PRECIPICE

by Leland Davis

  They finished the meal, and Chip stepped over to the sink. It was his night to wash the dishes. They had a rotation going that mostly consisted of the new guy doing the bulk of the grunt work. Chip took it with humility and no complaints—he’d gone through the same thing in his early years at a rafting outpost and knew that protesting would only make things worse. As he finished up, they were clearing off the table and spreading out diagrams and materials to go over, and switching the TV from the Playstation input to a feed from Harris’ laptop. Chip walked over to join them as they began the evening’s session.

  He was amazed at the detail they went to in their planning. Every movement, every communication, seemingly every eventuality was carefully mapped out. Chip had prepared daily schedules for river expeditions in the past, but nothing he had ever done compared to this. They took their time to explain most of it, and it was only now on the fourth day that it was beginning to make sense. Teamwork was of the essence. Every man had to be covered at all times during the approach, the attack, and the exit, or at least covered to the maximum that the situation allowed. They practiced every evening on a crude mock-up they had constructed from two-by-fours and plywood. The open-topped structure was surrounded by scaffolding so that two of the team members could critique the movements of the other two as they practiced clearing the building. Chip had learned a lot by observing these sessions through his night-vision goggles from the scaffolding, and the men had even allowed him to try the exercise a few times himself without live ammunition.

  In some ways, Chip realized that this wasn’t much different from a whitewater expedition where every paddler had to be covered by someone with a rescue rope at all of the key danger spots. They called on Chip’s expertise many times during the planning of the approach and the exit, poring over the satellite imagery to predict as much of what they would face on the river as was possible to discern. Much like the planning of their movements during the assault, choosing the right locations for the rescue ropes was a skill gained through years of training and experience, and they listened respectfully to what Chip had to say.

  Once the connection was made of the similarities between the two disciplines, Chip had become enthralled with learning more about how the decisions for the rest of the mission would be made. He was in awe of the careful judgment shown by these skilled warriors, and he wanted to learn as much as he could in the small amount of time they had to train. The others were impressed with his desire to learn and patient in answering his questions. This kid wasn’t a slacker—he was as sharp as a tack and eager to know more. He wanted to be a part of the team instead of just being along for the ride, and his enthusiasm and effort only made them welcome his presence more.

  They ran through the plan once every evening, trying to find weaknesses or flaws in their reasoning. The primary plan seemed solid, so the fourth night began with little more than a quick review. Everything should work perfectly as long as they had the advantage of surprise. They expected minimal resistance on the side of the camp where they would be entering from the river—if they experienced any resistance at all. Hopefully they would be able to silently enter, take out Cardenas, and then leave the compound while the small number of other men stationed there were still sound asleep.

  The rest of the evening was spent going over secondary or backup plans, none of which were very appealing. If for some reason they had to make their exit by any route other than down the river, they were in real trouble. The jungle surrounding the compound was reportedly full of booby traps. The dirt road that led ten kilometers to the edge of the jungle compound was free of traps—as long as you didn’t include the seventy heavily armed men stationed around the perimeter who would surely be called upon to block any attempt to escape using that road. The only backup plan that didn’t sound like it would lead to certain death was to walk twenty kilometers though the rugged jungle on the far side of the river from the compound, if they could scale the canyon wall and somehow reach the jungle over there at all. None of them relished that idea either. This had better work.

  They wrapped up the session at 11:30. Chip brushed his teeth and headed straight for his cot. He was exhausted. The others fired up the Playstation again and resumed their game. It seemed to Chip like the other men never got tired, as if the regimen that was slowly breaking him down was a relaxing routine for them. He stuffed some foam earplugs into his ears to shut out their shouts and banter. The plugs were a method he’d picked up over years of trying to sleep at noisy rafting outposts and in busy South American cities. He’d never expected to need them at a cabin in the backwoods of West Virginia. Seconds after his head hit the pillow, he drifted into a deep sleep.

  9

  Friday, November 11th

  WAKING UP AT 6 was getting easier, but Chip still didn’t like it. He jumped off the cot, threw on a set of navy blue sweats that Harris had loaned him, and headed out the door for his run. After several weeks of running he still couldn’t come close to keeping up with the other guys, but he was getting used to the exercise and making better time. His feet pounded dully on the dead leaves that covered the trail, and his breath streamed in visible puffs in front of him as he entered the woods near the cabin and started slowly up the slope toward a break in the rocky ridge.

  He’d done this run each morning for the last two weeks. The exhausting crash-course in special operations had been as mentally and physically taxing as anything Chip had ever done. Although he’d worked this hard during kayaking expeditions in the past, this level of preparation before a trip was totally new to him. His excitement at learning all of the new skills was tempered by his frustration in waiting for the action to begin. He wasn’t usually one to wait. The other four men had years of experience putting their lives on the line in violent situations and understood the importance of extensive and repetitive training to keep them alive when the action was for real. Chip was more accustomed to a moving, fluid world where hesitation was frequently rewarded with disaster, and where waiting too long for the action could cause you to lose the mindset or proper conditions for it. The weeks of training had him feeling like he was sitting at the lip of a big falls getting more and more nervous as he waited forever to take the plunge.

