by Andy McNab
I got a weak reply. The blue box. It's near where you are somewhere."
Luz came back into the room and went to her mother.
Under the mass of wiring, books and stationery I found a dark blue and badly scratched alloy box, just over a foot square and four inches thick. There were three coaxial cables attached, two in, one out. I pulled out all three.
There was mumbling behind me. I turned just in time to see Luz heading for the living-room door.
"Stop! Stay where you are! Don't move!" I jumped to my feet and moved over and grabbed her.
"Where you going?"
"Just to get some clothes. I'm sorry ..." She looked over to her mother for support. I let go so she could be at her mother's side, and as I turned to follow her I noticed a small pool of blood that had started to seep under the door. I ran into the storeroom and grabbed the first thing I could find for the job, a half-empty fifty-pound plastic sack of rice that had been kicked over. I lugged it back and placed it like a sandbag against the bottom of the door.
"You can't go in there it's dangerous, there could be a fire. The oil lamps fell when the helicopters came, it's everywhere. I'll get your stuff for you in a second."
Getting back under the table, I ripped out every wire that was attached to anything, then listened to make sure it was still raining.
I'll get the clothes for you now, Luz, just stay here, OK?"
I nearly gagged when I opened the door and stepped over the rice bag. The smell of cordite had gone, replaced by death, a smell like a bad day in a butcher's shop. Once the door was closed I turned on the light. The four bodies lay amongst the splintered wood and smashed glass, their blood in thick, congealed pools on the floorboards.
I tried to avoid stepping in anything as I went and got a spare set of clothes for Luz and a sweat top for Carrie. Opening the door, I threw them out into the computer room.
"Get changed, help your mum. I'll stay in here."
Positioning my feet to avoid the blood, I started to pull a chest harness from under Green Guy. It must have been dragged from the table as he collapsed, and was dripping with blood. That didn't matter, what did was the mags inside.
I started to wrench off the other harnesses. They, too, were soaking, and some of the mags had been hit by rounds. The nylon had split open, exposing twisted metal and bits of brass.
Hefting three harnesses, all filled with fresh mags, I rescued my docs from the floor and collected two hundred and twelve bloodstained dollars from the five bodies. Feeling less naked, I secured them in my leg pocket before checking the bookshelf for mapping of Chepo and the Bayano.
I found what I was looking for, and she was right: it was to the east of Chepo.
There was no time to ponder, we had to leave. The weather might clear at any minute. If the Peace Corps couldn't do anything for her, they could at least get her to the city.
I ran through on to the veranda, and out into the wonderful heli-repelling rain.
As soon as I got to the Land Cruiser I dumped the kit in the foot well then jammed the M-16 down between the passenger seat and the door before I closed it.
I didn't know why, I just didn't want Luz seeing it.
I went round to the other side and checked the fuel. I had about half a tank. I grabbed the torch and headed for the Mazda. When I lifted the squeaking tailgate, the light beam fell on the now bloodstained bedsheet covering Aaron. I could also see the jerry-cans secured at the rear and jumped in beside him, my boots slipping in a pool of his blood. The sickly, sweet smell was as bad as it was in the house. I rested my hand on his stomach to steady myself, and discovered he was still soft. I dragged out one of the heavy containers and slammed the tailgate shut.
I unscrewed the Land Cruiser's fuel cap and pulled back the nozzle of the jerry can The pressure inside was released with a hiss. I hurriedly poured the fuel into the tank, splashing it down the side of the wagon, drenching my hands.
As soon as the jerry-can was empty I closed the fuel cap and threw the metal container into the foot well on top of the harnesses. I thought I might be needing it later.
THIRTY-NINE
Having made sure that mud had replaced Aaron's blood on my Timberlands, I walked back towards the glare of the computer room and checked that the rice bag was still doing its job.
Carrie was smoking, and as I got closer I didn't need a sniffer dog to tell me what. Luz was sitting on the floor beside the cot, stroking her mother's brow and watching the smoke ooze from her nostrils. If she disapproved, she wasn't showing it.
