by Geoff Wolak
‘You work so closely with London,’ No.5 noted. And waited.
I shrugged. ‘CIA sometimes, French intel.’
‘Why do they all work with you?’ he pushed.
‘I’m the man in the middle, and I can’t be bribed or threatened. I do their dirty work, pass messages, liaison to people like Tomsk, London keeps me safe from the fucking FBI and Interpol, and lets me see my woman and kid. But the fact is ... I like the work. What the fuck else would I be doing? Job in factory, sitting on a beach?’
‘And the bullet fragments in your head..?’ No.3 nudged.
I made a face. ‘Two years ago they gave me three months to live at most.’
‘Fucking doctors, eh.’
I shrugged. ‘When I drop ... I drop. And if I stopped this work and sat down quietly I’d die quickly.’
‘Maybe you ... hope for a bullet...’ No.3 delicately nudged.
I considered that, and made a face. ‘Maybe.’ I stood and took off my sweaty shirt for a wash.
‘Fuck,’ No.5 let out. ‘You’re a dead man walking, my friend.’
‘Nothing can kill him,’ No.3 adamantly stated. ‘Only God himself can end his life.’
They settled down eventually as I studied the maps I had brought, and I got a reasonable night’s sleep, mozzies buzzing around.
I woke early, No.5 snoring, or maybe that was Rizzo next door I considered with a smile. After dressing quietly I stepped out into a still and calm dawn, a mist around the trees, and I walked to the fence to take a piss, guards patrolling, and waving at me.
Stood there peeing, I observed a small deer down the range. It got sight of me and ran off, but stopped dead at the tree line, something frightening it. It ran back then off to the side. Dick away, I waved at the guards, and they ran in.
‘Wake everyone quietly, we’ve got company. One man go, rest of you get ready, there’s someone at the end of the range.’ As one man ran to the huts more guards ran in and knelt behind bushes.
‘You four, go into the trees, twenty yards in from the range, dead slow dead quiet, move along a hundred yards and stop, solid fire positions for an ambush. Go. Rest with me.’
I eased down and leopard crawled to my right, to get an angle, a grass bank to hide us, and I eased under a barbeque style bench, long grass hiding me. My sight was the basic Velmact, but still good enough. I got comfy, and peered through my sight, six hundred yards of range to the far tree line, left of the butts and the targets.
A face, camouflage paint, green and black stripes. A man next to him, a third to the left. Movement, men moving right to left. Birds left the trees, disturbed, breaking through the hanging mist. I glanced over my shoulder, men seen running with boots not tied up, shirts undone, bandoliers hanging. Fortunately, our visitors had no line of sight of the huts and the men – or they would not have been impressed with our dishevelled state.
I waited.
No.3 crawled over with two men. ‘What is it?’
‘Soldiers, camouflaged. At least a dozen, but if they came here they have sixty.’
‘Sixty!’
Go past me, move along, get a good position, stay down, don’t look up yet!’ I whispered.
No.3 led four men past me and on, and to a bush. They eased inside the bush.
Tomo and Nicholson ran over and eased down. ‘To me!’ I whispered. They leopard crawled across. ‘Here, take this position, look left of the butt targets. Get ready.’ I eased back and let them get under the bench, silencers fitted, weapons cocked and checked, magazines checked and in, sights adjusted.
‘Fucking loads of them,’ Tomo noted.
Other men were now laying down left of me. I gave them hand signals to go around, through the trees. ‘No.3, take most of the men, go out the gate, go up the track fast a thousand yards, come into the trees and down. Get behind them. Go!’
He crawled off, then got up and ran, calling men after him, twenty running out the gate as Sasha and his team ran in bent double.
‘Sasha, slow leopard crawl, right past me and on sixty yards. Go.’
He led his team on in a fast leopard crawl, the morning dew wetting their legs and arms, and they passed me and kept going, finally to another bench and under it or next to it, long grass to hide them. Swann and Leggit appeared at my side.
