by Oliver North
The boy frowned and said, “Not much. I remember when we left the hospital after seeing Dad, reporters on motorcycles followed us all the way to the hotel where we were staying. It was scary—they raced up beside our car and pointed cameras at us as Mom was driving . . . I think it was that night there was a fire at the hotel and there were a lot of firemen and policemen . . . and then Granddad Newman came . . . He and a big group of policemen in SWAT gear took Mom, Josh, and me in a helicopter to an airport, where we got on an airplane and flew back to Camp Lejeune . . .
“It all kind of runs together . . . I try not to think about those times very much ’cause Mom was really sad until Dad came home and we had Thanksgiving and Christmas together. He and Mom don’t talk about any of that around us kids, so we don’t know much of what really went on. There’s a lot of really bad stuff about Dad being charged with committing ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ on MESH links I’ve seen, but nothing much about our family. Do you know what was happening back then, Uncle Mack?”
“Yes,” the senator replied, nodding. He paused and continued. “At some point, your mom and dad will tell you more, but here’s what I know: The fire at the hotel on the night of October nineteenth was caused by a bomb that detonated prematurely as it was being planted under your mother’s car by an Iranian terrorist. Your granddad—and a team of CSG security agents—took you, your mom, and Josh to Joint Base Andrews for a flight to Camp Lejeune on a Marine jet. A few weeks later, when your dad was well enough, the Marines took him on a V-22 directly from Bethesda to Camp Lejeune.
“Just after Christmas, even before he could walk without crutches, your dad was served with a subpoena ordering him to testify before the Special Congressional Committee—the same people who spread all the lies about him you have seen in those MESH reports. The hearings began on January twentieth. They were supposed to be open to the press and the public, but then one of the ‘Progressives’ remembered what happened when they forced another Marine officer to testify publicly in the 1980s . . .”
“Was that Oliver North?” Seth asked.
“Yes. He’s an old friend of mine and your granddad’s. His public testimony in 1987 really embarrassed a lot of liberal congressmen and senators back then, so when your dad was forced to testify in January of ’26, the ‘Progressives’ decided to hold the hearings in closed session.”
“In secret?”
“That’s what they hoped. But it didn’t work out that way. Over the course of the four days of your dad’s testimony, more than a dozen congressional staffers and even some members of the special committee carried hidden digi-cams into the hearings and then posted what transpired on the MESH.”
“Were you on the special committee, Uncle Mack?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make any recordings of my dad’s testimony?”
“Yes. And I still have them. You can watch them when we get to the ranch if your mom agrees.”
“Did you post your vids on the MESH?”
“No. I didn’t have to. Others did and it was all very embarrassing to both the ‘Progressives’ in Congress and the president. That was the big difference between what happened in 1987 and 2026. Lieutenant Colonel North’s testimony supported what President Reagan was doing to bring down the Soviet Union’s evil empire. Your dad was very critical of how our whole government appeased radical Islamists, abandoned Israel, created the Caliphate, and surrendered to Iran. The ‘Progressives’ in the White House and Congress tried to make your dad the scapegoat for their own failed policies—and he made fools of them all.”
“Was he wrong to do that?”
“No, he was absolutely right. From what they saw posted on the MESH, most Americans admired your dad for telling the truth—but he infuriated the president and his Progressive Party pals and they vowed to get him. They said your dad was ‘mentally unstable’ and ‘deranged.’ When our current president’s husband was assassinated by a suicide bomber in 2027, she and some prominent ‘Progressives’ claimed it was because your dad’s testimony the year before created a ‘climate of hatred among Muslims.’ None of that is true, but that doesn’t keep them from saying so.”
“Is that why they are after my dad now?”
“What happened in Afghanistan in 2025 and his testimony in ’26 started the Progressives’ vendetta against him. They were outraged when the Supreme Court dismissed all charges against him—and even more so when he took a medical retirement and the Marines awarded him the Navy Cross for what he did at Shindand. Now they need a scapegoat for the terror attack on Houston. They don’t want it known the perpetrators were really radical Islamists. So they concocted a story about the attack and the kidnapping of Dr. Cohen being carried out by Anarks—and your dad. The government has indicted him. That’s why he has to get out of the country until after the election—and why I gave him a PERT, a PID, and a government ID card identifying him as James Lehnert.”