  Adding to Chip’s frustration was how humbling the training was. Every time he had heard of these elite soldiers over the years, he’d wondered if his adventurous background and physical gifts would allow him to keep up with the best. He’d quickly found that the answer was no. Maybe Daniel could have kept up. He had always been the unstoppable force that kept them going when everyone else was ready to quit. He’d kept Chip going countless times in tight spots. Chip wished he was here—this would be right up his alley.

  Although Chip had gotten used to being the leader of this team in the specialized river skills, he now realized that these men were competent in so many different areas that it was staggering to think of the time and discipline required to be so good at so many things. They outshot him, outran him, and knew an abundance of technical details about maps, communications, plans, timing, tactics, and a host of other subjects that were new to Chip. He had soaked up the knowledge like a sponge, knowing that it would take years to become their equal instead of the two weeks that he was able to train.

  Although things had been fairly carefree off the river while they were traveling and paddling, now that the mission was in sight there was little nonsense. Chip hadn’t had a beer in two weeks, and he’d been training or studying from dawn until well after dark every day. After two weeks of fatigue and frustration, he was ready for a break and was looking forward to getting on a plane this afternoon and getting back into his element. Rivers were what he lived for, and this promised to be a good one.

  He finished running a five mile loop and ducked back into the cabin. Peeling off his damp sweats, he stepped into the frigid shower. The water heater for the cabin was too small for five showers even if they were very short, and the morning runs had become a race for the precious suppl
y of hot water—a race that Chip had lost every day. Instead of the jungle fatigues he’d been wearing at The Woods, Chip put his normal clothes back on—long johns under loose fitting cotton pants and shirt. They would all be wearing civilian clothes from now until they suited up just upstream of Cardenas’ compound deep in the heart of the Mexican jungle, although they would hopefully be comfortable in t-shirts south of the border—or river clothes. Chip secretly hoped that water levels would be too high for the target river when they got to Mexico so that they could kill some time maintaining their cover as whitewater tourists by paddling other rivers in the area. He wanted to spend a couple of days in his boat to warm up before attempting the first descent of the mysterious river and falls.

  They were loaded into the Suburban by 7 AM for the two-and-a-half hour drive to Dulles Airport. They carried only their personal travel bags with their clothes and toiletries. The boats, paddling gear, and all of their special operations equipment and weapons would be waiting for them on the ground in Houston along with their driver. You couldn’t fly commercial with weapons like that without being noticed. Chip carried the passport that he’d been supplied with in his back pocket—it had stamps from many countries that he’d never been to and, of course, bore a name he’d never used before. They had also issued him five thousand Mexican Pesos for spending and emergency money, which were hidden in a secret pocket sewn into the back of his belt. He felt like James fucking Bond.

  The flight to Houston went without incident. Chip plugged headphones into his phone, turned up some music, and caught up on much-needed sleep on the three hour flight. They were met at the Houston airport by a Hispanic guy named Carlos Morales who would be their driver for the trip. They piled into a rented Ford Expedition and drove a few miles to a hotel parking lot where their trucks for the mission were waiting. They were mismatched used 4x4 pickups with crew cabs and camper shells on them like those commonly driven by river runners. They each had a set of roof racks with three kayaks strapped on top. Three of the group piled into each vehicle, and they headed south on US 59 for the seven-hour drive to Brownsville, Texas, where they would spend the night.

  At the hotel in Brownsville there was a flurry of activity as the men checked and rechecked all of their gear before packing it carefully back into the trucks. Weapons were hidden in the kayaks in hopes that they would escape notice if the vehicles were searched. Before hiding his guns, Chip spent some time carefully adjusting the outfitting inside his kayak so that he would fit inside it snugly and have optimal control. They got a good night’s sleep in anticipation of an early start and an equally long day the next day.

  The following morning Chip got to sleep until 7, which felt like 8 due to the time change from Virginia to Texas. It was a welcomed luxury. They all grabbed hot showers and a good American breakfast at Denny’s, with most of the guys hitting the Grand Slam. They rolled across the long bridge over the lazy brown Rio Grande at 8:30, parked, and walked into the border checkpoint building on the Mexican side. Carlos was fluent in Spanish and took the lead through the various lines to get their tourist cards and vehicle permits. It was familiar ground for Chip, who had been through this crossing many times; but it was new to the others. Much of their international travel had been via military transport, and none of them had been to this part of Mexico before. What’s more, none of the men except for Mendez knew much Spanish. They were all reasonably fluent in Farsi instead, having spent most of their professional time abroad in the Middle East.

  Chip was also more prepared for the changes on the other side of the border. They circled a pond of water, left the border checkpoint, and were instantly dumped into foreign chaos. On the north side of the river, Brownsville looked like a typical American town complete with modern strip malls and restaurants. The south side was unbelievably different for a place so close to U.S. soil. It was littered with giant Mexican supermarkets interspersed with crumbling cinderblock and concrete buildings in a calamity of different colors, with billboards and signs in Spanish painted on almost every exposed surface. The traffic was thick and tumultuous, with no markers to differentiate between the lanes. It was every man for himself in the effort to weave through the busy border town of Matamoros, and the way out of town was not well marked. Buses and trucks of every size and shape added to the crazed tangle, and pedestrians and people on battered bicycles weaved in and out of the mess on the litter-strewn streets.

