Chapter 3

After an exciting few days at, and having to leave from the Costa Rican paradise, Tina told us, "I have to go home to go back to work and school. Thanks for including me in your fun and games. I needed that. It's even more adrenaline pumping than motocross."

We talked among the family and discovered that our ladies wanted to stay on the island while we took Tina home and they knew it could be a while before Lisa and I would come for them.

After a night of all out lovemaking between all of the women and myself, Lisa and I took the tricked out 737 home, with Tina in the jump seat riding right behind us. She couldn't get over how exciting it was to confront the people that we had put out of business. Lisa kept her grounded by telling her how easily it was to be hurt or dead while doing something like that.

Tina told us, "I know I shouldn't do something like that, but it's very satisfying to put an end to something or someone whose sole goal in life is to addict someone to drugs that will quickly kill them. I look at it as a form of preventative medicine. Count me in whenever I can help. I'm volunteering, so please keep me in mind when you need a doctor for a major operation. Lisa assured Tina we would do that.

We enjoyed the excitement and busy atmosphere of the patio at home. Tina prepared to go back to her grueling schedule as a resident, while Lisa and I began looking for what we needed to do next. Her time at the hospital still required her to work within the ER and work with doctors of other specialties.

Our SS handler called in the morning to tell us that the group we had initially targeted had apparently been almost totally wiped out. All of the major players were dead, and many millions of dollars in drugs had been destroyed. The man was being cagey when he said, "Whether or not you had anything to do with that operation, it was a very successful hit. The reports are that three people did the damage, so it couldn't have been you two."

Lisa and I smiled as we listened to the call on speakerphone. The man told us, "Log in after ten. Give us a call if you think you might be available."

The man hung up as Lisa and I had some more coffee. Lisa sat on my lap as she said, "How about some kick ass rock and roll this morning. You and me, Guy; and we'll go blow the speakers with some really good metal."

That sounded good, so we went out to the studio and brought out a collection of guitars. First things first, and we lay down a bass track that was solid and strong, then we added enough back rhythm to fill a football stadium. I then let Lisa let it out on her SG. She was really blasting when two strings broke. I had been doing freestyle background on my Les Paul when she had her string problem, and I was able to immediately take it up to the top. Lisa didn't hesitate; she grabbed her Fender and began picking up where she left off. Damn, we made it sound so good.

Lisa wanted to do a lot of background fill the next time through, so I used the keyboards to give the piece some good B3 organ, and another take with some keyboard piano.

I think Lisa and I had the same idea when we listened to the sound on sound of the combined multiple recordings. We began scribbling some crazy lyrics about defending everything we believed in and to holding nothing back. We loaded up what we had and began doing it one more time alternating between the two of us scream singing what we were doing to the bad men of the world.

We listened to our recording and felt it was as good if not better than 90 percent of the screamer metal bands. At least ours had a hard rock beat with words that were almost intelligible.

Lisa began picking a gentle piece, but without singing. I used my bass to give her a feeling of completion as she came around to her theme a third time. She stopped and said, "We need to write some lyrics to go with that. I like how it felt together. Let's do it a few times and see if words come to us."

We played the piece, then I used my acoustic Blues King to see if I could bring the words out. As we were playing, I sang, "You and me, Babe, we make music together. You and me, Babe, our music is so much better." Lisa filled in, "We play our music to each other, we play our music for all others, we make our music come to life, we make our music give us life."

We both did a little blues break and as we came back around I sang, "Our music is so low, so bass, so good. Our music has the mood as it should." Lisa picked up, "We give you the blues, we play and sing the blues," I continued with, "Follow us on our Crossfire; follow us in our Texas Flood." Lisa finished with a haunting almost yell, "Let our voodoo 'chile' show you what real superstition is."

Both of us went into a wild crashing Crossfire lead in.

We didn't finish, but stood looking at each other. Lisa said, "Wow, that would be a great way to intro a whole group of Stevie Ray music. It needs some B-3 and keyboard for the lead in like the original. Let's add that, then listen to it again and see what else we need to do with it."

We liked it, but it needed more metal instead of my acoustic, and 'Crossfire' needed some B-3. We went through a couple of times adding instruments but this last time we played our version of 'Crossfire' right down to mutual breaks. When we stopped, Lisa said, "We have to keep this one. All you need is a hat with a big feather and people will be seeing Stevie up there singing. Your voice goes into a Stevie mode and you can't tell the difference. You do the same with Clapton, but you are so close to Stevie it's scary."

Lisa did a backup on a CD to give to Elmer, our sound guy, and one for the Blues Expedition, the group we had played some concerts with. They are always looking for anything fresh to work into their tours.

