The temptation to throw it was almost irresistible, but such violent motion might well set it off. Breathing deeply he started walking towards the trees. The tick seemed to be growing louder by the moment, but he knew that was just a trick of the mind. Some twenty metres into the shelter of the trees he stopped and lowered the bomb gently to the ground behind a large trunk. And then, finally giving way to normal human fear, he ran like the blazes back the way he had come.
‘The second bomb has been removed,’ Wynwood was saying into his mike. ‘Brilliant,’ he told the Dame. ‘I …’
The bomb exploded before he could finish the sentence, leaving an impression of bars across purple light on the retina, the sound of trees collapsing into one another, and a blazing fire in the overhead foliage.
‘That was the second bomb,’ Wynwood told Bannister via the helmet. ‘No one was hurt.’
‘Shee-it,’ one of the American crew said under his breath.
The Dame looked at the burning trees, and said nothing.
Eddie and Anderson were coming back from their examination of the first chopper’s remains. ‘Both pilots are dead,’ Anderson confirmed.
The two Americans seemed to wake up to the fact that the bodies had not been brought down. ‘Hey, we can’t leave them here,’ the senior man said aggressively.
‘Were they friends?’ Anderson asked.
‘That’s not what I’m saying …’
‘It would take all night and most of the day to find all the pieces,’ Anderson said.
‘The bombs were under the cockpit,’ the Dame added.
‘But …’
‘How many men can you carry?’ Wynwood interrupted.
The pilot gulped and took a second to compose himself. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘sorry. These birds can take two crew plus eleven fully loaded troops.’
‘How many without loads?’
‘The official weight limit is 1200 kilos, so sixteen, maybe even seventeen …’ He shrugged. ‘With the external tanks fitted we can’t afford to push it. The fuel situation’s tight enough as it is …’
‘Twenty-one’s out of the question?’
The pilot looked at him. ‘I’d love to. But no way. Even if we got the damn thing over the mountains, we’d never make the border.’
It was what Wynwood had expected. He turned to Anderson. ‘I think you and Muñoz should go with the guys who just came in. The four of us got here without any help. We can get out the same way.’
‘Forget it,’ Anderson said. ‘I’m not getting on that helicopter with fifteen overfed gorillas from C Squadron. If they don’t bring the thing down they’ll fart each other to death in the confined space. I’m coming with you.’
‘Andy, we’re here to rescue you. Maggie’s orders.’
‘Tough. I know this country, Joss. Fifteen will have a better chance than sixteen in the chopper, and five of us will have a better chance than four on the ground. Especially if I’m one of the five. OK?’
Wynwood sighed. ‘OK, but Bannister will have to go along.’
‘Let’s just tell him.’
‘Lack of rank has its privileges?’
‘Something like that.’
‘You two’d like to see some more of Colombia, wouldn’t you?’ Wynwood asked Eddie and the Dame.
‘Sure,’ the Dame said casually.
‘I was wondering how I was going to tear myself away,’ Eddie said. ‘Here come the unlucky ones.’
The fifteen men of C Squadron’s Air Troop were filing into the clearing behind Chris. Wynwood waited for Bannister, then took him aside and explained the situation. ‘Haven’t you contacted Belize?’ the Captain wanted to know.
‘What for? We’re in the best position to make the judgements that need making.’ It was a typical SAS answer – rank was all very well in its place, but it should not be allowed to get in the way of correct decisions. ‘And there’s no time for fucking around,’ Wynwood added, pushing his advantage. ‘They’ll have seen the fireball down in the valley, there’s less than two hours till dawn, and Christ knows who or what’s been alerted. Just take Muñoz and your lads and get the fuck out of here. Personally,’ he added with a grim smile, ‘I’d rather take my chances with the Amarales than have to tell the Yanks two of their pilots have been spread all over the landscape.’
‘It’s their security that was blown … but yeah, OK, it makes sense … Do you want anything left.’
