Into the Jungle Read online

  Into the Jungle

  The Team Book Two

  David M. Salkin

  Also By David M. Salkin

  Hard Carbon

  Deep Black Sea

  Crescent Fire

  Necessary Extremes

  The MOP

  Forever Hunger

  Deep Down

  A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-858-3

  INTO THE JUNGLE

  The Team Book Two

  © 2015 by David M. Salkin

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design by David Walker

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Post Hill Press

  275 Madison Avenue, 14th Floor

  New York, NY 10016

  http://posthillpress.com

  The TEAM

  Coach: Chris Mackey, CIA

  US NAVY SEALs:

  Chris Cascaes, Chief Petty Officer, SEAL team leader

  Al Carlosgio – “Moose”

  Vinny “Ripper” Colgan

  Ray Jensen

  Pete McCoy

  Jon Cohen

  Ryan O’Conner

  Marine Recondos:

  Eric Hodges

  Earl Jones

  Raul Santos

  CIA:

  Ernesto Perez, “Ernie P.”

  Joe Smith, “Smitty”

  Cory Stewart

  Army Rangers:

  Lance Woods

  Jake Koches

  “The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”

  Thucydides, 5th c. BC

  Soldier and Statesman

  Author’s Notes:

  Thanks for taking a peek inside the cover. I hope you read the story and find yourself immersed so deeply into the jungle that you forget what was bothering you at work, or how many chores you still have left to do. In fact, I hope you stay up so late trying to finish this book that you’re tired the next morning. It’s a quick read, and I don’t think you’ll be bored.

  The Tri-Border Region of South America is, in fact, a haven for narco-terrorists, Middle Eastern Jihadists, and some very bad people. Because they move around at the border of three countries, they’re “no one’s problem.” Actually, they’re everyone’s problem. For Americans who think border security is just some political football, please wake up and smell the cocaine. I mean roses. Every day, people enter this nation illegally. And not all of them are the hard working folks that take agricultural jobs. If tens of thousands of children can simply walk across the border, how many terrorists, gang bangers and drug smugglers do you think can get in every year? Do some reading about the tri-border region. If this book doesn’t keep you up late at night, the facts should.

  The Team II is the continuation of the adventures of a special group of war fighters and CIA operatives that began in the Middle East in book one. There was actually a real team that was formed in Southeast Asia in the late sixties as the Navy All-Star Baseball Team. Except there was no such team—it was just an excellent cover story for secret missions. While this book is complete fabrication, the concept of the team was taken from those real missions, and those real warriors. This book is dedicated to Al (Moose) and his “teammates”, who risked life and limb for their country.

  At this moment, all over the world, American men and women are at risk to protect this great nation. They wear all types of uniforms, or no uniform at all. There’s too many to list, but if you’re reading this and you know it means you—thank you.

  Every book I write is dedicated to the same groups of people. My family, my friends, my readers, and the brave men and women who have served, are serving, or will one day serve this Great Nation. “Freedom isn’t free” isn’t some corny t-shirt slogan. I know too many people who have been directly impacted by war and terrorist attacks not to fully understand that we are so very blessed to live in these United States of America.

  Lastly, there is a real Chris Cascaes. Even after a forty year friendship, he is forced to fight for the life of his character in each book. Chris… I hope you make it. I can’t guarantee you anything, though…

