The Greatest of These by Greg Wendleton (booksvooks txt) 📕

This bizarre behavior went on for about six months before Conrad started to share “secrets” with me that began to shed light on his purpose in life and his plan for me.

Conrad wasn’t a nut job, he was the head of a secret force of special men that took care of delicate matters for the United States government. Delicate matters that could not be handled by the FBI, CIA or any number of sanctioned organizations. They were the quiet assassins. They were the covert killers. They were the men who kept the wolves at bay. I wanted, no, I needed to be a member of this team. I was the ultimate team player. I was a fullback for crying out loud.

As I dove deeper into the training, I learned that each man worked alone and never interacted with other team members. Conrad was the only contact I ever had. We were all freelance contractors who were paid, handsomely I might add, for each assignment.

Fonda was losing her patience with my “weekend business travel” and it became harder to keep my secret from her. Yet, I had no choice. I couldn’t tell her what I was doing. The best thing that ever happened to me would walk out of my life in a heartbeat. She wasn’t thirty yet and had been through the loss of her parents already, she didn’t need this crap dumped on her too. She could easily start over and find a normal, stable man to build a life with.

Regardless of that, I was about to cross a line that I couldn’t come back from.

CHAPTER FOUR

During spring break of 2005, the daughter of a well-known and highly placed United States senator from a Northeastern state was abducted from her hotel, along with three sorority sisters while in Aruba. The abduction was devastating to the senator and his wife and created ugly headlines for the tourism board of Aruba.

The four girls had been on a “pub crawl”. At one of the last stops they missed the bus that had been taking them to several of the stops along the crawl. They decided to stay until the bar closed for the night and were convinced it was safe to walk the few blocks to their hotel. That was a horrible decision.

According to the few eye witness reports the local police were able to track down, the girls were picked up in a late model, white Ford sedan in front of the marina in Oranjestad. Four young, blonde, pretty coeds disappeared without any solid leads. The local police had no ideas and provided the family no solace. The senator flexed his muscle and the FBI began an in-depth investigation that lasted most of a year. Finally, they caught a break.

During the spring of 2006, a similar event occurred, but this time the local police were able to apprehend the abductors before they could “disappear” the young ladies. After some intense negotiating and more intense questioning by the FBI, the authorities had the lead they needed. A Venezuelan cartel that trafficked in drugs and humans, had a small network of abductors on the island nation that feasted on young, beautiful ladies for sale to depraved men via the cartel.

Additional investigation by the FBI led them to the source in the jungles of rural Venezuela. Near Tinaquillo, south of Valencia, hid a miserable excuse for a human being and his billion-dollar empire. From his lair he conducted his despicable business of selling young women to the highest bidder. “Clients” would come in every May to examine the merchandise and prepare for the one night of debauchery and bidding. The senator’s daughter and her friends had been enslaved the previous May and the FBI had traced them to four regulars who were expected to be present in May 2006. Thanks to the FBI’s legwork, the young ladies were about to be rescued in simultaneous raids in Brazil, Russia, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia. The senator wanted his daughter back more than anything. But, second on his agenda was the removal of the four men and the cartel Don.

I received an email in the secure account that had been set up for me. It gave me just a few details:

First assignment. Meet me at SAT on May 17 6am. Long term parking Level 3. Pack for the jungle.

Conrad and I traveled together to Caracas from San Antonio via DFW on May 17, 2006. We were met at the airport by local contacts who provided us with route maps and detailed information on the location of the compound outside of Tinaquillo. They also provided us with the tools we would need to complete our mission. There were five targets. I didn’t know at the time that three other members of Conrad’s team, each traveling separately, were given specific setup locations, weapons and the identities of their targets.

We traveled southwest from Caracas on Highway 1 on the 18th arriving in Valencia late in the day. The following day we made the journey to Tinaquillo and located our target location. After a thorough reconnoitering of the area and determining the setup locations were solid, we returned to our one-star hotel in Tinaquillo to hopefully get a good night’s sleep, one that we would desperately need. I don’t know if you’ve ever spent a night in a jungle area in a one-star hotel, the sleep was anything but good. Mosquitos, bugs, probably in the bed, and incessant noise kept me awake most of the night. We met before the sun arose on the 20th with plans to deliver a Saturday night these assholes would never forget.

We continued to follow the highway south for about thirty minutes before turning off the pavement onto a barely visible dirt track. Conrad pulled the vehicle into a small clearing and then conducted a three-point turn so that we were faced out to enable a quick exfil. We