Sedona AZ (October 1, 2014) – The following has been taken from Collins Rhōg’s private journal, and reproduced exactly as it was written, by his own hand. The date has been omitted, at his request, but Collins view is always captivatingly honest, full of depth and color, heart and perseverance in times of struggle. Collins spills his soul and captures his feelings with vivid imagery and heart felt emotion that oozes from the pages of this historic text.

The following is but a portholes view, from across the room of “The Life and Times of Collins Rhōg“:

– Cambire, The Story Begins – 

It was a hot, muggy night and I’d been driving hard for well over ten hours. The drone of the old Toyota Land Cruiser’s engine was so loud that I no longer noticed it while gripping the steering wheel which constantly pulled to the left and shimmied over every bump in the road. I was bloody miserable, soaked to the bone in sweat, my armpits were practically foaming. I could barely stand the smell of my own body odor.

Driving, I tried to go over the job in my head but I was too damn strung out from the road and kept fumbling over my thoughts. I mindlessly punched through the afternoon’s high temperature, chasing down mirages that danced within the heat waves reflected off the road.

The package was a mystery, not uncommon. The money I needed, not uncommon. My heart started aching with tension half an hour prior – the acute pain in the middle of my chest felt as if I was going to have a heart attack at any moment. I was concerned, knowing that the stress was going to get much worse when I reached the U.S. border.

I was bombing down from British Columbia, Canada, and wished to God I would have been punching up from Mexico where the borders are far more lax. Once at the Vehicle Check Point, I would be thoroughly scrutinized by the guards, even my actions leading up to and exiting the VCP would be monitored.

“God my heart hurts,” I said aloud over the howl of the Toyota’s engine. I had been through this country before, though it had been years prior when the Check Point was little more than a man in a phone booth. Through the windscreen, I could see a bright spot in the night glow, roughly ten miles away.

“So much for the phone booth,” I muttered.

It was now 0155 hours and I was more or less on schedule, having no plan to cross at this time of the morning. I knew daylight lessens suspicions and would help me slip through the border unnoticed.

“I can hide in daylight,” I said softly while going over the crossing in my mind. My plan was to find the lying up point and cross the border in early afternoon, giving me time to size things up in the morning.

I had reviewed and stored to memory several topographical maps as well as some satellite imagery of the area, so I had a good knowledge of what lay around me. I pulled the truck off the highway and onto a dirt road that disappeared into the lush forest. I needed to find my lay up point and wait until morning.

Roughly two miles up the road there was an obscure side road which hadn’t been driven on in months, if not years, and resembled a trail more than a road.

“There’s my spot.” The Cruiser slowly lumbered down the steep grade which peeled off to the right of the main service road. I could hear miscellaneous contents moving about in the back seat as we bounced and swayed our way down the road. After roughly 500 yards, the overgrown vegetation fully engulfed the Toyota.

There’s always concern when establishing a LUP at night that the surroundings will appear completely different when exposed to daylight. I pushed her through another 300 yards to be sure I was hidden. Checking the watch on my right wrist as I simultaneously turned off the ignition, exactly 0205 hours, the 4.7L diesel became still. I would remain here until 1200 hours, then make way for the border crossing.

The road I was parked on was extremely overgrown, well on its way to being reclaimed by the forest. The information provided by my contractor assured me that there would be no AWACS fly-overs tonight. I would stick out like a light in the darkness if an AWACS were to hit the area with infrared thermal imaging, but that wasn’t going to happen. I knew that there wouldn’t be another person within miles, so I felt safe.

Turning off the lights, I sat there for roughly a minute, just staring out the windscreen into the night. Glancing up slightly, I noticed a red glow and simultaneously felt a tremendous spike of adrenalin race through my core as my senses snapped to attention.

My eyes instantly turned to the rear view mirror awash in bright red light, imaging the dense forest growth cloaking the Land Cruiser.

“Bloody Hell!” I took my foot off the brake, and the red illumination of my nest evaporated into the stillness.

Silence and darkness lured me away as I sat motionless in the woods. My skull throbbed and my ears rang from the engine and road noise of the long days travel. The deafening silence was sporadically interrupted by the ticking of the engine as it cooled down in the night air. Sitting there with my clothes stuck to my body, I realized again just how bloody grungy and uncomfortable I was. But I was too beat to clean up.

I zoned out and let my mind drift away, leaned my head back against the headrest and tried to ignore the pounding in my head and ringing in my ears. Closing my eyes, I thought about the events that had led up to this point.

