by Chris Ryan
As she spoke there was a loud rumble followed by a crash. The trees shook, sending birds squealing into the sky.
The five friends froze in a shocked tableau: Hex wrapping the mask in cotton wool from the medical kit; Paulo at the stretcher, adjusting the robber’s splint; Alex getting up off his bergen to go down into the tomb with Li and Amber.
Li swallowed nervously. ‘Was that a quake?’
Amber moved cautiously towards the mouth of the tomb. ‘Oh,’ she said.
The other four went to join her.
One side of the tunnel that led down into the tomb had caved in.
‘I think,’ said Alex, ‘we’d better leave the dangerous stuff to the archaeologists.’
The birds, barely settled again, suddenly took off in a squawking panic, bright feathers flashing through the green foliage. And there was another sound – the steady beat of rotors; the high whine of an engine. The helicopter was coming.
8 LANDING ZONE
They ran to the little clearing and looked up at the signal balloon. It was buffeted in the air currents like a punch bag. The bright sky hurt their eyes after the permanent twilight under the tree canopy; they felt like nocturnal animals as they squinted up into real daylight. The belly of the helicopter passed over, a black torpedo sliding through the sky. It circled away then hovered, the winch man at the open side door, looking down.
Alex waved. The winch man waved back. They had contact. Alex lay down flat on his back, his legs straight out and his arms stretched above his head. It was the international sign for ‘casualty on a stretcher’.
Above him, the heli flew away and circled back again. As it passed the gap it did a wobbling movement, tipping its rotors from one side and then the other. Alex knew what that meant: message understood.
The heli came back and hovered. Soon a shape began to descend out of the aircraft, a strange black silhouette. As it came below the tree canopy the light changed and they realized what it was: two chainsaws, lashed together. All of them asked themselves the same question: why was the winch man sending down chainsaws?
Li leaned close to Paulo so he could hear her above the noise of the heli. ‘Maybe you’re supposed to cut the robber’s leg off.’
He looked at her and shrugged, just as mystified.
The chainsaws were rustling through the lower leaves and heading for the ground. Hex went to grab one.
‘Don’t touch it!’ yelled Paulo. ‘You’ll get an electric shock. Aircraft build up a lot of static electricity. Let the cable touch the ground first.’
Hex stopped where he was. ‘Whoa,’ he muttered to himself. ‘That could really liven up my day.’
The chainsaws touched down and the rope went slack. Up above, more strange shapes were coming down on ropes. When they arrived they turned out to be fuel cans, two orange suits of protective chain-mail clothing and a metal box about the size of a shoebox.
Once everything was safely unloaded, Alex waved up at the winch man. The ropes snaked back up into the sky. The winch man gave a final wave and the heli moved away.
Once it had gone the jungle seemed strangely still and quiet.
‘OK, Alex,’ said Amber. ‘I thought he was picking us up. Why has he gone away again? And what are all these toys for?’
‘The pilot can’t land to pick up the stretcher,’ replied Alex. ‘He wants us to cut a landing zone.’
Amber scratched her leg. The wait-a-while cuts were still really itchy and tender. She’d been hoping that if they went back to Belize City she could get some antibiotics. ‘This jungle business just gets better,’ she grumbled.
Paulo was also disappointed not to be getting in a helicopter immediately, but the thought of an engineering challenge perked him up. ‘We want a flat area about thirty metres wide, with a firm surface. Not here,’ he added. ‘Those tombs won’t cope with ten tonnes of helicopter landing on them.’
‘We need to be on a ridge line,’ said Alex. ‘Then the trees will be easier to clear.’
Amber unfolded the map briskly and pointed. ‘There’s an ideal spot just there. About ten minutes’ walk away.’ She was keen to get moving. When she had a job to do the wait-a-while itching wasn’t so bad.
Alex nodded. ‘Yeah. Take someone and scout ahead; the rest of us can follow with the stretcher.’
She picked up both chainsaws and swung one over to Hex. ‘Congratulations. You’re my pacesetter.’
