The Spirit Survives

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Prologue

The spirit and the soul are the two primary immaterial characteristics that are ascribed to humankind. It’s hard to understand the differences between the two. Human beings have a spirit, although we are not spirits. We live in a body, and we posses a soul. However, the real person inside all of us is our spirit.

Our bodies are what we live in while we are here on earth. The soul and the spirit are connected but separable within that body. Furthermore, the soul is the essence of a human being, it is who we are. The spirit is the aspect of humanity that connects with something higher than we can truly comprehend. The soul is the breath of life. The spirit is the driving force of that life.

A person’s spirit can be marked by a large range of characteristics, evil and good, including unfaithfulness, sincerity, strength of character and humility. A strong spirit can fortify a person’s mental and emotional condition. The spirit of a human can be broken and crushed, but it can also be revived and refreshed. A strong and passionate spirit can take us through almost impossible times when strengthened by love for other human beings. When the spirit is given a compelling reason to survive, it can reinforce the resolve and desire to live.

It’s hard to know for sure if the strength of the spirit is inherited or built by the feelings and experiences in life. I do believe that the soul and the spirit are united at death and face together whatever comes after life.

Some humans possess a strong and passionate spirit. When this spirit is combined with unconditional love for another it is refreshed and given the strength to survive the almost impossible events in life.

The spirit is truly the driving force of our lives here on earth.

Chapter 1

August 18, 2005 actually started out as a nice sunny day. Low hanging clouds failed to obscure the sun and the lingering pleasant breeze softly ruffled the sage green leaves on the trees. Having recently moved to Green Bay with my fiancée, Leah, I’d come to Lookout Mountain for a few days of rest and relaxation. Not pleased to have left my comfortable life in Chicago, my nerves were frayed from the move, so we decided to give each other some space. Loving the mountains, I rented a cottage on Lake Nokomis in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, packed a backpack, and drove my Lexus to Lookout Mountain for a day of hiking.

I started up the first trail I found, looking for trees that I love to observe. The mountain maples, which have beautiful green leaves and flowers with narrow erect panicles, had been heavily browsed by deer because the flowers had formed dense clumps of small stems. Higher up the mountain, the ashleaf maples had taken over.

A flying squirrel prompted me to raise my binoculars for a better look. I removed my backpack to get the digital camera that Leah had given me for my birthday. I particularly wanted pictures of the ashleaf maples and maybe could get lucky and snap a picture of the flying squirrel, which Leah would enjoy seeing. I searched through my entire backpack but the camera was missing. I must have left it on the seat in my car. Since there was plenty of time for pictures, I decided to go back later to pick it up. I was beginning to relax and admire the beauty and the mystery of nature.

I began searching with my high-powered binoculars for a path to the mountain’s summit and then I scanned the mountain to see if there were any more classic trees.

As I studied the mountain’s face, I noticed movement through the trees. I refocused my binoculars to get a better look. About a hundred feet below in the valley, in a clearing, a man was straddling a woman. Her skirt was hiked up over her hips and her blouse had been torn off. She struggled and kicked wildly, while another man restrained her arms. The man on top slapped her twice as he fumbled with his zipper.

I yelled to try to stop them but was too far away to get their attention. Frantically I looked for a trail down the mountain to the valley. I spotted a rough trail leading down. It would be dangerous getting down there without falling, especially with my heavy backpack, but I had to try.

After another look, the man who was straddling the woman turned, revealing his face clearly. He was thirtyish with coal black hair, worn long and in a ponytail. He wore sunglasses, but the struggling girl knocked them from his face. An ironic blasphemy, he wore a tattoo of an angel on his neck. His face reddening, he struck the girl again. Her nose and mouth were bleeding. She looked no older than eighteen and her long blonde curly hair was tangled and matted with blood, her frail body shook. Her mouth opened in a silent scream.

The other man who had been holding her hands had moved and was now holding her feet apart as the other man raped her. The man holding her feet was fiftyish, very tall, six-feet-eight inches or more. He had short gray hair and a muscular build. I’ll never forget his maniacal grin. He seemed to enjoy watching the young girl’s agony.

