Jungle Kill (Black Ops)

by Jim Eldridge

  3

  After that, things moved fast. Mitch and Nelson headed for a secure building within a Ministry of Defence compound in Whitehall. Mitch followed Nelson down to the basement, which looked like a standard briefing room, except for the array of weapons on a large table, which a group of men was examining. The men turned as they came in.

  ‘Guys,’ announced Nelson, ‘meet Trooper Paul Mitchell, our new unit member. Henceforth to be known as Mitch, unless he’s got any objections?’

  Nelson looked at Mitch, who shook his head. ‘Mitch’ was fine by him. It was what he’d always been called.

  ‘Mitch, meet Delta Unit. Your own countrymen first: Captain Bob Tait – known as Tug – my second in command.’

  Tug was young, five foot seven, serious-looking, with longish fair hair. He nodded and said, ‘Welcome,’ but there was no accompanying smile. Even in that one clipped word, there was a hint of the upper class that nettled Mitch.

  Mitch knew he had a chip on his shoulder about people like Tug. Mitch came from a very poor background on one of London’s sprawling, lawless sink estates. People like Tug would never know the daily struggles that people like Mitch had suffered.

  ‘And this is Trooper Danny Graham,’ continued Nelson. ‘Or Gaz, as everyone calls him.’

  Gaz looked about the same age as Mitch and was built like a rugby player, with the broken nose to go with it. He was slightly shorter than Tug, about five six, but much friendlier. He shook Mitch’s hand with a firm grip, grinned and said, ‘Good to have you aboard, pal!’ in a strong accent. Newcastle, Mitch guessed. His hair was cropped so short it was almost just stubble on his bony head. With his build and his shaven skull, Gaz looked like a human version of a pit bull terrier.

  At five foot eleven, Mitch knew he himself was tall by SAS standards, almost as tall as the six-foot Nelson.

  ‘Now your American cousins …’ said Nelson. ‘Sergeant Tony Two Moons.’

  The taller of the remaining two soldiers stepped forward, his hand held out.

  ‘Welcome to the tribe.’ He grinned, shaking Mitch’s hand.

  ‘Two Moons.’ Mitch nodded. ‘Native American?’

  ‘From the Sioux tribe, before the white man persuaded me to join up.’

  The others had obviously heard the joke before, but they all grinned, especially the black Colonel Nelson.

  ‘And this is Lieutenant Bernardo Jaurez. Better known as Benny. He’s from Texas.’

  Benny merely nodded and said: ‘Welcome to the unit, Mitch.’ No smiles. He was short, thin and wiry and Mitch guessed he was a man who took himself seriously.

  Like Tug, Benny looked to be a few years older than Mitch. Early to mid-twenties.

  That’s two friendly faces, thought Mitch: Two Moons and Gaz. The other two, Tug and Benny, are definitely suspicious of me. The two officers. He wondered if their attitude was because of what had happened with Captain Danvers – all written up in his case file. Mitch didn’t blame them – they didn’t know the whole story. Still, he didn’t like talking about it, so he wasn’t going to start explaining himself. If they wanted to know what had happened, they could ask.

  It was an interesting group: a Sioux Indian, a Hispanic Texan, a Geordie and himself, a Londoner. Where was Tug from? There was definitely something aristocratic about him. Maybe the second son of some titled family. He’d find out later, if it mattered. And the unit was led by the tall, charismatic black colonel from Boston, Massachusetts. Mitch was intrigued.

  ‘OK, introductions over, guys,’ said Nelson. ‘Five more minutes checking out the hardware, then take your seats for the briefing.’ And with that, he headed for the door.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Mitch asked.

  ‘Gone to take a leak, I expect,’ grinned Two Moons. ‘Why?’

  Mitch shrugged. ‘Just worried he’s going to suddenly appear with a bunch of heavies as some sort of test for me.’

  Two Moons chuckled. ‘You are one suspicious fella, Mitch! You’re the one who killed his captain, right?’ The rest of the men in the group had moved away.

  Mitch hesitated, then shrugged. He’d already guessed that everyone knew what he’d done. Maybe it was best that way.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ he said.

  ‘On purpose?’

  ‘Right again.’

  Two Moons nodded. ‘I know how that feels. I killed my sergeant when I was in the regular army, back in the States.’

