1
Howard Air Force Base, Panama
March 1997
The UH-1 Huey's blades beat the heavy blanket of humid night air like an old conga drum, shaking the palm trees lining the grassy strip in the rotor wash as the chopper descended.
The lone passenger, Juan Cabrillo, stood braced in the open doorway, taking it all in. His tattered tropical shirt and shoulder-length hair danced in the swirling vortex of air racing through the cabin. His theatrical sense craved Wagner's "The Flight of the Valkyries" blasting over a pair of loudspeakers as the Vietnam-era helicopter swooped into a near-emergency landing. But he wasn't in charge of this rodeo.
As soon as the skids hit the wet tarmac, Cabrillo bolted out the door with a splash of his Birkenstock sandals and bent his tall frame over as the chopper roared away. He dashed toward the nearest Quonset hut, one of three occupied by the local CIA station. There was no time to lose.
Langston Overholt IV, his CIA handler, hovered over a table studying a military map and an open dossier folder. Cigarette smoke clouded the room. He glanced up as his best non-official cover (NOC) bolted into the room.
"Juan, my boy." He extended his hand. "Glad you made it."
Though forty years his senior, Overholt's long patrician fingers still gripped like a bench vise. The elder spook carried the air of a well-mannered English squire. Not a bead of sweat could be found on him despite the suffocating humidity. His moisture-wicking nylon shirt and slacks looked freshly pressed. A Colt .45 in a well-worn leather holster perched on his hip.
Few knew Overholt had been recruited by Allen Dulles personally. Fewer still knew of his wet-work exploits carried out behind the Iron Curtain.
"You said the clock's ticking." Cabrillo nodded at a pallet of tarped gear in the corner. "That my kit?"
"Everything you asked for." Overholt's eyes narrowed. He noticed Cabrillo's brow glistening with sweat. "You feeling okay?"
"Never better. It's a sauna out there." Juan wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. "Gimme one of those," he said, nodding at the pack of Camels on the table next to the open dossier.
In truth, a bad case of malaria was racking Juan's swimmer's physique. He'd been popping quinine pills like Pez candies for the last forty-eight hours. The worst of the symptoms had passed, but a raging migraine pounded inside his skull.
Overholt tossed him the pack and Juan fished one out as Overholt fired up his Zippo. Cabrillo took a long pull, filling his lungs with as much nicotine as he could-anything to help cut through the headache.
Overholt eyed him again.
"That him?" Juan said as he pushed past his mentor and over to the dossier. A dozen telephoto pictures and a half page of handwritten notes in English and Spanish were all that filled the file marked "Vladimir Suárez, aka Zhukov."
"What's with the Russian general's name?" Cabrillo asked.
"FARC guerrillas love their romantic noms de guerre."
"Must be a real sweetheart. I don't normally associate FARC killers with romance."
Cabrillo studied Suárez's photos. He noted the cunning eyes, haughty smile, and arrogant posture. It was almost as if he knew he was being photographed secretly and was posing for effect.
Cabrillo was all too familiar with FARC, the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. It was the largest and most violent rebel group in the world, spreading Marxist-Leninist ideology throughout Latin America and beyond. Colombia, a nominal American ally, was on the verge of collapse beneath the weight of FARC's ruthless leadership and unrestrained violence. The Colombian Army was mostly busy chasing its tail while taking big casualties trying to subdue a well-trained, highly disciplined, and deadly foe.
"Sweetheart, indeed," Overholt said. "He's FARC's number one assassin and his infamous claim is that he's never failed a mission. The man's more elusive than a jungle jaguar and more venomous than a poison dart frog. Thanks to an anonymous tip, we know where he's currently located-here." Overholt touched a point on the map with his index finger. "But only for the next six hours."
Juan studied the location, paying special attention to the topography.
"At which point he departs for his next mission, according to your message. Any idea what it is?"
"Nothing concrete. But it's somewhat disconcerting that the bigwigs of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission are meeting the day after tomorrow in Ecuador. That's a perfect target for FARC, since the vast majority of their revenue derives from the drug trade."
"He's smack-dab in the middle of the badlands, where the Colombians can't reach him."
"And the nearest SEAL snatch team is eighteen hours away on another deployment."
"That's why you called me."