‘You’ll have to leave it all behind anyway for weight reasons. We’ll take what we need. Let’s go.’
Bannister went off to organize his troops. Wynwood sent Eddie and Chris back down the path to keep a lookout for possible pursuit, and set the Dame to work putting together the travelling kits they had not been expecting to need. Anderson went to explain the situation to Muñoz, who had sat out the entire episode of the bomb in a kind of suspended disbelief on a rock at the edge of the landing zone.
Leaving the Colombian with the American pilot, Anderson rejoined Wynwood over a map. ‘Which way?’ he asked.
‘Good question. I’m not even sure it matters. As long as we can put a decent distance between ourselves and here tonight, we can get the Yanks to pick us up tomorrow night.’
Anderson laughed. ‘You reckon? I wouldn’t like to count on it. Do you think the Americans are going to send another helicopter just like that? I mean, how are they going to explain the loss of this one? They can hardly deny it was in Colombian airspace illegally – not with the pieces all over a Colombian mountain.’
‘What are you saying?’ Wynwood wanted to know.
‘That we may well be on our own. That we have to assume we are. That we have to get the hell out of this country without any help. That it matters which way we walk.’
Wynwood grunted his assent. ‘So which way?’ he wanted to know.
‘From here? Over the mountains to San Agustin.’
‘Why not head for the coast?’ Wynwood wanted to know. He wondered if Bobbie would still be in San Agustin.
‘Because, like they say in the best movies – that’s the way they’ll expect us to go.’
‘If they think we’re still here.’
‘We have to assume they can recognize a disaster when they see one.’
‘Yeah, all right …’
‘And San Agustin is in a different province – the local law and order may not be so hostile. There’s lots of tourists, which means that there’s less chance of being noticed. And there’ll be lots of buses to Bogotá. Everything’ll be hunky-dory.’
‘Right,’ Wynwood agreed sardonically, looking at the map. ‘And how far is it to this place of sanctuary?’
‘Only a hundred and thirty kilometres or so.’
‘Across a 6000-metre mountain range!’
‘It’s just two long walks across the Brecon Beacons in a row.’
‘Jesus!’
Barney Davies was picking up the phone before the first ring had died away.
‘Boss?’ Kilcline asked.
The intonation of the voice instantly told Davies it was bad news. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
‘One of the helicopters exploded at the landing zone. It was sabotaged. They both were – but they managed to disarm the bomb on the other one.’
‘Casualties?’
‘Just the pilot and co-pilot. Dead. But they had to leave the surveillance team behind. And all their equipment.’
The unwelcome thought crossed Davies’s mind that British forces these days were in no financial position to leave their equipment behind.
‘Anderson insisted on staying with the surveillance team,’ Kilcline was saying.
‘Christ, what for?’ Davies asked, suspecting personal heroics.
‘It was either him or someone else. He knows the country, he knows Wynwood.’
Davies offered Anderson a silent apology. ‘But we got Muñoz out?’
‘Yes, we’ve done our bit for Colombian democracy.’
Well, at least it had not been a complete
waste of time. ‘And we’ve got five men on the ground in Colombia.’
‘They got themselves there. Who says they can’t get themselves back? I wouldn’t bet against Joss Wynwood walking to Panama.’
‘Yeah. What about the Americans?’
‘I think you’ll have to take that up with the Prime Minister.’
‘Oh Christ,’ Davies said. ‘I’d forgotten about her.’
* * *
An hour after dawn an Amarales helicopter arrived from one of their laboratory complexes on the Amazonian slopes of the Andes. Meeting it on the helipad, Chirlo and Carlos Fernández joined the pilot and his Indian passenger in the cockpit.
‘Up the mountain,’ Chirlo told the pilot, pointing towards the slope silhouetted against the early morning sky. ‘It’s not far. Carlos here will tell you exactly where.’
