by Matt Rogers
Despite the panic of fleeing enemy gunfire, King knew he had to make sure not to grow careless. If he and Norton got lost, no amount of backup would ever save them. The Amazon Rainforest was so vast and unexplored that losing their way would mean a death sentence.
As they ran, King used his good arm to break low-hanging branches. The snapped twigs fell to the forest floor beneath them. It would serve as a rudimentary path back should they need it.
The darkness became an advantage to them. Slowly, the sounds of the remaining Phantoms grew quieter and quieter. When King noticed this he grabbed Norton once again and stood deathly still, listening intently.
The noise began to fade.
‘They lost us,’ he said. ‘We’re good.’
The Amazon at night was a different beast. Keeping track of his location was hard enough with the assistance of daylight, but now it was practically impossible. King found himself surrounded by looming trees, all resembling each other. He could barely remember which direction led back to the compound.
‘We should bunker down here,’ he said. ‘Get some sleep. They won’t spend much more time searching. It’ll be useless when it’s fully dark.’
There was no camp to set up, for they had no supplies on them. King’s backpack was a mile away, tucked away somewhere in the dark jungle on the other side of the compound. He would never find it, at least until morning. Even then it would be tough to locate.
They found the most comfortable patch of ground and lay down amongst the ferns. After the chaos of the day, King would take any rest he could. He didn’t care about a fire, or a good meal, or clean drinking water. He just wanted to avoid being shot at for a few hours.
‘I’m scared, King,’ Norton said after a lengthy period of silence.
King paused. He could hear unsuppressed fear in the kid’s voice. He didn’t blame him. To Norton, their current predicament would be unfathomable. Just a few days ago all the kid had known was the inside of an embassy, and the worst of his worries had probably been what job offerings would result from an internship in Peru. Now he lay buried in the cover of jungle undergrowth, heart pounding in his chest, sweat on his brow, praying desperately that merciless gangsters didn’t find him and kill him … or worse.
‘I am too,’ King said. ‘Believe me.’
‘There’s no way! You said you want to be in these situations. Can you teach me how? I can’t handle this.’
‘It’s not something you can teach, kid. It’s not as simple as that. I started just as nervous as you are. Over time you can learn to suppress it. But it never really goes away.’
‘How did you end up volunteering for missions like this…?’ Norton said. Then he waited, as if hesitant to ask a question that he didn’t want to come off as rude.
‘Say it,’ King said. ‘I won’t mind.’
‘Did you come from a bad home?’
King chuckled. ‘It would make sense if I did, wouldn’t it? An orphan, thrown around foster care. That’d explain my decision perfectly.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘Quite the opposite. I was two years into a law degree when I decided to sign up for the military. And my goal was to become someone like this.’
‘W—’ Norton didn’t have a response to that.
‘Don’t worry. You wouldn’t be the first not to understand. In fact, it’d be strange if you did understand.’
‘This isn’t natural,’ Norton said. ‘Wouldn’t you prefer not having to worry about whether you’ll see the next day?’
‘Not really. I thrive on that feeling.’
‘How? Because right now my instincts are telling me to curl up into a ball and cry and wait for it to all be over.’
‘I don’t have an exact answer. I never will. I get energy from the thrill of near-death experiences. I only feel like I’m alive when I’m scared.’
‘So it’s not about helping people?’
‘It is. But everyone cares about their own life, too. If you don’t, you’re a liar. I just happen to be impartial to danger, so I can do what I do without a second thought.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘Then you won’t get what I’m going to do tomorrow morning.’
He heard Norton sit up in the dark. ‘Please don’t say…’
‘I’m going back there, kid. I left Mabaya alive. And there’s still five or six Phantoms, somewhere out there.’
‘Can’t we just run? Please?’
‘If I die, you just hunker down and wait for the sound of the chopper. The backup is arriving in a CH-53 Super Stallion, so you’ll hear it from a mile away. Largest chopper in the United States military.’