"If he gets away, it could prove disastrous. We only have that narrow six-hour window to capture him."
Juan mopped more fevered sweat off his face with his hand. "Why not take him out?"
"His capture would prove superlatively useful in dismantling FARC networks around the region. His corpse wouldn't be nearly as informative."
Juan tossed the cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath his sandal. "So let's go get him."
Overholt fought back a grin. He'd first met young Juan as a brush-cut, bleached-blond, blue-eyed surfer boy in a polyester ROTC uniform at Caltech just a few years back.
Now look at him. Eager for the hunt.
Born and bred on the beaches of Southern California, Cabrillo had the powerful, broad-shouldered, wide-chested build of an Olympic swimmer and a dancer's natural grace. But it was his artistry on the shortboard and high waves that held everyone in awe. To the casual observer, the young man could've been written off as just another rock-jawed, carefree surf rat with sand between his toes.
Overholt instantly detected a first-rate intellect behind the mischievous smile and recruited him.
Cabrillo eagerly embraced CIA service as the top-tier opportunity to serve his country and deploy his considerable talents. His linguistic skills were off the charts, and his brief flirtation with dramatic theater all proved invaluable as an undercover field agent. His sangfroid courage was second to none, and he handled small weapons as if they were mere extensions of his preternaturally powerful hands.
But it was Cabrillo's innate ability to improvise-what Overholt called his "superpower"-that made the much younger man a prodigy in spycraft. He had proven his gift yet again when he proposed a solution for tonight's mission. It was daring, unconventional, and risky beyond measure.
And the only shot they had.
Cabrillo currently posed as a surf bum and petty drug dealer on the beaches of Tola, Nicaragua-one of the hottest new spots on the world surfing circuit. The Sandinistas found renting longboards to rich German tourists far more profitable than socialism and quite a bit more fun.
Cabrillo's CIA-fake fiancée, Gretchen, taught him how to hand-paint his long golden hair in the balayage technique with dark brown dye in order to camouflage it. It gave the effect of the blond hair mimicking sun-lightened streaks in naturally dark hair and required little maintenance.
Cabrillo was fully Hispanic on his father's side, but inherited his mother's Nordic features. Blond hair and blue eyes were not uncommon in Latin America owing to the extensive European migration of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But blond hair still attracted too much attention in this part of the world, a potential buzzkill for an undercover agent seeking anonymity in order to survive.
Cabrillo hated wearing contacts, so he didn't. Besides, his blue eyes were lady-killers and proved useful in that regard on more than one occasion. His physical appearance perfectly fit his cover story, and his faultless acento mexicano passed every sniff test by the local criminals and foreign elements he mixed with as he hoovered up intel on international terrorists and gangs.
"Weather?"
"Latest meteorological reports show favorable conditions, including wind speed. Rain moved out an hour ago."
"Check. Do we have eyes on him now?"
"Negative."
"Why not?" Juan glanced at the map one more time.
"Too dangerous. Any other questions?"
"When do we blow this popsicle stand?"
"The C-130 Hercules you requested is fueled and ready to go on the far side of the base."
Overholt checked his watch. "A Jeep will be here momentarily."
Just then, brakes squealed outside and a horn tapped twice.
Juan grinned, unsurprised by Overholt's precision.
"Grab your gear," Overholt said. "I'll be riding shotgun."
"Still don't trust me?"
"Just watching your six, boyo."
"Perfect." Juan crossed over to the pallet and snatched up his gear, including an oil-slicked Uzi submachine gun he slung around his neck and a pair of oversize packs. He slipped the heaviest one over his shoulders.
"If a FARC rebel doesn't shoot you, or an Indigenous warrior doesn't spear you, a jittery Colombian Army patrol may well take aim. And that's assuming Suárez doesn't put a round through your skull at a thousand yards. So keep your head on a swivel down there."
"Just the way you trained me."
A bead of sweat formed on the end of Cabrillo's nose. He wiped it away with a pinch, trying not to think of the migraine crushing his skull.
"Let's roll."
2
Southern Colombia
Cabrillo leaped out of the Hercules and into the starry void. He plunged through the dark with the rush of a mighty wind in his ears for just over a minute before yanking the rip cord, cracking the ram-air chute open with a violent jerk of his harness. His shadowed form was backlit by a bright half-moon. Normally he would have planned a jump for a moonless night, but the clock was ticking.