The sicario directed the pilot to the clearing. They flew in past the slope bearing the remnants of the American helicopter and touched down in almost the same spot the other American had used the night before. Chirlo jumped out and prowled round the site. Everything was exactly as Fernández, the leader of the pre-dawn search party, had told him it was. Only one helicopter had landed here, and it was obviously not the one now scattered across the landscape. So two had come for the enemy, and only one had left. Unable to take all their equipment with them they had made a pile of it and then exploded some device to render it unusable.
Which left one important question unanswered: had there been room for all of the attackers in the one helicopter? A soldier usually weighs considerably more than his equipment, Chirlo told himself. It all depended on how much leeway they had given themselves.
He waited for the Indian, Manomi, to return with the answer, wondering what Ramón’s reaction would be to his sister’s death once the shock had worn off. Would he just want to wash his hands of the matter, see the loss of the hostages as a lost business opportunity, Victoria’s murder as just an unfortunate tragedy? Or would he want to fight back?
He stared at the panorama of mountains all around him, a feeling of great emptiness in his heart.
Twenty minutes later Manomi emerged from the trees and walked towards him, his face expressionless.
‘Well?’ Chirlo asked.
‘There are recent tracks heading up the mountain,’ the Indian said. ‘Boot tracks.’
‘How many?’
‘It is hard to say. Four or five, no more. They are either very big men or carrying heavy loads.’
Chirlo looked at his watch. It was 7.45 – the enemy had about three hours’ start. ‘You can track them?’
Manomi looked surprised. ‘Of course.’
‘Good. I will send up ten men to accompany you. Yes?’
‘They will have to be good walkers.’
Chirlo grimaced. ‘I’ll do my best. The helicopter can ferry the men up here and then start an aerial search for them. If we get a sighting we can move you up by air.’
The Indian just nodded and sat himself down. ‘Send some food,’ he added as Chirlo turned to leave him. ‘One day’s worth. A few gringos should not be hard to catch in these mountains.’
‘These are not ordinary gringos,’ Chirlo said. ‘They have been trained for circumstances like this.’
Manomi looked vaguely interested for the first time. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then send two days’ food.’
Barney Davies finished talking to Jimbo Bourne in Belize and wondered how ‘to prepare himself for the ordeal ahead. A glass of whisky would not go amiss, he decided. And make it a double, he told himself. This, he decided, was exactly what the American who had organized the Tehran hostage raid must have felt like before picking up the phone to call Jimmy Carter.
Oh well, he had better phone her before the Americans did. Or the Colombians. Davies took a stiff gulp of whisky. At least she would not be able to smell his breath down the telephone line.
She was either addressing the Cabinet or on the toilet: it was several minutes before he heard the familiar voice.
‘Prime Minister …’ he began.
‘Lieutenant-Colonel Davies,’ she almost gushed. ‘Have we counted them all back?’
It was a joke, he decided. And not in very good taste considering the circumstances. ‘I’m afraid the news is not all good, Prime Minister,’ he said.
A cold wind seemed to blow down the line. ‘Why, what has happened?’
He told her.
‘Let me get this straight. Your troops carried out their mission successfully, and would all be back in Panama by now if the American helicopter had not exploded.’
‘That is correct, Prime Minister.’
‘Forgive me for asking this,’ she continued, ‘but will President Bush be telling me the same story when I talk to him.’
Davies decided he would lose nothing by being blunt. ‘If his people tell him the truth, and if he tells it to you, then yes, Ma’am.’
Her answering grunt could have meant many things. ‘And we have five men still on the ground in Colombia?’ she asked after a moment.
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘And what are you doing about getting them out?’
‘At present, nothing.’
‘Nothing!?’
‘With all respect, Ma’am, there’s nothing we can do. If we’d had the capacity to airlift our men out of Colombia then we wouldn’t have needed help from the Americans in the first place. A request for further help would require a decision from you. From the Government, that is.’
The distinction did not interest her. ‘I will talk to the President,’ she said.
