Cast of Book Characters:  The Zone

The Book Character page is dedicated to bringing alive the cast and crew of the crime novel “The Zone”.  It’s a chance to get up close and understand how this team of passionate and dedicated people came together.  Its purpose – to give a deeper meaning to the book when you read it.

Johan van der Zyl was the youngest Captain in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy.  This was at a time when Great Britain needed it most.  The German U-boats were threatening the existence of the British people by cutting their sea lines to the world for the things they most needed to survive, not to mention allowing them to continue the war against Hitler’s aggressive might single-handedly.

Johan had some fantastic god-given abilities.  At a glance, he could determine the speed and location of a ship by its velocity. It was with this knowledge he could accurately determine where the U-boats would meet and form their pack before their assault on the slow-moving convoy ships.

Initial progress was sluggish, but his Senior Officer had taken an interest in what Johan had to say; seeing that no one else had any better ideas.  Johan secured the Admiral’s approval for two extra destroyers to join him, enabling him to plot the meeting point of the U-boat pack.  They had come in at night and found five U-boats on the surface. The Germans were so confident that they didn’t bother posting lookouts, convinced that the warships would be, as usual, guarding the convoy.

Emerging from the misty, cold rain at high speed, the destroyers swiftly deployed their torpedoes into the U-boats.  Now it was the U-boats turn to be easy prey. They were all sunk within a short span of time. The convoy they intended to assault passed through unscathed, a tremendous relief for Britain, given the critical necessity of the supplies it carried.

The Admiralty recognized the urgency of the situation; it was no longer a time for ordinary protocols but for desperate measures. Johan’s promotion over many other Carrier Officers was a testament to this urgency, though it stirred resentment among them. Being Dutch, he was deemed inferior in the eyes of the British, compounded by his young age, earning him the disdain of his peers, who saw him as nothing more than a mere youth promoted to Commander at the age of twenty.

When the Prime Minister got wind of this, the phone lines at the Admiralty were ablaze with activity.  “I couldn’t care less about Naval Protocols,” declared the Prime Minister. “Promote him to Captain and assign him a squadron of eight destroyers. Set him loose to hunt U-boats.”  However, some of the more experienced Captains were hesitant, refusing to obey Johan’s orders.  Upon learning of the situation, the Admiralty swiftly reassigned those Captains to desk duty in a Whitehall office.

Johan continually devised innovative methods to damage and incapacitate the U-boats, making the damaged ones easy targets on the surface, ultimately leading to their sinking.

Following the war, Johan returned to Holland only to discover that he was persona non grata; far from being hailed as a hero, he found himself despised and targeted by officers from both the Royal and Dutch Navies.

The sole employment opportunity available to him was a position as a deckhand on one of his Uncle’s fishing boats. However, his fortunes changed when Peter Gabriel, well-acquainted with Johan’s capabilities, intervened and enlisted him into his organization, reinstating Johan as an active combat Naval Captain once again.

Phillipe grew up in the mountain jungles of Columbia, his family was not involved in the growing of drugs and his father was always walking the fine line with the Cartels, telling them that people also needed coffee and tea. It was these commodities that his family grew on their farm.

He had found pleasure in pitting himself against the environment chasing game and hunting with a spear and bow and arrows. His body developed immense strength without bulking up as one did by pumping iron in a gym.

He could sprint up hills and down into the canyons for hours, jumping from boulders to rocks with incredible speed and stealth. At other times he could silently disappear into the jungle and using pure stealth alone hunt his prey, killing them without them ever knowing they were being hunted.

One day after killing a good-sized deer he got home to find the family in complete distress. The Cartel had come past the farm and kidnapped his two sisters who were fifteen and thirteen years old. When his Grandfather tried to intervene, he was murdered in a painful and heinous manner.

Before the family knew it, Phillipe had disappeared into the jungle. There were eight of the Cartel gangsters, and their trail was not difficult for Phillipe to pick up and follow. He caught up with them a little after midnight at a place where they had made camp. The two girls were tied back-to-back with their hands fastened behind them. One man was kneeling in front of the younger one, he had pulled up her dress and was trying to force his hand up between her legs. “We should just take these little flowers; they will not give us any more trouble when we show them who is the boss here”. He said.

“Sénior Louis will cut you up into little pieces while you are still alive if you molest these two, so keep your hands to yourself and go play with yourself if you must”. Said their leader.

