by F. G. Cottam
‘You mean, a man trained in interrogation techniques.’
Baxter shrugged. ‘I don’t think Major Rodriguez could be described as a common torturer. He’s fluent in seven languages and one of those is Ancient Greek.’
Hunter nodded. He did not think classical scholastic skills likely to be of any use against cartel members. But Rodriguez would have other, deadlier proficiencies. He was confident of that.
‘You will join the Americans and a Canadian when you hit the ground. We need to do this, Mark.’
‘We need the business.’
‘Oh, we always need the business.’ Baxter turned. ‘And on this occasion we need to get the right business outcome.’
They were there, waiting for him in the darkness as Hunter gathered his parachute at the rendezvous point. Rodriguez and the Canadian, Captain Peterson, were the officers. He was immediately aware of the damp, rain-forest warmth and the rich, almost overpowering smell of the ferns and vines and wildflowers and shrubs surrounding them. There was the furtive rustle around him of large insects and the screeches from above of night birds. Hunter borrowed a folding spade from one of the American non-coms and buried his parachute, counting the men in the darkness as he dug. This task of attempting an accurate estimate of their company strength successfully alleviated the tedium of digging. He had not heard a word spoken by his new comrades in arms. But Hunter supposed that most of them would be from the rural southern states, from Mississippi and Tennessee. They were country boys, he thought, men comfortable with the habit of stealth. They had spent their boyhoods pursuing prey through the swamps for the dinner table. You didn’t kill in such circumstances, and you didn’t eat. It was a harsh fact of poor rural life. Not for the first time, he envied the American soldiers their easy intimacy with the weapons they carried. These men had cradled rifles and shotguns almost from the moment they left their own cradles as infant boys. And it showed. Around him they formed a watchful, silent perimeter. There were eight of them, he thought. He had counted only five, but the Americans liked even numbers. Rodriguez commanded eight men for this operation. He did not command Peterson. He did not command Hunter, either. There would likely be no departure from consensus. Expertise in the matter of fighting and killing generally bred cooperation.
He finished the job of consigning his parachute to its tomb and cleaned the blade of the spade with a moist handful of undergrowth, giving it back to its owner with a nod of appreciation. There was enough starlight to see by. There was no moon. But a landing in foliage of this density in total darkness would have risked serious injury. There was sufficient ambient light, and his eyes were fully adjusting to it. Rodriguez, ethnically distinct from the men he commanded, dark where they were pale, came forward and murmured a greeting and flashed a white smile. He was whipcord lean and his handshake was firm. Hunter liked him instantly. He felt a paddle-sized hand judder jovially against his shoulder blade and turned, and he knew it was the Canadian, Peterson. The grinning Canuck was built like a championship-class light-heavyweight about to step on to the scales. Hunter felt relief settle through him, forcing out the acid corrosion of adrenaline, slowing his heart, obliging him to smile back at his new companions. He would be all right with these two. They were good men. Something solid settled in him and he suspected it was nothing more really than honest relief. He had never experienced combat as a married man prior to this. He did not wish to make a widow, he realised, of his new wife.
‘That was a nice landing,’ Rodriguez murmured in his ear. You did not whisper. The sibilant hiss of a whisper carried.
Peterson chuckled, but it was a very discreet expression of mirth.
‘You know how hard a night drop can be on the knees,’ Hunter said. His pack and personal weapons and their ammunition added fifty kilos to his weight. The knees could only take so much.
‘Not to mention the balls, if you have the bad luck to land straddling a tree branch,’ Peterson said. ‘And I speak from bitter personal experience.’
Hunter squatted beside his pack, on the ground where he had placed it before beginning to dig. From a side pocket, he took a clip for the assault rifle strapped across his chest. He did not insert the clip, because the sound would carry. Instead, he put the clip in the webbing on his pack straps before levering the pack on to his back. It would be handy enough there in a firefight. In the webbing on the strap to the right of his chest, the clip was only inches from his reaching fingers.