  Mitch was surprised, both at the information, and at how willing Two Moons was to reveal it.

  ‘On purpose?’ he asked, echoing Two Moons’ question to him.

  ‘Yes and no,’ said Two Moons. ‘The court martial said it was an accident. But I gotta tell you, Mitch, when I hit that nasty piece of work I may not have been intending to kill him, but I sure as hell wasn’t pulling no punches.’

  ‘You killed him with a punch?’

  Two Moons nodded. ‘One punch,’ he affirmed. ‘Turns out he had a thin skull. He was also the most racist man I ever met in my whole life. Enjoyed making life miserable for anyone who wasn’t purebred white. Indians, blacks, Asians, Mexicans – you name it, he hated them. He should never have been made a sergeant in the first place.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Mitch, curious as to what could have made the friendly Two Moons go so far.

  ‘As I said, he had been making the lives of all of us non-whites a misery,’ said Two Moons. ‘But I learnt to handle it. Kept my head down and just got on with things. But there was this young black guy from Chicago: skinny kid, seventeen. Brand new. No confidence in himself. Everything he did, this sergeant found fault with and kept punishing him. And I mean really punishing him physically. Finally the boy couldn’t take it no more and he took a gun and shot himself.

  ‘Well, when I heard that news something inside me sort of snapped, but I still kept my cool. Then, at parade the next morning, this sergeant comes out to give us the official announcement about the kid killing himself, and he makes some sick joke. It so happens that when he said it he was standing right in front of me. If he’d been a few yards either way to my left or my right, I’d have left it. But he was right in front of me, with that stupid grin on his face, and before I knew it: wham! Smack!’ Two Moons held up his right fist, and Mitch saw that it looked pretty powerful. ‘Got him right between the eyes. End of story. Lucky for me my court-martial decided there’d been strong provocation.’ Two Moons gave a wry smile. He paused. ‘So that’s my story, let’s hear yours.’

  Mitch shrugged. But before he could say a word they heard Nelson’s voice rap out: ‘OK, take your seats, guys.’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it later,’ said Mitch, relieved at the reprieve.

  Along with the others, they took their seats in front of a screen fixed to one wall. It showed a map of the Niger Delta. Nelson waited until they were seated, then he addressed them.

  ‘This is Plan A to rescue Joseph Mwanga,’ he said. ‘And just to let you know, there is no Plan B.’ Nelson pointed to a spot east of the Delta. ‘This is where Mwanga was last seen, out in the bush, before he and whoever’s holding him disappeared into the jungle. Our job is to get in, find him and get him out. One thing’s for sure, people will know about us. So, we’ve fixed up a cover story.

  ‘Spencer-Tado Oil and Gas, one of the many American-British oil companies drilling for oil in the Niger Delta, has recently received threats that some of its employees are going be taken hostage and held to ransom.’

  Mitch nodded to himself. Kidnapping for ransom was something that happened all the time in Nigeria. The American or British hostages were generally released when a substantial ransom had been paid, but in a few cases they had been killed and their bodies found floating in the waters of the Delta.

  Nelson continued outlining the cover story. ‘In view of this it makes sense for Spencer-Tado to hire a bunch of mercenaries as bodyguards to protect their employees. We are that bunch of mercenaries. According to the story that’s been spread all over th
e Niger Delta, we’re going to be helicoptered in to guard the onshore oil refinery where the threats were received. As soon as we get there, we’re going to go undercover and watch out for the criminals or rebels who’ve made the threat.

  ‘In fact, the helicopter is going to touch down briefly in the jungle in the eastern area of the Delta, about twenty miles from where Mwanga was last seen, just long enough for us to drop into the jungle. Then the chopper is going to continue its journey to the refinery.

  Meanwhile, the hope is that everyone will assume we’ve been dropped off at the oil refinery and are in hiding, waiting, protecting the oil workers. What we will actually be doing is trekking through the jungle looking for Mwanga and his captors,’ concluded Nelson. ‘Any questions so far?’

  There was a shaking of heads.

  ‘Mitch has been added to the unit because he’s served tours of duty in Nigeria, including the Niger Delta. He knows the terrain and he knows the local languages. So he’s our ace in the hole.’

