by Hep Aldridge
“Better, Senor Colt, I have a headache, but I think I will be fine soon, and Senor Colt, I’m sorry I fell and let you down.”
“That’s nonsense, Eduardo. You didn’t let us down; you have proven your ability and courage time and time again with us. You have nothing to be sorry for. You’re a vital member of the team, and you did your job. Your fall was nothing more than an accident, and I can tell you we’ve all had our share of accidents. I’m proud of you, Eduardo. You did just fine… besides, I think Reggie needed the exercise,” I said with a smile.
“Now, just take it easy for a bit longer while you can.”
“Si, Senor Colt, I will.”
I nodded, smiled, and turned to the rest of the team, “Okay, everybody, let’s move out. We need to put some distance between them and us.”
Our pace quickened to a brisk walk, which was easier even though this road had to be about 4,000 years old. It was smoother than the jungle trail we had been following. Still an unbelievable experience, I thought. We were high in the Andes, moving easily on a road still intact after all this time, even though the altitude and thin air were making things a little more difficult.
The day progressed without any changes at the ambush site. Joe had armed the motion detection feature on the trail cam to automatically record and send an alert to his tablet if motion was detected. None was. O’Reilly had dropped back to cover our six, and Joe had come forward and was walking with me. He kept checking the GPS on his tablet, and toward the end of the day, said, “I think we’re about four miles past Tamara’s village. Our circuitous detour should keep any of the Brotherhood or Vatican mercs following us away from the village and keep the villagers safe; at least that was the plan. We should find a point to make our turn, so we intersect the path coming out of the village now that we are a safe distance from it.”
I called a halt, and as everyone gathered around, said, “Okay, time to leave the road and head back into the bush. Let’s see if we can find any kind of game trail or path that we can use. I don’t look forward to having to bushwhack our way out of here.” Eduardo had been riding all day and seemed like he was back to his old self, except for the minor headache. Doc had been monitoring him closely and said his recovery looked good. He wasn’t exhibiting any signs of a concussion, which was good news. He joined the search for a break-out point somewhere along the road. Unfortunately, we found none. So, bushwhacking it was. We turned into the brush, trying not to leave a noticeable trail. The mules made this task more difficult. Reggie and O’Reilly followed behind and covered our trail as best they could. In the beginning, we kept our brush clearing to a minimum and suffered the inconvenience that the thick brush inflicted as best we could.
Once we were a couple of hundred yards away from the road, we started clearing our path with our machetes. That made it a little easier going for all of us, mules included. Eduardo had insisted that he could walk, so we redistributed the loads again on the mules and were back to four pack animals now.
It was starting to get dark, so I called a halt, and we began setting camp. Joe had double-checked the last trail cam at the ambush point—still no movement.
“Well, that’s a good thing, I guess. Now that it’s getting dark, I hope the Vatican mercs don’t try following us and wait till morning to continue,” I said.
“With no easy path to follow, and who knows what happened in their meeting with the Brotherhood, I hope they’re tied up for at least another day,” Doc said.
Dimitri shook his head, “I don’t think we’ll be that lucky if they’re as badass as that priest indicated. They’ll find a way through our roadblock and be hunting us by mid-day tomorrow. Just my two cents worth.”
Nothing more was said as we set up camp, but I had a feeling that Dimitri was right. We couldn’t take any chances. That’s why I had Joe set up another trail cam, well hidden, where we turned off the Inca Road and hit the bush. If they found our trail, we would at least know about it.
We felt safe enough to break out the Sterno to heat our water for coffee. It gave off a good flame with no smoke or smell, and we needed something to warm our insides as the temperature dropped. We consumed some of the foodstuffs we had purchased at the market in Cuenca. Tortillas, dried meat, and a biscuit or cookie that had a brown sugar coating. Certainly not a feast, but good enough. We set up three-hour sentry shifts and climbed into our sleeping bags for a less than restful night’s sleep.
I awoke the following day at first light to the smell of hot coffee and saw Eduardo sitting there with the flames from the can of Sterno licking the underside of the pot we used for brewing it. He smiled when he saw me rouse and sit up.
“Senor Colt, just in time—the coffee is ready.” He was sitting wrapped in a blanket with Joe’s tablet in his lap and an M-16 propped next to him.
“What the heck are you doing up, Eduardo?” I asked.
“I took last watch, Senor Colt; my head was still hurting some, and it was hard to sleep, so I got up and relieved Senorita O’Reilly so she could rest. I knew we would be leaving early, so I put on the coffee to have it ready when everyone woke up.”
“And how’s your head?”
“Much better; the pain is almost all gone. I’m still a little sore, but other than that, I am ‘good to go’ as you say.”
One tough little dude, I thought.
“Any action on the trail cams?” I asked.
“None, Senor; I have been watching the camera at the rockslide and the one where we turned off the road. No sign of anyone.”
Some good news to start the morning, I thought as I poured myself a cup of coffee and held its warmth in my chilled hands. Everyone else was stirring, and like moths to a flame, were drawn to the simmering pot. One cup to open our eyes, then energy bars, dried fruit, and beef jerky with a final cup to wash it down before we broke camp. Joe consulted his tablet with our original GPS track marked on it and said, “We should have about two hours or so to go before we get to the path leading out of Tamara’s village.”