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  CIA HQ

  Office of Darren Davis, Middle East Desk Chief

  Chapter 2

  Jungles near Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

  Chapter 3

  CIA Training Facility

  Chapter 4

  Jungles near Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

  Chapter 5

  CIA HQ

  Chapter 6

  CIA Training Facility

  Chapter 7

  Jungles near Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

  Chapter 8

  The Glades

  Chapter 9

  Jungles near Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

  Chapter 10

  Ciudad del Este

  Chapter 11

  Aftermath

  Chapter 12

  The Glades

  Chapter 13

  Sunrise in the Glades

  Chapter 14

  Eastern Paraguay

  Chapter 15

  Langley

  Chapter 16

  Western Everglades

  Chapter 17

  Langley

  Chapter 18

  Vega’s Camp

  Chapter 19

  Langley

  Chapter 20

  Vega’s Camp

  Chapter 21

  Santos Airport, Brazil

  Chapter 22

  Vega’s Camp

  Chapter 23

  Santos, Brazil

  Chapter 24

  Outside Ciudad Del Este

  Chapter 25

  Camp Hope

  Chapter 26

  Operation Jimmy

  Chapter 27

  Vega’s Camp

  Chapter 28

  The Jungle

  Chapter 29

  Nightfall in the Jungle

  Chapter 30

  Vega’s Camp

  Chapter 31

  Operation Jimmy

  Chapter 32

  Warpath

  Chapter 33

  Second Assault

  Chapter 34

  Stream Crossing

  Chapter 35

  To the Village

  Chapter 36

  Hot Pursuit

  Chapter 37

  Night Terrors

  Chapter 38

  The River

  Chapter 39

  Exit Plans

  Chapter 40

  Exit

  Chapter 41

  Fresh Air

  Chapter 42

  Home

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  CIA HQ

  Office of Darren Davis, Middle East Desk Chief

  Dex Murphy and Chris Mackey walked the long hallway to Darren Davis’s office. There were people in the halls, all walking briskly with plenty of stress in their faces. It was clearly a busy place. Davis was sixty-two, but starting to look older. He had been asked directly by Wallace Holstrum, the Director of CIA, not to retire even though he had been eligible for a few years. His department was one of the bus
iest in the building, and Darren was good at what he did. He managed dozens of agents personally, as well as his managers, who had their own field agents. He understood politics, both here and abroad, and he knew the Middle East map as well as the United States. While his days in the field had ended in Saigon, he was sharp as ever, and had been a big reason that terrorists were unsuccessful since 9-11 in hitting the US again.

  Darrin was scribbling on a yellow pad, his usual pose, when they walked into his office. He saw Chris Mackey and stood up, then walked around his desk and gave him a hug, something pretty rare for Davis.

  “Welcome home, Chris,” he smiled. “It’s been too long.”

  “Thanks, Darren. Two weeks on the beach and I felt human again. I was sure I was done after ‘Wrecking Ball’, but then I saw those guys play ball and my head started working again. Actually got excited about working again…”

  Darren laughed and sat on his desk. “Chris, guys like you belong in the field. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you’d never be happy sitting at a desk here or working security at a mall. Besides, we need you.”

  Chris and Dex sat down in two black leather chairs facing the boss, who walked around and sat back in his own chair.

  Darren looked at the two of them and said, “I don’t even know where to begin. There is so much activity right now there must be a hundred jobs that need doing. Problem is, we need to find the right kind of atmosphere to make it work with your baseball team.”

  Dex added, “Yeah, we had talked about this earlier as well. I get nervous sending an entire team of agents overtly out into the world. If their cover gets blown, we’d lose more agents in one day than we have in a decade.”

  “Which is precisely why we have to make sure it doesn’t,” said Darren. “I am hesitant about sending you back to the Middle East too soon. I’ve been in constant contact with my counterpart in our Latin American Department. Intelligence from my agents in the Middle East, including the same source that gave us that truck full of cash, have told us that Al Qaeda is funding and working with a few groups in Mexico and Latin America. We all know how porous the border is between Mexico and the US. Makes sense that they’d try to get through there. Mexican cops are a lot easier to buy than the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We’ve been discussing a ‘Latin American tour’ for your team. Still lots to work out, but that may be your next assignment. Just thought you’d want to know ahead of time.”

  Mackey folded his arms across his chest. “Same type of assignments? Intercepting money and weapons, that sort of thing?”

  “Not necessarily, Chris,” said Darren. Chris understood.

  “Well, a few of my guys speak fluent Spanish. Guess that will help.”

  Davis continued, “Hezbollah and Al Qaeda have both been working in the tri-border area of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. They are well funded from coke money as well as counterfeiting, and have plenty of support from local radical factions. There is no shortage of rebels and terrorists out there. They are well organized and heavily armed. Every drug lord has his own little army, and anything that happens from drugs in the US, to counterfeit bills in the US, to violence against the local governments—it’s all considered a victory for these people. We’re trying to acquire significant targets to break up their organizations, and your team might be the way to go. One or two agents can’t get in there. We have a lot to plan and discuss in the next few weeks. We’ll talk again soon after I meet with the director and the Latin desk chief.

  Davis stood up, signaling that the meeting was over. “Look Chris, there’s nothing concrete yet. Hell, you could end up in Sierra Leone for all I know, but for now, assume you’re heading south of the border unless I tell you otherwise. We’re gathering intel, following some leads, that sort of stuff. We have a few agents on the ground nearby, but they are intelligence gatherers only.”

  Chris felt a pang of shame. In other words, they weren’t “killers” like him. He stood up. “Okay, Darren. We’ll keep the guys working and wait to see what pans out. Good to see you.”

  They shook hands. Dex smiled and said, “It’s good to see you, too, Mack. You did a helluva’ job in Qatar.” Mackey and Dex left Darren’s office and headed out to find their team, busy training on the latest gizmos and intelligence gathering devices down in the sub basement.

  Chapter 2

  Jungles near Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

  Enrique Antonio Vega was smoking a fat cigar and drinking a moderately cold beer while he watched the bricks of cocaine being carefully packed into the bags for the natives that would carry the drugs over the Brazilian border. Vega’s operation averaged twenty million dollars a month in drug money, supplying big dealers all over South and Central America, who, in turn, supplied US drug dealers. The average Joe in the US snorting the coke up his nose didn’t bother to learn that the money he spent ultimately went to people who were trying to kill him.