“Doesn’t that make you a criminal, too?”
“Criminal? No. Your dad isn’t a criminal, either. We have done no harm to our country or our fellow Americans, nor do we pose a threat to either. We do have information that is dangerous to the president’s reelection—but we’re not criminals, even though they may describe us as such. If the president was abiding by the Constitution and the laws of our land, she would have nothing to fear. But that’s not the case today, and that’s why it is so important you and your family survive this experience—so what’s happening now will never happen again in our country.”
* * * *
Ten minutes after the old senator finished his story, the CSG jet landed at Malmstrom Air Force Base and a tug towed the aircraft into the DEA-leased hangar on the northwest end of runway 03. When the hangar door closed, Caperton, Sarah, and her four boys disembarked from the jet.
While Mack introduced his travel companions to DEA Special Agent in Charge Danny Shroyer, a team of techs in blue coveralls lowered the tail ramp of the special-design Gulfstream and began offloading the leather passenger seats and installing standard military web benches on the sides of the cabin. By the time Sarah and the boys returned from the restrooms and grabbed some snacks from the table in the ready room, the senator and the DEA chief had finished a quiet conversation and the aircraft tail ramp was already buttoned up. They all piled into a black GMC Suburban with dark-tinted windows.
As the CSG jet was being pushed out of the hangar to take on fuel and head back to Fort Worth, Shroyer, seated in the right front seat of the Suburban, leaned back and said, “Senator, if you’re in a hurry to get to the ranch, I can have the Suburban behind pull in front and hit the blue lights.”
Caperton smiled and said, “Thanks anyway, Danny. I’m sure the boys would enjoy that, but let’s make this trip as low-key as possible.”
“Roger that, sir.”
The two-vehicle caravan headed off the base and west on old U.S. Route 89, en route to Interstate 15 and Fort Shaw. As they got under way and the boys were dozing again, Sarah quietly asked Mack, “So what were you and Seth talking about all the way up from Texas?”
“He wanted to know why his dad was in trouble with the government. So I told him.”
“Everything?”
“Pretty much. He’s very smart and you have taught him well. Most importantly, he knows his dad is a hero, not a criminal. And no matter what happens to the rest of us, he will be able to tell the story.”
Sarah looked out the windshield toward the mountains in the distance and said, in a voice barely above a whisper, “I know James is in great danger. Will my boys be safe out here?”
Mack, looking directly into her eyes, replied, “I hope so.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GOOD TO GO
FINCA DEL GANADOR
3 MILES EAST OF DZILAM DE BRAVO
YUCATAN STATE, MEXICO
SUNDAY, 19 SEPTEMBER 2032
1930 HOURS, LOCAL
Bruno Macklin was never known to waste time. Immediately
after his Saturday afternoon sat-phone conversation with A. J. Jones, the retired SAS officer began preparing in case the Iranians occupying Felipe’s house a little over a mile away decided to pay him a visit. Unlocking the spacious gun room behind his office, he removed a formidable array of weapons and ammunition that he staged at key locations inside the thick adobe walls of Finca del Granador.
Then, as soon as it was dark, Macklin turned off all the interior and exterior lights and he and the boy donned thermal night-vision glasses. It took them six hours to place ten well-concealed, radio-controlled claymore mines beside the road and along likely avenues of approach to their refuge.
On Sunday morning, after a few hours of sleep, Macklin fixed them both bowls of hot oatmeal with honey and fresh milk. As they consumed the meal in his spacious kitchen, he and the boy read the Twenty-Third Psalm aloud. Then they commenced re-aiming and adjusting the focus of six hi-res digi-cams mounted on the roof of the two-story house so the location of every mine could be seen on a portable wireless flat-panel monitor from anywhere inside the house. By sunset the old soldier was satisfied they had done everything possible to convert his home into a well-defended fortress.