Rodriguez made a hand signal to his men. Hunter sensed rather than saw them change formation, a concentration of craft and menace spreading to his front and rear and flanking him. They began to move towards their target, two miles away, a mile or so in the thick forestation that spread almost impenetrably north from the small and isolated settlement of Magdalena. The terrain was very similar to Belize and Hunter’s recent training assignment there. But the climate was cooler and less humid, the air slightly thinner. And something else was different. Belize had been an exercise. You could never rid an exercise of its staged and somehow futile atmosphere of dress rehearsal. An exercise, however exotic the location, was essentially a chore. This was real. And the contrast could not have been greater. It was there in the silent, purposeful progress of the men as they fanned out and edged forward towards whatever challenge awaited their formidable fighting skills. There would come a day when Mark Hunter would no longer enjoy this, he knew. There would come a day. He had seen men burned out and unmanned, their nerves broken and their will to fight exhausted. But it had not happened to him. And at that confident moment, he could never imagine that it ever would.
They stopped about a mile north of the settlement that was their target. They gathered in the cover of a deep, steep-sided gully. Vines and creepers grew thick and verdant on the vertical banks of stone, insulating sound. The men took out ration packs and ate breakfast. Because what slight wind there was blew gently from the south, they were able to risk brewing coffee. The coffee was hot and strong and Rodriguez briefed Hunter as they squatted on the ground and drank.
‘We’ve got a cluster of tin-roofed buildings made of wood,’ he said. ‘They are located like the points of a star around a circular construction at their centre.’
Hunter frowned. ‘It doesn’t sound much like a processing facility.’
‘I don’t think it is,’ Rodriguez said.
‘Why do you say construction, and not building?’
Peterson had walked across to them. He dropped to his haunches and sipped coffee from a steel mug. ‘We think it is canvas,’ he said. He looked at Rodriguez, who nodded. ‘There are dogs, Rottweiler attack dogs, so we haven’t been able to get too close. But we think the central structure is a marquee of some kind. It’s a rigid construction, framed but not permanent.’
‘Unusual for cartel activity,’ Hunter said. ‘You sure the circus hasn’t come to town, Major?’
‘They have guns as well as dogs,’ Rodriguez said. ‘They’ve strung a fenced perimeter with razor wire. It could be a parley. It could be a conference of some kind.’
‘It could be innocent,’ Hunter said. ‘Relatively speaking, I mean. For all your scant intelligence, they might be environmental activists planning their next attempt to save the planet.’
Peterson chuckled. ‘Three weeks ago a party of four ecotourists went missing in this region. They just disappeared, Captain.’
‘Such tragedies can occur naturally of course,’ Rodriguez said. ‘This is hostile country. But these people were not beginners in the terrain. They were experienced, hardy. And they had with them a professional guide with excellent jungle skills and plenty of experience.’
‘No distress call?’
‘Nothing,’ Peterson said. ‘They just vanished off the face of the earth.’
‘Have you theorised?’
Rodriguez looked at Peterson and then turned back to Hunter. ‘We hit the ground about ten hours before you did. One of my guys is good around dogs. I asked him to volunteer to get in as close as he
could on a one-man scouting patrol. He’s a boy from the boondocks, like all of them, a kid from the swamps of North Carolina. He got close enough to one of their people to see the garrotte looped around his belt. There was a heavy calibre automatic holstered to his belt and a machine pistol over his shoulder. My boy saw the hilt of a fighting knife protruding from the top of one of his boots. These goons are equipped for a war. Whatever we’re dealing with here, it’s nothing the American or Bolivian governments know anything about. It’s covert, criminal and we have compelling reason to believe it has cost the lives of four blameless people. We need to go in. We need to find out who these criminals are and what they are doing. And we need to neutralise them.’
‘Hallelujah,’ Peterson said.
Hunter nodded. He was not there to argue. But he was beginning to think that cocaine and processing chemicals were the last thing they might find under the black canvas once past the firepower and the dogs.
‘Where do you stand on drugs, Captain?’ This question came from Rodriguez. Dawn was breaking. The light was improving. Rodriguez was a finely featured man with brush-cut hair and a trimmed moustache, and his expression was a compelling mix of hardness and delicacy. Hunter would not have wanted this man for his enemy. Even less his interrogator.