  Enrique puffed his cigar and watched the last bag packed and tied to long poles as his small army stood around with their AK-47s at the ready. They were really just there for show. Here in the deep jungle, no one would dare come anywhere near his operation, and if they did, he would know hours ahead of time. The Guarani natives in this part of the jungle still lived like they had for a few thousand years, except now they would transport huge quantities of drugs through jungle trails for Enrique Vega in exchange for the most modest of items. Their payment for walking miles through almost impassable jungle carrying hundreds of pounds of cocaine was blankets, steel cook pots, mirrors, knives, and rainproof slicks to use as improved roofing materials for their “ogas”, the long rectangular houses where they lived. Each oga was almost fifty meters long and housed more than fifty nuclear families. There were five ogas in their little jungle clearing, under one central chief. That chief, the “abrubicha,” was the head of the village and held absolute authority over his people. Vega had made a deal with him three years earlier to protect his people from any government encroachment, and gave him regular gifts of steel knives and beaded jewelry from the city of Ciudad del Este to make him look more important.

  For his part, the abrubicha, called Kuka by his people, made sure the packages were delivered each week along the almost invisible trails that stretched from Paraguay into Brazil near the Parana River. The Guarani people had once been nomads, moving their villages whenever the abrubicha saw fit. When Brazil and Paraguay became “civilized,” the Portuguese enslaved or killed most of the Guarani. Jesuit Missionaries managed to save some of them from the slave traders, but eventually the missions failed and closed, and the Guarani were either butchered or forced deeper into the jungle. This tribe of “Pampidos Guarani” were the direct descendants of peoples that had lived near this very spot since the twelve-hundreds A.D.. Kuka’s ancestors had all been kings of their people. Kuka was the first drug smuggler, however.

  The fact that it was cocaine was fairly lost on Kuka and his people. He and his people had been chewing coca leaves forever. Typically before battles against other tribes or Portuguese slavers, his warriors would get high as a kite on coca leaves. Those they killed in battle were typically eaten afterwards as a way of honoring fellow warriors. The word Guarani translated to warrior, and these were fierce people. They fought only with bows and arrows and macanas, wooden sword-like weapons. And while they had seen the AK-47s of Vega’s men, and understood the power they possessed and protection they offered from others who might come, they had no interest in using them. They were warriors that preferred to be up close and personal when it was time to fight. If they were not soaked with the blood of their enemies, they did not feel as though they had sufficiently proven their bravery.

  Enrique finished his cigar and walked over to Kuka. Vega had learned enough of their language over the past three years to be able to communicate with the chief. He instructed him to go east into the morning sun, up the river trail where he would be met by boats. It was one of only thr
ee routes they ever used. Vega’s Brazilian contacts would load the coke into their high-speed boat and move up the Parana River all the way to the falls. Once there, they would unload the cargo on to waiting trucks that would follow dirt roads to an airstrip where the coke would be flown all over the Western hemisphere.

  Eight pairs of Pampidos natives walked with long wooden poles between them over their shoulders. Hundred pound sacks of cocaine were tied to the poles between them, and in this manner, these stalwart people could walk for days without complaining or showing fatigue. It was the same method they had used for generations to carry their houses, game they had killed, or captured enemies. The trip to the river typically took two days, although once, when Vega was rushed, they had made it in one. They walked through the night without stopping that trip, something that the Pampidos didn’t like to do. The Guarani believed that dangerous animal souls stalked the jungle at night, and it took Kuka himself going on that trip to guarantee the arrival of the shipment on time. He also had to take thirty of his most ferocious warriors to protect the skittish porters.

  For this trip, the sixteen porters would travel with only eight warriors to protect them, as well as two other pairs of porters who carried the pieces they would use to make a quick shelter in the jungle for their overnight stay. It was always important to them to be “inside” at night, even it only meant surrounding themselves with a few pieces of wood and a tarp overhead. The animal gods would never venture inside the homes.

  Enrique patted the chief’s strong shoulder. He told him the boat would meet them by midday sun tomorrow. Kuka gave instructions to his people, who then took off silently through the jungle. It always amazed Enrique how quiet they were. Even his best men made some noise shuffling through the thick leaves of the jungle. But not these people—these people moved silently, like ghosts drifting invisibly through the shadows of the jungle. He smiled as they disappeared in a matter of seconds. Vega turned and headed back to his small wooden house, built by Kuka’s people just for him. He had kept his Hezbollah friends waiting too long, and didn’t want them grumpy when they discussed weapon prices.