  Two Moons and Gaz both grinned at Mitch, and gave him the thumbs-up. Tug and Benny showed no emotion. They definitely don’t trust me, thought Mitch.

  ‘OK,’ said Nelson. ‘That’s it. We’ll do the rest of the briefing on the plane on the way to Africa. Pack your kit and let’s move.’

  4

  In the minibus on the way to the airfield, Mitch found himself sitting next to Benny Jaurez. They sat in silence as the minibus struggled to make its way through the busy London streets. Mitch looked out of the window, wondering when he’d be back again. Or if he would be back.

  ‘Hey, Mitch,’ said Benny, the wiry officer. Mitch turned and looked at him. ‘Am I right in guessing you got some sort of problem with me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Mitch, puzzled.

  ‘When the colonel introduced you to us I could see you didn’t like me,’ Benny continued, his mouth a grim line.

  ‘That’s not true,’ responded Mitch, annoyed.

  ‘There was definitely something,’ insisted Benny. ‘I thought at first maybe you were just anti-American, or anti-Latino. Some sort of racist.’

  Mitch couldn’t help but laugh at this. Him? A racist?

  ‘Yeah, OK.’ Benny nodded. ‘Then I figured if that was the case you wouldn’t want to serve under the colonel. And I saw you talking all friendly with Two Moons so then I think about it, and you were the same with Tug as you were with me. Cold. Distant.’ Benny was snapping the straps on his rucksack aggressively now.

  Mitch shook his head. ‘That’s not true,’ he said again. ‘It was the other way round.’

  Benny shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But I think you’ve got a thing about officers. You don’t like them. That’s why you were kicked out of the SAS.’

  ‘I wasn’t kicked out, I left,’ said Mitch.

  ‘Whatever.’ Benny shrugged again. ‘The thing is, we’re a small and tight unit. Just the six of us. We depend on each other. Every time we go out, our lives are on the line. We protect each other’s backs. I don’t want to feel you ain’t protecting mine because I’m an officer.’

  Mitch felt a stirring of anger inside him.

  ‘Listen, sir,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t care what rank a man holds. What matters is: do I trust him with my life? In my book, that trust doesn’t come automatically because someone’s got stripes on their sleeve or brass on their shoulder. That trust comes when I know the man. Comprende, sir?’

  Benny gave Mitch a hard look. ‘Then we’ll just have to see how it goes,’ he said. ‘But let me tell you, Mitch, right now I don’t trust you as far as I can spit.’

  Mitch nodded. ‘Then it’s good to know where we stand,’ he said. ‘That’s a start.’

  It was another two hours before the men were on board a military plane to Lagos. Mitch took a seat between Two Moons and Gaz near the back of the plane. Nelson, Tug and Benny were near the front.

  ‘First class for officers,’ murmured Mitch.

  ‘No, pal,’ grinned Gaz. ‘Nothing like that. I’ve fought alongside all these guys.’

  ‘So why are we at the back of the plane?’

  ‘Choice,’ said Gaz. ‘I always sit at the back of a plane. I’ve never yet heard of one of these things reversing into a mountain.’

  Mitch and Two Moons laughed. But Mitch still felt disappointed there was a gulf between him and Tug and Benny. But he’d just have to live with that. And it was natural that Nelson would sit with his senior officers, planning as they travelled, working out tactics.

  ‘So,’ said Two Moons, interrupting his thoughts. ‘You said you’d tell me what happened with your captain.’

  ‘OK.’ Mitch shrugged. He inhaled deeply. ‘It was in Iraq. I was part of a four-man unit, undercover in a place called Mandali, on the Iran–Iraq border.’

  ‘Been there,’ Gaz said. ‘East of Baghdad.’

  Mitch nodded. ‘We knew arms and soldiers were coming over the border from Iran. Our job was to find out how, and who was helping them, and target them. What we didn’t know, and no one back at HQ had picked up, was that our unit commander, Captain Danvers, was absolutely insane. None of the three of us, me, Johnny and Angel, had worked with him before. None of us even knew anything about him. He was just assigned to us.

  ‘Trouble kicked in almost as soon as we were inserted. Danvers was gung-ho about getting the intel swiftly. So, instead of doing the “hearts and minds” bit with the local tribespeople, he decided to take prisoners and use some muscle on them. Trouble was he had this idea that the people would talk if he threatened their kids.’