‘I don’t take them, if that’s what you mean.’
‘It isn’t. You know perfectly well it isn’t.’
‘I’ve no very strong opinion on the matter. I’ve been spared their corrosive damage in my own life. I’ve heard the lectures, seen the films. Essentially, I’m a soldier. I follow orders. I hope the people I am obliged to kill are more bad than good. But the justification for the fight is made much higher up the chain of command than me.’
Rodriguez swirled the dregs of his coffee. He emptied the grounds out on to the foliage under their feet. ‘I’ve seen the films too. It’s an epidemic in the States. There are CEOs with five gram a day habits.’
‘You mean in Hollywood?’
‘I mean in Detroit as much as in Hollywood, Captain. I mean in Boston and Chicago too, in the banking and the industrial worlds. I mean on trading floors and in office suites and hairdressing salons and at country clubs and in the more exclusive sorts of bars.’
‘So it’s a crusade?’
Rodriguez grimaced. ‘You see, Captain, I’m conflicted on this. I believe in freedom of choice. If a General Motors executive pulling in half a million dollars a year wants to spend some of his hard-earned on nose candy, I’ve got no real argument with that. It’s his decision. But the suppliers at source, the cartels, are another matter entirely. They’re what the world has now instead of Al Capone. They’re bad people and bad news for every region they infest. They undermine national economies and defy elected governments. Them, I’m happy to go after.’
The silence from Peterson during this exchange had seemed uncharacteristic. Hunter turned to the big Canadian. He looked subdued, sad even. He seemed a man far removed now from his habitual chuckle.
‘Care to share your philosophy on this?’ Hunter said.
Rodriguez rose to his feet and walked away from them.
‘I don’t have a philosophical standpoint,’ Peterson said. ‘You used the word crusade. The Major said epidemic. My brother had a stroke at seventeen, provoked by an overdose of the shit we’re talking about. You know what a stroke is?’
‘An insult to the brain,’ Hunter said. That was the literal definition.
‘Yeah, well. My brother was called Jimmy. The insult to Jimmy’s brain was massive, fatal. I’d kill every pusher I could find, given the time and the ammunition.’
‘I’m not even sure we’re dealing here with cartel activity,’ Hunter said.
Peterson grinned at him. ‘We’re dealing with bad people, Captain. I’m fucking sure of that. And so are you, I can see your instinct written all over your face.’ He gestured with his head in the direction of the guarded settlement a mile to the south of them. ‘It’s all very simple. It doesn’t require philosophical debate. We mop ’em up, we lighten the load of badness in the world.’
Hunter smiled back and nodded. Something conciliatory seemed pragmatic in the light of Peterson’s indignant fury.
‘What is it you British Army guys say? Home in time for tea and medals. That’s us, Captain Hunter, when this little task is completed. We take out the scum and we’ll be home in time for tea and medals.’
‘Amen,’ Hunter said. He got to his feet. His knees were sore from the jump. The coffee had had a diuretic effect. He looked around the gully they were in for somewhere he could pee in relative seclusion in what was now full daylight. Then he wanted to talk to the phantom from North Carolina who had ghosted into the hostile settlement without being detected. The boy had been debriefed already by the other two, no doubt. But Hunter liked his intelligence delivered first-hand, where possible. He did not like to run the risk of having anything lost in translation. They had a full twelve hours before night fell again and they would not move against their enemy until it did. They had ample time in which to map out a strategy. He would start with the Carolina ghost. Crucial elements of his own contribution to their plan of attack might well depend on what Hunter learned from him.
‘Mind?’ the boy asked, taking out a damp pad of chewing tobacco.
The soldier seated on the ground in front of him was Private Abel Gaul. Given the wind direction and Gaul’s proven instinct for elusiveness, Hunter could think of no objection. He shook his head. Gaul smiled and tore off a wad with his fingers and inserted it between his teeth and his cheek. He grinned, his teeth strong and even and discoloured from the habit.
