48

Black led them north-eastwards for half a mile, before calling a halt in a small puddle of light let in by a fallen barrigona tree. Unprompted, all three paused to listen out for any sound to indicate that they were being followed. They heard nothing except the hypnotic insect drone of the forest overlaid with a cacophony of bird calls. There were approximately two hours of daylight left before nightfall. If they moved quickly, they could cover four or five miles and be safely buried deep in the jungle before they made camp. It was a little over fifty miles to their objective, which if they made steady progress from sunrise to sunset, meant a further two days’ solid hike.

Barely exchanging a word, the three of them reverted to the drills that in their early training had been so firmly cemented that they had become second nature. The first task was to change into their hiking gear. Tough cotton combat trousers tucked into lightweight, calf-length boots and cotton khaki T-shirts to wick the sweat away from their skin. They smeared their faces, necks, arms and the backs of their hands with camouflage cream, tied khaki bandanas around their heads to stop their sweat from trickling into their eyes and sprayed themselves from head to toe with DEET. Next, they assembled the three AK-47s, fitting them with bayonets and thirty-round magazines, then loaded each of the Smith and Wesson pistols to their full capacity of nine rounds. The pistols were secured in shoulder holsters worn outside their shirts and the rifles were strapped to the sides of their packs. Lastly, they distributed the remaining ammunition equally between them and took ten grenades each, storing them in webbing pouches fastened across their chests. Black then hid the three empty holdalls beneath a carpet of dried leaves. Packs on and armed with razor-sharp machetes, they were ready to move.

The Sabre facility lay on a bearing of eighty-five degrees, taking them almost due east towards the Brazilian border. From their examination of satellite photographs they had detected signs of a dirt track connecting it to Platanal but had decided not to risk using it. Instead, they planned to follow a route running parallel to the road, approximately two miles to its north. Using a compass in order to preserve the precious battery life of his GPS, Black set a course and took first shift in the lead.

The deeper they pressed into the forest, the hotter and more humid it became, so that they soon found themselves gasping for air. The ground was covered with several inches of slippery mud that made the going harder still and, despite the DEET, Black experienced regular sharp stabs, like jabs from a needle, as fat mosquitos attacked his neck.

Physical discomfort, the extreme variety, could be tolerated. The body could anaesthetize itself to pain with the help of a determined will, but the pervading claustrophobia of the jungle was far harder to master. Without trails, waymarks or lookout points, the mind’s natural demand to orientate itself was frustrated. It had only a needle on a compass on which to focus. Pressed in on all sides and with no recognizable change in the landscape, it was easy to believe that you were travelling in endless circles and would never see open country again. Black was aware that this was his weak point, that his chief enemy was a restless desire to push on faster, risking draining previous reserves of energy. He made a conscious effort to hold himself in check and attempted to settle into a steady rhythm – walking, slashing, walking, slashing – reminding himself that the jungle was not something you could ever overcome. The most you could achieve was to adjust yourself to its laws and assimilate. Anything less would be fatal.

After thirty minutes at the front Black ceded the lead to Fallon, who seemed to make easy progress. He cleared their path with slow, lazy strokes of his machete that absorbed minimum effort. His body was young and agile and slow to tire. Bringing up the rear, Riley was noisy and bull-like in comparison. Black had fought alongside both kinds of men and appreciated their relative strengths and weaknesses. The Fallons of this world were stealthy and clinical, at their most useful in operations in which patience and invisibility were paramount. In face-to-face combat, you wanted a Riley at your side. Finn had been one of those: a man who would have been at home wielding a broadsword in a medieval pitched battle. Black’s skills lay somewhere in between. He was neither the strongest nor the stealthiest, but Finn used to joke that he had a sixth sense, an awareness of danger that at times bordered on witchcraft. Black thought of it as a simple will to live. He had known soldiers who were reckless and some who were infected with romantic ideas of noble sacrifice. Both were equally alien to him. So long as he drew breath, he was certain of one thing: he would do whatever it took to keep doing so.

The light began to fade. They arrived at a stream with thick ferns growing along its banks. On the far side was a small clearing. Black stopped to switch on and check his GPS. It confirmed that they had covered a little over four miles and had remained on course.

‘Pitch up for the night?’ Riley said.

‘As good a place as any.’ Black peered into the gathering shadows. It was impossible not to imagine unseen figures hiding in the gloom.

Fallon arrived alongside him and shrugged off his pack. ‘I don’t know about you boys, I could eat my own mother.’

