"John Phoenix just doesn't stop." - Craig L. Meyer

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CHAPTER 1
Ankoko Island
Guyana

Captain Tyler Verdin peered through the night vision goggles mounted on his helmet as he knelt in the sand at the edge of the Cuyuní River. He had the stock of his suppressed Colt M4A1 pressed to his shoulder, ready for battle. He studied the tin shack on stilts as his five teammates moved out of the water and closed the five meters between Verdin and the shack.
Once they’d stacked up in a gun train at the base of the stairs, Verdin left his position at the beachhead and moved to the front of the line. Each man gave him the signal they were ready to move, and without hesitation, he went up the steps with the others right behind him.
They came to a wide veranda at the top of the stairs, moving as quietly as they could over the ancient, squeaky planks. Verdin stopped at the front door. As soon as the gun train collapsed into a tight knot behind him, he kicked through the door and swept to his right, knowing the men behind him would sweep left and straight ahead.
Verdin saw a shadowy figure move. He pressed the trigger on his M4, sending a burst of bullets into the man. Verdin heard more gunfire from his teammates as they eliminated the Venezuelan soldiers in the shack.
A chorus of “Clear” rang through the building moments later.
Verdin lifted his night vision goggles and glanced around. His blue eyes swept the room before he pushed off his helmet and ran a hand through his sweaty blonde hair. At just five feet four inches tall, or 162cm, Verdin wasn’t a giant by any means, but he could hold his own in any combat situation. Over the years, he found that it was short guys like himself with something to prove who made it through Special Forces training. The big guys were an anomaly stereotyped by the movies. Arnold would have never made it through Hell Week.
With the building clear, Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Major John Yaw, a Guyanese native with a craggy face, thick black mustache, and dark bushy eyebrows, ordered his men to police the weapons from the dead Venezuelans. Once they’d collected the loot of Kalashnikov Ak-103s, the men retreated from the house and signaled the two waiting boats to come ashore.
In all, the mixture of Guyanese from the 31 Special Forces Squadron and mercenaries hired to fight the Venezuelans totaled twenty-four. As they formed up into Red and Blue Teams at the edge of the jungle, Major Yaw took control of the first squad, and Verdin softly commanded his Blue Team to move out. They would form a pincher movement by crossing Ankoko Island and flanking the military barracks on the far side of the runway.
The going was easy for the first eight hundred meters as they patrolled along a narrow dirt road from the waterside hut to the airstrip. Moving cautiously up the jungle trail, Verdin listened to the chirp of insects and other jungle night sounds as he reflected on his path to Guyana.
Three weeks ago, he’d been working for Constellis, a private security contractor, when the call went out for men of his special skillset to join the GDF as contractors. He’d jumped at the chance to fight in the jungle and do something besides babysitting high-value diplomats on overseas junkets. He’d packed his bags, flown to Guyana, and volunteered. Within twenty-four hours, the former Navy SEAL found himself at the Colonel Robert Mitchell Jungle and Amphibious Training School in Makouria. Soon after, he’d become embroiled in planning the mission to recapture Ankoko Island.
Verdin had joined for the money and the adventure, but he’d quickly realized how much he’d missed the operational tempo of planning and executing special warfare operations, a specialty during his tenure as a SEAL officer.
Just before they reached the airstrip, the two teams split and moved parallel to the active construction site. From intelligence gathered by locals and provided to them by GDF headquarters, Verdin knew the Venezuelans had brought in Russian contractors to pave the runway on Ankoko pursuant to stationing Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker fighter jets and Mi-35 Hind attack helicopters there. The GDF knew that having a Venezuelan base right on their border was a horrible idea, so they wanted to reclaim the island for their own use.
As any good ops officer would, Verdin had studied the history of the conflict between the two warring nation-states. In accordance with the 1899 Paris Arbitral Award, Venezuela and Guyana had divided Ankoko Island in two, but no sooner had the ink dried on the award than the Venezuelans declared it void. In 1966, after Guyana had won independence from Britain, Venezuela, in a display of strength, sent Army troops to occupy the seven-square-kilometer island, and they’d established a military base and later carved out the airstrip.
The Guyanese government, for its part, had lodged a strong protest. The Venezuelans had rejected it out of hand, claiming the entire island as Venezuelan property along with the entire Essequibo Region. They asserted that when Spain created the Kingdom of Venezuela in 1777, they established the Essequibo River as a dividing line between the Spanish and Dutch colonies.
