Mercenary s-5

by Duncan Falconer

  ‘My pleasure,’ Victor replied.

  Stratton dumped his pack beside the bunk, unzipped the parachute bag and tipped the contents out onto the floor. He began to unravel the chute, picking out twigs and other debris from the material. Then he hooked the harness around the banister ball at the top of the stairs and walked the suspension lines to the far end of the room, untangling and stretching them out.

  Victor came to the top of the stairs to see what he was doing. ‘We don’t have any planes if you’re planning on parachuting out of here.’

  ‘I’m drying it out.’

  ‘You are a professional, aren’t you?’ Victor asked, his tone rhetorical.

  Stratton looked up at him.The comment was correct, but not in the way the other man intended.

  ‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ Victor said and headed back down the stairs. ‘I like to sleep below. The rats that live in the thatch irritate me.’

  Stratton glanced up at the reed ceiling. His back suddenly ached from the day’s activities - a combination of the jump and the long yomp. He was looking forward to lying down and hurried to finish cleaning the chute.

  Stratton had a fitful night’s sleep, waking up at every sound from inside and outside the cabin. The most annoying disturbance came from the family of rodents - or rats, as Victor had described them - that was living in the reed roof. They kept scurrying about, causing bits of thatch to fall on him, which eventually prompted him to erect his mosquito net. No sooner had he done that than the rain came down heavily. It got rid of the rodents, only to replace them with another irritation: a constant cascade of drips that the net could not shield him from. After shifting his wooden bunk around the floor more than once he eventually found a drip-free zone. Then, just as he thought he was finally dozing off, he heard one of the stairs creak. It felt like he had been asleep for barely minutes but when he opened his eyes he could make out objects in the room by the early morning light coming through gaps in the roof. He watched the top of the stairs, resting his hand on the stock of his M4.

  Victor’s freshly shaven face appeared. ‘I see you did not trust my hospitality,’ he said.

  Stratton did not understand and sat up.

  ‘You slept with your boots on,’ Victor explained.

  ‘Oh,’ Stratton said. ‘An old habit when I’m in a new place.’

  ‘I spent the first year of the campaign sleeping in my boots. And with good reason. We always seemed to be running away . . . You want some coffee?’

  ‘Sure,’ Stratton said, scratching the stubble on his chin.

  ‘Do you wash?’

  Stratton thought it was an odd question. ‘When I get the chance.’

  ‘It’s a choice one makes in these circumstances. I’ll put some water on the stove,’ Victor said, going back downstairs.

  Stratton opened his pack, removed a small bag and dug out a toothbrush and some paste. He went downstairs to the sink, which had no taps, and searched around it, looking inside a couple of jugs.

  ‘I just realised I used the last of the water. I’m going to get some more,’ Victor said, picking up a bucket. ‘Use the coffee.’ He held out a mug to Stratton.

  The soldier took the advice, brushed his teeth and rinsed his mouth with the coffee.

  ‘Oh. I’ve just remembered - you’re not going anywhere today,’ Victor said as he reached the front door. ‘Sebastian wants you to stay and train the men as planned.’

  Stratton choked back his impulse to tell Victor in crude terms that Sebastian could think again if he thought Stratton was some kind of serf who had to do what he was told. Exercising considerable restraint, he asked merely, ‘Don’t you think I might have some say in the matter?’

  ‘I thought it was just a job to you,’ Victor said, a hint of apology in his tone.

  ‘Haven’t circumstances changed just a little?’

  Victor nodded, more to himself than to Stratton. ‘Is that okay by you?’

  Stratton had grown used to the idea of getting out of this place as soon as he could and once again he found himself undecided about delaying further.

  ‘If you refuse I will understand,’ Victor said, waiting politely for an answer.

  Once again Stratton felt unable to say no. He reasoned that a few hours more was no big deal. By the afternoon he would be gone. ‘Okay,’ he said.

  ‘Good. I told Sebastian you did not seem the type to frighten easily.’

  Stratton headed back up the stairs to pack his parachute and kit.