I called the Expedition group leader and asked if they were going to be in later. We were told, "Always in the afternoon. We're picking around trying to put together a show we want to tour. Come over and help us."

Lisa and I drove to St. Pete with some of our guitars. When we walked in with instruments under both arms and in our hands, they knew we wanted to have some fun.

I told the group before we began; "Lisa and I are thinking of doing a tour starting in Hawaii. We want to do a couple of shows there, then off to the Philippines, Saigon, Hong Kong, then back to the States. From there we want to do Panama, Costa Rica, at least Mexico City, then back to Texas. It would be great if you guys would stage the tour and make us also-rans with you. I know you'll get some great press with our music and we want to try a few things."

Kenny told us, "Sounds like fun. but you know it's going to have to include the family. The guys with wives will want to be accompanied. Are you planning on that too?"

"The whole works. Hell, if we could make it work, I would get the brass to go with us too."

"Oh man. Chuck. That would be one hell of a tour. We would all make a fortune on the albums."

Lisa waved the CD around and said, "Chuck and I thought we might have an intro into a set. Have a listen, but remember that it's only a first cut."

Kenny picked along with the CD while it was playing, then went nuts on the break. You would have thought he was having a fit when it came back and led into 'Crossfire'. "Damn, Chuck and Lisa, that's great. I can't believe your voice, Chuck. It is just so close to Stevie's. We need to do all of those and let you be up front for all of them. We'll sound so good with our backup that people will run home to listen to their SRV stuff to see what the difference is."

Lisa said, "I want to get Chuck a hat with a big feather. His hair is growing out but he would still need to use a wig to really look the part."

Sticks said, "Oh yeah; now we're talking. I think we need to get the brass guys to work with us and take them along. I'm willing to take less for the tour if we can get some good copy for albums."

Kenny turned to me and smiled, "Come on, let's play some really heavy shit to get in the mood."

The rest of the day, and on into the night, was nothing but heavy blues. Lisa played some gentle blues and sang some Eva stuff that settled us down around midnight. All of us agreed that we would talk about it tomorrow and called it a day.

On the way home, Lisa said, "That was almost as good as taking down those first Mexican assholes. We need to mix our music with some adrenaline. We could trash some bad guys in the morning and do a concert in the evening. That would be perfect for us."

Don't you just love a woman with an attitude like that?

"You know, Babe, bad guys are not everywhere. What we were doing down south is about as close to pure assassination as it gets. That's not what we want to do unless it's to do some creeps like that. We're law enforcement first and foremost. Law enforcement captures the bad guys and puts them behind bars, which in theory, is eliminating them. The problem with those we've just dealt with is that their own country won't put them away. There are a lot of local people who will be angry at us because they received payoffs from those cartels. We're not only going to be unwelcome if they find out who we are; they could put us in jail down there and that wouldn't be a good thing. We've probably pissed off people in two countries, so we might need to stand down until we are forgotten. The only person who could tie us in would be the kid at the airport who rented us the scooters. He didn't keep any records or aircraft numbers of traffic in and out, so it would be difficult to figure out who destroyed the compound. They are going to think the CIA had something to do with it, considering that we didn't take any cash from the places. Even the CIA tries to clean out money caches. I'm sure they think a very large task force made the raids. Our mission was to get rid of the leaders and bodyguards. I think what else is important is that we did a decent job of keeping the collateral damage down."

Lisa was pondering what I was saying. "Yeah, you're right. We do need to focus on something else, but I get great satisfaction from eliminating people like that whose sole purpose in life is selling their drugs, and it's their drugs that are killing people. Maybe we should put some kind of hunter group together that destroys smugglers trying to bring the product into the country. The Coast Guard and DEA have people constantly looking for smugglers, but a lot of drugs are still getting through. We could do something like that without bringing the Marshal's Service down on us. It would probably be easy for us to keep our names out of it while we stopped some of the smuggling."

We got home very late and crawled into bed. There were no women to wake up as they were still in Costa Rica, so Lisa and I were able get an extra hour or so of sleep.

The house was quiet when we got up, because the others not in Costa Rica had already gone to work or school. Lisa and I had a slow shower and dressed. While we had a cup of coffee in our kitchen, Lisa asked, "Should we check in with anyone or just wait for them to call us?"

I told her, "We're probably going to hear about our activities because we were only directed to one of the two locations. I'm sure they'll be surprised that we discovered the second location and even more surprised that we neutralized them both. They don't know we had another helper on the job. Let's see what the fallout is."

We were about to leave when my cell buzzed. I had a text from Steve that simply said, "Four black suits with sunglasses are here to see you."