Moving as fast as I could down the rough trail, it wasn’t long before I slipped and fell. After struggling back to my feet, I noticed that my leg was bleeding.

A martial artist, my plan was to do a number on these bastards. I didn’t yell again, even though I was close enough for them to hear me. I was counting on surprise to even the odds. When I got to the bottom of the path the two men still didn’t know that I was behind them.

The black-haired man got off the girl. He was buckling his belt and zipping his jeans when the girl kicked wildly and hit him in the groin. He yelled, grimaced and bent over holding his nuts. The big guy ran around and kicked her in the head twice, and she didn’t move. He was concentrating on the girl, or he would have seen me.

I yelled, charged and both the men turned toward me. I was ready to attack when the big guy reached behind his back and pulled a gun from his belt.

Then, to my surprise, he turned and shot the girl in the head. The impact of the bullet hit her head with a crimson spray of blood and her brains splattered on the ground. I recognized the Colt .45. He quickly turned and pointed the powerful weapon toward me.

Martial arts or no martial arts, I am no match for a gun, especially a Colt .45. I veered rapidly to the left as he fired and the bullet missed me.

As he prepared to fire again, the most dreadful noise I had ever heard in my life almost ruptured my ear drums. It sounded like an out-of-control freight train and was thunderous, causing the ground to quiver. Caught off-guard, the two killers turned to see what was causing the ruckus. When they turned, I dashed back to the trail. Another shot rang out, but I didn’t feel any pain. The shooter must have missed again.

One of the men screamed over the loud noise, "He saw us kill Veronika. Get him. Don’t let him get away

The other man yelled in reply, What’s that damn noise?

The noise was too loud for me to hear an answer. Regardless, the man with the ponytail ran after me, but the big guy remained where he was standing, still holding the gun.

I sprinted up the trail, keeping my balance with my hands in front of me. The sound of the freight train got louder. I quickly turned and looked. A twister!

Something grabbed my ankle. The guy with the ponytail was hanging on, and I fell on my face. I kicked his arm as hard as I could and his grip loosened. I kicked again and was free, but he cursed and kept coming.

I reached the top of the trail and looked around just long enough to see that he was about five feet behind me. I started to go back and give him a side pivot kick to the head, but the twister was closing fast. What the hell is a tornado doing at Lookout Mountain in August? I couldn’t believe that my choice of death was a tornado or a couple of guys with a Colt 45.

I ran again, not from the man, but from the tornado. I jogged around a curve in the trail, not knowing if the twister or the ponytailed man would get to me first.

Abandoning the trail, I just ran up the mountain. It was steep and the rocks cut me as I balanced myself with my hands. I thought about ditching my backpack, but there was no time to stop. Looking over my shoulder again, I saw that Ponytail was still behind me, but more importantly so was the twister. He was not running after me anymore, but was running to get out of the path of the tornado.

I heard a sharp crack. The noise coming from the tornado was deafening and the ground shook violently. Looking back again, I saw rocks and trees flying through the air.

I looked around wildly for some cover and kept running.

Between two boulders just to my right was what appeared to be a dark hole. As I approached the hole, it looked like some sort of cavern or a cave. Dirt and small rocks cut into my back, but the backpack shielded me a little from the ravages of the tornado. I made it to the hole, dived in, and crawled to the back of the cavity as rocks and earth flew through the air. Something must have hit me on the head because I blacked out.

Chapter 2

As Leah Hamilton was getting dressed for work, her thoughts drifted back to the wonderful times she and Ben had together when they were in Chicago. From the first day they met, she felt a connection to his spirit. His intelligence and sense of humor disarmed her. She smiled when she thought of his infectious laugher, closed her eyes and pictured his tall muscular frame, dark brown hair and twinkling light blue eyes. Leah’s favorite old movie was Gone with the Wind and in her eyes Ben looked like a young Clark Gable. He truly filled the vacant place in her heart.

Leah felt guilty about the sacrifice he made for her. She knew that Ben was depressed when he left for Lookout Mountain and that worried her. She also was aware that he had deep regrets about leaving the job he loved. At this moment she just wanted to hold him and tell him that she loved him. He had shown her how much he loved her by giving up his position of Executive Assistant Chief of the Investigative Operation Division of the Houston Police Department, to move with her to Green Bay Wisconsin.