‘Get a good position past Sasha, men left of the butts down there,’ I told them, and they practised that good old British Army leopard crawl that every new recruit learns in the first few weeks. As Sniper School NCOs they had it down, rifles cradled in a professional manner.
My phone trilled; Tomsk.
‘Da!’ I whispered.
‘You are under attack there?’
‘We will be soon, they’re moving into position at the end of the range.’
‘I have more men coming to you, local police and army.’
‘Have them spread out along the track, the move east into the trees in teams,’ I whispered.
‘OK, I tell them now. We cut the roads, but how did these fucks get in?’
‘They’re good soldiers, and they snuck through the jungle slowly through the night. They didn’t use the roads.’
‘You can deal with them?’
‘They don’t know we spotted them, we have the advantage. Could do with mortars.’
‘There are RPGs, lots of them.’
‘Not much use against men in thick jungle. Let me know when the men are on the road.’ I cut the call and put the phone away, sleepy men still appearing, no sign of Rocko and Rizzo yet. Still, I figured the firing might wake them when it started, and I smiled to myself for a moment.
But the question now was ... had they seen us parachuting?
I waited, and it seemed that our visitors were in no hurry. They were sneaking up, and being very professional about it and doing it slowly and quietly. That small deer, and my habit of rising early, had saved our lives. Maybe No.3 was right – I could not be killed, my life in the hands of the gods, either as Petrov or as Wilco.
‘Psssst,’ came from Tomo. I moved closer. ‘Fella down there with a bag on his back, wires on it. His mate looked at it, flashing red buttons for a moment.’
‘A bomb. You reckon you can hit it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Both of you, count to five and fire, then stop.’ I whispered strongly to the rest of the prone men, ‘Hold your fire, hold your fire if there is an explosion. Pass it on.’
Whispered messages went along the line. I had just faced front as the quiet cracks sounded out just a millisecond apart, the flash lighting up the dark areas within the tree line, a wall of white mist rushing towards me.
‘Down!’ I screamed in English and the blast wave washed over me like a kick in the head and chest at the same time. ‘Fuck.’ I shook my head and looked up, body parts flying through the air, heads, legs and arms. It had been a big bomb, twenty kilos of plastic maybe, trees now on their sides, up-routed, a million birds flying off in all directions.
‘I think something exploded,’ Tomo quipped as a severed head landed next to me, green and black lines across the face, an Hispanic. ‘That guy’s having a bad day,’ Tomo noted as he looked back over his shoulder.
‘Nicholson, what can you see?’ I asked.
‘Lot of smoke and mist. Wait ... some guy with an arm missing wandering around, blood on his face, not much else. Wait ... group of about ten, half way to us, heading away.’
‘Kill the fuckers!’ Cracks sounded out. ‘Open fire!’ I shouted in Russian.
Bursts of automatic fire echoed through the trees, no incoming fire as far as I could detect, our visitors a bit too close to their own bomb and now stunned by it.
‘Sasha, go right and around.’ He led his team off. I set automatic and sprayed the trees, short bursts, the smoke lingering. The Russians on the far left of me copied, many knelt or even standing and firing.
Easing back and kneeling, I called Tomsk.
‘There was a big explosion?’ Tomsk asked, panicked.
&nbs
p; ‘Those English snipers saw a man with a bomb, shot the bomb at seven hundred yards, set it off.’
‘My ... god.’
‘Most of the attackers were hit, rest were dazed, we shot the stragglers. But maybe they saw the parachuting...’
‘Ah, yes, a problem.’
‘We can change the drop zone, but you protect that fucking plane, and search it. Have the police search it, bomb sniffer dogs.’
‘I’ll organise that, yes.’
Call cut, I recalled the number for SIS. ‘This is Papa Victor. Sitrep: large force moved on Tomsk’s jungle base, but were killed, no wounds to English lads, some of whom slept through it. Mission is still a go, but they may know we’re coming. Papa Victor out.’
I walked back to the huts as the Russians moved forwards into the trees, Rocko and Rizzo finally up.
‘Something happen?’ Rocko asked, taking in the body parts.
‘A large force moved in to attack, I spotted them, so ... you take it easy.’