  Chip rode in the second vehicle with Duval while Harris drove. Carlos drove the lead vehicle with Roberts and Mendez inside, using his local knowledge and ability to understand the road signs to help navigate through the maze. Whenever the traffic stopped, a group of kids would surround the front of the truck and hop onto the hood, spraying soapy water onto the windshield through a hole punched in the cap of an old plastic soda bottle. They used a cheap squeegee to clear the murky water back off then banged on the window and demanded change from the startled gringos. By the third time, Harris was getting frustrated and having trouble keeping up with Carlos due to the kids slowing him down.

  “Turn on the wipers,” Chip suggested softly.

  Harris complied when the next kid sprayed water on the glass, and the kids yelled a few angry words in Spanish and slammed their hands against the side panel of the truck before moving on. Before long they had passed through the gauntlet of the border town and were blazing southward across the desert on Mexico’s Highway 101. The land was barren with sparse green ground cover. Scrubby trees dotted the landscape here and there with occasional tiny, block-walled, tin roofed shacks hunkered in their shade. Emaciated horses and donkeys were tied to stakes shoved into the ground near the buildings or road, foraging for something edible in the thistly growth. The highway was two lanes with wide shoulders. Carlos was aggressively pulling out to the center of the road to effectively create a third lane, passing rattle trap cars and overloaded trucks that trundled onto the shoulders without slowing to allow Carlos to pass between them.

  Chip noticed Harris’ knuckles going white on the steering wheel as he sped along behind Carlos, although there were no other outward signs of stress. Chip grinned. Even for a hardened warrior, the first Mexican driving experience could be an eye opener.

  About twenty-five minutes outside of town they pulled over on the right into a checkpoint and slowed to show their passports. The bored guard in his blue Mexican Federal Police uniform saw their vehicle import stickers displayed on the inside of the windshields and waved them through without a search. So far, so good. Three hours later they bypassed the city of Ciudad Victoria and could see the first huge, jungle-covered mountains jutting up on the other side of town.

  The highway was four lanes for a while until Carlos turned onto a small road on the right. They made their way through back roads, the land becoming more lush and hilly. A swollen creek ran alongside the road, its flow sluicing through concrete control structures that shunted water off for irrigation. Chip noticed that the canal was flowing with more water than he had ever seen before. Although they were still a hundred miles as the crow flies from their destination, he worried that they had jumped the gun by a week or so. He closed his eyes for the next two hours of hilly highway as they continued to the city of Ciudad Valles.

  As they pulled into Valles, Chip sat up and took in the familiar sights. Although the physical size of the city would indicate a town of maybe 40,000 residents in the US, Ciudad Valles was home to over 150,000 people. It was the primary base of operations for river runners vacationing in the area, and Chip had been here many times. As agreed upon, Harris took the lead as Chip showed him the way to weave through the town. It felt more foreign but was much more appealing than the border town had been. Trees grew in many places, the colors of the concrete buildings were more subdued, and there was far less litter. Here and there an American fast food restaurant stood out in contrast to the local taco carts that were placed along the sides of the street, adorned with large round pieces of spit-grilled pork suspended from their awnin
gs. Chip’s mouth started to water. It was 5 PM, and dark wasn’t far off. He pointed to one of the stands and indicated that Harris should pull over. This move was welcomed by the entire group, who quickly put the taco man to work and began stuffing their faces with tacos al pastor. Chip loaded his with onions and cilantro and slathered them in hot sauce. It was good to be back in Mexico.

  They stood in the street eating as the day began to dim into dusk. The humid air was ripe with urban smells both delicious and foul, which rolled together into a rich, pungent olfactory cityscape. The lights slowly brightened, and people filled the sidewalks in anticipation of a busy Saturday evening in town.

  “I don’t think we’re going to be able to tell much tonight,” Chip told Harris through a mouthful of pork. “It’s hard enough to judge the water levels in the daylight here sometimes.”

  Harris nodded and thought for a moment. “Where can we stay?” He asked.

  “Most kayakers stay a few blocks up on the right. Hotel Aventura Huasteca. I’m not sure they can get both of these vehicles off the street, though. There’s a nice place just back on the other side with lots of secure parking. It’s more expensive, but it should be a good place to leave the boats. Plus, I won’t run into any of the dirtbags that I know in there.”

  One of the most challenging parts of this trip for Chip was going to be the chance that he would run into old friends. After ten years as a traveling kayaker and river guide, Chip knew people all over the world. This was the start of the peak season in the area, as kayakers from the U.S. headed south to find warmer temperatures and flowing rivers. He was sure to know some of the travelers. He had also met the owner of the hotel up the street several times, although he had never quite had enough cash to stay there despite the reasonable rates. He usually camped out. With the money he was making for this trip, he would probably be staying there on his next visit.