  ‘After breakfast I’ll show you around the camp,’ Victor called out. ‘Have you had burro steaks before?’

  ‘Donkey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Stratton was out of Victor’s sight so he felt free to make an expression of distaste. ‘One of my favourites,’ he called out.

  Victor smirked at the sarcasm he detected and removed a muslin-covered bundle from one of his pockets. ‘Hey!’

  Stratton appeared on the balcony.

  Victor threw the bundle up to him. ‘Why don’t you get the frying pan hot?’

  Stratton opened the bundle to reveal two large bloody steaks, both with rinds that had long grey matted hair growing from them.

  ‘It’s almost as good as horse,’ Victor assured him as he left and closed the door.

  It was a bright, clear morning as the two men walked across the compound. On the far horizon a thin line of dark clouds seemed to be waiting to roll in but for the moment the air was a perfect temperature with hardly any humidity.

  The ground was slippery, unable to absorb the constant rains, and the path to the main camp area was peppered with deep pools of mud. Everything was mud-coloured except for a sprinkling of green and blue plastic sheeting on the roofs of the habitats, and the lines of laundry. Smoke rose from countless cooking fires to form a grey cloud that hung in the windless air. There were people everywhere - women doing morning chores, men in fatigues hanging around smoking and chatting, and children running in and out of the huts and playing in the open field.

  Victor and Stratton crossed the higher ground away from the main camp and walked along the side of a gentle hill, until a long wooden hut came into view at the top. It had a circular corral in front of it in which a white horse was trotting around.

  ‘The stables,’ Victor pointed out. ‘They are just above the cabins. We’ve come around in a semicircle.’

  They walked across the slope and approached a small isolated wood. Several men were gathered around a smouldering fire to one side of an entrance guarded by a sandbagged defensive position.They acknowledged Victor with a nod as he approached.

  Victor led the way into the wood, which concealed several rows of pallets covered in tarpaulins and camouflage netting. The cooler, damper air beneath the low canopy of branches smelled of a mixture of rotting foliage and gasoline.

  Further along the path lay a line of boxes that Stratton recognised.

  ‘We keep some of our stores here,’ Victor explained. ‘There are other caches around the camp - away from the living quarters, of course. These are your weapons.’

  Stratton noted that there was only about a third of what he had delivered. ‘Do you have a training area? Somewhere we can fire a sixty-six?’

  Victor pointed up ahead where a narrow path cut through the wood. He led them back to within sight of the sentries and the stables on the hill. ‘We use this area for weapon testing. You can fire in that direction. Beyond those bushes the ground drops away to a cliff, above a river. Nobody goes there. Will it do?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Stratton said, looking around and thinking how he might organise things.

  ‘What else will you need?’

  ‘Half a dozen guys smart enough to be able to teach others what I teach them.’

  Victor nodded. ‘Is this afternoon okay?’

  Stratton sighed to himself. Yet another delay.

  ‘The men have work this morning,’ Victor explained as if he had sensed Stratton’s disappointment.

&nbs
p; ‘Sure,’ Stratton said, forcing a smile.

  They both looked up as a horse and rider appeared, speeding across the top of the slope and silhouetted against the blue sky.

  ‘Louisa,’ Victor said. ‘She rides like an insane person.’

  ‘Is she from here . . . I mean, from this country?’

  ‘She’s second-generation. Sebastian was born here. His father came from Spain when he was twelve.’

  ‘She wasn’t brought up here?’

  ‘Until her early teens. Then, apart from the last few months, she’s been in the US and Europe. Living life as a young person should.’

  ‘Why did she come back?’

  Victor looked as if he disapproved. ‘She says she wants to be with her father. I think there is more to it than that. She majored in some political subject. She’s one of those youngsters who knows everything and has experienced nothing . . . She loves her father. She also believes in him and the struggle.’

  ‘She’s friendly to you.’

  The scientist chuckled, as if he understood how Stratton thought she felt the opposite about him. ‘She thinks I’m a romantic idealist, and an old one at that. If I was ten years younger I would sweep her off her feet.’ He noticed Stratton staring at her and thought he could read the soldier’s thoughts. ‘A mercenary would have no chance, my friend.’

