Only a madman attacks a U.S. Naval vessel in the middle of a raging hurricane. Santana J. Roja is just that madman. Set in the lush rain forest of Honduras and the storm revenged Caribbean Sea, Bravo TWO Sierra follows the lives of Roja and his band of cutthroat, Satan worshiping pirates, and the crew of the USS MASSASOIT (ATF-167) an old fleet tug that's counting down the hours before she's sent to the razor blade pile.The opening chapter is a flash back which sets the premise of the novel: absolute revenge destroys all. With the selling of Carmella Roja into a life of prostitution and drug abuse by her village priest, Santana Roja grows up a child of the alleys and whorehouses of Puerto Cortez. Shunned by the powerful Catholic church for his illegitimacy, Santana swears faith to the arcane teachings of Satanism. Soon he is in control of the port city's vibrant black market. Now he is in a position to exact revenge on the men responsible for his mother's death, and the man whom he blames for his station in life.Tension is sustained through the individual sailing and port calls of the American salvage crew and Roja's gang of black marketeers. Atmosphere is derived from the ocean and the weather they encounter. The final confrontation between father and son is as explosive as the hurricane that slams a Haitian gunrunner's ship aground in the Straits of Florida.Bravo TWO Sierra captures all the flavor of serving on a small command mixed with such a realistic scenario, that you'd think was yesterday's headline news. I have a bachelors degree in biology from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina in 1978. From the sunny South I joined the Navy and headed North and the Washington Navy Yard for the last winter class at the Naval School Diving and Salvage. There I was taught the art of ship salvage and tap danced in the two hundred and five pound spun copper helmeted, vulcanized rubber Mk V.During my seven and a half years as a mixed gas diving and salvage officer, I served aboard a variety of salvage ships and was privileged to dive on and be the Officer in Charge of the underwater survey of the USS ARIZONA. The first official survey conducted by the National Parks Department and United States Navy in forty years.I returned to my home in Winthrop, Massachusetts where I joined and took over my family's insurance and tax preparation agency in 1985. Two years later, I literally married the girl next door. OK, she lived eight doors away. My son was born in Santiago, Chile in 1991 and my daughter in Asuncion, Paraguay in 1995.In July of 2001, I was invited to join the scientific crew of the Russian research vessel the Akademik Mistislav Keldysh to dive on the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic. At the end of my ten-day adventure I was the seventy-second person to see the mighty liner at her actual resting place, two and one half miles under the cold Atlantic.My passions in life are sailing, scuba diving and cooking. I am currently at work on a sequel to Bravo Two Sierra, entitled CODE ALPHA. In addition, I have several other stories and screenplays that I am working on.
