by Chris Ryan
Thereafter he swam at a depth of four metres, coming up at the end of every three minutes to check his position. At twenty-one minutes the harbour lights were much closer, but still it was impossible to tell which ship was which, and he had to rely on the compass bearing to keep him oriented. All the time Gus was one man’s length behind him, guided by the phosphorescence which Al’s passage through the water was creating. The other two followed at similar intervals behind.
At twenty-seven minutes he slowed, and when Gus came alongside he gave him one squeeze on the arm to indicate that he was surfacing for another observe. This time he found a big hulk of ship right in front of him, but he could tell by the outline of her bow against the sky that she was the first in the line. They had drifted slightly to the left of their target. The tide must have been going out faster than they’d expected. Sinking back, he gave Gus two squeezes to indicate that they were approaching the target, then swam on, heading right. Three minutes later he surfaced again. This time he was just off the bow of the Santa Maria. The big white letters of her name stood out boldly from the sweep of the black hull.
Diving again, he gave Gus three presses to tell him they’d arrived. Gus passed the message back to the other pair. All four men surfaced and swam gently to their right, observing from a distance. Apart from one light showing through an open doorway in the accommodation block, and one naked bulb dangling from a cargo derrick, the ship was dark.
Satisfied that their plan was good, Al swam in and clamped himself to the side with two magnets. Now he was close, a faint hum of generators told him that the ship was alive. There was also the usual background noise of water slapping gently against the hull. Four presses, passed back through the team, confirmed that they were at the entry point. Al pulled off his rebreathing kit and magneted it on to the side, out of the way, and the others did the same. If anything went wrong while they were on board, they could jump over the rail and recover the sets from this temporary storage. Peering up, Al was glad to see that the curve of the hull put them out of sight – and range – of anyone looking down.
It took Gus only a few seconds to assemble the telescopic pole which had travelled strapped to his back. As he fitted the lengths together, the No. 3 swimmer, Jack Ashby, was unrolling the thirty-foot kevlar ladder. Then, with two of the others holding him steady on short ropes, Gus swam out a few feet, hoisted the pole and hooked the ladder over the ship’s rail.
Al was the first up. His jungle boots made only faint scuffling sounds on the ship’s side. When his head reached deck level he paused, listening. Then with a quick scramble he was over the rail and against the hatch cover, Browning in hand. A moment later he holstered the pistol and brought his MP 5 to the ready. A tug on the ladder: two up. Another tug: three up. The fourth man, Sonny Mitchell, came up and took station to secure their entry point.
The other three moved cautiously aft, keeping in the deep shadows thrown by the single light high on the derrick. Al was thinking to himself, ‘Now we’ve got this far, why don’t we go in and rescue the hostage?’ The trouble was, they didn’t know which part of the ship the poor bastard was in – he could have been down in one of the holds – and in any case, he was bound to be guarded.
The night air was hot and moist. Inside his suit Al was sweating freely. Creeping aft, he came level with the start of the accommodation block. The first doorway stood open. Beyond it was a porthole, also open. Through it Al could hear the hiss of water moving through pipes. The john. Just the place, except that he wanted somewhere higher, on an upper deck. It was odds on that all the plumbing systems were stacked on top of each other.
A metal companionway led upwards. Leaving Jack to guard the base of it, Al and Gus went up. Another open doorway. Another porthole in a similar position. There was one more deck above them, but there was no more external companionway, and this was the highest they could go without penetrating into the heart of the accommodation.
Al pointed to the porthole and stuck up a thumb, meaning ‘This will do’. Gus stood guard with his MP 5 at the ready while he stepped carefully over the sill. The metal door of the john was ajar. He applied pressure very gently, in case it squeaked, but the hinges gave silently. With the door open, there was enough light for him to see all he needed: a cistern above the twin urinals on the outside bulkhead.
