Soldier D: The Colombian Cocaine War

by David Monnery

  Chirlo’s last thought was of the strangeness of it all: to grow up in one kind of jungle, and to die in another.

  Wynwood sank to one knee, his eyes sweeping the scene. In the distance two men were running off down the road; on the landing stage the two Indians were looking at him, almost with curiosity. They had been bait, Wynwood realized, and they were still not sure if they were going to be eaten.

  He walked over to where Eddie was lying. One bullet had passed through the heart, another centimetres away. The half-insolent smile seemed younger than before. Wynwood closed Eddie’s eyes, and turned to the Indians. ‘How many of them were there?’ he asked in Spanish.

  ‘Eight,’ the Indian man replied. ‘Bad men,’ he added as an afterthought.

  There were two dead by the machine-gun, two more in front of him. Two had run off, and there was the one he had forced back under cover. And there was another slumped behind the corner of the building where Eddie had come up the bank.

  ‘They are all gone,’ the Indian said, as if he knew Wynwood needed confirmation of the fact.

  Wynwood nodded, and signalled across to Chris to bring the other boat in. As he watched it cross the river his mind played with the hope that Andy was still alive, but his heart was already well into mourning. Behind him the villagers were slowly emerging from their houses. The jungle, shocked into silence by the guns of man, was once more finding its voice.

  They buried Eddie and Andy that afternoon, in home-made coffins on the island in midstream, hoping that at some time in the future someone from the British Embassy could arrange for their collection and transport back to England.

  The Dame’s arm was a mess, but a repairable one, provided they got him out of the jungle before infection had a chance to set in. Wynwood’s wound was more superficial, but hurt like blazes just the same.

  Leaving, much to the Indians’ delight, another large chunk of their gear behind, Wynwood and Chris shouldered one of the boats and what gear they could carry to the foot of the rapids, and by noon next day they were on the road to the Peruvian border. There they found the rough hut on the Colombian side empty of officialdom, that on the Peruvian side full of smiling locals and an irritated man from the British Embassy.

  It was over. One Colombian politician had been saved; two SAS men had failed to beat the clock.

  Epilogue

  Kilcline and Bourne were sharing a lunchtime drink in the Slug and Pellet. The idea was to celebrate Bourne’s return, but somehow celebration seemed inappropriate.

  ‘Have you seen Beth,’ Bourne asked.

  ‘Briefly. She … well, you can imagine.’

  Bourne could. He could remember the times his own wife had given vent to her fears of becoming a soldier’s widow. Well, Britain would have to be invaded for him to ever see any more real action. He and Lynn were safe. Or as safe as you could ever be in the kind of world they seemed to be making.

  He shook his head, as if to shake away the mood. ‘It was an amazing achievement,’ he said, almost to himself.

  ‘And by the time anyone gets round to acknowledging it, the lads who did it will all be dead,’ Kilcline said matter-of-factly.

  ‘We know what they did,’ Bourne said. ‘And they know, which is what really counts.’

  Kilcline managed a smile. ‘Your round,’ he said.

  In the Andes another morning had broken, and Ramón Amarales was enjoying the early sunlight with his usual silver jug of coffee on Totoro’s verandah. That morning Miguel was coming out for a meeting to decide who should take the dead Chirlo’s position as chief sicario. It should not be difficult: there was no shortage of tough and intelligent candidates.

  Ramón had a nice surprise for his brother – according to the statement that had arrived the previous day, the balance in their Swiss bank account had just passed twenty million dollars. The Amarales had to be among the richest ten families in Colombia.

  And it was down to him – Ramón. Victoria might have been the intelligent one, Miguel the handsome one, but without him the business would never have become as successful as it had.

  His great mistake, Ramón decided, had always been to underestimate his own achievements. And his prospects too, for that matter. Victoria was dead, Miguel married to a noisy leech. He had taken their father’s ranch and turned it into twenty million dollars. And unless the youths of America and Europe suddenly lost their appetite for artificial stimulation he would double that money in the next five years.

  If that was not success, what was?

  Chris walked slowly along the Blackwater estuary, thinking it was not much more than a month since he had walked the same path on the way home to find the order to report in. And the next day he had met Eddie at Paddington, and it had all begun.

  He remembered the condors in the mountains above Totoro and the hummingbird in the tree in San Agustin and the flashing kingfishers on the river. He remembered the man at the briefing saying Colombia was probably the most beautiful country in the world. Well, he had not seen its equal.

  But then there many more countries to see. He stood looking out over the waters shining silver in the sun, not thinking about Eddie or Anderson or the man he himself had killed in San Agustin – that was all done, all gone, yesterday’s world – but about the deep underlying silence of the jungle river in the hour after dawn, the lone screeches of birds he had never heard before.

