Soldier D: The Colombian Cocaine War

by David Monnery

  After an hour they had filled as much of the list as Wynwood thought they could, and rendezvoused back at the car, which Chris had filled at the petrol station in the centre of town.

  He told them the bad news as they drove out along the Montanita road. ‘A policeman stood there watching me get her filled,’ he said. ‘I thought he was going to take a photograph, he was so interested. He asked me where I was headed. I told him San Agustin, tried to act the dumb tourist.’

  ‘That must have been easy,’ Eddie observed.

  ‘Would have been easier if I’d had you with me. Anyway, I guess the word hasn’t got here yet. But when it does … I think Señor Plod will remember me.’

  ‘We’ll be on the river by then,’ Wynwood said.

  ‘Five men in a boat,’ Anderson added.

  ‘The fucking ulu,’ Eddie said for about the fifth time, though with rather more excuse than the last four. The valley they were now descending was far more thickly vegetated than anything they had seen since the Cauca valley, and the trees were of a different type. Coniferous trees were altogether absent, whereas palms in many shapes and sizes now proliferated among taller deciduous trees of a decidedly unEnglish appearance. They were entering the fringes of the world’s greatest rainforest.

  ‘Chirlo wishes to speak with you, patrón.’

  Ramón put down his magazine and walked slowly across the room to pick up the extension. He had been doing a lot of thinking about Chirlo this last couple of days, wondering whether the family should keep him on. Not because of the discovery that Chirlo had been screwing Victoria – Ramón should have guessed that was happening – but because the chief sicario seemed to have been dangerously destabilized by her death.

  One thing was certain: if the time did come to dispense with Chirlo’s services Ramón wanted a lot of armed help at his shoulder when he handed him the news.

  ‘Yes, Chirlo,’ he said into the phone.

  ‘Patrón, I have lost the trail of the Englishmen, and I thought you might be able to help.’

  Ramón resisted the temptation to tell him to stop wasting his time. ‘Of course. But how?’

  Chirlo outlined the events of the day, and how the Englishmen had vanished into thin air.

  ‘You say they are not on the road to Bogotá, and they have not doubled back across the mountains towards Popayán?’

  ‘I am certain.’

  ‘Then there is only one possibility …’

  ‘Amazonia?’

  ‘Chirlo, we Colombians tend to think that Amazonia has nothing to do with us, even though it is two-thirds of our country. It is just a backwater to us, somewhere where the weather is too hot and humid and a few Indians live …’

  ‘This is all true.’

  ‘The SAS are trained in jungle warfare. I forget where – in one of England’s old colonies in Asia or Africa. It doesn’t matter. The point is they will feel more at home in our jungle than you or I would.’

  ‘I understand,’ Chirlo said more thoughtfully. ‘But where would they go?’

  ‘Brazil?’

  ‘This is over 1500 kilometres away!’

  ‘So? I tell you, they are taught how to survive in the jungle. And they are not in a hurry. What is to stop them?’

  ‘I am, patrón.’

  The phone clicked off. It was hardly a respectful goodbye, Ramón thought. Chirlo was either not himself, or his real self was finally breaking through the inhibitions of rank. Either way it did not bode too well for the future.

  At the other end of the line Chirlo was busily re-examining the map in the San Agustin police office, Ramón already forgotten. His finger traced possible routes down into Amazonia. There were several, but most of them passed through Florencia.

  He spun round on the hapless police chief. ‘Get hold of Florencia,’ he snapped.

  ‘It is in Caqueta province, chief,’ Arevalo said apologetically. ‘The lines are the same as for Bogotá. And they will not be mended for an hour or more.’

  Chirlo looked at him, trying to repress his growing frustration. Both men knew that the line had been cut just outside the town at Chirlo’s instruction, but neither wanted to share the knowledge.

  He took a deep breath. It did not matter. If the Englishmen were trying to reach Brazil across Amazonia then time was hardly an issue. He was dealing in weeks, not hours. ‘When the lines have been mended,’ he told the police chief, ‘contact Florencia and ask them to find out if the stolen car has been seen. Anywhere in the province. I will be there in an hour myself.’

