We had arrived at a staging base the evening before—an abandoned shack on the slope of a wooded hill. There we went through our plans for taking down Jorge Gutierrez and forcing the name of my real enemy from him. Normally I’m not one for intricate plans, but in the circumstances we had to be wary. Gutierrez was moving in dangerous circles. We were in a hurry to get started but there were things to do first. Top of the list came showering the sweat from my body. I’d acclimatized somewhat to the heat of Florida, so the temperature wasn’t an issue. But here in these high jungles the moisture in the air was so thick it was like a damp rag had been wrapped around my limbs. The shower turned out to be a stream trickling down the face of the hillside, but it did the job nicely. Lack of personal hygiene could kill a soldier as quickly as disease or infected wounds. More than once in my career I’d picked out a hidden ambush by the stench wafting off those waiting nervously in hiding.

Food and water were next on the agenda. I accepted both from Hector Nunez, but turned down the offer of a cigarette. It was a long time since I’d taken a hit of nicotine, and things were going to stay that way. The smell of smoke could give me away as easily as body odor. Nunez dragged on his hand-rolled cigarette, though, and I allowed him the comfort. There was a high probability that some—or all—of us would not be coming back from the raid we planned: a condemned man’s last wish shouldn’t be turned down.

But now that we were in the Jeep there’d be no more.

Charles took us back down the hill and on to a single-lane back road where he swung to the south. Somewhere ahead of us lay the house where Gutierrez was reportedly visiting regularly enough to cause suspicion with the CIA agents. Immediate intel said he wasn’t there now, but he was due for a visit. Our plan was to infiltrate the surrounding countryside and wait for him. It sounds simple in the saying but can be quite different in the execution. Going for us was that we had Rink along for the ride. Rink has the ability to penetrate enemy lines with an ease verging on the supernatural.

Lower down the foothills we passed farmers toiling in fields, and we went through a few small villages where the signs were all in Spanish except for the obligatory Coca-Cola advertisements above cafe doors. I didn’t see a McDonald’s, but if we looked hard enough I was pretty sure we’d find one.