In the few remaining minutes of daylight they suspended their hammocks and fly sheets from trees on three sides of the clearing and filled their canteens – all fitted with integral filters – from the stream. They quenched their thirst, then, using a simple hexamine-tablet stove, brewed the best coffee Black had tasted since the last time he had spent a night in the open. Dinner was foil-packed, self-heating portions of beef and vegetable stew with mashed potatoes. Despite the state-of-the-art packaging, the contents were the same old army rations Black remembered – all tasting identical, regardless of the contents. They followed them with handfuls of small tart fruits called camu camu, which Fallon had spotted growing on a shrub beside the stream.

By eight p.m. they had changed into their dry sets of clothes and were lying in their hammocks listening to the pulsing throb of the jungle night. Black’s limbs were heavy and aching and his mind flooded with images from their long and eventful day.

‘Good to be back, boss?’ Riley said.

‘Feels like I never left.’

‘Finny would’ve loved this,’ Riley said. ‘Never known a bloke so keen to get stuck in.’

‘One of a kind.’

‘That’s what he said about you,’ Fallon said in a voice halfway to sleep.

‘Don’t tell me anything more.’

Riley didn’t give him any choice: ‘He said God made man and the Devil made Black.’

Black said nothing.

‘I think it was a compliment, boss.’

‘From Finn? Never.’

Black woke from a deep sleep in the darkness. He pressed the button that illuminated the face of his watch. Five thirty a.m. Thirty minutes before sunrise. He swung silently out of his hammock, found his upturned boots, carefully shook them out to dislodge any unwanted intruders, and pulled them on.

With his eyes adjusting to the tiny amount of ambient light he walked a few yards away from camp to relieve himself against a tree. Unable to see more than a few feet, he was alive to every sound and smell. The surrounding vegetation rustled and cracked with the movements of insects. His nostrils flooded with the scent of decomposing leaves which formed a carpet on the forest floor. He finished and zipped up, then on turning back to camp, felt a sensation through the soles of his feet. The faintest of vibrations that gradually intensified until, over the course of a full minute it became an audible thump-thump. At first he mistook it for something or someone running towards them, but then another faster sound in a higher register accompanied it and became the familiar rapid chop-chop-chop of a large heli moving steadily in their direction. It grew louder, coming from the east, then slowly tracked away west in the direction of Platanal, no doubt following the line of the road.

Black walked back into camp to find the others on their feet.

‘Sabre?’ Riley said.

‘Can’t see who else it could be.’

‘I’m going to enjoy blowing that little baby up,’ Fallon said.

In the semi-darkness Black saw him smile broadly for the first time since they had boarded the plane, invigorated by their first sniff of the enemy.

They washed in the stream, breakfasted on porridge and struck camp by six thirty. Half an hour later the heli passed by again, making its return journey. This time it seemed to come closer. Black felt the beat of its rotors in his chest. He pictured the crew inside. Relaxed and chatting. Another well-paid day in the jungle.

And with no idea what was coming to them.

They marched silently throughout the morning with renewed purpose, each taking turns in the lead. They moved neither quickly nor slowly but at an even pace agreed unconsciously between them. When not at the front, Black stroked a whetstone along the length of his machete – one stroke for every two footsteps – the rhythm of the motion rendering him into a semi trance. At midday they paused briefly to eat – fallen cacao fruit and cereal and protein bars that tasted foul but refuelled their tiring muscles. Then they pressed on, matching their previous speed of a steady two and a half miles per hour.

As the afternoon wore on, fatigue set in. Rubbing straps and aching feet conspired to deny Black the comfortable, somnambulant state in which he had spent the first part of the day. The deeper he dug into his physical reserves, the more his mind roved restlessly. Images of Finn on the mortuary slab, his empty boots among his children’s shoes, the smiling picture on the kitchen wall and Kathleen’s pale and tragic face. Domestic, wrenching, weakening thoughts that began to merge with dim ghosts of memories from distant childhood. Stripped of all distractions, Black was plunged into the dark pool of his subconscious mind, the silt at its very bottom stirring up so thickly he could taste it. He tried in vain to retreat from it, to contain his thoughts to the business of putting one foot in front of another, but the inner world became as vivid as the outer. Was he trying to tell himself something? Was he afraid? Unsure of his abilities? Or was he searching for a motive powerful enough to steel his resolve?

The power of this final thought sent a chill sensation the length of his spine. With it came the realization that in all his years of soldiering he had scarcely thought of motive, only of objective. Identify, isolate and destroy. Nothing more was needed. He had operated at the level of instinct and reflex, no more self-questioning than a snake poised for the kill. Self-consciousness and doubt were the enemies of action, more dangerous than any bullet.