They had just finished an evening meal of tortillas filled with beef, vegetables, and rice when the sat-phone behind his desk began to chirp. Macklin picked up the handset, looked at the number on the screen, pressed OK on the instrument’s keypad, and said, “Go ahead, A.J.”
“Bruno, I shouldn’t be doing this in the clear but there is no other way and almost no time.”
“Right. What’s up?”
“At least six SUVs with heavily armed Federation Cartel enforcers are headed your way right now from Merida. The Federal Police Headquarters in Mexico City has issued a ‘do not interfere’ directive to all units in the Yucatan. According to one of our intercepts, the hands-off order came directly from President Rodriguez himself.”
“So how many of these thugs are en route? Do they all want to die tonight?” Macklin asked as he reached for the old, night-scope, suppressor-equipped, 7.62mm SCAR on the shelf behind his desk.
“I don’t know yet how many there are—but they aren’t coming for you. They are en route to get our MIA admiral.”
“Well, to get to where he is by vehicle, they have to come right past here. Where are they going to take him?”
“They aren’t going to take him anywhere. They’re coming to kill him.”
“So your missing admiral is about to go from the Iranian frying pan into the Mexican fire. What’s this chap done to make so many enemies?”
“Not sure, Bruno, but I have been asked to see if we can save him.”
“Right. How much time do I have and how much help can I get from you fellows?”
“The Federation cartelistos have been chattering away on handheld radios because so many PID nodes were knocked out by the hurricane. They are trying to round up as many shooters as possible for a hit at midnight—and they seem to know right where to go. There is a seven-man DEA unit en route from Fort Worth aboard a modified Gulfstream VII, but both runways here at Rejon International are still closed with hurricane debris. According to the message I just received, the DEA team can parachute in at or about twenty-one thirty if you can mark a drop zone—”
“Not so fast, mate,” Macklin interrupted. “One can’t parachute from a Gulfstream.”
“The person who sent the message informs me this aircraft has a tail ramp. I trust him. He’s one of us.”
Bruno shrugged, glanced at Felipe asleep on the couch on the other side of his office, and said, “Well, a Gulfstream has to have a very narrow ramp—meaning they will have to come out one at a time. Unless they really know what they are doing, they will land miles apart, spread out all over the Yucatan. Do your pilots and paras have night-vision equipment?”
“Let me check the gear list.” There was a pause while A.J. consulted the message from Caperton and then replied, “It says here the ground team is equipped with automatic rifles, personal sidearms, TASER rounds; ball, armor-piercing, and incendiary ammo; six grenades apiece; seven AT-9s; NVGs; PRC-5722; encrypted, helmet-mounted, short-range tactical radios; a portable PID terminal; sat-comm radio transceivers; and four hand-launched Hummingbird micro-UAVs. The aircraft is equipped with a FLIR pod, six Hellfire VII rack-mounted missiles, sufficient fuel to remain on station for two-plus hours, and—”
“That’s enough, A.J.,” Macklin interrupted. “I don’t need to know their brand of underwear. Tell me, do you have any contact with the aircraft?”
“Not directly. They are already in the air. I have to relay through two other stations to get messages to or from the aircraft.”
“Okay, let’s get this done,” Macklin replied. “We will use my southwest pasture for a drop zone—it’s about seven hundred meters long by four hundred meters wide running north to south. There are no cows, trees, or power poles in it. Since I won’t have any comms with the aircraft, tell ’em I’ll light the four corners of the Delta Zulu with infrared strobes set on one-second intervals and place a T with steady infrared chem-lights in the center to mark wind direction. As soon as I get out there with my GPS, I’ll send you the lat-long coordinates for the center of the zone so you can relay that to the aircraft. You got all that?”
“Got it,” A.J. replied.
“Good. Also let your lads with the parachutes know I won’t have any comms with them until we link up on the ground. The PID nodes out here are still down from the hurricane and I don’t have their tac-set crypto settings. I’ll meet them on the DZ. There will be two of us. We will both have infrared chem-lights in the shape of the ancient sign as a recognition signal so they don’t shoot us. If you can, see if they can give us a challenge and password so we can prevent a blue-on-blue gunfight. Tell ’em I’m armed. I’ll keep this sat-phone with me so you can pass any updates.”