“All right, let’s move out. Those mercs are still back there somewhere, so everyone, stay frosty. If they found another way around our roadblock and humped it all night, we could be in for an unpleasant surprise.”
“You think they may have done that?” Joe asked.
“I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong about stuff before, so we take no chances. Reggie, want to take point for a while?”
“On it, Colt,” she said as she trotted some fifty feet ahead of me and the first mule, rifle in hand. Doc was behind with the second mule; Eduardo had the third, and O’Reilly had the fourth. Dimitri was covering our six, and Joe was with me watching our track appear on the little video screen of his tablet. As we moved, our GPS location was plotted on the map on the screen, and we could overlay a satellite image of the area on it—damn handy tool. With it, we were able to stay on track, and about three hours later, Reggie came over the Comms.
“Colt, I just came to the path.”
“Roger that, see anything?”
“Nope, all clear, nothing in sight.”
We arrived at a well-worn path some six feet wide, obviously regularly used. This had to be the path the drug runners used going into the village. We got all the animals on the road and secured. I said, “Okay, everybody, take a break. Reggie, keep an eye on the road coming from the village. I don’t think anyone got ahead of us, but they may have found the trail through the village and approach from behind, no surprises.”
“Roger that,” she said and moved down the trail a ways and blended into the brush.
Everybody gathered around and broke out canteens and beef jerky.
Doc said, “What next, Colt?”
“Pull out your notes from the interview with the elders and see what they said about leaving their village and coming to Tamara’s village. We need to find out if there was a path or trail they followed. We need something to help us identify the direction they came from and any details about their journey—a
nything that might help us. We can’t spend time beating around the jungle and hoping to find a trail. We need more than that.”
Joe said, “I think I can help with that,” as he pulled open the pack that had the drone in it. He took out the drone and then the new Toughbook laptop that Fitz had included. He opened it up and hit the on button.
As it was booting up, he said, “I read the manual on the LIDAR system the drone has, and I believe we can use it here.”
“Ahh, a man who reads the instructions; I love it,” O’Reilly quipped with a grin.
Joe said, “Yeah, I’m a regular renaissance man,” and pulled out his pad as the laptop continued its bootup.
He had pulled up the SAT map with our track overlaid. The original route in red stopped some distance from us to the southwest. Our current route, in yellow, showed our parallel course and our location further west. He was pointing to the screen now, “Here’s the village location, and here we are. With the drone's capability, I can draw a line image on the screen of the laptop, link the drone to that image, and fly any kind of pattern we want over the area on its own. When it’s done, it will move to a station, keeping the location that we set and wait for instructions.”
“So, we can designate an area, have the drone do a LIDAR scan of the whole area on its own, and we don’t have to monkey with it until it’s done?”
Dimitri let out a low whistle, “Now, that’s pretty slick.”
“And,” Joe continued, “once it’s done, the computer automatically runs the software to give us the LIDAR image of our target area, foliage removed.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Doc, did you find anything?” I asked.
“Yes, I believe so,” he said. He had been sitting there leafing through his notebook as we got the LIDAR briefing.
“Here, when I asked them where their old village was, they pointed to the jungle and said it was two days in that direction. I made a note here, and the direction they were pointing looked to be northwest from the village. They go on to say there is a small path that leads to a stream. Follow it upstream until you get to a large pool, then turn to the setting sun, and you will find a path that will lead you to our abandoned village. I am guessing that pool may have been the water source for their village. The only thing they gave me in terms of distance was two days or more walking to the village. No idea how far away the stream is from Tamara’s village or how far we must go upstream to find the pool. Sorry, I don’t have any more.”
“Don’t worry about it; that’s a start.”
Joe had started typing commands on the laptop and had the satellite map of the area up. We could just make out the village, and as he pulled back on the image, he drew a rectangle on the screen with the stylus. Using the GPS for the village, he oriented the rectangle to the northwest, making it 100 yards wide and 500 yards long.
“From what I read, the drone should be able to cover this area in thirty minutes; it’s pretty darn quick. I’m going to be looking for a path, someplace to start a real search. If we’re lucky and find it, I can then expand the search to follow the path and ultimately find the stream. It should show up clearly. But we need that starting point, so I’m going to put the drone in the air and get started. Are we going to be able to stay here for thirty minutes or so?”
“Check the trail cams. If nothing shows up, then, yes, we can break here until the drone is done.”
“What if we don’t find anything?” Doc asked.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said and found a large rock to lean up against as I sat down. Yep, …when we come to it…
Joe had the drone in the air, heading to its designated search area as I looked at my watch. It was 10:00 a.m. We should have an answer well before noon—nothing to do but rest and worry.
I think I did more of the latter as I monitored Joe’s pad with the camera feeds. He was keeping an eye on the drone’s progress on the laptop. Eduardo watered the mules; it looked like he was doing well. Being young and able to shake off injuries that quickly made me envious as a pain made itself known in the leg I had gotten shot in almost two years ago. Ahh, youth, I thought.