‘But at the moment we don’t even know if the enemy realizes that some men were left behind. I would advise that we don’t draw attention to the fact …’
‘Not even the attention of the Colombian Government?’
‘With respect, Prime Minister, the details of the operation must have leaked from somewhere, and the Colombian Government seems the most likely source.’
There was silence on the other end.
‘I think I should add,’ Davies said, ‘that even if their presence on the ground is known, these men have a fair chance of extricating themselves from the situation.’ He had thought long and hard about saying this, hoping it would not weaken any resolve there might be in the way of providing the five men with outside help, but had decided he had no real choice. At present only five lives were at stake: sending in more to rescue them would raise the ante. And if all the Americans had to offer was exploding helicopters then maybe his men would be better off on their own.
‘What are they going to do – walk out of Colombia?’
‘If necessary, Prime Minister.’
‘I will have to think this over,’ she said. ‘I will call you back later this morning.’
Thank you, Prime …’ he started to say, but she had hung up. He took another gulp of whisky and stared angrily at the wall.
There was hardly any sign that it had happened, Chirlo thought, looking out across the verandah towards the gates. The gatehouse looked undamaged from this distance, the fence whole. The armoured car was still sitting in the middle of the outer compound; presumably its crew was still trying to recover from their failed attempt to shoot the forest. What a farce!
He heard the arrival of Miguel behind him and turned to join the meeting. Victoria’s husband Noguera had arrived an hour earlier and had seemed, to no one’s great surprise, not exactly devastated by his wife’s death. Much the same could be said for her brothers. Ramón still looked pale, but that had more to do with his own brush with death; he had shown no sign of regretting Victoria’s. The arriving Miguel seemed equally unmoved, offering his condolences to Noguera with all the emotion of a weather report. Basically, neither brother had ever forgiven Victoria for being the intelligent one of the three.
There was a silence lasting about half a minute, like those they hold at the beginning of football matches to honour someone recently dead. In the Amarales living-room there was no whistle to sig
nal its end, but the participants all came out kicking anyway.
‘Well, now we know where your stupidity has taken us, Ramón,’ Miguel began. ‘Our sister is dead, your hostages are gone, and our family will be a laughing stock throughout the nation.’
‘Do you think so little of your sister that you can use her death to score points against me?’ Ramón asked angrily. ‘Where were you last night while the rest of us were fighting off the gringo soldiers? Not with your family. You have no right to accuse me.’
‘Ramón, Miguel,’ Noguera said. ‘This is no time for blaming each other. What has happened, has happened. We must decide what to do now.’
‘What is there to do?’ Miguel asked with a cold laugh. ‘We cannot bring Victoria back. Or the hostages, come to that. All we can do is learn from our mistakes,’ he added, looking straight at Ramón. ‘And cut our losses.’
‘Our losses are seven men and a sister,’ Ramón said quietly. ‘How do you cut them?’
‘Friends …’ Noguera implored.
‘Señores,’ Chirlo said. ‘I have some new information. Some of the gringo soldiers did not manage to escape in the helicoper.’
Both brothers looked at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.
‘It is true. There must have been inadequate space for them all. Four, perhaps five of them, headed into the mountains on foot. Manomi is tracking them.’ He looked at the three of them coldly, waiting for their response.
Miguel was the first to react. ‘They will have a long walk home. It is of no concern to us …’
‘No concern?’ Chirlo asked, barely managing to keep his anger under control. ‘These are the men who murdered your sister, Señor.’
‘He is right,’ Ramón said. ‘We have a family obligation. And’ – he insisted, ignoring Miguel’s obvious disagreement – ‘we can repair the lost prestige you’re so concerned about.’
‘You’re a complete hypocrite,’ Miguel told him. ‘Victoria may have been our sister and Armando’s wife, but none of us will grieve for her and we all know it …’
‘Miguel!’ Noguera said, but he did not deny it.
Soldier D: The Colombian Cocaine War Page 19