Hex barely caught it before she turned round and set off. ‘See you in a bit, guys,’ he said to the others.
As soon as Hex started walking behind her, he was counting paces. It seemed like second nature now; once he got back to civilization he probably wouldn’t be able to stop himself doing it. It would be like a subroutine forever running in his head.
As Hex and Amber disappeared, Paulo did a quick check on the patient. Not having a common language he couldn’t ask him how he was feeling, but he guessed the splint had made him more comfortable. Certainly his breathing was steadier. Paulo felt the man’s toes. Both feet were the same temperature. So no circulation problems yet.
Meanwhile Alex cut the cord of the signal balloon with his knife. Another important rule of survival: never leave your distress markers once the call has been answered.
The free end of the rope drifted up. Li came and watched as the balloon caught a thermal and shrank until it was only a dot in the sky. ‘Maybe we should have put a message on it: Dear Mum and Dad, Having a super time . . .’
The three prepared to follow the others, distributing the rest of the gear. Alex made a bee-line for the metal box. The others didn’t notice the smile playing across his lips as he put it in his bergen. He was sure it was going to make clearing the landing zone an awful lot more fun.
Li and Paulo lowered the stretcher carefully to the ground so as not to jar the injured man’s leg. Alex put down the fuel cans.
Hex was taking his bergen off. ‘Do you want the good news first? No old Maya structures, so it should all be solid ground.’
Amber was standing next to a mahogany. ‘But the bad news is we’ll have to clear nearly twenty trees.’ She thumped the trunk of the tree behind her. ‘And that includes this monster.’
The tree was nearly three metres in diameter, with buttresses flaring out like a bell of fabric from the bottom. They looked around at the rest of the area. Many of the other trees were not as big, but they were solid oaks – at least a metre in diameter. It looked like hard work.
Paulo unloaded the protective chain mail off the stretcher. ‘Alex, what’s so funny?’
Alex was smiling as he slipped his bergen off. He opened the top and took out the metal box. ‘I’ve almost been hoping we’d have a chance to do this.’
‘Yeah,’ said Amber. ‘Somehow we can tell.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Li. ‘You’ve brought some wood lice.’
‘Beavers?’ suggested Hex.
Almost reverently, Alex opened the box and revealed the contents. It contained forty white sticks about the length of a Cumberland sausage, wrapped in cellophane. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is plastic explosive. I went on a course at half term. Ladies and gentlemen, I am now qualified to blow holes in things.’
‘I admit that’s very cool,’ said Li. ‘But what good is it right now?’
Alex lifted the sticks of plastic explosive out of the box. Underneath were drilling tools and some other, smaller boxes. ‘We put a couple of holes in each tree and stick some explosive in. Then – bang. Job done. We’ll be back in Belize City in time for dinner. I don’t think we’re going to need those chainsaws.’
His words lifted the group’s mood in an instant. It was though the sun had come out.
Amber felt her old positive self again. ‘Hex has marked the trees we need to move. There’s a cross on each of them.’
‘That wasn’t me,’ said Hex, his voice full of doom. ‘That was the Blair Witch donkey.’
They all started to giggle. Amber poked him in the ribs. ‘Don’t start us
off again.’
Alex handed Paulo the drilling tool. It was like a giant corkscrew, with a handle and a long twisted shaft. ‘Bore two holes in each tree, opposite each other and one slightly below the other. The one below creates a weak spot; the one above pushes the trunk over.’
Paulo nodded. ‘Like a topcut and undercut when you’re felling a tree with a saw or an axe?’
‘Exactly. And make the undercut so that the tree falls outside, not in towards the landing zone.’
Hex picked up the machete. ‘I’ll clear some of the smaller bushes.’
Alex took the wrapper off one of the sticks of plastic explosive, then tossed it to Amber.
Amber caught it on reflex, then realized with horror what she’d got in her hands. ‘What did you do that for?’
Alex laughed. ‘PE’s virtually inert. You could put it on a fire and it would barely burn.’
