A lot of young men getting out of high school, choose among three things. Work, college, and the service. Panic went to the service. When men get out of the service, most return to what they call the real world. A few though, seek employment working for companies that operate on government contracts. They're already used to the military, and the pay is much better.
The man known to his friends as Panic, had a unique set of qualifications. As a computer programmer and a HAM radio and electronics buff in the service that enjoyed working out, he was just the right fit for a position. High end computer programmers good with computerized radio communications equipment that can also pass the tough physical qualifications normally reserved for guys that jump out of perfectly good airplanes? Don't exactly grow on trees. His four years of Spanish in high school was another plus.
He became a combat support specialist for an off shore based private security contractor. The department of defense was the only client. Sent down near the equator to document rumors of human rights violations, his observation team documented the rumors.
He soon found himself doing the same job for other employees that worked for his corporation. By the time he finally came home to the real world? He'd spent several years in an all out guerrilla war nobody wanted to see on the news. He had also joined the ranks of the men that handle those situations.
When most men go through a mid life crisis, they buy a sports car or a motorcycle. But Panic never did live an ordinary life. It always stuck in his craw, that he wanted to get the guy responsible for all the mindless violence that changed him and his life forever. He almost had him when he was younger and was fresh home from his years he spent in what he called absolute hell on earth.
Because its one thing to use the phrase ethnic cleansing. Its another to see it up close and personal. The only way to put a stop to it? Is to speak the only language men like that understand. Already conversational in Spanish before he started out, he came home fluent in another language.
Violence.
You see, Panic is quad-lingual. English, Spanish, Violence... and he's also fluent in Karma.
So to assuage his own personal mid-life crisis? He decides to finally take a luxury vacation. Because he thinks he's just possibly figured out how to finally locate the infamous billionaire responsible for all the soul numbing violence he both experienced and fully participated in, when he was a younger man.
A man known to the world by his nickname.
The Devil.
What he finds though, isn't what he bargained for. Its a huge complicated mess. A billionaire's investment group, that thinks war is an economic tool. Governments that are doing things, that everyone thinks only other countries do. The international intelligence game, where anything goes and everything is a lie. Russian mobsters who just might be heroes, not villains.
Because Panic's already seen first hand around the South American equator, what happens when helpless innocent villagers live over top of resources the first world covets. Africa never was the quiet neighborhood, and the violence is ramping up there now. He knows only all too well what's coming. Because he's been there, he's done that, and he's got the T shirt.
There's a time to remain calm. There's a time to be concerned. But now? Its time for Panic.