  ‘Yes, chief,’ the police chief said, managing to repress his sigh of relief. One day with this man had been enough.

  They were still about a hundred kilometres from Tres Equinas on the River Caqueta when darkness fell, and the appalling state of the road made their progress slower than it might have been. A third hazard was the stream of heavy lorries travelling in the opposite direction, carrying timber at a pace which suggested the drivers’ confidence in their ability to flatten anything they hit. Flashing their lights at them, far from inducing caution, seemed akin to waving a red rag at a bull. The only safe course was to turn out the lights and, if possible, pull off the road. The frequent need to take such evasive action considerably slowed the Ford’s rate of progress.

  It was 8.30 before they reached Tres Equinas, which seemed to consist of several tumbledown shacks, the sawmill source of the lorries and a hotel which would only have deserved the adjective ‘cheap’ if the proprietor had paid the guests. This last, which overlooked the river, was also the only source of boats in the village, and Wynwood suspected the worst as the proprietor, none too pleased at being dragged away from doing nothing on his verandah, led them down to the landing stage complaining about the lateness of the hour.

  For once Wynwood’s pessimism was unjustified. The boats, all identical, looked both river-worthy and considerably better looked after than the hotel or its proprietor. Though shaped like large canoes, they had greater stability in the water and were made of sterner stuff, clinker-built from overlapping planks. There were places for two paddlers, one in the bow and one in the stern, with ample space for two non-paddling passengers and baggage in between them.

  The haggling began. At first the proprietor had assumed that they were eccentrics come to rent boats in the middle of the night. The news that they wanted to buy two of them seemed to throw him off his stride, and much bluster was brought forth to cover his confusion.

  Wynwood’s first reaction was to regret not having simply asked to rent them; his second was to consider just taking them at gunpoint. Still, this would probably have been unwise even if he could have squared it with his conscience – he had no idea what police posts there might be downriver, and he did not want to start a jungle-wide watch for gringo boat-stealers.

  A price for two boats was eventually agreed, one which should probably have bought them the hotel as well. They had the choice of which two, and as the patrol’s boat specialist, Chris did the choosing.

  The owner then offered to show them to their rooms, and was surprised to discover that they intended to set out immediately. Consoling himself with the large wad of pesos in the back pocket of his trousers, he went back to the verandah, muttering ‘loco’ to himself at regular intervals.

  With this litany vaguely audible in the background the five SAS men loaded their gear aboard the boats. Andy, Chris and the Dame would take one craft, Wynwood and Eddie the other. Since none of them had had more than four hours’ sleep in the previous thirty-six, the plan was to get a few kilometres downstream and set up camp for the night.

  They eased the two boats out onto the dark river, discovering a strong slow current in the centre of the stream. The river was about a hundred metres across at this point, but widened to almost twice that width before they had gone two kilometres. The jungle came down to the banks on both sides, giving the impression that they were travelling down a chute between two walls, a stationary ceiling of stars above them.

&nb
sp; Every now and then what looked like a lighted window would appear in the dark walls to either side, before suddenly shooting off and revealing itself as some sort of luminous insect. The waters were silent save for the swish against their paddles, and the occasional melancholy cry of a bird in the distance seemed to echo all around them all.

  After only ten minutes or so the darkness relented and a quarter-moon rose above the trees, turning the deep shades of grey into an altogether more enchanting world of silver and black. To Eddie, sitting in the bow of the lead boat, the scene before him seemed more than a touch unreal after the space and light of the mountains and the mad bustle of their journey from San Agustin. He felt like he had been caught in a time warp and transported back to a world still untouched by men. Real or not, it thrilled him to the marrow.

  ‘There’s a sandbank about two hundred metres ahead,’ Andy said quietly from the boat behind them. As the only non-paddler he had been entrusted with the nightscope.

  ‘We’ll see if it has any rooms,’ Wynwood said, and steered towards it.

