into consideration. If his principal was dead, Auger was free to act on his own. If alive, Auger had to figure out a way to get them both out of this mess. He’d wait until there was a clear opening, an opportunity to escape.

  He knew help would be on the way soon enough. When he closed his eyes, he could see the preparations in his mind. Communications, coordination, detailed planning, and the forward staging of support units. Of course, the ever-present need for logistics management, and somewhere out there, a special ops team gearing up to execute a rescue.

  Whoever they are they would be cocky, self-assured combat veterans. Bragging and joking with each other as they prepared for what they might see as an easy bread and butter operation: get in, get out, don’t fuck around. All in a day’s work. He said a silent prayer that whoever was selected was good, really good.

  He could be patient because he had faith in the process. This faith gave him a sense of purpose, too. He must stay alive and he must keep the general alive; time was not on their side. His brain drifted back to the rescue fantasy. The strike assets would be requesting detailed satellite coverage right about now. They would conduct a time-lapse walk back to the moment of the attack then watch the flow of events as captured by the eyes in the sky, from the beginning to the end of the attack.

 

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