‘Very funny,’ snapped Amber. Her heart was still hammering. ‘I bet you weren’t so cool about it when they did the same to you on your course.’
Alex smiled sheepishly. She was dead right. He’d been shaking like a leaf when the instructor had tossed the stick of PE at him. You couldn’t pull the wool over Amber’s eyes.
Amber sniffed the PE. It smelled of nothing and felt like plasticine. Strange stuff. ‘How is this harmless substance going to blow down a tree?’
Alex touched the small box in the kit. ‘These detonators. You don’t want to play catch with those.’
‘Do you want this back?’
‘Pick up the box. You can help me put it in the trees.’
Alex went to the first tree. Paulo had made two nice big holes. Now the question was how much PE to use. On the course – with the Territorial Army back at home – he had learned that even a small piece could blow a hole in steel. But trees? A lot of these had just withstood a minor earthquake and probably many others in the past. They’d be pretty tough. His instructor had given them a tip: when in doubt, add P for plenty. He had then proceeded to demolish an entire house instead of merely putting a hole in the front wall so maybe he’d gone a bit too far. Alex looked at the sticks in Amber’s hand, picked one up, and squashed it into the hole. He took another one round the other side and did the same.
‘Hey, you’re really going for it,’ said Amber.
‘Trees are heavy,’ replied Alex, moving on to the next marked tree. ‘They take quite a bit to shift.’
‘So long as you don’t shift all of us as well.’
They continued until all the trees Hex had marked were drilled and plugged with PE. They’d used nearly all the sticks.
Paulo put the hand drill down next to Alex’s bergen. ‘So what’s next?’
Alex took a small box out of the metal case and picked up a reel of cord like white washing line. ‘This is det cord. I need one helper—’
Everyone said, ‘Me,’ but Li got there slightly ahead of the others. Alex handed her the reel of det cord and the knife he kept at his belt.
‘Everyone else get into the middle of the landing zone with the injured guy,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll be as far away from the blast as possible.’
While Paulo, Amber and Hex started moving the robber on the stretcher and all their gear, Alex and Li went over to a tree. Alex opened the box and revealed the detonators: silver tubes about the length of a pen top, with two wires coming out of the end. He picked one up as though he was lifting a mouse by its tail and pushed it into the explosive. ‘You have to be careful with these. The heat from your hands can set them off so you have to handle them by the wires.’ He did the same on the other side of the tree, using a slightly different detonator. The upper charge had to go off fractionally before the other to push the tree over, and so he used a slightly slower detonator. ‘OK, I need some of that wire.’
Li paid out the white cord from the spool. ‘How much?’
Alex took the end. ‘I need two pieces about thirty centimetres long.’
Li slit two lengths of cord and handed them to him. ‘How will you set it off? Light it?’
Alex carefully twisted the wires of each detonator onto the det cord. ‘No. They’re electrical. There’s a firing device in the kit.’ He knotted together the two ends and tied in a third piece so the arrangement hung like a necktie around the tree. ‘Right, we need to feed out the wire and connect it to the firing device.’
Li paid out the cord until they were back to where the others were waiting with the bergens, chainsaws and the injured robber.
‘Alex looks rather pleased with himself,’ said Paulo. Sitting on his bergen he looked like a holidaymaker waiting for his flight to be announced.
Alex put the remaining detonators carefully on the ground and cut the det cord. He picked up the last mysterious item from the kit – a small black box with a hand grip. Two wires trailed from it. He twisted them onto the white cord at his feet. When he finished his eyes were glittering. ‘This is the firing device. We’re ready. Cover your ears.’
Hex nudged the robber and tried to show him he should put his hands over his ears. The man glared at him; his usual expression whenever they brought him water or checked he was OK. Hex pointed to the others – they nodded back at him encouragingly, their ears protected, all looking like the monkey who would hear no evil. The man seemed to realize what was going on and did the same.
Alex squeezed the handle on the firing device.
There was a small flash. The sound of the explosion was like being banged on the head. It echoed through the jungle, sending birds and animals scattering.