  Closer to, the sandbank resembled a swathe of silver dust someone had thrown in the river. It had no rooms, but the remains of a fire showed it had been used before for camping. They pulled the boats out of the water and each man scraped a trench in the sand for sleeping in.

  ‘A fire?’ Anderson suggested.

  ‘What do you think?’ Wynwood asked.

  ‘I can’t see them sending up planes at night to look for us. How would they know it was us anyway? Only if old Trusthouse Forte back at the hotel tells them, and if they talk to him’ they’ll know roughly where we are anyway.’

  ‘There you go, then,’ Wynwood agreed. ‘I’m going to talk to Belize.’

  ‘Ask them for the football results,’ Eddie said.

  ‘This is probably the time to tell you about the candiru,’ Chris told Eddie.

  ‘Uh-huh. And what’s a candiru?’

  ‘It’s a tiny fish, which homes in on piss.’

  ‘You’re making it up.’

  ‘Nope. And it actually swims up your anus and sticks itself there with barbs so it has to be cut out.’

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Why don’t you take the boat across and get us some more wood,’ Anderson suggested. ‘And if you fall in the water try and stay as tight-arsed as possible.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Wynwood said, midway through setting up the PRC 319, ‘give me some quiet to think in.’ The trouble was, he felt too tired to think straight anyway.

  On the other hand, there was not really much need for thought. He told Belize where they were and what their options looked like. Then he requested as much information as possible on what was waiting for the five of them downstream: the navigability of the river, the weather, the numbers and friendliness of the human population, the warmth of their likely reception at the Peruvian or Brazilian border.

  Apart from a simple question on the state of their health, the duty officer in Belize restricted himself to acknowledging Wynwood’s requests. The latter signed off with a promise to repeat the contact tomorrow at 0800 hours.

  By this time Anderson had got a decent fire going with driftwood the Dame had collected on the sandbank, and was in the process of preparing a warm meal from tins they had bought in Florencia. The boat was on its way back with more wood. It was like being a boy scout again, Wynwood thought. He resisted the temptation to start singing ‘ging-gang-gooly-gooly’.

  They ate their meal, watching the smoke from their fire drift across the stars, and then four of them went to sleep, leaving the apparently inexhaustible Eddie with the first watch.

  Just before he slipped into sleep, Wynwood’s thoughts were optimistic. He knew they were still in Colombia as the atlases drew it, but he could not help thinking they had escaped from the Colombia of the drug barons. Now it was just them and the ulu, and he had won that battle before.

  * * *

  A hundred and sixty kilometres to the north Chirlo took a swig from the can of Pepsi and watched the light plane aim itself between the parallel lines of fires which marked the jungle airstrip. Almost before it had touched down in the bumpy meadow men were extinguishing the fires in the oil drums by the simple expedient of replacing the lids. It was all probably unnecessary, Chirlo thought, but who knew when the satellites up there were taking pictures?

  He waited while the plane turned a tight circle and started taxiing back up towards the group of men who were waiting to unload its cargo of coca paste.

  The pilot climbed out. As Chirlo had expected, it was the Frenchman Paul Vadim, one of the few men who had worked for the Amarales longer than he had.

  ‘Vadim,’ he called out.

  ‘Who wants me?’

  Chirlo walked out of the shadows towards him.

  ‘Chirlo,’ Vadim said, surprised and somewhat wary. ‘You’re a long way from home. Is something wrong?’ His hand had moved instinctively into his jacket pocket.

  ‘I need you and your plane,’ Chirlo said, wondering if Vadim was stupid enough to think he could outdraw and outshoot him. ‘I will explain it to you over a beer.’

  He and the Frenchman walked along the path past the lab, the filtering plant and the drying structure to the room adjoining the kitchen which had been fitted up to function as a bar.

  The fridge yielded two cans of beer, and Chirlo went through the events of the past few days.

  ‘I’ve never been able to make up my mind which I loathe most – the English, the Americans or the Germans,’ was Vadim’s only comment.

  ‘They bought two boats at Tres Equinas,’ Chirlo concluded, ‘and they’re somewhere on the Caqueta. I want you to find them, preferably without them realizing you’ve done so.’