The metal lid was held in place by small bolts with wing-nuts on them, one at either end. The threads of the bolts had been painted over, and he couldn’t shift the nuts with finger and thumb. Pulling out a pair of pliers, he unclipped them from their lanyard, reached up, and got the nuts moving. In a few more seconds he had lifted off the metal lid and laid it carefully on the floor. Then he drew his knife from its sheath, slit the wrappings of the transponder, pulled out the pin to activate the device and held it firmly to prevent any sudden jerk as its powerful circular plate-magnet clamped itself to the underside of the lid. A moment later he had the lid back in position. It was fractionally tilted forward by the aerial wire leading out over the rim and propping the back up, but no Colombian seaman was going to notice that. He screwed the wing-nuts back down by hand, leaving the upper threads of the bolts bare of paint. Nothing he could do about that – but again, it was highly unlikely that anyone would notice so small a change. Providentially, a metal pipe ran up and down the bulkhead behind the cistern, giving him an ideal conductor. He wound the naked end of the wire round it, and pushed the rest of the coil down out of sight.
Out in the open again, he faced in the direction of the rear party, onshore across the bay, and turned on an infra-red torch, invisible to the naked eye, but instantly detectable to someone with the correct receiver. Seconds later a voice in his earpiece said, ‘OK, Al. We’re just going to check your signal strength with base. Stand by.’
He waited, thinking of the satellites passing overhead, and reflecting on how extraordinary it was that the little device he’d just stuck in the john could communicate with them. Then came the voice from the shore again. ‘OK, Al. They have you loud and clear. Signal strength six. That’s as good as you’re gonna get.’
He doused the torch and raised a thumb to Gus. The two of them checked each other in whispers:
‘Pliers?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Knife?’
‘Yeah.’
‘All screws back in position?’
‘Two screws back.’
Both knew full well that the slightest trace of their presence, the smallest alien object, could destroy the secrecy of their visit. Satisfied that all was well, they crept down the companionway to the main deck. Back at their entry point, they unhooked the ladder and secured it temporarily with long lines of paracord tied in slip-knots, which would fall away when pulled from below. Al saw the other three down, then went over the side. Two tugs on the cords brought the ladder splashing softly down on them. With their rebreathing kits back on, they sank away into the black depths of the harbour, and the Santa Maria bore no more trace of their entry than if she had been visited by a ghost.
FOURTEEN
Most of the time I was worrying about Peter Black. The poor bastard was going to get skinned alive by the PIRA. I tried to stop myself thinking of all the things they’d do to him to make him talk.
It was good to hear that the SEALs had successfully planted the transponder, and that satellites were picking up its signals. Then Tony came through to say that the ship had sailed from Cartagena at 0830, and that she was heading north into the Caribbean. The head-shed in Hereford told us that a consignment of stores was on its way down to us from Belize, and that a quick-reaction force put together from B and G Squadrons was standing by to fly in.
We unpacked the dinghies and inflated them to make sure they weren’t punctured. All day, on and off, I nagged the local boss about the Huey spares, and he made radio calls about them. But it wasn’t till 1500 that at last an aged Dakota came droning in from the west, bringing the parts and a couple of mechanics. We watched from a distance as they went t
o work, and we could hardly believe it when, around 1630, they announced that they’d cured the problem. The pilot and navigator walked out, started up, and took the Huey for a test flight around the area. Back on the deck, they reported that everything was fine.
At 1700 I held a final O-group to confirm details. By then I’d drawn out a bigger plan on the side of a cardboard ration box, and I used it for reference. Also we had a fairly good map that the DAS had provided. ‘Operation Crocodile,’ I began. ‘Voice comms out of the forward operating base will be insecure, so we’ll refer to locations by call-signs only. OK? Our locations are as follows. The Bogotá Embassy is Green One. The training camp at Santa Rosa’s Green Two. This forward mounting base here is Green Three. And finally, the FOB, close to or on the target, is Green Four. It’s easy to remember, because the locations are numbered in the order we’ve been through them, or will be through them.’
‘Green!’ exclaimed Murdo sarcastically. ‘Everything’s fucking green, as far as the eye can fucking see.’
‘OK,’ I went on. ‘So it’s the four greens. Now, personnel. Murdo, Sparky and I will chopper in to a point approximately here.’ I indicated a spot on the bank of the Cuemani. ‘If the Huey can land, so much the better. Otherwise we’ll fast-rope down. We’ll identify the spot by displaying the cloth, either pegged down in the open or tied to a tree. Then we’ll launch the boat, proceed downriver and get ourselves in position for a CTR. During tomorrow, the second wave of three will chopper out to the same point and come downriver to join us. After that, we’ll have to play things by ear.’