  Gaz whistled. ‘A whole load of trouble,’ he said.

  ‘You got it,’ agreed Mitch. ‘Problem was Danvers didn’t just threaten. He took us into this tribal area and told the head man that if they didn’t tell us what he wanted to know he’d kill his children. And, to show he meant what he said, he took his gun , aimed it at the head of this fourteen-year-old boy, a nephew of the head man, and pulled the trigger. Bang! One dead kid.’

  ‘He was cracked,’ said Two Moons.

  ‘Yup, mad in the head,’ agreed Mitch. ‘Once he’d done that, there was only one thing to do if we were going to get out of there alive. I put my gun to Danvers’ head and shot him there and then. Eye for an eye. That’s the way the tribes there see it. As soon as Danvers had pulled the trigger on that kid, any hope of us getting any intel had gone, then or ever after.’

  ‘I can see why you did what you did,’ said Two Moons. ‘Killing Danvers in front of them was the only way to save the situation.’

  ‘And get out of there alive,’ agreed Gaz. ‘I’ve been with those tribes. I know what they’re like.’

  Mitch gestured towards the front of the plane, where Nelson, Tug and Benny were engaged in whispered conversation. ‘Trouble is, the brass don’t see it that way. I shot an officer. Makes me dangerous.’

  Two Moons shook his head. ‘Not here, Mitch,’ he said. ‘You had no other choice. No one holds it against you in this outfit.’

  Mitch shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ he said.

  Two Moons leant across Mitch and nudged Gaz. ‘So, mate,’ he said. ‘That’s me and Mitch here both with a murky secret. You got any you want to share?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got plenty of secrets, mate,’ said Gaz, grinning, ‘but none that I want to tell the likes of you!’

  Mitch and Two Moons laughed. Mitch realised that was the first time in a long while he’d been able to laugh properly. Since he’d shot Captain Danvers, in fact. With a bit of luck, being with these guys could be fun, as well as hard work.

  Mitch looked out the window as the plane droned.

  ‘The colonel says you know Nigeria,’ said Two Moons after a pause.

  Mitch smiled. ‘No one knows Nigeria,’ he said, chuckling. ‘People who say they do are lying. I’ve done two tours of duty there and it’s still a mystery to me.’

  ‘Who runs the country?’ asked Two Moons.

  ‘That’s the big question,’ said Mitch. ‘I
t depends who’s in power, and that can change. Basically the place is about civil war, with uneasy political truces now and then to keep some sort of government, and lots of corruption. And, out in the bush, no one runs it.’

  ‘Big corruption?’ asked Gaz, interested.

  Mitch nodded. ‘When one ruler died in suspicious circumstances they found he had several hundred million dollars stashed in different bank accounts.’

  Gaz whistled appreciatively. ‘Several hundred million,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t mind laying my hands on a slice of that!’

  The plane flew on, hitting a bit of turbulence as it crossed the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, and then settling down for the rest of the journey to Lagos.

  Things continued to move fast when they arrived at the Nigerian city. Within fifteen minutes of landing they were strapped into their seats in the bay of a Bell UH-1 helicopter and heading east. Inside the helicopter there was no chance for chatting. The sound of the giant rotors above them made sure of that.

  Mitch looked out through the open bay doors of the chopper as it flew over the Delta. As he watched the dense jungle unfold beneath him, he thought about their mission. It wasn’t just a case of finding Mwanga. Their biggest problem would be recognising the good guys from the bad guys when they came across them.

  When the chopper neared their final landing site Mitch could feel every nerve in his body alert. They were going into trouble. The one question was: how soon would they find it? On a training mission there were always ground rules. You generally knew that, unless you made a stupid mistake, you would come out of it alive. On a real mission the threat of dying was ever-present.

  The jungle through the open hatch of the chopper looked like it was getting thicker. Rainforest made for tough terrain. Beneath the thick canopy of green leaves, trees sprang up like weeds from the wet and dark forest floor, the ground uneven and filled with roots twisting like contorted snakes, bursting up out of the soil. One moment you could be on solid ground, the next up to your waist in swamp, with leeches crawling all over you, getting inside your clothes, biting into your skin and sucking your blood.