Since then, various international courts had tried to settle the dispute, but to no avail. Both countries wanted the riches that lay within the Essequibo Region, from gold to oil. With ExxonMobil’s find off the coast of Guyana in 2015, Venezuelan President Michel Zarate had ratcheted up the rhetoric and sent naval vessels to patrol the waters off the Essequibo Region, harassing fishermen and oil workers.
Things had finally come to blows when the GDFS Essequibo, one of Guyana’s newest patrol boats, had torpedoed and sank the PC-21 Guaiqueri, a Venezuelan offshore patrol vessel, after the Guaiqueri had fired upon them. In retaliation, the Venezuelans had sent a flight of Flankers to bomb Base Camp Seweyo, one of the GDF’s primary technical and training facilities.
Now, the GDF Special Forces were moving through the jungle, ready to retake the island for Guyana and establish their own forward operating base. Instead of sending a couple of their new A-29 Super Tucano warplanes to bomb the base into oblivion, the GDF had decided on a more surgical strike.
Once they had occupied the island, the GDF planned to use the barracks, headquarters building, chow hall, and various maintenance and storage facilities scattered among the trees to quarter GDF troops. Brigadier General Wesley Patrick, head of the GDF, had also ordered the A-team not to destroy any of the construction equipment and to try to capture the Russian advisors alive as he didn’t want to piss off the Kremlin any more than necessary.
Reaching their staging point in a clearing off to the side of the runway, Verdin checked with his men, ensuring they all arrived.
Once everyone had moved into a semi-circular formation, guns out and ready, Verdin instructed his sniper to check for sentries on the far side of the landing strip. Bianka Nascimento, a young Guyanese female trooper, climbed onto a nearby dump truck and sprawled on the cab before setting up her rifle.
Staring through the scope, Nascimento reported, “Two men are standing near the road to the camp just inside the tree line.”
“You copy, Red One?” Verdin asked Major Yaw over their secure comms unit. The Florida National Guard had sent a batch of the latest L3Harris Technologies comms units, and Yaw had quickly commandeered them for this raid and the future needs of the 31 Special Forces Squadron.
“Copy and set. Snipers are free to fire,” Yaw replied.
“I’ve got the one on the left,” the Blue Team sniper stated.
“Roger that. I’ve got right,” Red Team’s sniper replied. “Go on three.” She softly counted down, and the two snipers fired.
Verdin heard the cough of the suppressed high-powered rifle and waited breathlessly for the report from the snipers. Seconds later, both snipers stated their targets were down.
“Move!” Yaw commanded over the net.
Preset teams of two raced across the 99-meter-wide strip of open ground until only the snipers remained behind as rear guard.
Verdin was the last to cross the airfield with his battle buddy, a young man named Weaver Smith from Corriverton on the Suriname border. Smittie, as all the guys called him, was a handsome kid with dusky skin and coal-black eyes. He had joined the Army at seventeen and volunteered for Special Forces training at twenty-one. Once Verdin arrived in-country, Smittie glued himself to his hip, and the two had become fast friends.
What had pissed Verdin off was Smittie’s nickname for him—Fight Club. The others in the squadron had picked it, and it had become his call sign. While his name was scandalously close to Brad Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden, Verdin hated the nickname, especially when someone told him to punch himself in the face.
Formed up on the northern side of the runway, Blue One ordered his troops to head for the squad barracks as Red One led his team toward the headquarters building and officer huts.
As soon as a team of six Guyanese entered the clearing in front of the barracks, gunfire rang out. More Ak-103s joined the fight. Verdin saw two of his troops cut down in the initial volley. He raised his rifle and fired at shadowy figures as they charged out of the barracks.
Satellite photos showed seven buildings, and the intelligence clowns had claimed there were no more than one hundred members of the Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana (FANB), or National Bolivarian Armed Forces, stationed on Ankoko. Verdin and his fellow mercs had taken to calling the Venezuelan forces “Fanboys,” and, at the moment, there seemed to be a never-ending supply of them.
“Red One, we are taking heavy fire from the barracks. Request use of the SLIM,” Verdin said into his comms. He understood the GDF’s desire to keep the buildings intact, but if he needed to knock the barracks flat with the Shoulder-Launched Individual Munition (SLIM) to save his men, Verdin had no qualms about it. One of the things Verdin enjoyed about this shitty little war was that it was a test bed for all kinds of new tech, like the SLIM, a 6.8-kilogram, disposable, shoulder-fired rocket made by Aerojet Rocketdyne.
“Negative. Stand your ground,” Yaw replied. “We need those buildings.”
“Son of a bitch,” Verdin muttered to himself, then called out, “Reloading!”
Major Yaw could have his buildings intact, but they’d be perforated with more holes than a colander.
