This Green Hell - [Alex Hunter 03]

by Greig Beck

  The village fire was relit and flaming torches spread out quickly through the jungle, looking like flaming birds as they darted from tree to ground to fern and then flew on again.

  Father Castillo saw the medicine man, Nezu, standing in the clearing. His was the only face that didn’t contain fear, anger or confusion; instead, he looked triumphant. It was clear he was blaming the Jesuits for the missing children. Castillo groaned as he noticed the harmless gourd in Nezu’s hand had been replaced by a war club — two feet of fire-hardened wood, sharpened on one side so it looked like a cross between an axe and a paddle.

  Castillo grabbed a torch and headed quickly for the church. Pushing open the large wooden doors, he crossed himself, then walked to the centre of the solid stone room. He felt an immediate sense of dread: Father González was gone.

  He held the torch higher and saw that the basement trapdoor was open. He crept lightly towards the black pit. Passing the altar, he snatched up the brass crucifix and clutched it to his chest as he stared down into the stygian darkness. A smell rose from the opening like nothing he had ever encountered before, ranging from sharply metallic to thickly corrupt. He shuddered and gripped the crucifix a little tighter.

  ‘Father González? Padre ... are you down there?’

  He crossed himself again, drew in a breath and straightened his back; he would be safe in the house of God. He leaned across and lit one of the lanterns beside the altar, then dropped his burning torch into the pit. Instead of the sound of it hitting dry packed earth at the base of the steps as he expected, it splashed thickly, as though falling into mud, then fizzled and went out.

  ‘Mierda !’ He cursed, then quickly crossed himself for profaning in a house of God.

  ‘Father González, are you hurt?’

  He paused for a few seconds, looking up towards the altar and the face of the Saviour carved above it. He knew he didn’t have a choice.

  He licked his lips and spoke softly into the mephitic darkness. ’I’m coming down, padre!

  Father Castillo descended the rough stone steps on stiff legs, concentrating on his foot placement and breathing through his mouth so he wouldn’t have to taste the fetid air. It was a difficult descent as he refused to relinquish his grasp on the items he carried: in one hand he held up the brass crucifix; in the other, a shaking lantern, grasped so tightly his knuckles stood out like white knobs. He prayed softly, his lips moving rapidly with the words and also because of the trembling of his chin.

  His first foot left the steps and he felt himself sink into a soft rubbery wetness that slid from under his feet and oozed up between his toes. He lowered the lantern and looked down; a sob escaped his lips as he beheld the ruination beneath him. He had stepped into a pile of ropy tendons, fat, tissue and fragments of bone.

  He put the hand holding the crucifix across his mouth to stifle any sound, but still a combination of strangled gurgle and execration leaked out. He had found the missing children - or what was left of them. He was in a charnel house of humanity: all around him were strewn arms, legs, bodies with their skin rent from their bones, chewed or drained and discarded like leftovers from some mad demon’s banquet.

  Among the mutilation, a small lifeless face stood out, its beautiful dark brown eyes still open - little jewels that had flashed with such gaiety and mischief when the child had given him the flower. That moment seemed a lifetime ago.

  Above the sound of his frantically beating heart, Father Castillo heard a vile sucking coming from a darkened corner. He lifted the lantern. ‘Ay, Dios mio, Dios mio.’ Bile rose in his mouth and he fell to his knees, holding the cross to his forehead as he prayed with lips cold and wet from fear and the tears that streamed down his face.

  A darker shadow loomed over him and he crushed his eyes shut as the crucifix was torn roughly from his fingers. In his head came a voice he recognised: We need you. He opened his eyes one last time and couldn’t hold back the shriek that burst from his lungs to bounce around the small stone-lined basement.

  There was a deep grunt, the sound of something moist being roughly torn, and silence for a few seconds — then the vile sucking began again.

  * * * *

  TWO

  Mining Base Camp, Paraguayan Northern Jungle; Present Day

  A

  imee Weir squinted up at the supply helicopters buzzing through the air like prehistoric dragonflies. From her pocket she pulled a damp handkerchief and used it to mop her brow and cheeks, wincing as the material passed over the rash of red lumps dotting her skin. The gallons of bug repellent that needed to be applied twenty-four hours a day were playing hell with her complexion. Great choice, she thought, either I get little itchy lumps from the poison I’m covering myself in, or Heave off the bug spray and get eaten alive resulting in big itchy lumps. Welcome to tropical paradise.

  Truth was, she had lotion to apply to the rash, but couldn’t be bothered. Besides, who cared how she looked down here. She blew strands of her dark hair out of her blue eyes and leaned back against the doorframe. The distant clank and whirr of the drilling machinery had fallen quiet days ago, to be replaced by the living buzz and thrum of the jungle. Drilling had been shut down for forty-eight hours now, with the men refusing to travel out to the drill site because of the bandits that had been raiding the platform. At first, they had just stolen equipment, but then several workers had been shot and one killed. And just last week, explosives had been discovered on the rig itself.

