by Geoff Wolak
‘Propellers, not jets, quite big. There was no one alive.’
‘And in the cabin?’
‘I did not look, it is not mine.’
‘Might be drugs, which we can destroy or use as evidence. I have dollars to pay you with if you have time.’
He shrugged. ‘I have all the time in the world. And with dollars earned honestly I can buy medicine. As well as a new engine maybe.’
I handed over two thousand dollars. ‘Take us to the plane, but … we won't all fit on your boat.’
‘We can walk, I know the way.’
‘Will your boat be safe?’
He glanced over his shoulder with a deep frown. ‘Not a living soul will walk that way in a hundred years. If they do, it will a cause of great celebration.’
I transmitted, ‘All teams form up, to me, we're walking, we have a guide.’
Running Bear smiled and shook his head.
‘Got anywhere to be?’ I asked him.
‘Hell no, and I'd love to see his village.’
‘You would be most welcome,’ our guide offered us. The teams came in. ‘This way.’
He led us off.
‘Do you think he could cover his arse,’ Rizzo complained from behind me.
I shot him a look that said shut up. ‘You walk around like that?’ I asked our guide. ‘No provisions?’
‘The land provides, if you ask nicely. It provides water, food, shelter...’
‘The water is salty here,’ I noted as we followed along.
‘You look for a circle of tall trees, taller than the others, birds nesting high up. And below ... is fresh water.’
I smiled at Running Bear. ‘We can send teams here for some survival training.’
I handed our guide some chocolate, then some water. He was most thankful, and I called Harris as we plodded on. ‘One of our planes was shot down by irregular army units, the Hercules circling and then leaving, so we're walking east, we have a local guide, and this man knows of a crashed cargo plane, a drug plane I think, so we'll go have a look.’
‘They were worried here.’
‘Tell them we're on a nature outing.’
After an hour's zig-zagging, a few streams crossed, we stopped to get a brew on, shared with our guide. He caught a small Cayman and showed us before returning it, then caught a nice big fish, which we would cook later.
Finding an inland beach before sunset, a wide beach of stunning white sand backed by trees, I told the lads to make camp, flysheets up. ‘Rizzo, Slider, make a fire and set a stag, watch for thirty-foot crocs.’
Laughter came from behind me.
‘A thirty-foot crocodile?’ our guide puzzled.
‘My men saw one and exaggerated.’
‘Ah. They do grow big, but avoid people, you are quiet safe. I saw films of crocodiles in Africa, and they attack people sometimes, but here they are very afraid.’
‘Good,’ I told him. ‘Those are the kinds of crocs we like.’
I raised a flysheet and told him he could share it.
He was most grateful. ‘It will not rain tonight.’
‘Studied the weather?’ I asked.
‘We all learn to smell the wind on our cheeks.’
‘Feel free to teach me all you can, I'm keen to learn.’ I eased off my kit and my shirt.
‘You have seen much fighting,’ our guide noted.
‘Some, yes. What is your name?’
‘Zombie.’
‘Zombie?’ Moran queried with a smile as the lads made camp in the trees, soft white sand as a bed.
‘It does not translate well, but I am the spirit of my dead uncle living. I honour him by holding his spirit as I walk.’
Fire made from dried branches, we got some food on as the sun set, our camp an idyllic spot of white sandy beach, low green bushes and trees, and calm water. If it offered a tourist hotel it would be popular.
Zombie cooked his fish, cut it up and offered it around as lads ate their rations. I sat against a tree and took in the surreal image as the horizon turned orange.
Moran noted, ‘This is like that island in the Philippines.’
‘Yep,’ I agreed. ‘Nice spot, apart from the drug gangs.’ My phone trilled. ‘Wilco.’
‘Deputy Chief, and we spoke to the Nicaraguan President, who gently reminded us we should have asked first before launching an operation on their soil, but admitted that her people might have leaked it to the drug gangs. She can't identify the army unit.’
‘She can identify their rotting corpses some time later.’
‘Ah, well that won't make you popular in Managua.’