Ben had been one of six Executive Chiefs in the Department who answered directly to the Chief of Police. He was the youngest man to have ever held that position. In February, 2005, Ben was put on loan to the Chicago Police Department to work on a major narcotics case involving Mexican cartels. This drug problem involved a cartel in Houston with connections in Chicago. The Attorney General in Washington had made a personal request of the police chief in Houston to work with the Chicago police in this case. To honor that request Ben was sent to Chicago to coordinative the efforts between the two police departments.

Leah met Ben through a mutual friend on the Chicago police force. There was an immediate connection between them. After a few weeks of dating, they were inseparable. She felt she had finally met her soul mate and knew Ben felt the same.

Leah had been working at a small private firm in Chicago as a corporate attorney when an executive search firm contacted her. The position they were searching was Lead Attorney for Shopko Stores, which was a large discount store chain headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She interviewed well and was given a job offer. The offer was simply too good to turn down. This was a major step forward in her profession. She really felt that her career had been stalled for the past three years. The only problem was that she loved Ben Harris, and he was very happy living in Houston and was looking forward to returning when his assignment in Chicago was finished.

After many heart-wrenching discussions, Ben had agreed to move to Green Bay with her. He said he simply could not stand the thought of not being with Leah every day. He reluctantly resigned from his position with the Houston police.

Their plan was for Ben to open his own security consultant firm. He would have his home office in Green Bay, but would travel anywhere in the USA, when necessary. They agreed to give this experiment two years. At that time, they would rethink all their circumstances and decide whether to stay in Green Bay or move to Houston.

On this morning, August 18, 2005, Leah continued to be worried about Ben as she finished dressing for work. He had left the evening of the seventeenth after they had celebrated his birthday with a lobster dinner. The move to Green Bay had not gone well. They found a house, but the moving company had delays in packing their things in Chicago and Houston. They were staying at the Resident Inn waiting for their furniture to arrive. Ben was also having difficulties getting all the licenses and approvals required to open his new business. He was very frustrated, so he decided to take a trip to the mountains for a few days to settle down.

Chapter 3

Record Tornado Outbreak, August 18, 2005

That was the Headline in the Green Bay Press Gazette on August 19, 2005. The Green Bay population and the people from the state of Wisconsin called it the Day from Hell.

It is usually nice to be in the record books; however, it was not an honor to hold the record for the largest number of tornados to ever hit a state in history. The state of Wisconsin still holds this horrible record.

A surface low pressure system had located over extreme southeast Minnesota early in the afternoon on Thursday, August 18, 2005. A warm front extended east southeast from the low and had dew points pooling in the lower 70s along it. The surface low moved east into east central Wisconsin by 10 p.m. that evening. Favorable wind shears associated with the warm front had combined with the strong instability supplied by the heat and humidity that resulted in a record outbreak of 27 tornadoes across Wisconsin in the late afternoon and evening. The previous record of 24 tornadoes was set on May 8, 1988.

The Storm Prediction Center issued the first tornado watch at 2:51 p.m. for the counties of Marquette, Green Lake, Sauk, Columbia, Iowa, Dane, Lafayette, Green Bay and the Lookout Mountain area. A second tornado watch was issued at 5:51 p.m. for the remainder of South Central and Southeast Wisconsin. The first tornado touched down in the Lookout Mountain warning area at 2:58 p.m.

There were sixteen confirmed tornadoes in the Milwaukee/Sullivan County warning area, five confirmed tornadoes in the Green Bay County warning area and six confirmed tornadoes in the La Crosse County warning area.

It was the first tornado that touched down in the Lookout Mountain area which drove Ben into that cave.

Chapter 4

Leah was working on a legal matter for the Chairman of the Board at Shopko when Brenda, her assistant, came into her office and told her that she needed to watch what was happening on TV. They went to the employee lounge together. It was about 3 p.m. and the breaking news on CNN was reporting on extreme weather news in Wisconsin. A record number of tornados were forming around the state. The first one had already touched down in the Lookout Mountain area just north of Green Bay.