I showed the message to Lisa who smiled. She said, "I guess we don't have to wait to find out how they feel. Let's load up and check out our visitors."

We noted a big black Suburban when we parked the cart in front of the patio. We also noted several of Hap's security people standing around the area, watching. The four black suits quickly stood when Lisa and I opened the door, but four men closed in on them just as fast. One man, who acted like the leader, put his hands up palms out to show he didn't mean any harm as I walked up to them. I pointed at the table and said, "Sit, I'm going to get a cup of coffee. Can Lisa and I get you some more?"

Juanita brought us coffee mugs and a large carafe instead of us going for coffee. As she set the carafe down, she asked, "Are you men hungry? I know Chuck and Lisa are, so if you want some bacon, eggs, biscuits, and gravy, say so as we are making it right now?"

The man looked at me and I told him, "Eat with us. I'm sure there is nothing serious enough to upset your stomach."

He nodded, and I asked Juanita, "Can you please bring six plates for us?"

As Juanita left the table, the man looked around at Hap's four men who had come up close to them in answer to their quick movement to stand. I smiled and told the nearest of Hap's men, "Have a seat, Guys. These men probably just want to talk about something that's come up."

The tall man asked, "Do you know what agency we're from?"

Lisa chuckled, and I smiled, "Sure, you're CIA. SS people have suits other than black, DEA wears casual clothing, and Deputy Marshals wear colorful ties most of the time."

The man said, "Do you know that the security people here wouldn't allow us to go to your residence? They said it was too dangerous for us to just go to your house. Why would that be?"

"I don't know. We've had problems in the past, but we try to keep it out of the park. I guess they were just being cautious, but why are you here?"

The man lowered his voice so it didn't carry past the table, "You were asked to see about a location in Mexico, but you went to another location in Panama as well. You weren't given direction to go there."

"Pardon me? Did I go to Panama? My passport doesn't have a stamp in it from there?"

The man frowned, "Don't be cute. No one but you two could have done that much damage to both locations. What we want to know is how did you discover the Panama location, and what did you do with the cash from either place? The other question is how big a group do you two have that you could hit both places at once the way you did?"

I looked at Lisa and she shrugged. I sipped my coffee, then answered, "We were going to recon the Mexican location because something about it seemed strange. We were able to get a satellite scan of the area. We were doing a DEA departmental public info search and saw that this cartel had a location in Panama. We took a hard look at both places and discovered both were almost exactly alike, except one had a hangar and one didn't. The heavy concentration of personnel at one location over the other told us that whoever the leader might be, that person was in Panama. While we were checking satellite passes, we saw activity at the Panama location that made us realize the major body of personnel was on the move. We were able to watch as that group went to Mexico, leaving the Panama location less heavily guarded. If we had gone into Mexico with that many guards, we would not have been successful and probably been caught and/or killed. We hit Panama, did all the damage we could, then went to Mexico, knowing they would be responding when they got the news by going back to Panama. That's when we hit Mexico, then went right back to Panama with their now diminished manpower. We were able to eliminate the head of the cartel, whether it was the man or the woman. They are both neutralized. We used the massive amount of explosives they had on premise to blow both locations."

The man was just staring at me as I told the short story. When he closed his mouth, he finally asked, "So what did you do with the cash you found at both places?"

"Any cash is still there, but it might be a little burnt. We blew both places sky high."

The man asked, "You didn't confiscate the cash? There had to be millions and millions there."

"We didn't go there for millions and millions. We went there to capture or neutralize the cartel leaders and to destroy as much of their locations as we could. That's the goal of what we went there for, right?"

One of the other men said, "I can't believe you would leave millions of cash behind."

Lisa told the guy, "Look, when we finished doing what we intended to do, we needed to get out of there before any local law or Army showed up. I'm sure they arrived within minutes of our departure."

The main man again asked, "So how many men did it take to do both places?"

Lisa and I looked at each other. I said, "You already asked that question, and I thought that I made it clear that only Lisa and I were involved. More people would have been too difficult to move around and to escape."

Another of the men said, "No way can less than a dozen men pull off an operation like that. Don't make me laugh, because you have to be lying."

I looked at the supposed leader and said, "You have a very rude man with you. Would you like to ask him to leave or should I escort him out? You see, my very gentle partner might want to help him with his dentures."

The man who had voiced his doubt at what happened began standing and I pointed at him. "You're doing fine. Now keep getting up and go through that door. Go to your car and stay there. Someone will help you stay there if you want."

The guy was about to say something when the leader told him, "Just go out to the car. Remember the Riviera videos and what these two did by themselves. I think he might still be bitter about that one. You should research people before you challenge them."