‘Any news?’
‘Marines pulled out of that port after confiscating the boats, the locals all arrested and to be questioned.’
‘Did they find a drug lab?’
‘No, not yet at least. And somehow CNN has you and your men in the jungle, that you spent days spying on the drug operation before we were called in.’
‘Well, almost right,’ I quipped.
‘Where are you now?’
‘On a white sandy beach, halfway to a crashed transport aircraft,’ I told him.
‘And in this plane?’
‘That’s the question, but I doubt it was listed as missing.’
‘No shit.’
‘White House asking questions about Canadians?’
‘They don't know yet, and it’s being contained.’
‘The four off the plane?’
‘Facing time in a Canadian prison, Dutch wanting to question them or maybe extradite them, and we're fabricating evidence, so they face twenty years.’
‘Debonet’s files?’
‘Look good, he had a bargaining chip ready, the little shit. It lists all the others, and their operations.’
‘A good result then.’
‘So far. Talk soon.’
‘Listen, I have your soldiers with me, two of them, and there's no reason at all why you don't claim to have agents with me.’
‘You'll back me on that, and London?’
‘Definitely. What are friends for, eh? Ciao!’
I patrolled the line of flysheets after sun down, many fires going, the teams in good spirits, none wanting to be anywhere else, Dicky wary of thirty foot crocs. I spent ten minutes with the spies, who complained that they had not done anything useful so far. I finally sat with Swifty and Murphy, the faces lit by the flickering orange flames of their fire.
Swifty asked, ‘Those files he gave up, they any good?’
‘Looks that way, he sold-out everyone he knew.’
‘What a cunt, eh.’
‘Who was that fella, sir?’ Murphy asked.
‘He was part of a group of Canadian CIA contractors. For decades your CIA has used such men, because it’s beyond a Congressional Oversight Committee. The CIA have a few good teams in Toronto, and they fly around the world on fake passports to do the spy work and to shoot people.
‘This guy was gay, so was a spy in England, and they just wanted to piss off the British and American governments, show us how clever they were, but also to make some money. They recently stole a shipment of drugs, probably figured they could sell it, get rich and retire.’
‘Mugs game,’ Swifty noted. ‘Trying to screw over drug gangs.’
Murphy noted, ‘I don't reckon he would swim far, but I do reckon he'd be in pain as he tried.’
‘Nowhere to go,’ I told him. ‘His own people were about to slice him up, and if he made it the next town on his hands and knees they'd hand him to the drug gangs.’
‘There was a canoe there,’ Swifty noted. ‘We didn't damage it.’
‘If he makes to safety I'd be impressed with him.’
Murphy put in, ‘If he makes it to safety, Boss, he won't be doing no jitterbug anytime soon.’
‘Jitterbug?’ Swifty queried.
‘Forerunner to the twist,’ I told him.
Swifty said to Murphy, ‘They a bit backwards in your home town?’
&nbs
p; ‘Most folk don't have themselves a telephone. And the outhouse is … well, the outhouse. From the farm I have to walk me three miles to the bus, bus to town, Greyhound to the city, and a plane from there.’
I asked, ‘And getting to school?’
‘My grandpa use to drive me most days, some days I walked, and some days I ran, so I ended up being a runner.’
‘Jesus,’ Swifty let out. ‘My school was at the end of my street.’
Back at my flysheet we settled down, our guide offered a poncho to use, but it was not cold.
At dawn I kicked them up, shouting them awake, a brew on, time spent to admire the dead calm water and to sniff the fragrant warm air, dead still air. On the pristine white sand I found tracks, big croc tracks. ‘We missing anyone?’ I teased as others looked.
Zombie followed the tracks, and the croc was in the trees; he had snuck through without being spotted.
‘Special forces operators!’ I complained. ‘Fucking Rizzo will sleep through his leg being eaten off.’
After breakfast we said goodbye to a surreal camp location and kicked up white sand, a few streams crossed, three hours of slog till we reached a forest, and our crashed aircraft. It was an An24, twin prop, and largely intact, the dead pilots visible.