As the ringing in their ears cleared there was a sound of splintering. In moments the tree was on the ground, a pale ragged disc of freshly exposed wood facing towards them. It had landed exactly where it was supposed to.
Alex punched his fist in the air. ‘Yes!’ Amber put her fingers between her teeth and let out a piercing whistle that scared away any lingering birds. Paulo and Li gave each other high-fives. Hex sat and grinned. The robber let out a string of angry-sounding words.
‘Go on,’ said Paulo. ‘Do the next one.’
‘Go for it,’ grinned Amber.
Alex and Li set up the next one and joined the others crouching in the middle. This time, when Hex mimed to the robber to cover his ears, he scowled and put his hands up immediately.
There was a furious bang, and another tree capsized away into the jungle. The group’s cheers and wolf whistles were almost as loud.
‘Could you do a couple at a time?’ said Hex.
Alex nodded. ‘Don’t see why not.’
When he and Li came back to take cover again, there were two trees connected by a garland of det cord.
Bang. They fell into the undergrowth. Five grinning faces looked around at each other. Even the robber was catching the spirit of triumph and smiling.
Hex looked up. For the first time in a few days, he was seeing sky. ‘Hey, it’s getting lighter.’
Paulo pushed his sleeves up and felt the sun on his bare arms. ‘The sun at last. Hurry up and take down some more trees, Alex.’
Amber sighed. ‘Ah, sunlight. Any longer in that tree canopy and I’d have seasonal affective disorder.’
‘What’s that?’ said Paulo.
‘It’s that thing called SAD – you know, it’s when people get depressed in the winter because they don’t get enough sunlight,’ said Hex.
Li and Alex came back. Everyone covered their ears. Another bang. Now they didn’t seem so loud. Hex and Amber carried on where they had left off.
Amber grinned like a snake. ‘I know how they treat that. You have to sit in front of a glowing box for hours every day. Just like Hex does.’
Paulo chuckled.
‘Who would have guessed you were going to say that?’ rejoined Hex.
‘For our next trick,’ called Li, as though she was talking to a circus audience, ‘we will do three at once.’ She gave a quick bow and was met with cheers and whistles.
Alex and Li retreated to their safe positio
ns to detonate.
Three trees were swiftly dispatched.
The next trees were the big mahogany that Amber had spotted, plus several oaks. Li and Alex ran back to take cover. ‘These are big ones,’ panted Alex. ‘Might be a bit louder than before.’ He sounded very pleased about it.
‘The boy is definitely having too much fun,’ said Amber.
They put their hands over their ears.
The bang was certainly bigger. It left their ears ringing. The oaks fell immediately but the mahogany remained upright. There was a great sound of groaning wood. Alex patiently waited for it to fall. The tree had been standing for hundreds of years. Of course it was likely to resist. A hunter had to expect that sometimes its prey would put up a struggle.
Then he went cold all over. It was finally starting to tilt – towards them.
He jumped to his feet. ‘Run!’
9 CHAINSAW HELL
The tree’s huge shadow loomed over them as its canopy blocked out the sun. Paulo and Hex grabbed the stretcher. The others were already running for their lives.
The tree’s topmost branches rasped against another tree on its way down. A moment later they were lashing against Hex’s back as he ran with the foot of the stretcher. He put on a spurt as it touched him, nearly pushing Paulo over at the front. There was an almighty crash behind him as the tree hit the ground.
Cautiously, Amber, Hex, Paulo, Alex and Li looked up. The tree was right across the landing zone, a big hulk of wood like a beached whale.
Five faces looked at Alex. For once, even the robber was silent.
‘Just to let you know,’ said Paulo patiently, ‘the touchdown surface should be free of loose materials such as leaves and twigs. It should have no holes, tree stumps or rocks.’
‘I don’t suppose a blob of PE is going to fix that,’ said Amber.
Alex stood up, staring at the mess in disbelief. ‘I must have miscalculated the weight of the tree.’ He ran his hand roughly through his blond hair.