  But now the US cavalry had arrived: six Green Berets, each man twice as big as the local Paraguayans. They were preparing to leave the camp for the drill site, and Aimee watched them as they got their gear together. Each man wore black and green camouflage fatigues and a green flat cap pulled down on his head. The soldier leading them out had removed the sleeves from his uniform — either due to the heat, or to give an enormous pair of biceps more room to move. Aimee noticed a blue crucifix tattooed on one upper arm and a grinning devil’s head on the other. Covering all bases, she thought.

  Bringing up the rear was their fireteam’s leader, Captain Michaels. He turned and gave her a thumbs-up. He had short dark hair and an easy smile, and, for a brief moment, in the right light, he reminded her of someone.

  She kept her gaze flat and uninterested. Out of the side of her mouth she blew more hair up out of her eyes and ignored him, and he gave up with a shrug and turned back to his comrades. Aimee shook her head as if to clear away an annoying irritation; no more army guys for me, she thought.

  * * * *

  ‘But why do I need to be down here?’

  Aimee had the phone wedged between her shoulder and ear as she talked to Alfred Beadman, the elderly chairman of the company she worked for.

  While she listened to his response, she picked up mud-stained pieces of clothing, rolled them into a ball and flung them into the corner of the small pre-built cabin, pulling a face at their dampness and smell. She hmm-hmmd every now and then, nodding as she listened to the avuncular chairman’s words before cutting him off when she caught sight of movement below one of her particularly soiled T-shirts.

  ‘Hang on, Alfred.’

  She put the phone on speaker and placed it down on the small folding table, then lifted the T-shirt with the toe of her boot and bent to pick up an ugly brown bug the size of a matchbox that lurked underneath. It hissed and vibrated its abdomen as she held it between thumb and forefinger and she curled her lip in disgust as she opened the door and flung the heavy insect outside. She stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry as it opened large translucent wings and fluttered away with a sound like a deck of cards being shuffled. She watched as it alighted on the trouser leg of one of the drill workers standing in the mud. Oops, Aimee mouthed and silently closed the door.

  ‘Aimee, are you there, my dear?’

  Alfred’s cultivated baritone sprang from the phone, sounding way too civilised in the hot cramped room in the middle of the Paraguayan jungle.

  ‘I’m back, Alfred. Just had to see
someone out...Yes, you’re right, the gas is in a very impure state and will need a lot of scrubbing, but I could have told them that from my lab at home if they’d just sent me a small sample.’

  Beadman sighed with good humour. ‘My dear, your petro-biological arm of the company leads the field internationally. You came highly recommended to the Paraguayan energy minister and, well, who were we to refuse such an important request from a friendly neighbour? Believe me, America can do with all the friends it can get right now. You’re doing your country a great service, you know.’

  Aimee pulled a face. She picked up a bottle of water, sipped and swallowed, and was about to respond when Alfred continued.

  ‘You know it’s exactly what you’ve been waiting for: a young gas — there could be viable bacterial DNA — it could be the key to your synthesis tests. A sample might have decomposed in transit. Much better to get it fresh, as it were.’

  Aimee expelled a long breath and dropped into the clothing-covered chair beside the small table. Alfred was right. Most gases were created over millions to hundreds of millions of years, but this deposit was young and very dirty - it was perfect. It contained everything: mercury, butane, ground water and all sorts of other base impurities, which meant it wasn’t yet fully cooked. There could still be evidence of bacterial methanogenesis occurring - her holy grail for energy synthesis. Carbon-hungry bacteria in the rock digested the trace hydrocarbons, leaving behind pockets of natural gases. She had worked for years with older samples from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Antrim shale deposit in Michigan, but these had been mature samples. The bacteria had long degraded down to nothing more than gases themselves. For years, her company had proposed the idea that if they could extract viable DNA from these specialised bacteria they could actually bioengineer them to digest polymers and return clean natural gas. In effect, it would be possible to create a cheap fuel source from waste plastics. All she needed were some deep-rock samples from the gas pocket with living bacteria, or at least with identifiable DNA strands. So far, no one had ever found any living microorganisms or even any complete DNA strands — the methanogenesis process was still a mystery.

  Aimee sighed and rubbed softly at a smudge on the table with her thumb. They had almost broken through into the subsurface chamber when the drill site had been closed down; and it still hadn’t reopened, even though it had been a week now since the Green Berets had headed off into the jungle to see off the bandits.

  She stopped rubbing as she felt a tickling vibration run from the soles of her boots to her stomach. Aimee shook her head and got to her feet — another small tremor. More drilling complications she needed to worry about.

  She kept the phone on speaker and carried it with her to the door. As she opened it, a thick wave of air that smelled like decomposing flowers washed into the cabin. She wrinkled her nose; it had rained again last night and the red mud throughout the camp was ankle deep in some places. A warm mist hung over the ground and everything that wriggled, jumped or crawled was heading towards the gathering of humans for a free meal. Aimee took a long swill of water, then pursed her lips and directed the stream at a small red and black snake that was slithering towards her across the muddy ground. It changed course under the bombardment and headed back towards the dense green jungle.