‘What time is breakfast?’ Rizzo asked.
I shook my head. ‘You two do me proud, you know that.’
Rocko checked his watch. ‘It’s like ... 6am,’ he noted. ‘Fuck.’
‘Breakfast at 8am, I think,’ I told him. ‘But stay sharp, may be a few more surprises before breakfast.’
‘These fuckers know we’re coming,’ Rocko insisted.
‘No, they know that Tomsk was responsible for tipping of the police and getting the cartel men arrested – so they’re pissed off at him, and they have a few quid to spare. If they knew we were coming they’d have people waiting down there, not sent up here.’
I made myself a coffee in the command hut, no gunfire to disturb me as I sat on the porch, rifle across my knees. Jeeps drove in, men jumping down, body parts inspected.
Half an hour later No.3 drove in, and came over to me. He wiped his brow. ‘We shot maybe eight, but they were wounded mostly. No sign of anyone left alive out there, big fucking hole in the forest, entrails up the trees.’
‘Any ID cards?’
He fetched out two plastic cards, blood on them. ‘Honduran Army regulars, Special Forces.’
‘When you have a lot of money you can hire good help, and this is not the end of it.’
‘They send more?’
‘They’ll keep sending more and more till we’re all dead.’
No.3 looked worried, and stared back down at me. ‘If we don’t get them, they get us eventually.’
‘Yes, my friend, they certainly will. And very soon.’
‘It was not a good idea to fuck with them ... Tomsk made a mistake, no.’
‘His mistake will cost a few lives, yes.’
No.3 hesitated, as if he wanted to say something, then sloped off looking angered.
Tomsk arrived an hour later, staring down the range for a few minutes before joining me in the command hut. ‘They are all dead?’
‘Some may have gotten away,’ I said with a shrug. ‘And one thing I am certain of ... is that our C130 will explode shortly after take-off.’
‘You think they know?’
‘Do we take the risk?’ I countered with.
‘Is there another way to get there?’
‘There is, but we need the assistance of Air Traffic Control and that minister. Try and find another C130 cargo, Russian pilots, bring it to Panama, to the strip. I’ll talk to the minister later, see if he will help.’
‘He’ll do anything he can,’ Tomsk assured me.
‘Then get a dozen sex dolls, large size, ones that can be blown up?’
‘Sex dolls! What the fuck for?’
‘A message for the Cali boys; we’ll dress the dolls in jungle greens and kit and put them on that plane.’
‘When it lands ... they search it,’ Tomsk noted. ‘And find the message.’ He smiled. ‘It’s rude, I like it.’
I called SIS London. ‘This is Papa Victor, requesting a favour. Leak to the press that British SAS may be deployed to Bogota in the weeks ahead. End of favour request. Out.’
After breakfast I checked my watch and called the minister. ‘It’s Petrov.’
‘You had another attack I hear.’
‘Yes, Honduran Special Forces, but I spotted them.’
‘Then they are not as good as you, neither were the Nicaraguans. The press, they make a cartoon, you against thirty Nicaraguans, with the words: “Not a fair fight, the Nicaraguans had no chance”.’
I laughed. ‘Some day I may have to live up to my exaggerated reputation. Listen, could I borrow a Hercules from your Air Force, for a night exercise, and some engine trouble that places it over the Colombian coast.’
‘What would it do, exactly?’
‘It would be on a routine training exercise down the coast, thirty miles off the coast. Near Cali it would report engine trouble and ask to land at Cali, then when over the coast it opens its rear and we parachute out. Ramp closed, its engine trouble suddenly gets better, and it flies home.’
‘That’s easy enough, but if you land we get the blame.’
‘There’ll be several decoy aircraft, all C130 Hercules. Blame will lie elsewhere, and no one will believe that you dropped men from 14,000 feet.’
‘Well, that seems OK then, and I don’t think anyone here gives a fuck, nor in Colombia – another bomb went off in Bogota. One here was found and defused.’
‘Then we leave tonight and end this, Minister.’
‘Yes, sooner the better, and all of Panama will be with you.’