‘Ask away, Sir.’
‘The sentry you saw?’
‘Smelled him before I saw him, Captain. Smelled him even afore I heard him.’
‘Body odour?’
‘You might say.’
‘Describe the smell, Private.’
‘Rotten.’ Gaul spat tobacco juice.
‘Rotten how?’
Gaul was blond and freckled across his nose, open faced and broad shouldered. But he was lithe and his battle fatigues draped loosely over his narrow hips and long limbs. He looked at the ground between them. He stroked his chin. He struggled to find the word. Hunter did not mind the delay in his responding. He was grateful the boy from the Carolinas was taking this so seriously.
‘Corrupt,’ Gaul said, eventually.
‘Was that not more likely to have been the dog? Could the dog not have had paw rot or distemper, or something?’
‘Nope,’ Gaul said. ‘Dog was healthy.’
‘What exactly do you mean by corrupt, Private?’
‘Rotten.’
Hunter felt somewhat lost. ‘Like something dead?’
‘Worse than dead, Sir.’
‘Worse?’
Gaul nodded. ‘Like something gone real bad,’ he said. ‘Like some dead thing neglected for a long time.’
Hunter shifted position and looked over to where Rodriguez and two other men were field stripping three heavy calibre machine guns. In common with all American operations in Hunter’s experience, lightly armed meant armed to the teeth. They possessed enough fire power to mount a successful assault on a fortress. He flicked sweat from his eyebrows. It was hot despite the altitude. Gaul spat his greenish black, tobacco juice spit. Sitting there, cross-legged on the ground, he looked serene. Maybe, Hunter thought, it was just stupidity.
‘What did this sentry look like?’
‘He was white. He was as white as you and me. Bigger, though. Maybe running to three hundred pounds, and six-two or three, I’d reckon. Shaven-headed.’
‘Sounds like a biker.’
‘Nope.’ Gaul sounded emphatic. ‘Definitely wasn’t no biker.’
‘Or a wrestler.’
‘Nope. Weren’t no wrestler neither, Sir. Tatts were all wrong for either breed.’
‘He was tattooed?’
‘Heavily. Across the face and neck. Elsewhere his skin was concealed by
his clothing. I couldn’t catch clear sight of his hands. Fist holding the dog leash could have been inked too, but I couldn’t be sure. Could have been leaf dapple from the starlight on his knuckles. Couldn’t rightly be certain.’
The South American criminal gangs wore facial tattoos, Hunter knew.
Gaul spat again. ‘Know what you’re thinking, Sir. Seen those guys for myself up close in LA. Wasn’t gang ink.’
‘What then, Private? Ethnic? Tribal?’
‘Seen something similar a couple of years ago, Sir. We were mountain training, skiing in New Zealand with some of the Anzac grunts. Got a forty-eight-hour furlough and saw ink similar on the faces of the Maori guys in some of the bars. Only similar, mind. Not quite the same.’
Hunter took this in. ‘Anything else, Private? Any other detail that particularly struck you?’
Gaul laughed softly. ‘The dog scented me. It cocked his head to where I was laid up, but didn’t make any sound. I don’t think it could. I think its cords had been cut.’
‘Jesus,’ Hunter said.
‘You’re a man comfortable with words, Sir,’ Gaul said. ‘Give me a real good one for red.’
‘Scarlet?’
‘Nope. Not bright enough. Want something real bloody.’
‘Crimson.’
Gaul went to flick his fingers in what was clearly a gesture of habit, before remembering where they were and the prevailing need for quiet. His hand descended. ‘That’s the one, Captain Hunter. When the dog turned its stare on me, I’d swear its eyes were crimson.’
The soldier rose to go. But Hunter had one final question. ‘Vehicles?’
‘One troop carrier. Kind of the old-fashioned sort, with canvas rigged over a square frame in back of the cab.’
‘Anything else?’
‘A couple of limousines were parked up, Captain. You’re an educated man. You ever been to my part of the world?’
‘To the Carolinas? No.’
Too bad. Know what a Palmetto bug looks like?’