He was suddenly envious of his two younger colleagues, confident and comfortable in their own skins. This was just another job to them. The kind of excitement they couldn’t live without. An adventure to recount to their mates in Credenhill. That had been him and Finn once. Forces of nature. No more complicated than a pair of wolves. Kill, eat and howl at the moon.

Fallon checked his GPS. ‘That’s twenty miles.’ He glanced back at Black, sensing that he had started to flag. ‘It’s five o’clock. Do you want to stop?’

‘I’m good for one more shift.’

Fallon and Riley glanced at one another, as if about to object. Black strode to the front and picked up the pace, determined that they wouldn’t see him weaken. To admit tiredness, even to himself, was too dangerous to contemplate. He pushed on, head down, leaning into the straps of his Bergen and feeling the burn in his thighs on every stride. After fifteen minutes his left calf started to tighten. He fought against the pain, aware that at the first signs of a limp Riley and Fallon would start to see him as a liability and with that his authority would drain away.

He stopped suddenly and held up a hand. In a puddle of mud in front of him were two sets of boot prints. They were fresh. A large bubble of air squashed into the ground by a heel remained unburst. Riley and Fallon came alongside him and followed his gaze.

‘I’ll go ahead,’ Black mouthed, giving them no opportunity to protest. He pressed a finger to his lips, indicating that he was demanding absolute silence, then slid off his Bergen. The others did the same. Ignoring their concerned glances, he moved off, holding his machete in his right hand and ready to reach for his pistol with his left. Several yards behind, Riley and Fallon came after him, silently easing off their rifles’ safety catches.

Black tracked the line of footprints that seemed to follow a game trail heading north-west. He continued for several minutes, the light beginning to fade.

He heard them before he saw them. Two male voices, talking in a Spanish dialect. He inched towards a dense thicket, staying out of their sight. Just visible through the interwoven stems were two men in their thirties, both dressed in jungle combats without insignia. They had taken off their packs, one of which had a radio aerial protruding from it, and were making ready to camp for the night at the foot of a large tree. Black assumed they were a foot patrol, probably one of several that at any one time circled the forests outlying the Sabre compound. He was forced to a decision – retreat and risk being heard or seen or eliminate the danger before it presented itself. The answer was obvious. He turned and gestured to Riley and Fallon to fan out either side of the thicket to cover him.

The three of them waited, silent and still, ready at any moment to seize their opportunity. It came as the taller and younger of the two men headed off into the bush on the far side of their campsite to urinate, leaving the other to set up a cooking stove. He lit the gas with a match and the flame roared noisily into life. Black used the moment to make his move, his footsteps disguised by the sound of the stove. The crouching man glanced up as if sensing a presence, but in the opposite direction from which Black was approaching.

It was perfect. Black stooped forward and in a fraction of a second drew the blade of his machete across the kneeling man’s throat. There was hardly a sound, except that of the blood that fountained out from the severed neck hitting the ground in a single spot several feet ahead of the already limp body. Black caught the dead man’s collar in his left hand and lowered him so that his forehead was resting on the ground in front of his knees, inches from the stove, giving him the appearance of having leaned down to inspect it.

Black crept sideways to the trunk of the tree and waited for the sound of footsteps. Moments later he heard the second man returning. He started talking, picking up the conversation he had been having with his companion. With his back pressed to the rough bark and facing the slumped body, Black sensed the second man approaching from his right. A shaft of moving shadow was his cue to step left around to the far side of the trunk as his target passed by on the other side.

The machete blade sliced the air. Some instinct caused his victim to raise his right hand and make a quarter turn in Black’s direction, giving him a glimpse of his astonished eyes as the blade sliced through his raised fingers and sank at a downwards angle into his neck. It was a deflected blow and not fatal. The man stumbled, pouring blood, kicking over the stove as he fell. Black struck again – once, twice.

A detached head rolled away from its body and came to rest, rocking slightly, in a thick pool of blood. Black turned away and wiped the blade of his machete on the fabric of one of the packs. Already, a swarm of flies was descending and a small army of ants crawling out of the earth. Black stooped to turn off the stove, confirmed that neither of the dead mercenaries was wearing a dog tag or carrying identification and rejoined the others.

‘Probably Sabre,’ Black said. ‘We’ll have to be careful. There may be more.’

They nodded, neither saying a word.

Black strode back along the game trail in the fast fading light to find their Bergens.

He had made his point.