Carrie's flooded eyes stared up in a daze at the motionless fan as her daughter carried on gently massaging her sweating forehead. I squatted at her feet and gave them another pinch. The blood flow was still there.
As I stood up my gaze switched to Luz. Tour mum tell you where it was?" The question about the giggle weed was irrelevant and I didn't know why I'd asked it just something to say, I supposed. Her head didn't move but her eyes swivelled up at me.
"As if ... but it's OK, today."
Carrie tried to let out a bit of a laugh, but it sounded more like coughing.
I bent down and retrieved one of the crepe bandages from the floor and put it into my pocket. Time to go."
She gave a nod as Carrie took another deep drag of the joint.
"Come on, then, let's get your mother out of here."
We both had our hands on the cot, Luz at the feet end, facing me.
"Ready? One, two, three. Up, up, up."
I steered us while she shuffled backwards, ploughing through the littered storeroom floor. We squelched through the mud and slid her once more into the back of the wagon, head first. I sent Luz back into the storeroom for the blankets and Evian while I used the bandage to secure the cot legs at the head end to anchorage points to stop it sliding around on the journey. Carrie turned her head towards me, sounding drowsy on her cocktail of dihy-drocodeine, aspirin and giggle weed
"Nick, Nick ..."
I was busy tying off in the dull interior lighting.
What am I going to do now?"
I knew what she was getting at, but this wasn't the time. 'You're going to Chepo and then you'll both be in Boston before you know it."
"No, no. Aaron what am I going to do?"
I was reprieved by Luz returning with water and an armful of blanket, which she helped me arrange over Carrie.
I jumped off the tailgate back into the mud and went round and climbed into the driver's seat.
"Luz, you've got to keep an eye on your mum make sure she doesn't slide about too much, OK?"
She nodded earnestly, kneeling over her as I started up and turned the Land Cruiser in a wide arc before heading on to the track. The main beams swept over the Mazda. Carrie eventually saw it in the red glow of our tail-lights as we crept past.
"Stop, stop, Nick stop ..."
I put my foot gently on the brake and turned in my seat. Her head was up, neck straining to look out of the gap at the rear. Luz moved to support her. What's up, Mom? What's wrong?"
Carrie just kept on staring at the Mazda as she answered her daughter.
"It's OK, baby I was just thinking about something. Later." She pulled Luz close and gave her a hug.
I waited for a while as the rain fell, more gently now, and the engine ticked over.
"OK to go?"
"Yes," she said.
"We're done here."
The journey to Chepo was slow and difficult as I tried to avoid as many potholes and ruts as I could. I really wished there had been time to look for another gollock. Going back into the jungle without one reminded me too much of Tuesday.
By the time we came out into the dead valley the rain had eased a bit further and the wipers were just on intermittent. I looked up over the wheel, knowing I wouldn't be able to see, but hoping all the same that the cloud cover was still low. If not, there'd be a heli or two revving up soon.
Once we hit the road, which looked more like a river in places, we were maki
ng no more than about ten Ks an hour. My nostrils were hit by the smell of cannabis again, and glancing round, I saw Luz kneeling by her mother with the joint just an inch from Carrie's lips, trying hard to get it back into her mouth between jolts. I fished in my pocket for the dihydrocodeine.
"Here, give your mum another of these with some water. Show the doctors or whoever the bottle. She's had four in total and an aspirin. Got that?"
Eventually the fortified police station came into view and I called for directions. Where's the clinic? Which way do I go?"
Luz was the one on top of this now: her mother was well and truly gone.
"It's kinda behind the store."
That I did know. We passed the restaurant and the jaguar wasn't even curious as we drove on into the dark side of town.
I flicked my wrist to have a check of Baby-G. It was just before midnight. Only ten hours in which to do what I had to do.
I took a right just before the breeze block store.
"Luz, this the right way? Am I
OK?"
'Yep it's just up here, see?"
Her hand passed my face from behind and pointed. About three buildings down was another breeze block structure with a tin roof and the circular Peace Corps sign stars and stripes, only instead of the stars a dove or two. I really couldn't see in this light.