Smith took up the slack in firing as Verdin replenished his rifle. With a fresh mag in the well, Verdin targeted a man who had just ducked out from behind the barracks and hoisted a rocket-propelled grenade launcher to his shoulder. Verdin sent a trio of rounds the man’s way before diving to the ground as he shouted, “RPG! RPG!”
The RPG went wide, smacking into a tree trunk about twenty feet above the heads of the invaders, and toppled the massive canopy to the ground with a thunderous crack. Verdin popped up and shouldered his rifle, scanning through the optics for more Fanboys. He idly noted the man who’d fired the RPG lay dead. Someone had killed him and, in the process, deflected the gunner’s shot. Verdin hoped it had been his bullets that had sent the man to meet his maker.
All around the military base, pockets of resistance continued to launch RPGs and fire automatic weapons at the 31 Special Forces Squadron. Verdin listened to the radio calls and tried to cement in his mind an accurate picture of the action. Once he had a plan, he turned to his battle buddy, “We need to move toward the docks and circle back—pincer the pincer.”
Smittie nodded with a grin. Despite Smittie giving him a stupid call sign, Verdin liked having the kid around. He was an eager student and constantly picked Verdin’s brain for tactics and strategy.
The two men began moving north through the trees, recruiting more Blue Team members into their new plan.
“Red One, this is Blue One,” Verdin said over the radio. “Can you hold them at the south tree line?”
“Copy, Blue One. Can do.”
Verdin told Yaw his plan as he scrambled through the darkness away from the gunfight. During the initial advance, Verdin had sent a four-man team to the river dock to secure it, and as he approached, one of the men ran out to greet him.
“We have movement across the river,” Johnson reported. Like Verdin, he was an American merc, but he’d come through the 75th Ranger Regiment. Johnson, a sawed-off runt with red hair and freckles, looked more like a high school freshman than a hardened warrior.
“Can you blast them with the SLIM?” Verdin asked.
“Yeah,” Johson said with a smile. “We can knock their asses out flat.”
“Do it. Light ’em, Sergeant. And then you and Colbert link up with me. We’re flanking the barracks. The Fanboys are holed up there.”
Johnson gave a chipper, “Roger that, sir.”
Verdin led his team across a narrow dirt road and entered the woods on the far side. The Fanboys had knocked down most of the brush over the years, and the going was quick and smooth. Behind him, Verdin heard his men engage the Fanboys on the far side of the Cuyuní River, rippling off three SLIM shots that blossomed flame into the air and ignited the wooden structures around the Venezuelan ferry dock.
Not long after that, Johnson and his partner linked up with Verdin’s force as they spread out in the woods. Verdin radioed Major Yaw to tell him his team was set and to take cover so they wouldn’t get hit by friendly fire. Once Yaw confirmed his men were down, Verdin and his team engaged, killing every last Venezuelan and Russian holding a weapon.
“Cease fire!” Major Yaw called over the radio, but almost everyone had stopped shooting when the last of the enemy had fallen. A few GDF soldiers walked through the dead and wounded, firing a bullet into each enemy head.
Verdin joined Major Yaw in front of the headquarters building, where the two men raised a Guyanese Golden Arrowhead flag over the island for the first time in fifty-eight years.
Yaw stepped back, saluted the flag, and then picked up his satellite phone. He called Brigadier Patrick to report the outcome of the battle. “We have secured the island, sir. Send the reinforcements.” For a moment, he was silent, then said, “No, sir. The Russians helped to defend the base. Everyone is dead.”
Once Yaw ended the call, he turned to his second in command. “Helicopters are in-bound to deliver reinforcements and take out our wounded. Let’s make sure we’re set for when they arrive.”
Verdin walked off to find the members of his Blue Team.
“Six casualties, sir,” Smittie reported when Verdin walked up. “Four KIA and two wounded. One needs an evac.”
“Choppers are on the way,” Verdin replied. “Get him stabilized and move him to the airstrip along with the dead.” Turning to Johnson, he said, “I want you to move some of that heavy equipment. Turn their lights on so the choppers have a safe place to land.”
As the men dispersed to carry out his orders, Verdin walked over to a sergeant from Red Team. “Take two men and reinforce the dock. Call in your sniper and take him with you.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said and trotted away, hailing the Red Team sniper over the radio as he went.
Verdin continued to coordinate the Special Forces troops into defensive positions and assist in bringing dead and wounded Guyanese and American mercs to the airstrip. He wondered if the surprise attack was enough to keep the Venezuelans at bay for the moment or if they had another trick up their sleeve.