‘Can’t they take care of the men left in that place?’
‘They could, but I don’t want to risk any casualties on their end. I’m the one who chose to proceed with the mission. I don’t care if I die. I care if they do.’
Norton said nothing for a while. In the far distance, the faint echo of barking commands crept through the jungle.
Mabaya’s awake, King thought. And mad as hell.
‘I still don’t get it,’ Norton said. ‘But please promise me I’m going to be okay.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ King said. ‘I can’t say the same for myself.’
‘Why can’t you just forget about it?’
‘If I do nothing … and one of the Delta soldiers gets killed in the firefight…’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t live with myself.’
‘It’s not your responsibility.’
‘I know. But I’m making it mine. I want to.’
‘But—’
‘You won’t change my mind, Ben.’
They lay on the jungle floor in mutual silence, listening to the sounds of the Amazon all around them. Incessant shrieking and hooting and hollering of wildlife disturbed the quiet, making King restless. He rolled onto his side and grimaced. The rest gave him time to concentrate on his injuries. To feel the throbbing pain in his wrist. To feel the nerve endings tweaking in his shoulder. He longed for another burst of adrenaline. That feeling melted away all others. There was nothing to concentrate on but the heat of combat.
I must be sick, he thought. Maybe he was. Norton was right. This wasn’t how normal people lived. In the darkness, he shrugged. As long as he could save people like Norton in the process, he didn’t care if he was different. Sometimes, different was a benefit.
He felt the stock of the Taurus PT92. It calmed him a little. There were twelve bullets left in the chamber. He’d fired three through the compound’s window when they were escaping.
There was a lot he could do with twelve bullets. The Phantoms would find out how much in the morning.
Once again, King found himself thinking about death. What if he was killed in battle tomorrow morning? He imagined the scenario, and waited for his brain to respond. Some kind of feeling, some kind of worry.
Nothing.
That in itself was worrying. He did not care whether he lived or died tomorrow.
‘Norton, you awake?’ he said.
Silence.
In the relative comfort of the foliage, the kid had crashed. King didn’t blame him. Twenty-four hours of constant tension would do that. In a moment of relative safety, he’d fallen instantly asleep. King could feel the same effect beginning to affect himself. He reached for the digital watch on his wrist and thumbed the buttons on one side of its bulk. Three beeps told him what he needed to know. There was an alarm set for five in the morning. He knew he didn’t need it, but it was precautionary.
He settled back into the fronds, letting them wrap around him. He thought he felt a bug crawl across his earlobe. He flitted it away and winced at the searing pain in his shoulder. What if he woke up unable to move his arm?
He would worry about that in the morning. He closed his eyes and felt the murky haze of sleep take over.
CHAPTER 28
His eyes flitted open seconds before the alarm went off. A strange phenomenon, and one that he couldn’t
easily explain. His brain seemed to sense when combat was imminent. When he wasn’t on a mission, he never woke up when he wanted.
It was still dark, but not the kind of jet-black that came in the middle of the night. A faint sliver of blue crept into the sky above. King looked up at the trees overhead and could make out the outline of the branches against the sky. There was just enough light to navigate around. Which is exactly what he would need to do.
His heart rate ever so slowly began to quicken. A feeling he would never get tired of. As he got to his feet, Norton stirred beside him.
‘Are you leaving?’
King nodded. ‘Afraid I am.’
‘What do I do?’
‘Do what I told you. Wait for me to come back. If I don’t, just stay here. Backup will arrive in exactly two hours. Delta is never late. No matter what happens you’ll be safe. I promise.’
‘Thank you, King. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for you.’
‘Happy to help. You know why.’
King gripped Norton’s shoulder with his good hand and squeezed tight. ‘You’ll be fine.’
‘I’d prefer if you didn’t die in the next two hours. I thought we would be friends.’
King smiled. ‘I’ll try not to.’
He tucked the Taurus into his belt, turned and headed into the trees.