  He was seeing Molly again that evening for the first time since Christmas Eve. She had sounded enthusiastic over the phone, but he had the feeling he was going through the motions, that really he did not want anyone sharing his thoughts and feelings.

  Maybe she felt the same. Maybe they could just have fun for a few hours.

  ‘Have you seen today’s polls?’ Estrada asked Quintana as he came through the door.

  ‘Yes, Rafael,’ Quintana said, though he had not. And he did not need to now. If Estrada was in a good mood then they had to be favourable.

  ‘I am going to win,’ Estrada said, almost smugly.

  ‘It looks like it,’ Quintana agreed.

  ‘And you must take a lot of the credit,’ Estrada insisted. ‘It was your idea to invite the English in. If Muñoz had simply been ransomed he might have ended up a hero.’ He looked straight at Quintana, sincerity written on his face. ‘I won’t forget it, Luis,’ he added.

  Estrada had probably been watching some Hollywood tear-jerker, Quintana guessed. He found the thought that his advice had probably secured the man’s re-election was almost more than he could bear.

  In a Hereford pub Bonnie and Blackie were still trying to decide which women would be favoured with their attentions that evening. There was quite a wide choice on offer, ranging from the teenage gigglers in the corner to the two women in their mid-thirties standing at the bar.

  ‘Bet you they’re teachers,’ Bonnie said.

  ‘Social workers,’ Blackie thought.

  ‘They’re over thirty anyway,’ Bonnie said. ‘So they’re probably desperate.’

  ‘I don’t know whether they’re that desperate,’ Blackie said, looking at him. ‘Where did you get that jacket – Oxfam?’

  ‘C&A. What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Nothing a good bonfire wouldn’t put right. But the wrinklies’ll probably like it. Shall we go for them?’

  ‘Why not? There’s no substitute for experience.’

  Blackie grinned. ‘If they think that, you’re in trouble.’

  ‘Huh. We’ve just jumped out of a fucking plane higher than fucking Everest and hang-glided onto a fucking mountain and attacked a drug baron’s ranch and got away again. That’s experience, isn’t it?

  ‘It may not be exactly what they’re looking for.’

  Bonnie grinned. ‘Know what you mean. This is a time for LALO.’

  ‘For what!?’

  ‘Low altitude, low opening, if you get my drift.’

  ‘I do, but I wish I didn’t.’

  * * *

  The Dame stood at the heart of
the swaying crowd behind the goal at Roker Park. It was half-time, Sunderland were losing, but years of disappointment still could not quench the hope.

  The other half-time scores started coming through on the loudspeaker. Tottenham were losing as well, 2-0 at Everton. The Dame knew he would never hear Tottenham mentioned now without thinking about Eddie.

  He had been thinking a lot about him anyway in the last few weeks. The trouble was, in one way he had felt very close to him. Hackney was a long way from Sunderland, but they were closer to each other than they were to most places in England. They had a – ‘strength’ was the only word that fitted – a strength about them that came from knowing hardship, and knowing it as a real community. And from out of this came the strange mixture of pride and bitterness which he knew in himself and which he had recognized in Eddie.

  Of course Eddie had been flash, London flash, and where the Dame used silence and reserve to protect himself, Eddie had used jokes and cynicism. But this was just style. What worried the Dame were the differences between him and Eddie. Try to talk to him about England or the Army or politics or religion – anything other than football and women – and he would just say it was all bullshit. Eddie had seemed content to live for nothing but the SAS, and not because of any pride in the Regiment or because he agreed with the jobs it was asked to do. No, he had loved the SAS because, as he had once said, it kept surprising him. It had kept him ticking over, till the clock beat him.

  And if one small part of the Dame would have liked to be like that, a brilliant skater on the surface of life, the rest of him knew he never could be. He needed reasons for the things he did, and some judgement at the end of the line. And after what had happened to Eddie, somehow he needed these things more than ever.

  Barney Davies sat in his darkened living-room, glass of brandy in his hand, watching the ten o’clock news. The Prime Minister was wrapping herself in the flag again at the dispatch box – something to do with Iraq – he wasn’t really paying attention to the details. But the patriotic tone was unmistakable.

  Nine times out of ten he would have gone along with it, even shared the feelings, if not the belligerency of their expression. But tonight it brought a bad taste to his mouth. He remembered Denis Healey’s ‘glorying in slaughter’, a remark he had thought ill-judged in the extreme at the time, but which now seemed almost fair.

  He took another sip of brandy and used the remote control to turn off the TV. What was he complaining about? He had read enough history to know that soldiers had been let down by politicians since time began, so why should he be so upset by one more example of an age-old vice. ‘Because,’ he murmured out loud to himself, ‘this time it was me who had to listen to the utter indifference in the politician’s voice.’ Not even crocodile tears. Not even a wreath.