I pulled up outside and Luz jumped out of the back. I could tell it wasn't a medical clinic at all: there was a painted wooden plaque below more doves which read, "American Peace Corps Community Environmental Education Project'.
Luz was already banging on the front door as I looked back at Carrie.
"We're here, Carrie, we're here."
I got no response. She was definitely waltzing with the pixies, but at least the pain was subdued.
The door-banging got a result. As I climbed out of the Land Cruiser, heading for the tailgate, a woman in her mid-twenties with long brown sleep-hair appeared on the threshold, wearing a tracksuit. Her eyes darted about rapidly as she took in the scene.
What's wrong, Luz?"
Luz launched into a frenzied explanation as I got into the rear and undid the security bandage.
"We're here, Carrie," I said.
She murmured to herself as the young woman came to the rear, now wide awake.
"Carrie, it's Janet can you hear me? It's Janet, can you hear me?"
There was no time for hellos.
"Got trauma care? It's an open fractured femur, left leg."
Janet held out her arms and began to ease the cot out of the wagon. I grabbed the other end and between us we lugged Carrie inside.
The office was barely furnished, just a couple of desks, cork boards, a phone and wall clock. What I'd seen so far was doing nothing to make me feel happier about their level of expertise.
"Can you treat her? If you can't, you need to get her into the city."
The woman looked at me as if I was mad.
More people were emerging sleepily from the rear of the building, three men in different shades of disarray, and a rush of American voices. What's happened, Carrie? Where's Aaron? Ohmigod, you OK, Luz?"
I stood back as events took over. A trauma pack appeared and a bag of fluid and a giving set were pulled out and prepared. It was hardly a well-rehearsed scene from ER, but they knew exactly what they were doing. I looked at Luz, sitting on the floor holding her mother's hand once more as Janet read the dihydrocodeine label on the bottle.
According to the wall clock it was 12.27 nine and a half hours to go. I left them to it for a while and went back to the wagon. Once in the driver's seat I hit the cab light, wanting to save the torch because I might need it later, and unfolded the map to get my bearings on the Bayano. It came from the massive Lago Bayano to the east of Chepo, maybe thirty K away, and snaked towards the Bay of Panama on the edge of the Pacific. The river's mouth was in line of sight of the entrance to the canal and, a little further in, the Miraflores. If this was the river they were on, they had to be at the mouth.
Sunburn couldn't negotiate high ground: it was designed for the sea. The range to the canal was just under fifty Ks, about thirty miles. Sunburn's range was ninety. It made sense so far.
I studied the map, wondering if Charlie was doing the same before getting out there to look for it. He didn't know what I did so he'd be scanning the sixty to seventy miles of jungle shoreline that fell within Sunburn's range and could be used as a launch point. That was a lot of jungle to sift through in less than ten hours. I hoped it would mean the difference between me destroying it and him repossessing it so he could hand it straight over to PARC.
The map indicated that the only place to launch from was the east bank as the river joined the sea. The west bank also had a peninsula, but it didn't project far enough out to clear the coastline. It had to be the east, the left-hand side as I went down the river. It had to be, and there was only one way to find out.
The Bayano's nearest reachable point was seven Ks south, according to the map, via a dry-weather, loose-surface road. There, the river was about two hundred metres wide. It then wound south, downstream to the coast for about ten K. In reality it would be more, because of the river's bends and turns. By the time it hit the coastline it was nearly two kilometres across.
That was it, that was all I knew. But fuck it, I had to work with the information I had and just get on with it.
I went to the rear of the wagon and closed the tailgate, then got back behind the wheel, fired the engine, and moved off.
I bumbled about the dark sleepy town, trying to head south using the Silva compass still round my neck. The map was the same 1980s 1:50,000 scale I'd had for Charlie's house, and Chepo had grown a bit since then.
It was only then that I realized I hadn't said anything to Carrie and Luz.
Carrie wouldn't have heard but, still, it would have been nice to say goodbye.