I remember alertly sitting at the back of the bus knowing that, once again, I had made it into the country and that no one was any wiser. Looking out the bus window, I could see the dark mountains opening wide, allowing the bus to lumber its way up the pass. The driver struggled with a downshift as the engine groaned and the transmission growled defiantly at his efforts. Looking ahead, from the rear of the bus, reminded me of staring through an empty paper towel roll. I could see the rows of seats holding the passengers, all drones, blankly staring through their own paper rolls. Dimly lit heads filled up my foreground this side of the split windshield which played like a movie before me. I couldn’t see the road from my rear seat, but I could see the cliffs which bore the vertical drill marks, remnants of the holes once filled with an explosive slurry. I wondered how many other smugglers viewed the same cliffs with the same eager nervousness I was feeling.

I was born Collins Nicholas Rhōg on February 4, 1971. I was raised in London. My father, a factory worker, did his best to provide for my younger brother Winston and myself. My Mother had abandoned the family just after Winston was born, we never heard from her again and she became of no importance to us. Life with Dad was good, we got along alright, money was always tight but we never went to bed hungry. At the age of 18, I enlisted in the British army.

Army life suited me well, I excelled in every aspect of training and soon worked my way into the S.A.S. where I saw much action worldwide and became a killer of man. I stayed with the SAS until 2001. I was 30 years old at the time, and decided a change was needed. Not appreciating what I had with the SAS, I opted to decline reenlistment and became a civilian for the first time in my adult life.

Civilian life was foreign to me, awkward and unfulfilled. I couldn’t find a job that kept my interest and it didn’t help that I had no desire to run in the rat race. I dated a bit, but I wasn’t looking for a serious relationship so I never got attached to a bird. Several months went by and I still hadn’t landed a job. My savings were dwindling and I began to feel lost, thinking I had made a mistake leaving the SAS.

I decided to take a vacation and went to the States. That’s where I met Reegan, at a dance club in Seattle. She was an ex-motorcycle racer from Canada, we fell in love, and decided to trek off together in search of adventure. We spent the next two years exploring Africa in an old Land Rover Defender 110.

But Reegan couldn’t handle the emotional baggage that kept my heart protected. It was right after she had broken up with me that I went to France and joined the Foreign Legion. My SAS training was a nice feather in my cap and I soon climbed the ranks within the Legion where, once again, I became a killer.

The Legion served me well, but after four years I had grown tired of it. In the Spring of 2009 and at the age of 38, I once again decided to become a civilian and once again found myself struggling to adapt to civilian life. I found that I still couldn’t hold down a job, I still couldn’t focus, I still couldn’t function and I had absolutely no light at the end of my tunnel.

“What the Hell am I going to do with my life?” The question haunted me, it haunted me to the bone.

When I went out, I saw everyone around me with a purpose. It seemed that everyone had a belonging, a place of their own within the cogs of the civilian life machine. What did I have? I had a no longer existent military career during which hundreds of thousands of pounds and franks had been spent to provide me tactical expertise worth bloody hell in the civilian world. Sure I could have gone back to the Legion, but my body was getting tired and I was still pissed off at the bloody French government that had waited until my discharge to collect its taxes on my entire pay during enlistment. The little bit I had managed to save up was all but exhausted the day I left the Legion, the same day I settled up with France.

I thought about cashing it in at times, just little impulses, not that I would ever go out that way, suicide’s not my style. But I was numb to the world, depression overtook my heart. I was entirely immersed in the doldrums.

Then it happened. One day I met a bloke named Tristan at a pub. He started shooting the bull with me and we got to know each other a bit. Over the following weeks we developed a friendship, meeting at the Pub regularly. I told Tristan about my past, growing up in London, life in the SAS, the Legion, the works. He told me of his life in the business world, but more on the shady side of things. Turned out Tristan was connected, a real Mob man.

“We can use someone with your talents,”  Tristan told me one night, while massaging his half empty pint glass. “We’ve checked you out and would like to extend you an invitation into our organization.” He held out a plain manilla envelope.

“A sign on bonus. Meet me tomorrow, five o’clock at Lazar’s Bakery,”  Tristan threw back what was left of his pint, then set the glass on the bar top with a thunk. He got up, patted me on the back.

“Don’t be late, mate.”  He turned and left.

I opened the envelope to find 25,000 pounds and my life turned the pages into a new chapter…

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