By the time the sun had come up seven of the men were dead and the one who had molested his sister would never mess with anyone ever again. Every moment of his remaining life would be painful.

Phillipe got his sisters appropriately dressed and they took off into the jungle going deeper up into the mountains. He took them to his uncle’s farm, where they would be safe. His cousin, Marko Garcia, now joined him and they left to finish the job he had started.

Eleven weeks later the entire Cartel had been eliminated, including Sénior Louis, whose death was undignified; crying and begging. But now they were marked men and all of the Drug Lords were hunting them.

They headed to the USA to his father’s brother, Alejandro Sosa. They figured out that the safest place for them would be in the US military and so they joined. With their skilled talents, they soon found their way into the Navy Seals.

While on missions in the Middle East, they adopted disguises as Arabs, instilling fear among the Arab population. Later, they were stationed at Rammstein Airforce Base in Germany, known for its peaceful and unassuming reputation. However, trouble seemed to find them, and they administered their unique form of justice, often to the dismay of the aggressors.

Interpol swiftly launched an investigation into a series of killings that had occurred in Frankfurt, Germany. Peter Gabrial possessed crucial intelligence on the two suspects who were subsequently extracted and recruited into the Organization to serve under Skip’s command.

Allister was born and grew up in the harsh environment of the Orkney Islands in the far north of Scotland. The weather and the land were unforgiving, and young Allister had to learn how to overcome adversity at a young age. Additionally, his mother and father instilled in Allister what they perceived as rules for living. First: nothing is free; there is always a price for everything. Second: never become beholden to others; don’t accept charity; work for all you need. Third: everyone in the family had a job to do to survive, and Allister was no exception. He was part of the family and therefore had to contribute his share, which would grow larger as he became more capable.

One day, Allister had been playing around chasing fish in the shallow waters instead of doing his chores. That night, his bowl was empty, and there was no fire in his room. It had been a bitterly cold night. Allister did not question this; he knew he had not done his part for the family, and they were not going to do his work or allow him to live off their efforts.

When Allister was ten years old, his uncle died. The farm title and grant were in his uncle’s name, forcing the family to leave the land and move to Edinburgh. His father had once been in the army, which had always wanted him to return, and this is what he did. His father was posted to Beirut in Lebanon.

Allister attended school there with Arab children, learning the language fluently and understanding their ways of life and customs. He was hardworking but reclusive.

After his nineteenth birthday, Allister was shipped back to England, where he followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the army. Due to the escalating tensions in the Middle East and Allister’s particular skills, he was transferred to military intelligence. Allister worked for a few years as a data analyst, sifting through vast amounts of information and selecting valuable details from the majority of general traffic. Allister excelled at his job and soon found himself being trained as a secret agent. He was sent back to the Middle East, where he would disappear for months on end with no one knowing where he was or what he was doing.

Knowing the customs and habits of the Arabs, he was able to locate people who were operating in secret. A particular man, Ailed Agbar, became a focus of interest for Allister. Ailed was selling secrets to anyone for money and power. He also liked young women and girls, setting up several secret houses where he could indulge his desires.

Allister became aware that Ailed was using some girls and young women from lesser families. Once the families discovered the girls’ disgrace, they wanted to execute the offending girls, but Ailed would not permit this. He took the girls and told the families that they would be appropriately dealt with. This is how he set up his very secret house of ill repute. He began to invite some selective men of power for this special entertainment, gaining control over these men.

Two main things happened in quick succession. First, Ailed had a seventeen-year-old daughter, Arwa. Second, some high-ranking official had three hitmen spying on and tracking Ailed. Allister kidnapped Arwa and the two best-suited girls from Ailed’s pleasure house, hiding them away in an underground apartment where they would not be found. Ailed, his entire family, and all the remaining girls from his pleasure house were publicly executed.

Now Allister had access to all the men along with their data—men who had been treated in Ailed’s pleasure houses—and he was now receiving a lot of information which he passed on to Her Majesty’s Government. However, there were spies within the secret service, and Allister’s life was in real danger. Allister took Arwa, and the two of them slipped away on a small ship and out into the Mediterranean. Peter Gabriel, too, had spies everywhere and tracked Allister and Arwa’s escape. He had their ship stopped and boarded, taking both Allister and Arwa to Peter’s secure island in the Mediterranean. Arwa agreed to become Peter’s Arabic translator in the intelligence unit, while Allister underwent further training and became a team leader. Later, when Skip was selected to create The Zone, Allister was transferred to work under Skip.