“I’ll relay all you said and call you to confirm they got the message.”
“One last question. What’s your exfil plan?” Bruno asked. “Once we get your admiral out of the hands of the Iranians, how do we get him and your lads with the parachutes out of here?”
“The original plan was to have them land at Merida and convoy over to the coast in SUVs with dip-plates I ‘rented’ from the consulate motor pool. Now I’m hoping you can spare a couple of your vehicles and bring ’em all back here.”
“Well, that will cost you extra, given the cost of motor fuel these days, but your credit is good with me.”
“Thank you, Bruno. I owe you. Godspeed.”
“Think nothing of it, mate. Sir Winston said it was a ‘special relationship.’ Just make sure your boys don’t shoot their ‘tour guide’ on arrival. That’s why we have all these nonmigratory geese down here.”
There was a brief pause before A.J. said, “What’s this have to do with nonmigratory geese?”
“It’s simple,” Macklin responded, smiling in the near-dark room. “The reason we have so many Canada geese on our fields year-round is because hunters shot the tour guides. The rest of ’em don’t know how to get home.”
* * * *
It took the retired SAS officer less than fifteen minutes to assemble the equipment he needed from shelves in the gun room, place it all in a rucksack, and throw the pack straps over his shoulders. He then returned to the dimly lit office, grabbed the SCAR, gently awakened Felipe, and said, “Sorry to have to get you up, son, but you need to come with me.”
“Where are we going, Señor Macklin?”
Handing the boy the same dark sweater and night-vision goggles he wore the previous night while they placed the claymore mines, Macklin responded, “Some soldiers are coming here to rescue the admiral being held at your house. They are going to come down from an airplane using parachutes. We’re going to help them.”
Felipe was suddenly wide awake and excited. He pulled on the sweater, placed the night-vision glasses over his forehead, and followed the SAS officer down the hallway to the kitchen. Macklin p
oured them each a glass of water and said, “We’re going out to the pasture that you, your father, and brother helped me clear last year. We’re going to place some lights on the field so the soldiers can see them from the air. When we get outside, stay close to me. Okay?”
“Yes, Señor Macklin.”
“Good. Now I’m going to turn out the light. Put on your glasses and turn them on like I showed you last night. I recharged the batteries, so they should work okay.”
The boy did as ordered. Macklin adjusted the head strap so the phosphor glow from the lenses would not leak around the rubber edges and said, “There, you should be good to go.”
The boy looked up at his mentor and said, “I can see you but I do not understand ‘good to go,’ Señor Macklin.”
The old soldier smiled and said, “That means you are ready for anything, Felipe.”
* * * *
Though it was completely dark, it took Macklin and the boy less than an hour to walk the half mile from the house and install four infrared strobes at the corners of the pasture. When they finished placing and activating the last six chem-lights in a T pattern at the center of the field, Macklin and Felipe moved twenty paces upwind of the marker and Bruno motioned for the boy to sit beside him. He then pulled a GPS device and the sat-phone out of his pockets, inserted the foam-covered earpiece into his right ear, extended the Iridium’s antenna, and pushed OK on the phone keypad.
Two rings and ten seconds later, he heard “A.J. here” in his right ear.
“Right, mate. I’m at the center of the DZ. It’s lit as I described earlier. Are you ready to copy the coordinates?”
“Don’t send it!” A.J. ordered. “Others are listening in. I have the GPS coordinates from your Iridium and will make sure the aircraft has them. They know your visual recognition signal and have confirmed an audible challenge and countersign. It’s the first name of the ‘special relationship’ fellow. The password is his last name.”
Macklin nodded in the darkness, replied, “Got it, mate,” and ended the call with the push of a button. He then pulled four more of the infrared chemical lights out of his jacket pocket and fashioned them into two of the agreed-upon recognition signals using pieces of tape to secure the plastic tubes. Preparations complete, the old soldier pulled an SAS poncho liner from his pack, wrapped himself and the boy in it, placed the SCAR across his chest, and leaned back on the rucksack to look at the starlit sky and await help from the heavens.