  ‘I’m not a mercenary.’

  ‘Well, you look and act like one, and that’s enough.’

  They watched Louisa pull her horse to a spirited halt when she reached the stables and dismount lithely. Sebastian came out to greet her and after a brief exchange she led her mount into the stable. Sebastian went to the corral and leaned on the fence. The white horse strolled over to him and he stroked its cheeks.

  ‘When I first met Louisa I thought she suffered from the classic syndrome, a daughter wanting to be like a son to her father. But it’s not the case. She’s a perfect woman. When she returned from abroad Sebastian was happy to see her . . . at first. Then she told him she was staying. It was completely against his wishes but that woman does not take orders from anyone, not even from Sebastian. She told him she had completed her education, as he had wanted, and that he was no longer going to rule her life.’

  A smile formed on Victor’s craggy face once again but it faded as darker thoughts clouded his mind. ‘He’s right, though. These are not good times. Not that they were ever great. But they are worse than ever now. She should not be here. She will become a pawn in this game. She is Sebastian’s only weakness. I suppose it’s fortunate that Hector is in love with her. He’s rash. But she mellows him. Not enough, perhaps, as you saw last night. In some ways I feel bad for him too. He loved Sebastian, admired him above all men. Hector would not go against Sebastian and certainly not against Louisa for any other reason than his political convictions. He would like to convince her even more than Sebastian that what he is doing is the best for the people, and for them both.’

  Stratton was beginning to understand some of the complications. They fascinated him. Louisa fascinated him. ‘What’s his story?’ Stratton asked.

  ‘Sebastian’s?’

  ‘He looks more like an aristocrat than a general.’

  ‘He comes from a long line of both.’

  ‘Did he fall out with Neravista?’

  ‘Most of the aristos in this country stand alongside Neravista. Sebastian is one of the few who went against him. Like many Latin American countries this one is ruled by the landowners. Most of the wealth and all of the power is controlled by a small group of people. By turning against Neravista, Sebastian was following a long line of noble rebels in his own family. His grandfather lost out in a rebellion against Franco in Spain before the Second World War. Sebastian doesn’t want that failure to run in the family.’ Victor checked his watch. ‘He wants to see you.’

  Stratton looked at the Frenchman. ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe he wants to talk you into staying. I don’t know. He’s more pragmatic than Louisa. When you’re in a fight, make friends with fighters, no matter what their motive.’

  Stratton was getting bored with the endless insinuations that he fought only for money. But it was obvious that the rebels had fixed views about him and nothing was going to change them. He had no fears that Sebastian was going to talk him into staying, not even for another day. He was leaving the camp at the end of the day’s training and that was final. Even if it was dark by the time he left.

  He was about to set off when Victor stopped him.

  ‘Tell me something. Be honest with me. Do we seem foolish to you?’

  Stratton was not sure exactly what the Frenchman meant.

  ‘You must have come across people like us before. I would understand if you find us amusing.’

  ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’

  ‘You don’t look new to this kind of work.’

  ‘What I mean is, I’ve never delivered arms to a bunch of freedom fighters before.’

  ‘What kind of things do mercenaries do these days?’

  Once again Stratton ignored the label that Victor was trying to pin on him. ‘There’s nothing foolish about fighting for political change. It’s dying for it that doesn’t make any sense to me.’

  Victor nodded. ‘Spoken like a true mercenary.’

  Stratton shook his head wearily and walked off up the slope.

  Sebastian was stroking the horse and speaking softly to it as Stratton arrived and stopped a few paces away.

  ‘What do you think of him . . . my horse?’ Sebastian asked.

  ‘It’s a beautiful animal.’

  ‘Are you familiar with horses?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you have instincts. You’re a warrior. That puts you closer than ordinary men to animals like this. Tell me what you see in him.’

  Stratton studied the animal before stepping up to the fence and reaching out to touch it. The horse did not move as Stratton stroked its cheek.