After getting two bottles of Evian down my neck and an hour of the dry-weather track, now just a mixture of mud and gravel, I saw a river in the tunnel of light carved out immediately ahead of me. Stopping, I checked the map and distance once more, then jumped out of the wagon with the torch and picked my way down the muddy bank. The crickets were loud, but the movement of water was louder.
The river wasn't a raging torrent surging with a massive rush, even after these rains: it was wide enough to accommodate all the water coming from the tributaries that fed it with a constant flow. It was certainly moving in the right direction, from my right to my left, heading south towards the Pacific although so would every other bit of water this side of the country so near to the sea.
Running along the bank, I checked for a boat, anything that would get me downstream quickly. There wasn't even a jetty no ground sign, nothing, just mud, rough grass, and the odd scabby-looking tree.
I scrambled up the bank, got into the wagon, and checked the map and mileometer once more. This river had to be the one I wanted: there was nothing else around here big enough to get mixed up with.
I drove back up the track towards Chepo, checking each side of me for somewhere to hide the Land Cruiser, but even after three kilometres the ground picked out by the headlights still looked completely bare-arsed. I finally parked up on the side of the road, dragged out the dried-out chest harnesses, the M-16 and jerry can then tabbed back towards the river with the kit dangling off me like a badly packed Cub Scout.
FORTY
Saturday 9 September I seemed to have spent my whole life sitting against a tree in the mud, listening to a million crickets disturbing the night. I wasn't under the canopy this time, but down by the Bayano as it rumbled past me out there in the dark.
The mozzies weren't out in such force here, but enough had found me to bring up a few more lumps on my neck to replace the ones that had just started going down. I ran my tongue around my mouth: my teeth felt more than furry now, it was as if they had sheepskin coats on. I thought about what I was doing here. Why couldn't I smarten up? Why hadn't I just killed Michael and
had done with it in the first place?
With only half an hour to push before first light and a move to the target, I knew I was bullshitting myself. I knew I would have done this regardless. It wasn't just the fact that so many people -real people were at risk: it was that maybe, just for once, I was doing the right thing. I might even end up feeling a little proud of myself.
Pulling my knees up and resting my elbows on them to support my head, I started to rub my stubbly, sweaty face on my forearms. I could hear the weak but rapid wap wap wap of a Huey somewhere out there in the darkness. I couldn't see any navigation lights, but could tell it was only one aircraft. Maybe Charlie had been back to the house. After what he'd found waiting for him there, he'd be out looking, but I had no control over that.
Anyway, for the time being he'd be having those aircraft search the coastline for Sunburn rather than us three.
Invisible birds started their morning songs as a bright yellow arc of sunlight prepared to break the skyline and yield up a hot morning. I'd already repacked my docs and map in the two layers of plastic bags, tying each one off with a knot. I checked the Velcro flaps on the individual mag pouches of the harnesses to ensure that they weren't going to fall out during the next phase. Finally, I made sure all my clothing was loose, with nothing tucked in that might catch water and weigh me down.
I undid the plastic clips for the back straps of the harnesses and fed the ends through the handle of the jerry-can before refastening them. I did the same with the neck straps, through the carrying handle of the M-16. I'd learnt from my own experiences, and from others, that more soldiers get killed negotiating rivers than ever die in contacts under the canopy. That was why everything was attached to the empty jerry-can and not to me, and why I hadn't moved until first light.
I dragged the whole lot down to the edge of the tepid, rusty-brown water. It felt good as I waded in up to my thighs, then ducked my head in to take the sweat off my face. Refreshed, I heaped the three harnesses and weapon on top of the floating jerry-can, which wanted to go with the current. It was stronger than it had looked from the bank, and freshly dislodged foliage, green and leafy, sped past as the jerry-can bobbed in front of me, now more than half submerged with the weight of its load. I pushed on into gradually deepening water, forearms over the weapon and harnesses, until eventually my feet began to lose touch with the riverbed. I let myself go with the flow, kicking off from the mud like a child with a swimming float. The stream carried me with it, but I kept contact with the bottom to keep some control, alternately kicking and going with the current as if I was doing a moonwalk.