Forty minutes later, Joe said, “It’s done; the fly over is done. The computer is processing the data now. That was enough to bring everyone to their feet and group around where he was sitting. Another five minutes or so, and an aerial view of the jungle came up on the screen. Joe typed in a command, and the vegetation layer began disappearing. Soon, just the ground contours and solid features were visible. I will admit, this was some cool stuff. At first, it was hard to make out features, but as Joe magnified the image, we could pick out rock formations and a rectangular object in the forest.
Joe said, “Based on where I started the scan, away from the clearing where Tamara’s village was, I believe this is the hut where he said the two elders lived. I was looking at the surrounding area and saw nothing that looked like a path or trail.”
“I don’t see a trail, Joe,” I said.
“I know, just a minute,” some more commands, and the picture changed again, with more clutter being removed. As the computer processed the image, you could see a faint line beginning to appear going from the front of the dwelling toward the village and continuing in the opposite direction into the jungle.
“There it is,” Doc said, pointing to the faint line appearing.
“Maybe so, let’s hope that’s the trail they followed from the stream they talked about; at least it’s someplace to start. Joe, can you overlay our current location on this?” I asked.
“Yep, give me a minute,” a few more keystrokes and some typing on the pad that had our GPS map, and we had the overlay. It gave us both good news and bad news. The good news was that it showed us the direction we would have to head to intersect with the path. The bad news was it looked like it would be three miles or so of bushwhacking to get to it; no other visible trails were evident.
“Okay, everybody, load up. We’ve got some ground to cover. Ladies, if you would do the honors as before, please cover our trail as best you can once we dive into the bush.”
Out came the machetes, and once again, we headed into the jungle undergrowth.
Chapter Thirteen
Four hours of brutal bushwhacking later, we had covered a little over two miles. We took a break, and as we rested, we decided we needed to push on until dark. If we didn’t pick up the new trail by then, we would stop and camp. We didn’t want to take the chance of pressing on and missing the trail in the darkness. Water, jerky, energy bars, the routine had become all too regular in the last 48 hours, but necessity is a mother, or however that saying goes.
Luckily, just before dark, we found the trail or more of a path, really. Now, I know why it didn’t show up well on the LIDAR image; it was barely visible, and we were standing on it. We decided to follow it until dark and then camp. We were all beat from the harsh conditions of our trek that day but wanted to maximize our use of daylight. We still had some very nasty unhappy campers after us, after all.
When we stopped and set up camp, we agreed we could risk building a small fire to heat our evening meal and hold some of the chill at bay. We were sitting around the fire when Joe said, “Looks like they got through,” as he handed me the tablet. I looked down and hit play; the video plainly showed seven men passing the camera we had set on this side of the landslide our big boom had created. It had been recorded when the motion sensor triggered it. The time stamp showed it to have been taken two hours ago, just before dark.
“Well, that’s that. They are following us, but I’m not sure they will continue after dark. If they make camp for the night, that will put them over a day and a half behind us. That’s a much better lead than we had before Dimitri’s big boom,” I said as I passed the pad around for the others to see.
Reggie said, “There were seven men. I thought you said there were only six?”
“I did; they must have gotten an extra or picked up an extra fro
m the Brotherhood. Who knows?”
“Did you notice a couple of them were sporting bandages, and I’m not talking band-aids? It looks like they got injured during their altercation with the Brotherhood,” O’Reilly observed.
“Oh, darn,” Dimitri said, “too bad they don’t have to be carried.”
“We’ll need to get a good night’s sleep tonight. Tomorrow, we’re going to take advantage of this path. Now that we’re not having to beat our way through the brush, we need to pick up the pace.
“Slave driver,” Dimitri said as we huddled around the small fire. He reached into his pack, pulled out a bottle of his favorite Russian vodka, and cracked the seal. He took a healthy swig from the bottle and passed it around. When it got to me, I took my drink and felt the clear fiery liquid burn my throat before its warm glow spread through my insides.
“Gotta warm the insides as well as the outside,” Dimitri said. “Besides, it will help with the sore muscles I’m sure we’re all feeling.”
He was right. I guess adrenaline had been flowing for a couple of days now and keeping the pain at bay. I realized my throat was raw from breathing the cooler, thinner air at this altitude. Our trek had been a continuous uphill one, although gradual at times, uphill nonetheless, and it was taking its toll. Having killers tracking you did not make for a relaxing stroll in the mountains, and we had been pushing hard.
Joe said, “No one is going to have to rock me to sleep tonight; that’s for sure.”
“I agree,” Doc said. In fact, I’m cashing out now. That vodka did the trick, thanks, Dimitri.”
“Medicinal magic,” he laughingly said as he took one more hit off the bottle before putting it back in his pack.
We gathered more wood and banked the fire for the night, not a blazing fire but a nice bed of hot coals that spread their warmth to the surrounding sleeping bags. Sentry duty was the same as always, three-hour shifts. Reggie seemed spryer than the rest of us, so she agreed to take the first watch. It took all of five minutes for me to fall into a deep sleep, which did not end until first light the following day.