  The Frenchman shrugged. ‘That won’t be easy. The only way you can see what’s on those rivers is by flying directly above them.’

  ‘Can’t you fly a zigzag route,’ Chirlo suggested.

  ‘That would make it less obvious,’ Vadim agreed. He had previously thought of Chirlo as just a highly efficient thug. Perhaps he had underestimated him.

  It was five in the morning in Hereford when Kilcline woke the CO with the news from Belize.

  ‘Where are they exactly?’ Barney Davies asked sleepily, stretching the telephone cord towards the shelves where he kept his atlases. Even as a boy he had always loved maps, and there were now almost fifty atlases of various vintages in his collection. He pulled out the most modern and rifled his way through the pages to Colombia. Why was South America always at the back of atlases, he wondered. Was it that the British had traditionally had less interest in it than other continents?

  Kilcline gave him the details again. ‘Christ, it looks a long way from anywhere,’ he murmured, mostly to himself.

  ‘It is,’ Kilcline agreed. ‘I’ve set the wheels turning on the information front,’ he said, ‘but I thought you’d want to deal with the political stuff yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll handle it,’ Davies agreed.

  ‘They’re transmitting again at 1300 our time.’

  ‘OK. I’ll get back to you by 1100.’ He hung up, spent a few moments staring at the atlas page, shook his head and went to make himself some coffee. The prospect of more contact with the Foreign Office hardly filled him with the joys of spring. In fact he felt a considerable reluctance to divulge the men’s whereabouts to anyone outside the Regiment. But he supposed they had to end up in another country at some point, and it would be better to be greeted by a friendly face than a deportation order sending them back to Colombia.

  Eddie sat on the far end of the sandbank from his sleeping comrades listening to the soundtrack of the jungle. It had no recognizable rhythm, unless that in itself was a rhythm; the backing track supplied by cicadas and frogs had the seamlessness of disco, but it didn’t exactly set the toes tapping. As for the vocalists, they were a strange bunch, not much given to essaying more than a single croak, howl, hiss or cry. The word ‘unearthly’ flashed through Eddie’s mind, and made him
laugh. If the natural earth sounded unearthly they were in deep trouble.

  It was just an impersonal sound, he decided. Not threatening, not friendly, just there. Rather like being in London, where these days you couldn’t even escape from the hum of traffic in the middle of Hampstead Heath. Just the noise of the world.

  Where was there still silence? he wondered. In the Arctic maybe, provided two polar bears were not busy at it on a neighbouring ice floe. He wondered what Lisa was doing. Sleeping, he supposed, since it was about five in the morning in England. Sleeping alone, he hoped. He wondered what she would think if she could see him now. Would she be impressed?

  In his mind’s eye he could see her upturned face in the back of his dad’s car, half amused, half nervous. It had been great, but she had been worried that it would not be, that somehow she would not live up to his expectations, or even her own.

  The fear of failure seemed to be everywhere, he thought. In sex and love and school and work. Maybe you had to grow up knowing there was no real escape to realize that it was the trying that mattered – stretching yourself, learning new things, going for broke every day of your life.

  One day you would lose your bet, but that would not be failure. As long as you were trying you couldn’t fail.

  Chapter 13

  In the hour after dawn the jungle’s backing track seemed to fade, offering each soloist their best chance of the day to be heard. A mixture of cries rent the air – high-spirited, mournful, jaunty, melancholic.

  ‘The heat, the flies, the endless drums,’ Anderson murmured, gazing at the dark-green wall of vegetation across the dark green water.

  ‘Sounds like the Brixton Academy,’ Eddie said.

  Anderson eyed him affectionately. He had grown rather fond of Eddie over the last couple of days, though he could not for the life of him think why. The two of them were reloading their gear into the boats, while the Dame filtered river water through the canvas bag they had looked for and bought in Florencia. It was not as efficient as the Millbank bag they normally used but it would have to do. Once filtered, the water would be sterilized with tablets.