  ‘Aimee, I understand the drill site is not yet open and you’re all still confined to the camp. Am I correct?’

  Alfred’s tone suggested that he already knew the answer.

  ‘Yep, Camp Boggy’s still home. By the way, did you know it’s the start of the rainy season down here? Or that we seem to be having ground tremors daily? Alfred, I knew the Nazca Plate was close, but never thought its movement might actually affect us. A week ago there was a 5.2 shock in Chile, and it broke a shitload of stuff even over here - we get one like that just a little bigger or closer, and the gas bed will be gone for good . . . So, hot, wet and shaky; you should really come for a visit, Alfred, you’d love it.’ Aimee paced in a small circle, before turning to stare back out the open doorway. ‘And no, before you ask, I don’t know where the GBs are — still out playing soldiers in the jungle, I guess.’

  They ended the call but, despite Aimee’s light tone, she was concerned. She knew a little about Green Berets and they shouldn’t have had any trouble with a few South American mercenaries, no matter how well armed.

  * * * *

  Aimee’s camp was over a mile from the drilling site, and, like the drill-rig infrastructure, the pre-built cabins and tents, equipment and nearly one hundred men had all been choppered in. It was a large upfront investment but it cut set-up time by seventy-five per cent and also ensured there were no roads left behind to be reused by loggers or settlers. This way, when they finished, all that remained was a small scar and a pristine jungle — much better for public relations.

  Aimee squelched across the muddy camp to the manager’s hut. The groups of men standing around stopped talking to watch her pass. Most of the workers had come from a scattering of local villages, with the mining and engineering specialists from the capital, Asunción.

  She spotted Francisco Herrera, the camp doctor, and waved — he returned the salutation, looking impeccable in a linen suit and manicured silver goatee. She smiled back and stepped around another group of idle men. When the drilling stopped, the men got bored. The clearing for the camp wasn’t huge for the number of men on site, and was only slightly larger than half a dozen football fields. Its size, combined with the period between nightly rains becoming shorter, meant the time spent out in the open was shrinking. Beyond the camp, a hundred foot wall of the almost impenetrable jungle presented little alternative to days spent watching the sporting channels on satellite television, smoking cigarettes that smelled like burning underwear, or playing a card game whose rules, so it seemed to Aimee, appeared to change at every single hand. Some of the men had resisted the enforced idleness by hunting for fresh meat for their barbacoa. Now, none even bothered with that; it seemed all the animals had disappeared.

  Aimee joined Alfraedo Desouza, the mining manager, and Francisco, for a satellite link-up with the Paraguayan government officials who had recommended the shutdown. They needed to discuss the impact of the delays and the potential risks of restarting the rigs.

  The city bureaucrats were sympathetic at first, acknowledging that the mining company was spending millions of dollars on ‘sit-down money’, but it soon became clear that they had little intention of cooperating. They were co-funders of the venture and subject to public scrutiny, they said; they felt their hands were tied. At least until they had proof that their investment was safe and the bandits were out of the area.

  Aimee could understand their position, but she was also bored and homesick. The sooner she could get a sample of deep rock and help the engineers clean up and compress their gas, the sooner she’d be going home. Besides, with a bunch of Green Berets patrolling the jungle, she figured they were safe. She decided to create a little political competitive tension over the satellite link . . .just to move things along.

  ‘What concerns me is that your neighbouring states know of your gas discovery,’ she said with a sigh. ‘The stratigraphic imaging of the vast underground chamber showed it resided completely on Paraguayan territory. However, its northern-most chamber is very close to the Bolivian border.’ She let the information hang for a moment in the air. ’Gentlemen, are you aware of the advancements in directional slant drilling? An amazing technique — it is now possible to drill for many miles at angles of up to ninety degrees. Be a real shame if you found your energy source of the future was being bled away from across the border while we sat on our hands down here.’

  She grinned at Francisco, who nodded and raised his silver eyebrows at her. There was a muffled discussion on the other end of the phone, then Alfraedo cleared his throat.

  ‘Señors, there have been no attacks for days, no sign of any bandit activity in the area, and we have a team of American Green Berets patrolling the ju
ngle. I think to wait any longer brings a risk of losing more than we gain. Don’t you agree?’

  He sat back and folded his hands across his enormous belly. The unanimous decision to restart drilling was made within another three minutes.

  * * * *

  Aimee pulled on a pair of khaki pants, still stiff with traces of red mud up to the thighs, and tucked a grey T-shirt into them. Thick socks and damp work boots were next, the boots lacing over the pants and halfway up her calves to seal her off from anything that decided to hitch a ride. Last to go on was a belt with a black holster. Their small security contingent had machetes for the jungle, but only Alfraedo, Francisco and Aimee had sidearms. Aimee hoped Alfraedo never needed to reach for his in a hurry as it was almost fully obscured by the paunch that hung over it. For that matter she hoped he never had to reach for anything down there in a hurry. Errk, she thought briefly.