My God, that’s where Ben is! Leah exclaimed.

You better call him now, Brenda said. Leah rushed out of the employee lounge and ran to her office. She grabbed her cell phone from the desk and punched in Ben’s cell number. Brenda followed her into the office.

A recorded voice came on the line, The party you are calling is out of the Sprint calling area. Please try your call later.

Leah tried calling three more times, only to get the same response.

How could this be happening? Leah’s voice shook.

I’m sure he’s okay. Don’t worry until you know something for sure, Brenda reassured her.

Leah couldn’t continue her work until she knew that Ben was safe. He had given up so much of his life to move with her to Green Bay. She grabbed her briefcase and walked briskly out of her office. As she was leaving, she told Brenda to explain to management that she had to leave to try to find out if Ben was all right. Her first stop would be the Green Bay police department.

Leah hurried to her silver Infinity SUV and drove the short distance to the police department. She parked in the visitor’s lot and rushed inside.

A uniformed grey-haired man in his fifties at the desk to the right of the doorway noticed Leah’s panicked entrance and got up from the desk and approached her. What’s the problem?

I heard on the news that a tornado touched down at Lookout Mountain. My finance is there and I need to know if you have any reports of injuries. His name is Ben Harris.

Please have a seat, the officer replied. We are aware that a tornado touched down at Lookout Mountain and a rescue team has been dispatched from the Tomahawk police department. We’re keeping track of all the tornados in the area and as of now there haven’t been any reports of injuries. It’s just too soon for detailed information to be available. If you give me your name and contact information I’ll call you with any news about Mr. Harris.

Leah gave him the contact information and left the police department. She was far from satisfied. As soon as she got to her SUV, she picked up her cell phone and called information to get the number of the Tomahawk, Wisconsin police department. She wrote down the number and immediately dialed it.

Tomahawk police department, Officer Terrell speaking, a professional female voice answered.

Leah hurriedly told her the story that she had given to the Green Bay police. To her dismay, she received the same answer. A rescue team had been dispatched, but no information was available. Leah provided her contact information and hung up.

In her panicked mind, there was only one thing to do: go to Lookout Mountain herself. She entered Lookout Mountain into her navigation system. The map showed that it was about 132 miles from Green Bay. She proceeded to Highway 29. After about 90 miles, she merged into US 51 North. Three more turns and 40 miles later, she turned right on County Road B and made a slight left on Hillside Drive. On the left, she saw a sign that read Lookout Mountain.

She had arrived, but didn’t have a clue what to do next.

Chapter 5

My head felt as if it were splitting open. I was dizzy and, for a moment, unsure of my surroundings. Even in the dimness, I could see that my hand that had touched my hair was covered with blood. I forced myself to focus on my police and Navy Seal training. My life might depend on those recollections.

The last thing I recalled was diving into a cave to escape the tornado and a ponytailed man who was pursuing me. After seeing him and another man rape and kill a young girl, I was lucky they hadn’t killed me.

I looked around. The scant bit of light filtering through a four-foot-wide hole about twenty to thirty feet above me, showed that the entrance to the cave had vanished.

My thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like a groan. Looking toward the sound, I noticed a large object that resembled a body. When I tried to stand, sharp pain in my head forced me to a sitting position. Aware of the weight on my back, I realized my backpack was still strapped around my shoulders, so I slid it off.

I unzipped the top pocket and took out the first aid kit. Gritting my teeth, I applied alcohol-saturated gauze to my head. Despite almost passing out from the alcohol scorching my scalp, I managed to apply steady pressure to my wound. When the bleeding appeared to have stopped, I threw the bloody gauze aside, covered the wound with clean gauze, and stretched tape across the fresh pad and under my chin. After swallowing three aspirins, I began feeling somewhat better.

Reaching into the backpack a second time, my fingers closed around my small flashlight. Its beam revealed a man lying face down about twenty feet in front of me. His ponytail was visible, and his left leg was buried in rocks up to his knee. He must have dived into the cave as the entrance was collapsing from the force of the tornado. Blood encrusted his head and his injured leg, and he wasn’t moving. I tried to walk toward him, but dizziness forced me to my knees.