‘It’s Wilco. All teams, search the area for tracks and anything of interest, 300yards out, then make camp.’ Stood next to the plane I called SIS, London, and gave them the aircraft’s registration, to trace it.
I called up Running Bear, and between four of us we opened a rear cargo door as Running bear stood on my knees to reach up. Door open, he passed down aluminium steps for us, his nose in the crook of his elbow.
‘Smells a bit?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, let me open the other door.’ He jumped down a minute later. ‘Let it air out,’ he suggested. There was a gentle breeze, so that would help. I opened the forwards door, no inflatable slide hissing out at me.
After ten minutes stood chatting we risked going in, the smell bearable now. We found a dozen large wooden crates up to my hips, all strapped down. Straps released, we realised we would need tools. A tool box was found at the rear with a claw hammer, no crowbar, so I slowly opened a box with the claw hammer. Open, we peered in, finding smooth metal pipes.
‘Not weapons,’ Running bear noted. ‘Nor drugs.’
He used the claw hammer on the second box, ten minutes hard work. Opening internal boxes, he lifted out a missile fin section.
‘Rockets,’ he told me. ‘Those pipes are the body sections.’
Cautiously now, we opened all the boxes and stacked up the fins at the rear as some of the lads nosed inside, now a gentle breeze inside the hold. The next box offered up a nose cone, a plastic one. Inside the cone fitted a piece of electrical equipment.
Running Bear suggested it was a guidance system, a clever one, not like he'd seen before. I found the handy Russian instructions and read them.
‘It’s a radar homing system.’
‘It homes in on an active radar?’ Running Bear puzzled. ‘What use is that to drug gangs here or rebels in the Congo? No radar in the Congo.’
‘Then these were to go elsewhere, to home in on someone's airport radar.’
‘Why blow up a radar?’
‘Your navy has anti-radar missiles.’
‘Sure, to fire at a ship!’
‘Could these be fired at a ship?’
‘They're rockets, not missiles, so they fly up, maybe three thousand feet, come down, then lock on. You'd have to get the aim good to start.’
‘So … not much use, but somebody wanted them.’ I read the instructions. ‘1982.’
‘Old technology, but newly built,’ Running Bear noted.
The next box offered up solid propellant, carefully wrapped.
We worked up a sweat on the remaining boxes, but found no explosives. All in, this consignment would be twenty-two complete rockets.
I finally entered the flight deck, the door ajar. Thankfully the windows were broken. Unfortunately, something had eaten our pilots’ faces. I reached down and grabbed maps, and patted down pockets, finding a sat phone. In a leg pocket I found a flight plan and codes. ‘They flew here from Venezuela.’
I handed the paperwork back for Running Bear as he poked his head in, Moran now in the hold with Ginger. Studying the flight deck, and the crew, I realised that the pilot had been shot in the temple. ‘Pilot was shot, he didn't die in the crash!’
I learnt over the co-pilot. ‘Co-pilot shot as well, left temple.’
‘That would explain the crash landing,’ Moran noted from the hold. ‘Hard to land with dead pilots.’
I found the pistol, still in the hand of the co-pilot. ‘Co-pilot shot the pilot then himself.’
‘Undercover agent,’ Moran suggested. ‘A cause to die for.’
‘He could have killed the pilot then crash landed and set fire to the damn plane and cargo!’ I complained.
Outside, in the fresh air, I called London and got a fix on my location, written down and checked on the map as the teams made camp and got a brew on. I called Major Harris. ‘Got a paper and pen.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Note this location.’ I read out the coordinates and he read them back. ‘I want a helo with a doctor, to look at some dead bodies, plus an expert on rockets and missiles, plus a few SEALS. And I want Franks and Dick on the chopper.’
‘What for?’
‘We found a crashed An24, clever rockets in the back, radar guided.’
‘Jesus. What were they going to do with them?’