Lisa said, "Why can't you guys shoot straight with us? You try to hide something important from us, and don't give us all of the Intel necessary to carry out what needs to be done, every time we get involved with you. If we had only taken out the Mexican location, the cartel would have double or tripled their efforts from Panama. I'm sure you wanted the cartel heads, but you weren't going after them in their nests, unless you wanted us to get caught in Mexico, that is. I would hate to think that. Tell your boss that any future business we do with you will have to be on the up and up, you'll tell us everything we need to know, or do it yourself."

The man said, "I've reviewed this file and I agree with you, but I have to tell you that we didn't put together that the cartel management moved back and forth the way you say they were. It's a shame to have left all that cash down there, but the locals will probably enjoy having a bonus."

He finished his coffee and said, "Thanks for breakfast and forgive the man for doubting what you can do. I am amazed you two could pull it off, but then, you have done some other very surprising things. My bosses want to use you when we can, but we also know that you'll be hesitant to work with us now. You will be given all of our info, and it will be good information, if I have anything to do with it. You two do get the usual contractor fee and it will be deposited in your bank accounts. You only get paid for one target because we only gave you one. Send us your expenses so we can reimburse you."

The man stood, offered his hand, which I took, and left.

As soon as the Suburban pulled away with a couple of security carts following it, Steve came over and sat with us. "Did you step on someone's toes? Those were not the usual types who visit."

Lisa told Steve, "They're CIA. We had some business down south that encompassed more than they anticipated. I think they were attempting to scold us for going beyond the scope of what they wanted, but it was all related. It was the right thing to do, and it worked out."

Steve groaned as he said, "I don't want to know. Christ, I don't need any more feds wandering around, with all of the FBI and Secret Service poking around the computer R&D lab and airfield."

He continued with, "Your ladies called this morning, and I think they are ready to come home. Do you want me to send an aircraft down or do you want to go get them?"

Lisa said, "We'll go get them. We'll stay overnight and come back tomorrow. I'd like to take Tank with me to look at something, though. We had the opportunity to pick up a couple Bell 412s that look to be nearly new. I'm not sure whether we should keep them down there or bring them up here. I'm sort of leaning on keeping them down there. We want Tank to advise us of what kind of crew we would need to maintain them there, and also to start a flight program to get some pilots trained."

Steve commented, "We could use another one of those up here for all the short runs we're making and for trips to Orlando. A lot of people are flying into Tampa and need to get to an international flight in Orlando. Keep me posted on what you do with them."

I called the airpark and was able to reserve the same 737 we had used to go down before. I tried to talk to Tank, but he was in Jacksonville working on a Florida Highway Patrol aircraft. We went to the house, threw some clothes in our duffels, and drove to the airpark. I called Kenny on the way to tell him we were making an overnight or two to Costa Rica, and would talk to him in a couple of days. He said he had the agent looking at what it would take. He also said he was going over to my place to talk to Rags and Pops.

Lisa and I were excited that there might be a way to have a musical vacation that could give us as much release as being hunters for one of the agencies. We kept trying to come up with lyrics for some decent blues all the way to Costa Rica. We also talked about the money the CIA guy said was left down there. The more we talked about it, the more we figured any money was probably in Panama.

My cell phone was going nuts as we were landing. I ignored it to let it go to voicemail, but whoever was calling was calling again and again. You have to pay attention, and you can't let your mind wander or be distracted, when you're on final, driving a big aircraft like a 737. We were able to park the aircraft near the company hangar and performed all of the shutdown duties.

A cart came whizzing from the operations building right up to where the ground crew was placing a mobile stairway. I didn't get a chance to engage the built-in stairs because someone wanted to talk to us fast.

We had just gotten out of our seats and stretched, when the door opened and Mark was standing there. He said, "You need to answer your phone. Someone who said they were your contact is trying to call you. I'll be waiting for you in the cart.

I pulled my phone from my pocket about the time it rang again, "Johnson."

"Why aren't you answering your phone? I know you were within range of the cell towers."

"I'm sorry; I don't recognize your voice. We haven't begun this conversation appropriately so if you would like to tell me who you are, we can proceed from that point."

There was long pause then, "This is Mother. The access phrase is: (he stated it) Today's password is: (he said it) but you wouldn't know it, since you haven't called or logged in today. I'll wait if you want to check."

Lisa had her ear up to the phone, so she took her phone out, dialed the access number the person that answered gave her the password after she put her ten digit code in. She mouthed the same password, so I said, "Okay, you have my attention. What's so important?"

