The Last Day of Summer

Prologue

"Mate," he said to me with his thick Australian accent, "tell me something."

I poked at the fire, sparks rose up in the night sky. It was a chilly Alaskan night near the base of Mount Denali. Huge trees closed in around us and Rebecca was sound asleep with her back to the fire.

"Yeah?" I replied.

"Back there, when they were torturing you," he said quietly enough so Rebecca wouldn't overhear, "I could see that you welcomed it. Why?"

I didn't respond, my hand loosely held the stick I was poking the fire with.

"Why do you hate yourself so much?" He continued. "Your daughter can see it, even Ishkov saw it."

Silence had been my friend for so many years, even though it was driving my family apart. Hell, I knew it, but it didn't matter. I couldn't bear to have them know the truth. How would they look at me? And how could I tell someone I'd just met something I'd never even told my wife?

"A lot of my mates were in the Middle East...they saw terrible things. But none of them carry around that weight like you do," his eyes pierced me through the flames.

Who knew how long we'd survive out here anyways. The Russians and the cold were closing in on us each day, and still no sign of Jenny.

"Do you really want to know?" I looked him in the eye.

"Yes."

"Columbia, 2004..." I began as my eyes dropped back to the fire.

###

The pickups bounced along the bumpy, dirt road that followed the muddy river separating the Columbian Departments of Bolivar and Antioquia. Bolivar's coca production had spiked in the last few months, as did the cartel's cocaine exports and presence in the region. They didn't make it easy to get to the coca fields either, situated in the dense and hilly jungles of the Magdalena Medio province of Bolivar.

We had just rotated here from Fort Bragg to tap out Team Foxtrot like we have done for the last few years. We landed in Bogota a couple weeks ago and got debriefed by Foxtrot, studying up on the cartel's movements and cocaine production. Every year we came back down here they thought of new ways to produce and smuggle cocaine out of the country, and some of those ways I had to admit were pure genius.

The 7th Special Forces Group deployed us down here to stop the cartel from growing more powerful and overthrowing the Columbian government. Of course, we weren't technically here at all. We wore no uniforms or patchs—just a bunch of big, bearded dudes with guns, hence the name Team Kilo­—or more officially ODA 7134.

Zee sat beside me in the first truck's bed, facing the trucks behind us that carried the rest of our 12-man team. His actual name was Isaac Anderson, but we rarely used our real names, so the team called him Zee. He was 18 Bravo like me—weapons specialist, my assistant weapons sergeant. The guys liked to call us the twins. We were both tall and had dirty blonde hair, but I had a beard and Zee didn't—so naturally, I was given the name Bearded. He shot the truck behind us that big, cheesy smile of his, his Colt M4A1 SOPMOD strung around his neck and lying in his lap. Zee was almost always smiling, no matter what crap situation we were in. Him and I became real tight the last time we were down here. He took my spot as the assistant weapons sergeant on the team last year, as Big Mike retired, and I moved up to the weapons sergeant slot. Zee took all the hazing like he did everything else—a big smile and a lot of laughs.

Unlike the Navy SEAL's style of shooting first and asking questions later, Army Special Forces were quite the opposite. We became fluent in language and culture of the country we would be tasked to, as to maximize the results we made down here. It was a lot easier to forge relationships with the locals if you could speak their language.