  Barney swallowed the rest of the brandy in one gulp. Sometimes he wondered why the world was run by people with no sense of honour or obligation.

  In the neon-lit room in backstreet Bogotá, the girl in the red dress carefully counted out her earnings from the evening. It was enough, she decided. She collected her English primer from the table and sat with it cross-legged on the floor, rubbing her eyes to keep them open.

  Joss Wynwood walked slowly along the dark beach, listening to the waves crashing in from the Irish Sea away to his right. It was a clear night and the lights of Portmadoc were visible in the distance, nestling beneath the dark mass of the mountains beyond.

  On his return from South America Wynwood had not gone home to the house he and Susan shared. He wanted to keep it as a place they had been happy in, and so he checked into a small hotel in Hereford and arranged a meeting with her in a restaurant in the town. Both of them had expected a difficult conversation about what was wrong with their marriage and who was to blame, but it was immediately apparent both had been mistaken. There was no point. It was simply over, and both had known it for a long time. So instead they had a strangely affectionate conversation about the mechanics of the split, and parted feeling better disposed to each other than for many years.

  Wynwood had decided to take his leave back in Wales, but not with his family. He needed to be alone, and he had always loved the stretch of coastline between Barmouth and Pwllheli, which brought back memories of childhood holidays, of narrow-gauge steam trains and walks in the mountains. This evening he had found a nice pub in Criccieth, enjoyed a game of darts and a few pints, and was now walking back to his Portmadoc hotel along the coast.

  Andy had been much on his mind, but he supposed that was natural. They had been like partners for a long time, and the training stint in Colombia had solidified the bond still further. He wondered what Andy would say if he knew that Wynwood was considering quitting the Army.

  Why, probably.

  I don’t really know, Wynwood silently answered his dead friend.

  Decisive as ever, I see. He could hear Andy say it, felt the tears rising in his eyes.

  He fought them back. It was only the booze making him maudlin, he decided.

  Just like the bloody Welsh!

  So bloody what. He tried to organize his thoughts for the imaginary debate.

  Is it because you were boss and Eddie and I didn’t beat the clock?

  No. ‘I don’t think I made any real mistakes,’ he said out loud to the sand and the sea. ‘You were just unlucky. Eddie … Well, soldiers get killed, it’s part of the job.’

  Is it because you had to kill more people than you were ready for?

  ‘Maybe.’ The Cali barrio, the car lot by the Magdalena, the jungle village. The woman at Totoro. There had never been any real choice. ‘But I don’t think so,’ he said.

  So what the fuck are you moaning on about? You like the job. You like taking young men and showing them how to make the most of what they have. It’s a thing worth doing. And you do it well.

  ‘Yeah,’ It was. He did. He accepted all that. ‘It’s just …’ he began, and then fell silent again. He had stopped walking, and a flicker of a smile crossed his face as he realized what he would look like to a stranger. A lunatic on a beach, talking to himself. ‘It’s just …’

  It’s just that you’re a maudlin Welsh bastard.

  ‘Just a man,’ Wynwood said carefully, ‘who wishes that there was no need to bring out the worst in men in order for them to serve the good.’

  You could put that in a Christmas cracker!

  Wynwood laughed. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed.

  He looked out to sea, listened to the waves. ‘Goodbye, Andy,’ he said at last, and turned away, walking on towards the distant lights.

  Discover other books in the SAS Series

  Discover other books in the SAS Series published by Bloomsbury at

  www.bloomsbury.com/SAS

  Soldier A: Behind Iraqi Lines

  Soldier B: Heroes of the South Atlantic

  Soldier C: Secret War in Arabia

  Soldier D: The Colombian Cocaine War

  Soldier E: Sniper Fire in Belfast

  Soldier F: Guerillas in the Jungle

  Soldier G: The Desert Raiders

  Soldier H: The Headhunters of Borneo

  Soldier J: Counter Insurgency in Aden

  Soldier K: Mission to Argentina

  Soldier L: The Embassy Siege

  Soldier M: Invisible Enemy in Kazakhstan

  Soldier N: Gambian Bluff

  Soldier O: The Bosnian Inferno

  Soldier P: Night Fighters in France

  Soldier Q: Kidnap the Emperor!

  Soldier R: Death on Gibraltar

  Soldier S: The Samarkand Hijack

  Soldier T: War on the Streets

  Soldier U: Bandit Country

  Soldier V: Into Vietnam

  Soldier W: Guatemala – Journey Into Evil

  Soldier X: Operation Takeaway

  Soldier Y: Days of the Dead

  Soldier Z: For King and Country

  This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

  First pub
lished in Great Britain 1993 by Bloomsbury Publishing

  Copyright © 1993 Bloomsbury Publishing

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  eISBN: 9781408841549

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