"I'm going to give you a summary, but you can get all of the background on the mission site. A group of State Department law enforcement personnel were touring southern Costa Rica yesterday with the Costa Rican drug enforcement group, when some people who feel they are being picked on crossed the border from Panama and took all eight of the US party hostage. They killed the Costa Rican party and have probably killed the aides in the US party, but they're offering to ransom the rest of them. We know who the kidnappers are and where they came from. We need someone to go into Panama and get our people out. Will you do that?"

"That's a problem. We are probably not very welcome in Panama after the little project we helped the CIA with. We are toast if the Panamanian government catches us. Can't you get a team in there to get them out?"

The man said, "We are scrambling a team right now, but it will take too long to get them ready and down there. You're on top of them and can probably be in and out faster than a team can draw supplies. Help us, Eyes; we really need you on this one."

Lisa was nodding her head and whispered, "We can do it. We have to do it or you know they'll kill the hostages just for entertainment."

I said into the phone. "We'll do it, but we have to look at what intel you have first. I'll call you back in thirty."

Lisa said, "We have our equipment, so we only have to find how close we can get."

Mark was waiting for us as we came down the stairs. "We need to use the computer up at the house, unless you have good access and a solid firewall in operations."

Mark said, "You can use the computer in my lab. It's protected from everyone. Sal set it up and has had a guy come down to install some updates, so it's probably as good as you can get."

We went to Mark's R&D lab office where I let Lisa get into the mission site, and we began reading the Intel. The group's headquarters was only three or four miles inside Panama, as they made runs through the area with drugs destined for Central Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The terrain around the camp was rough, with just one road going both north and south.

We pulled the satellite scans up and closely looked at the area. There were three areas where helicopters had obviously been landing and taking off. Now would be a good time to have one of the silent helicopters that were around. One of the open areas was screened from the main house by some dense trees, so I figured we could come in on the deck and quickly set down while shutting down. If we were lucky, the noise wouldn't be enough to disturb the population as they were used to helicopter traffic.

We didn't have a floor plan of the main house, but we could determine all of the security points. There really wasn't much for security, so we should be able to quickly penetrate. The travel time was going to be less than an hour by helicopter because the compound with the kidnappers was only a little over fifty miles from us.

I asked Mark, "Did the Bell mechanic from Limon come out to check the helicopters for us?"

Mark was smiling and said, "Both of them are in as near perfect shape as possible. They are fueled and ready to go if you want to use them."

I directed Lisa, "Print what you can of the surrounding compound and surrounding area so I can identify the place to set down without having to get close to the house, Lisa. I'll put our equipment together, move it to the helicopter, and do a preflight while you do that. Mark ran me out to the 737 for our cases. I took them back to his office so Lisa and I could change into battle dress camouflage clothes and put our vests on. Mark watched while I assembled two of our rifles and fitted them with silencers, as I also did to the Glocks. We both stuffed extra magazines into our vests before I asked Lisa, "Think we need a fifty, or just go in light?"

Lisa thought for a second, and looked at the photos, before she said, "Bring one fifty with some explosive rounds, just in case."

We walked to the hangar that now had one of the 412s outside with an attendant standing by. We put our equipment in the helicopter and went over it one more time. Lisa got in the right seat and began the startup. The helicopter started and ran smoothly as we watched all of the gauges come to life.

I waved at Mark, but he came next to the helicopter and told me, "Be careful. I know you two are a real team, but be careful, whatever it is you're going to do."

I smiled at the older man, hoping he wouldn't be overly concerned.

As Lisa lifted off, I gave her a heading of south-southwest so we could stay off the coastline before going the last ten miles across the terrain at tree top level.

We were flying low over the water, and fortunately didn't see any government vessels patrolling. When it came time to head into the little bump Panama has on its northeastern border, I was watching the terrain and identifying where we were until I pointed to the landing zone. Lisa skimmed the tops of the trees with the runners and set down in the middle of the clearing, immediately shutting the helicopter down.

I was already getting our equipment ready to try to penetrate the defenses that we knew existed. A man, dressed in BDUs close to what we were dressed in, came trotting out waving at us as we walked toward the trees. I let him get right up on us before I tapped him with the butt of my rifle. We stripped him of any weapons, used a tie-wrap on his hands and feet, and gagged him with his hat.

Lisa said, "He was saying that someone was coming and we needed to put the helicopter in another area. Let's get this done quickly."

I asked, "What do you think; should we litter the area with bodies or hope to try to just disable them?"

Lisa said, "We don't have time to be kind. Let's get who we can and leave."

There wasn't a fence around the main house, and we could see some activity in the front, but no one was around back. I told Lisa, "We'll go in and one of us watch while the other tries to find where they have the people stashed."