The groan that cracked the silence a second time hadn’t been made by the man trapped in the cave with me. Pointing my flashlight toward the sound, I saw eyes shining in the corner about thirty feet to my left.

Oh shit! The sound I’d heard wasn’t a groan. It was a damn growl. My unconscious companion and I were sharing the cave with a timber wolf.

Chapter 6

Cherokee Alverez and Bo Lopez, both independent operators before joining forces, had been partners for three years. Cherokee worked for anyone with the money to pay him, but Bo was more specialized. He worked primarily for two of Mexico’s largest drug cartels as their principal operator in the USA. He understood that, if the two cartels ever started a war with each other, he would have to choose a side and the value of his life would be substantially reduced.

Bo was fifty-four years old and had short gray hair, a muscular build, and at six- foot-nine, he stood out in any crowd. He looked menacing, regardless of his size, with green eyes and a mean smile which looked more like a snarl. He would make a person not accustomed to dealing with his sort wince. He was the one in command in this partnership.

Cherokee was thirty-six years old and had coal black hair, which he wore in a ponytail. He considered himself a lady’s man, and in fact he was quite successful with women who needed to be dominated. His dark brown eyes were covered with sunglasses most of the time. He had a tattoo of an angel on his neck. He had awakened with his prize tattoo after a drunken spree with two women in Mexico. He didn’t know where or exactly when he got the tattoo. Cherokee thought it was some sort of blessing bestowed upon him.

Alverez and Lopez were contract killers.

On August 10, 2005, Bo accepted a contract from Elezar Fernandez, his contact with the Salazar cartel. The hit was for a nineteen year-old girl named Veronika Ivanova. Bo was not told why Salazar wanted this girl killed and didn’t care anyway. He was getting paid $50,000 plus expenses for the hit, and he offered Cherokee a thirty percent split. Cherokee quickly agreed on condition, that he could play with the girl if she was good looking. Cherokee was always horny.

Fernandez supplied Bo with an address for the girl, an art major at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. She had an apartment off campus in nearby Appleton, Wisconsin.

Bo and Cherokee’s base of operations was Chicago, and the Salazar Cartel was based in Houston. Bo had been to Houston many times to meet with Fernandez and discuss jobs, and he was expected to go anywhere in the USA or Mexico to fulfill his contracts.

He was paid well for his efforts, but a female college student should be an easy hit and so the amount of money seemed especially generous. He grinned when he thought of his promise to Cherokee to let him play with her if she was good looking. Hell, this might be fun. Everyone should enjoy their job," he thought.

At the airport in Green Bay they rented a Ford Excursion and then drove to the Radisson Hotel. After a steak and lobster dinner and two bottles of good red wine at the Radisson, they hit the blackjack tables at the Oneida Casino. Bo played for about three hours, winning four-hundred-fifty dollars before he decided to call it a night. At his age, he couldn’t keep up with Cherokee.

Cherokee lost a couple of hundred dollars at blackjack and moved to the craps table, where he hit a lucky streak. A few hours later he was up about four thousand dollars. He would have continued to play, but he met Marge. When it was apparent he was winning, she stayed by his side, encouraging him and casually rubbing her ample breasts against his arm. Marge was in her twenties and heavily made-up, and she was built, as they say, like a brick shit-house. She was just the type of woman that Cherokee liked. The five Jack Daniels and waters he had consumed made her look even better.

At about 2 a.m. she leaned over, brushing her lips against his ear, and whispered, Why don’t we go to your room?

Cherokee replied in a husky voice, Hell yes! He cashed in his chips, put his cash in his pocket, and they moved to his room.

As soon as the door was closed Cherokee began fondling her. She unbuckled his belt and lowered his pants. He kicked them out of the way and took off his shirt. She was still fully clothed, and he reached out to take care of that problem when he realized that he had to piss. Those Jack and waters needed to be deposited in the john, and then he would get on with the sex.