‘That’s what we need to find out. Oh, bring two body bags.’ Off the phone I called in teams, and had them push over tall thin trees, Tomo shooting through a few with long-casing before we pushed them over, soon space for a helo to land as Rizzo made a signal fire, rubber and plastic from the cargo hold used to generate black smoke.
I tried the pilot’s sat phone, but it was dead, even with my battery in it.
In warm still midday air we waited as the black smoke gently climbed, the sound of helicopters registering half an hour later. The pilot of the first Seahawk hovered, not sure of the dodgy landing area, ropes thrown down, men soon sliding down with gloves on.
I recognised Katowski and waved him over as the loud Seahawk threw my hair around. Three of his team came next, followed by a doctor and a corpsman.
‘Who's that, sir?’ Katowski nodded at Zombie.
‘That’s Zombie.’
‘Zombie?’
‘Local tribesman. This is his land, we're guests.’
‘Right, sir.’
The Seahawk lifted up and slid sideways, the second sliding in, Franks and Dick sliding down and totally screwing it up, landing on their arses. They were followed by two naval officers, plus two more SEALs.
I led them all to the An24. ‘Doctor, got get the pilots out, quick examination. Looks like the co-pilot shot the pilot then himself.’
‘What the hell for?’ the doctor puzzled.
‘Go forensicate for me.’
‘Forensicate? That’s not a real word.’
I smiled as he climbed up. ‘Put mask and gloves on, Doc!’ I faced the two naval officers. ‘You the missile guys?’
‘Technical officers from a destroyer.’
‘Get inside, have a look at the missile components, get ready to take them back, and you'll need to prepare a report for the Pentagon, CIA, and the UN, so be thorough.’
‘We have a camera.’
They clambered up the steps, complaining of the smell straight away, Dick and Franks following – and also complaining of the smell.
I got a brew on with Moran and the SEALs, all told to sit. I told Katowski, ‘When we leave you stay, and secure the plane. FBI will want to come in.’
‘There are FBI on ship, sir, and they went by helo to the Cortez,’ he informed me.
‘You may as well call them in now.’
He got on his sat phone and made the request.
After
a brew, a chat about the action at the port and large randy pigs, two helos loudly announced their arrival, ropes down, and the FBI screwed it up, all ending up on their arses. Bags were roped down and untied. At least Agent Manstein was not with them.
They took snaps all around the aircraft, then inside, two body bags soon being carried out, and that would help with the smell.
The doctor told me, ‘You were right, co-pilot shot the pilot then himself, no one else involved.’
‘Co-pilot could be an undercover agent, CIA or Mossad. Any ID on him?’
‘He has a passport.’ They handed it to me.
I called London. ‘Trace the name Sergei Lavrom, and ask the CIA and Mossad if he was one of theirs.’ I gave them the story, and the passport number as people milled around the aircraft.
With my lads roped in, boxes were unloaded carefully.
The naval commander told me, wiping his brow of sweat, ‘Old missile design, but newly made. It’s Russian technology, but it was made in North Korea, a few things adjusted, some DIY missile surgery.’
‘Would they have worked?’
‘Yes, if you were lucky.’
‘Who would want them?’
‘You mentioned Mossad, so if the missiles went to Gaza that might explain it.’
‘The Palestinians don't have any cash!’
‘No, they get weapons donated by Iran and others. But if they had these then the Israeli patrol boats could be targeted. Those boats have radar.’
‘Any other uses for them?’
‘Against an airport radar maybe. My money is on the Palestinians aiming at Israeli boats.’
‘And the chances of hitting one?’
‘Theoretically ... they could. And someone obviously believed they could. But these could also be used against our Navy. The missiles would do little damage against a destroyer though, so … not much of a threat.’
An hour later more helos loudly announced their arrival, Marines down with axes, and six keen young Marines started to chop down the trees and drag away the trunks, clearing a large area of pristine bird habitat.
With the area clear, Seahawks landed and crates were shoved aboard, two at a time, six crates removed. The SEALs helped carry the propellant – very carefully – into the trees, where they set it alight, a huge pawl of grey smoke created, no large bangs heard, Zombie watching it all and keen like a child.