  ‘Kindred spirits, as I said. He comes from warrior stock himself.’

  The horse turned its head slightly to look at Stratton. It was a powerful and stalwart-looking beast. ‘I see pride. Dignity. He seems content.’

  The old man nodded. ‘He’s a true white, as resolute as they come. There has always been a white in our family. Tradition is important, don’t you think?’

  Stratton could agree with that. There was none in his family but he had learned the meaning of the word - the concept - while serving in the British military.

  ‘Tell me,’ Sebastian said. ‘Why have you chosen to stay here when your life is in danger?’

  ‘Because I was asked politely.’

  Sebastian allowed himself a rare chuckle. ‘And the real reason?’

  Stratton had to think about it for a moment. ‘To be honest, I don’t really know.’

  ‘Then examine what did not drive you away. Fear could not, because you’re unafraid. Self-interest was not enough. You came with Victor and his men to finish the job - so you are altruistic. You saved a stranger’s life, which makes you empathetic. Forgive the examination. I am interested in the instincts of animals but even more so in those of men. In times of confusion instincts are all we have to rely on . . . Have you seen much of the camp?’

  ‘Victor showed me some of it.’

  ‘You need to see it all. Louisa!’ Sebastian called out.

  His daughter stepped out of a stall. Her expression went blank when she saw Stratton. ‘Yes, father?’ she said as she walked over to them.

  ‘Would you show our guest around? Give him a horse.’

  Louisa did not look overjoyed at the prospect. If Sebastian noticed her lack of enthusiasm, he gave no sign and faced Stratton, looking him in the eye. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said with true sincerity.

  Stratton watched him head down the path towards the log cabins. The man was without doubt a member of a rare breed. Some people were born with an exceptional aura and Sebastian was one of them. He had begun and was now
holding together a national rebellion by sheer force of will.

  Louisa was looking at Stratton as if she’d won a booby prize.

  ‘I take it you don’t fancy being a tour guide today,’ he said.

  ‘You’re very intuitive.’

  ‘I’ve had enough compliments for one day, thanks.’

  She gave him an insincere smile.

  ‘Maybe some other time,’ he said, turning away.

  Louisa would have been happy to let him go but she was mindful of her father’s request. ‘Wait.’

  Stratton did not respond.

  ‘Can I say something?’ she asked.

  He slowed to a halt and looked around at her tiredly.

  ‘You’re my father’s guest. If he wants you to be shown around I will oblige him.’

  ‘Hey. Don’t put yourself out on my account.’ He continued down the slope.

  ‘Look . . .’ Louisa began. But Stratton was marching off at a stubborn pace. She gritted her teeth, turned away from him and stormed back to the stables.

  Stratton worked on suppressing his annoyance. He could usually tolerate disrespect, choosing the diplomatic thick-skinned option that would prevent conflict and let him get on with the job. But every now and then bad manners and insults got to him. Louisa had managed to needle him more easily than another person might have and the reason for that was obvious enough. His ego had been chipped. She was beautiful and he wanted to be attractive to her but she saw him only as a lowlife.

  Stratton decided that the best course of action was to avoid the woman altogether. She was only going to wind him up whenever they met. Staying out of her way for the next few hours should not be difficult.

  He tried to focus his thoughts on the upcoming weapons training but Louisa had well and truly got under his skin. There was something about her that he could not shake. Stratton had avoided meaningful relationships with the opposite sex for years. It had been a rule of his, and her attitude should have made it easy to sustain. Having a love interest in his line of work was pointless. In his early days in the SBS he had had a girlfriend and there had been some great times but the difficulties and eventual heartbreak had not been worth it. The strains of maintaining a relationship when both parties were often apart for long periods only really became clear after he’d tried it. Sure, he was looking forward to getting home - but only because he didn’t want to be here. If he was offered another job by the time he got to Panama he would take it. And he wouldn’t have to make a difficult phone call to explain, in effect asking for permission not to come home until God only knew when. His pride might have taken a knock but he had to get on with the job in hand.