Cherokee took pleasure in slapping girls around while he was making it. Some liked it and some didn’t. Cherokee didn’t give a shit whether they liked it or not. It turned him on, and that was what he planned when he came back from the can.

Cherokee took plenty of time relieving himself. He splashed on some shaving lotion, took off his shorts and reentered the bedroom. He was ready to finish off the night in style.

He swaggered back into the bedroom. The room was empty. Shit! Cherokee darted around to the other side of the bed and picked up his trousers. He searched his pockets. Empty. The bitch had stolen his four thousand dollars in winnings. He checked his wallet. She had cleaned it out, too. He ran to the door and threw it open. The hall was empty. He seethed. He was a professional. No amateur could do this to him.

He hurriedly dressed. She couldn’t have gotten far. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to go back to the casino. She would stay out of sight. Eventually, she would have to leave, so his best chance was to stake out the parking lot. There was an outside chance that she was staying in the hotel; however, that would increase her chances of being caught by guys she conned. Odds were that she drove here and would have a car in the parking lot. He raced to the stairs because the elevator would be too slow and scrambled down the stairs two at the time. His room was on the second level, so he was at the exit leading to the parking area in seconds. There were very few cars in the casino parking lot at this hour of the morning. Cherokee located himself on the corner beside the building. He could watch the entire lot from this position. He was very familiar with stake-outs and was patient.

After forty-five minutes, only two people had come out of the casino. Cherokee waited patiently. At 3:15 a.m. his restraint paid off. Marge and a husky young man exited the hotel side and walked toward the casino parking lot. They looked around several times as they quickly made their way toward a red Toyota van in the back right corner of the lot with no other vehicles around it.

Cherokee was always prepared for a fight and he carried brass knuckles to give him the edge. He made his way from car to car staying out of sight. When they were about fifteen feet from the van, he caught up with them. He grinned and said, Well Marge, what happened to you? I’m so damn sorry you left.

The husky young guy, who thought that he was tough, tried to tackle Cherokee. Cherokee just side-stepped him and landed a solid punch with the brass knuckles to the side of the guy’s head. Blood spurted and he went down.

Marge was in a panic as she scrambled in her purse for her keys. Cherokee went straight for her and grabbed her by the hair. He put his other hand around her throat and hissed, Scream, and I’ll kill you.

Tightening his grip on her throat, he whispered in her ear, Baby you really picked the wrong guy to steal from. He tightened his grip on her throat. A gasp of breath leaked from her throat as her oxygen was cut off. Cherokee squeezed until she passed out. He didn’t want to kill her as that would cause too much attention to the area and Bo would be furious. He let her drop to the ground, picked up her handbag and found the keys to the van. He unlocked the van and put her unconscious body in the back seat and then went back to the young man’s limp body and dragged it to the van. Cherokee put his body in the front seat. He removed the guy’s belt and secured his hands to the steering wheel. He removed the guy’s wallet and took out all the cash and threw the wallet as far as he could across the parking lot. He opened Marge’s purse. His $4000 was neatly rolled in a ball with a rubber band around it. He placed the money in his pocket. Marge must have conned another man because there was an additional two-thousand in her purse. Cherokee smiled at his luck. This night had really paid off for him, except, he was still horny. He could handle that problem tomorrow; tonight he made money.

He locked the van and laid the keys on the pavement beside the door. Cherokee knew that they couldn’t call the police when they regained consciousness.

He calmly left the parking lot and went back to his room. He wouldn’t tell Bo what happened. Bo was careful and didn’t want anything interfering with his contract. Cherokee finally went to bed at 4 a.m. He was still horny as hell.

Chapter 7

There was a loud bang on the door on the morning of August 18, 2005. Cherokee had only been sleeping for about three hours. He heard the irritated voice of Bo yelling, Get your ass out of bed and open the door!

Cherokee grunted a loud, Okay, and rolled out of bed. He went to the door and opened it.

Bo didn’t enter the room, he just glared at Cherokee. You look like hell. Get your clothes on and let’s get moving. We need to be at that damn girl’s apartment before she leaves for class. I’ll wait on you in the car.

Cherokee could have used several cups of black coffee