Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

O. Lynn Justice was born the seventh of eight children to a farm family in Southern Indiana in 1942. He graduated from Indiana University in Economics, with a year of study abroad at the University of Puerto Rico. Soon after University, he became a Certified Instrument Pilot and continues to fly regularly. He married his childhood sweetheart, Bonita Hedrick, who has stuck with him through thick and thin. They have eight children and thirty two grandchildren and presently live in Guatemala, where they operate an American School. Lynn worked several years for a Texas chemical company, as point man in war torn Latin America. After leaving their employment, he started-up chemical companies in four countries and later worked nearly ten years for his Church as Director of Temporal Affairs in several countries in Latin America. His responsibilities included security and disaster issues, for which his flying skills were invaluable for dozens of rescue missions during disasters and wars, in inclement weather, and frequently under fire. His family has bugged him for years to write a book about their adventures. He says not yet! He feels that he has at least a couple of novels to do first. For now, instead of writing about his experiences, he prefers to draw upon them for his novels.

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PAYDAY

Trafford Publishing

Chapter One

As I remember, we arrived back in Guatemala City around 8 p.m. the night before, an hour later than scheduled. We had flown Delta from Cincinnati to Miami and then Eastern from Miami.

Linda and the seven youngest had left Guatemala the latter part of June to join our oldest daughter, Lynne in Utah. She had just completed her second year at Brigham Young University in Provo. I met the family in Utah in the middle of the second week of July and then all ten of us spent a week and a half visiting friends in Utah and Idaho before flying to the Cincinnati area to spend a like number of days visiting both sides of our families in the tri-state area of Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.

When I went to bed, I was so tired that I had planned on sleeping in Saturday morning, but I awoke as usual, a little after 5 a.m. Linda and the kids were still sound asleep. As a farm boy, I had grown accustomed to getting up early to take care of the milking and feeding of the animals before boarding the bus to school. Once gone from the farm, I continued the habit and found the early morning hours important for starting my day right. I could think more clearly and frequently find the solution to a problem that seemed unsolvable the day before. I would plan the day ahead, in the quiet that ceased once the family was up and moving.

The bathroom-closet off of the master bedroom was a unique arrangement for one's private needs. When you first went through the door, there was a semi-enclosed area for the bathroom with all the normal artifacts, including a marble-topped double sink. The tub-shower was anything but standard. It consisted of a sunken rectangular enclosure, made of poured concrete and painted with epoxy pool paint. It had two showerheads and ample room for two adults to submerse in the tub, or shower simultaneously. Down the hall beyond the tub, was the exercise-dressing room, with closets on three sides. The only exercise equipment was a weight machine, so there was plenty of floor space between the closets. The whole complex was in a large room with a high ceiling and ample light and ventilation.

I usually took my shower after jogging, but I decided that I needed a 'waker-upper' that morning, so I jumped in for a quick shower. After the refreshing shower, I dressed in my running suit, but carried my shoes, as I exited quietly through the bedroom into the outer hall.

I headed to the kitchen to prepare my morning cup of mate. I was really looking forward to it, since I had been unable to drink any on Friday due to the full day of travel. I filled the teakettle and started the water to heating. Then I pulled down the plastic container where I kept my mate and filled the mate cup. I had several mate cups, but my favorite was made of vitrified bone-like material.

I hopped up to sit on the counter while my water heated. After being in several large country kitchens during the vacation, I looked around our kitchen and it occurred to me how small our kitchen was. Even after having moved the washer and drier to the outside patio, and putting additional counter in their place, the kitchen was incredibly small for a 4,000 square foot home. It barely met Linda's requirements. Our kitchen like many in Central America were designed for maids, not for the lady of the house.

I picked some flakes of mate off of the counter and dropped them on my tongue. It numbed my tongue a little and I spit it out. Mate is a strong herbal tea, grown mainly in one province in Argentina. The Argentine and Uruguayan gauchos discovered mate, while tending sheep and cattle out it in the Pampas. Mate is a ten-foot tall plant that grows naturally in a small area bordering both countries. The manner of preparing and drinking the tea was still being done in pretty much the same way that the early gauchos did it. They cut up and dried the entire plant, leaves and stems. The resulting dry powder and twigs were placed in a gourd cup, and then wet down with warm water. A few minutes after the first dose of water had soaked in, the tea was ready to be savored. Instead of brewing the tea and straining out the leaves or powder, one strained it while drinking by means of a metal straw with a strainer on the lower end. The gauchos would pour hot water from a thermal container over mate and then sip the tea through the metal strainer-straw while watching over their herds. They learned to drink it with their hard bread, wild berries, jerky and an occasional piece of fresh meat. Sugar was not readily available, so they learned to drink it un-sugared.

I didn't care much for mate the first times I tried it in Argentina. It has a strong flavor and I was used to sweeter drinks. I learned to drink it during a business trip through the Entre Rios Province of Argentina and the interior of Uruguay. A work companion and I were calling on paper mills, sugar companies and similar large industry. We got up early and drove late each day for a week. Frequently during that week the only breakfast we could find was a piece or two of bread. I started out eating bread and drinking water, but soon accepted my companion's offer to share his mate. After a week of sharing, I was hooked. I returned home with a supply of mate and the proper utensils. Years later I read that mate had all kinds of medicinal and health properties, but I figure I drank it for the same reason the Gauchos did. I liked it.

After the water came to a boil, I prepared my mate and carried it to my desk in the library. Let me clarify, the desk wasn't really mine. Every member of the family affectionately called it dad's desk, but that was just for name's sake. I never sat down to it without having to clear a spot to work. With eight children, I was lucky to reserve our bathroom. It was the family desk. In fact everything outside our bedroom was family owned and operated. It was mine that morning, because I was the first one up to claim it. The house was in the back half of a twelve hundred meter lot. The Library was located in the Southeast corner on the second floor. The bookshelves lined two and a half walls. On half of the East wall there was a built in cabinet, which included hook-up for sound equipment. The rest of the room was window. Windows took up half of the room on the East and half on the South. The desk was in that corner, facing the door. From the chair I could look to the right and view East over the front lawn to the mountains. The South window was good for light, but not a great view, since it happened to look into the neighbor's back lawn and some two-story homes beyond that. As I sat down the Sun was just peaking over the mountains. I just sat for a couple of minutes and watched the sun eat up the shadow in the valley. It was a beautiful sight, but so bright that I knew I would have to drop the blinds in order to work.

I dropped the blinds, and then sat down to start sorting through a sizable stack of correspondence and to organize myself for a meeting on Monday with the local representative of my new employer. Yaneth, my secretary, had put them in touch with me while we were in Indiana. I was glad to have something big on the burner. The regular security services we offered provided a nice income, but it took special contracts to pay for our accustomed life style. The summer vacation had caused...