‘Let me know about that Hercules soon, but we need maximum security, the fewer people to know the better.’
‘I handle it myself, straight to the pilots. You need any special equipment?’
‘No, just some good weather and some luck.’
‘I will check the weather as well,’ he assured me.
I gathered the British contingent. ‘This has been the second attack, and there’ll be more till we go kick some balls. So we fly tonight, but I changed the plan. On our intended plane we’ll have sex dolls dressed like soldiers.’
They laughed.
‘We’ll be on the same Hercules that brought us here. I’ll also try and organise other decoys to keep the bad boys busy. If we can’t get near the men in charge we go for the drug labs, easy targets, then wait the response, the aim being to kill any fucker with a gun.
‘But understand now ... that some of the bad boys will be local police officers. Try to avoid killing them, hit them in the foot, but if you have too – kill the fuckers, because they will hand you over to the cartels. Where we’re going, every citizen within a hundred miles will turn you in, including doctors and police. Trust no one. You sleep from 3pm to 8pm today, then we go.’
I gathered the Russian insert team and repeated that detail, the men feeling better about a Panamanian Air Force Hercules.
Tomsk came back at noon. ‘The men I sent to Cali have been picked up.’
I nodded. ‘As expected. And the safe house on the coast?’
‘They are OK, yes. Ship is ready, in fact three, but they reported American helicopters and planes buzzing about.’
‘We need those American helicopters, so good. And tonight, after that C130 takes off, have the Cali Cartel tipped off that soldiers are onboard, and that they will be smuggled out the airport.’
‘They wait the plane and surround it,’ he noted.
I nodded. ‘That’s the hope. Oh, any other planes heading down that way?’
‘Yes, but not with the ramp.’
‘Have some large boxes filled with rags, put them on that plane, but well guarded, some sex dolls inside, and then send the tip-off when the plane is close to Cali. Same for the C130, don’t give them too much time to plan. Have the decoy planes land around ... 1am, we make them tired.’
‘We keep them busy, no.’
‘If they know we parachuted in ... then the leadership will hide, so then we go for the drug labs, and that will cost them. Impossible to know till we get there, bu
t the British will see the phone calls.’
The Russians cleaned up the base, bagging up bodies and body parts as I observed, Tomsk threatening to cut down the trees. Well, those trees hid the base, so that would have been counter-productive I told him.
I wandered through the debris field, blood and guts everywhere, trees on their sides, dead birds littered about. Kicking over someone’s webbing parts I found what looked like a phone, but was actually a remote detonator. Stood there, I puzzled it. What had been their plan?
Would they have tried to get the bomb close, withdrawn and then detonated it, made us loll about like drunks as they attacked? Getting close to place the bomb was a risk, and it would not get everyone, the brick buildings were secure, and some had sandbags, and they were a hundred yards from the tree line.
To the men still combing the area I shouted for them to move to the road quickly. I jogged back down the range, and shouted for the base to be evacuated, and for the men to move down the track to the road, and along the stream, and to get down and wait. I had the jeeps drive off down the road, all of them, the British contingent sent off as well, No.3 at my side and puzzling the odd move.
I held up the detonator and showed him. ‘This was not for that bomb.’
‘Someone plants a bomb here?’
‘Maybe. We’ll see now.’ I led him out to the track and behind large trees, others taking cover there. Stood behind the tree, I wrapped my arm around the tree, lifted the leaver, and pressed.
The blast threw a truck a hundred feet into the air, windows blown out, the truck landing in a heap, bits of it flying through the air and raining down.
I turned to No.3. ‘We need to search the base,’ I testily told him. ‘Bring the men back, search everything.’
I walked back in whilst stepping over metal parts, smoke lingering, the truck wreck smouldering, and I headed to the command room, its windows blown in. I found a piece of truck suspension embedded in the wall as I knocked the kettle on.
Tomsk came back an hour later, as men tried to sleep, windows now taped up. ‘What the fuck now!’
‘I found a detonator on the floor, moved the men out, threw the switch. Boom. Someone here put that bomb in the truck.’