As he walked, he did his best to ignore his wounds. Medical assistance would be there in hours. He had to keep the pain at bay long enough to achieve his objective, then he could let it consume him. Until then…
His first destination was the river. There was something he needed there. Just enough light had crept into the sky to make the path ahead faintly visible. It enabled him to skirt around obstacles, avoiding fallen logs and dips in the ground and twisting roots. His surroundings made claustrophobia inevitable. No matter how resolutely King acted, it was impossible to shake the knot in his gut. The fear that he would get lost and slowly succumb to dehydration.
He need not have worried. His sense of direction was impeccable. It took less than ten minutes before he saw the riverbank ahead, sloping away from the jungle. He exited the rainforest and took a moment to watch the river.
Although light had begun to creep over the horizon, moonlight still shone across the water. He saw the flowing streams pulsate slightly, spurred on by the slope of the land. It was a serene sight. He knew the calm wouldn’t last long.
He had a job to do.
Down by the shore tiny waves lapped at the dirt, creating a stretch of mud that ran for miles in either direction. King crept down to the water, taking caution not to slip. After being shot twice, he was in enough trouble already. Impaired movement was the last thing he wanted to add to that.
In the dawn light he scooped out a thick dollop of mud and smeared it over his neck. With both hands he spread the cold gunk over his cheeks, his forehead, his chin. He ran it through his hair. He covered his exposed arm, missing the sleeve that was now tied tight around the wound in his shoulder. By the time he was finished and the mud had caked dry against his skin, all his exposed flesh was entirely brown. It would blend him into the undergrowth.
They’d never see him coming.
He withdrew the Taurus from his waistband and clicked the safety off. It was a sound ingrained into his memory. It always signified impending pain and death and destruction. The pre-eminent noise of approaching combat. It helped him enter a dark place, a place he knew he had to go to achieve what he wanted. At the compound there could be no hesitation. He couldn’t stop to think about what he was doing. Gunfights were instinctive. There would be no mercy from either side.
He snuck back into the jungle and let the dense vegetation envelop him. He felt invisible, and he knew he would be hard to spot. It took him five minutes to find the compound. At first he thought he never would. All the trees blurred into one another, until it felt like he was walking through a kaleidoscope of green. He wasn’t sure he would ever find his way, until the trees cleared ahead and he saw the outline of the warehouse in the distance.
He dropped to his stomach and crept slowly toward the compound. Amongst the ferns he was a ghost. They would not see him until it was too late. He saw movement in his peripheral vision and stopped crawling. There were three men on this side of the clearing. They patrolled the ground between the main warehouse and the jungle in a haphazard, predictable fashion. Clearly untrained. King smiled and silently thanked Mabaya for failing to train his men properly.
As if on cue, the man himself rounded the corner of the warehouse. The right side of his face had incipient swelling, with splotches of purple dotted across his cheek.
An after-effect of King’s boot.
The three gangsters turned to their leader, all facing away from King. Now would be the opportune time to strike, but he did not yet have a proper read on the situation. He would wait a little longer. Observe and assess.
‘Any sign of him?’ Mabaya said in Spanish.
‘The fucker is long gone,’ one of the goons snarled.
‘Maybe. I have a feeling he’s coming back. We’ll kill him when he does.’
‘He has to,’ the second man said. ‘They’ll die out there. We’re the only resources around.’
‘I don’t know,’ Mabaya said, staring away. ‘He took my fucking phone.’
‘He what?’
‘The satellite phone. The Garmin. He took it when he attacked me.’
The third Phantom, who up until then had been silent, let out an outburst. ‘Why didn’t you tell us that before?! There’s going to be military coming here. We need to leave. You dumb fuck, Mabaya!’
King watched the exchange with fascination. Mabaya would not have reacted kindly to that tone from one of his underlings a couple of days ago. Just yesterday, he had exuded the authority of a man in undoubtable control of his men.
Now, he simply shrugged.
Nonchalant. Defeated.