There was neither the time nor the inclination to clear the mission with a Colombian government infested by FARC-friendly bureaucrats and security officials. The wrong word in the wrong ear could send Suárez flying the coop, or worse, setting up an ambush that would get Cabrillo captured or killed.
His two-hour flight from Panama gave him plenty of time to pull on a wetsuit and Altama jungle boots, slip into his parachute harness, check his weapons and altimeter. Most important of all, he fitted to his chest the special kit he needed to recover Suárez.
Overholt was right about the weather, mostly. It was clear sailing from Panama. However, the weather reports missed the low-hanging fog just a hundred feet above the landing zone. Cabrillo couldn't see a thing down below. Beneath the fog belt were miles of thick jungle canopy. Hitting one of those trees could snap his neck like a twig.
He wished he had access to one of the new GPS devices that were rolling out into the military services, but they were too big and bulky for a person to carry into close-quarters combat. For now he had to trust a laminated Air Force topographical map and the math skills of the twenty-two-year-old junior navigator, who had given him the green light to jump.
Three and a half minutes later his boots punched through the last of the fog and he got his bearings beneath a gauzy sky, the half-moon now veiled behind the clouds above. He had six seconds before impact. Just enough time to catch a glimpse of his dimly lit target-a large, thatched hut, its stilts half-submerged on the banks of a rushing river. A dozen smaller Indigenous huts were located high and dry in the forest behind, connected by a rutted dirt road. The village, such as it was, had been abandoned by the local Indians after FARC attacks drove them away years before. According to Overholt's anonymous source, Suárez was the sole occupant of the remote village and took up residence in the stilted communal river hut.
Cabrillo tugged on the steering lines of his chute, took a deep breath, and aimed for the center of the wide and coffee-colored Caquetá River.
Splash!
With nearly a hundred pounds of gear weighing him down, Cabrillo was plunged a dozen feet beneath the surface. He wrestled his way out of the tangle of cords and the ripstop nylon canopy now enveloping him thanks to the river's current. He finally broke the surface with a sputtering breath.
The noise of his splash wasn't loud enough to wake the dead, but was the kind of commotion that rang like a dinner bell for the hungry crocodilians dozing on the banks. His wetsuit was only a guard against the high-altitude cold and the vampiric leeches and venomous snakes that infested the river. The thin neoprene wouldn't protect him against the 1,200 psi bite of the speckled caimans patrolling the waters.
So far, the plan to land in the river instead of the forest had proven a good one. What Cabrillo hadn't counted on was the speed of the rain-swollen current. Thanks to the Air Force navigator's apparently superlative math skills, Cabrillo had landed upriver as planned. But the swiftly moving river was proving a challenge. His parachute rig pulled him downriver like a billowing sea anchor. In the few struggling moments it took to free himself, he had already closed the downriver distance to the hut by over a hundred yards. If he didn't act quickly, he'd speed past it with no hope of swimming back.
Cabrillo picked a river landing to avoid crashing into the trees, and Suárez's hideaway hut was located on the bank of the jungle river, at least according to the one aerial photo they had. Unfortunately, that photo had been taken during the dry season. The roiling river now rushed past the crude pylons holding up the ancient thatched structure that was now in the river.
Finally freed from his parachute, Cabrillo threw himself into a furious windmill of swim strokes, clawing at the water with all of his strength, though the malarial effects were taking their toll. Adding to his discomfort was the large and heavy pack that he had transferred from his chest to his back. The graceful California swimmer was now a thrashing humpback gasping for air in a race to cross against the fast-moving current and reach the other side.
And he was losing.
But losing wasn't something Juan Cabrillo had much experience with. He dug into his deepest reserves and his years of training in the water. He closed the gap just in time. As he was about to pass the hut's first stilt, he reached out with his nearest hand and grabbed it.
But his grasping fingers slipped as he lay hold of the moss-slicked timber, and the river tore him away.
Cabrillo kicked furiously to angle himself toward the next stilt. He crashed into it and wrapped himself around it with his arms and legs like a rubberized barnacle against the relentless current. He glanced around to get his bearings.
Copyright © 2025 by Mike Maden. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