‘We have to hope he comes back,’ Mabaya said. ‘It’s our only chance. Otherwise we’re dead, no matter what.’
He pivoted on his heel and walked back the way he’d come. The three Phantoms patrolling this side of the compound began to shift from foot to foot. King could see they were nervous.
He glanced over his surroundings. If he could get into the warehouse without detection, it would be simple enough to put the remaining Phantoms on the back foot. He could cause a great deal of chaos in a short space of time. Which was exactly what he needed to gain the upper hand. If he tried an attack now, he wouldn’t last five seconds. All three of the Phantoms brandished various Kalashnikov rifles. All infinitely more powerful than King’s Taurus.
If he wanted to win this, he had to outsmart them.
A large tree next to him rested in a precarious position. He took one look at it and knew it was unstable. The tree’s roots had erupted from the dirt days ago, whether from rainy conditions or some other means. Now it had begun to tilt. Its branches and the top of its trunk rested against a neighbouring tree, tentatively balanced. At some point, it would slide off and come crashing to the forest floor.
King wondered if he could make that happen sooner rather than later.
He waited patiently for the three sentries to break their pattern. It didn’t take long. Amateurs made mistakes, and these men were the definition of novices. There was little competition in the middle of the jungle. They were rusty. Sure enough, only a few minutes later two of them had their backs turned, smoking cigarettes, while the other peered out into the bushes in the opposite direction of King. There were no eyes on him.
He rose out of the undergrowth and made for the tree. Its trunk was smooth, weathered by the elements over the years. He placed both hands on it and pushed hard. A slight shift. Not enough. He dropped his shoulder low and rammed his frame into the tree, giving it everything he had.
The tree creaked. Overhead he heard a branch snap as it began to slide off its resting position. Any second it would break free.
He let go and raced thro
ugh the jungle, sticking to the areas packed with vegetation. Hoping to stay away from prying eyes. He made sure to stay close to the compound, circling around its perimeter until he came to a stop near the other side.
The front of the compound had a wider clearing. The same area Woodford had met his demise half a day earlier. Here, four more Phantoms stood idly in the lowlight, glancing nervously in all directions. They hadn’t seen King get into position. He knew they wouldn’t be around for long.
A deep, booming crash resonated through the ground, coming from the rear of the warehouse. The tree trunk slamming against the dirt created more commotion than King could have hoped for. Mabaya came sprinting out of the warehouse, shouting incoherently. The four Phantoms followed him around the side. Another rookie mistake. There was no need for eight men to investigate a single noise. It left them exposed.
Exactly how King had planned it.
He broke out onto open ground. The clearing was now empty. There was no-one around to stop him as he raced across the dirt and ducked inside the warehouse.
CHAPTER 29
The interior of the warehouse was foreign to King. He’d been carried through it while unconscious, and had yet to see it in the flesh. All he’d glimpsed was a dirty windowless room and a narrow hallway.
The far wall held a mountainous set of steel-framed storage shelves, home to all kinds of plastic-wrapped materials. There had to be enough ingredients for hundreds of kilograms of drugs on the shelves alone. The floor was covered in rows of machinery, all heavy and steel and industrial. All organised to perfection. There were no men in lab coats producing the cocaine. No hired help. King realised the Phantoms manufactured the supply themselves. They were sloppy in combat because this took up the majority of their time.
One table stood out from the rest. Most shone under the halogen lights far above, polished and scrubbed until they were spotless. One was covered in blood.
King crossed the room and approached the table slick with red. On it lay a single object.
Roman Woodford’s head.
It had been brutally hacked off his shoulders. The body was nowhere to be seen. His head lay propped up on the table, surrounded by thick droplets of blood. Eyes still wide open. King shook his head at the savagery. He took one more look at Mabaya’s sick trophy before moving on. There was work to be done, and no time to dwell on what had already happened. He would not go searching for Burns’ head. She was dead. There was nothing more he could do but avenge her.