A few questions, and everything was wrapped up. By 1720 we were hot to trot. We took one G3, two 203s and three pistols, plus ammunition and a box of PE. Luckily I’d thrown an ops waistcoat into my Lacon box before leaving the UK, so that accommodated a lot of my personal kit, including the Magellan.
The pilot, Pedro, and his navigator were both young fellows with short, spiky black hair. Neither spoke more than a few words of English, so I went through everything several times, making certain they’d got the right bearing – zero-eight-seven – firmly in their heads. I also impressed on the pilot that it was essential he memorize the spot at which he put us down, so that he could find it again next day. Also, after he’d dropped us, he had to swing out to the north and return to base in a wide arc, as though he was searching the jungle for lost persons.
He started up and took off without fuss, and in a few seconds we were over the forest-sea, skimming through the hot dusk just clear of the highest trees. I caught an occasional flash of emerald, red or yellow as some brilliantly coloured bird took off in fright, but otherwise our whole world was drab grey-green. Looking forward over the pilot’s shoulder, I watched the needle of the compass sitting steadily on the correct heading.
Apprehension crept up on me. Why were we going in on this crazy operation? Because my first loyalty was to the Regiment, I’d far rather have been in on the plan to rescue Peter Black. Maybe we should have devoted all our resources to that. Then again, I thought, even if we’d turned around at Santa Rosa and headed back north, so that we could go in to storm the boat in harbour at Cartagena, the narcos would probably have topped their captive before we could reach him. Better leave things there to the SEALs or the Boat Troop. Meanwhile, down here in the jungle . . . I had no strong feelings about the DA. I didn’t care too much about what happened to him. But Luisa was a different matter. The idea of a beautiful, intelligent woman getting roughly handled, maybe raped or killed, through no fault of her own, was difficult to live with. Maybe it sounds sexist, but for me at any rate she was the main reason for going in.
The navigator and I had calculated that, cruising at 120 knots, we would reach the Cuemani in twenty-three minutes. Twenty-one minutes into the flight, the pilot began to lift up to gain a wider view of our surroundings. Already the light was going, and the forest beneath us had turned from grey-green to nearly black. Then suddenly ahead was the gleam of the river, across our line of approach.
In seconds we were over the near bank. I motioned to Pedro to slow down and turn right, over the water. I was prepared to fly about two ks downstream, towards the airstrip, but no nearer. Within that distance we’d have to find a landing zone of some sort.
As he hovered, we searched in vain for an opening in the cover. The forest grew right to the bank of the river, the trees overhanging the stream. I’d started to think we would have to fast-rope through the canopy when suddenly I spotted a slight rise in the ground, an outcrop of rock, which formed a little cliff. The chopper could have landed on it, but for a single tree growing out of a cleft.
I gave a shout and pointed down. Pedro went straight in and hovered at a good height. We lowered the pack containing the dinghy, and then our three bergens in a single bundle. Finally we ourselves slid down individual ropes and signalled we were clear. Up went the Huey with our lines trailing from its belly. It swung off to the north as instructed, and in a minute the noise of its engine had died away.
The occasional bird was still calling, perhaps stirred up by the aircraft, and frogs were croaking; but apart from those natural noises, there wasn’t a sound. In the last of the light we took stock of our surroundings. On three sides the jungle stretched away unbroken. On the fourth, right below us, ran the river. We were on top of the small cliff, maybe thirty feet high, but the face of it was not vertical: it had enough of a slope and enough hand-holds for us to scramble down. I pulled out the strip of pale-coloured cloth which I’d borrowed from the Colombians, spread it over the rock and weighted it down with three or four loose stones.
I took out my Magellan, set it up, and waited for it to lock on to a passing satellite. When I got an accurate reading, I wrote it in my notebook, so that we could pass back the precise location of the landing zone when Sparky got his 319 going. Then we broke out the rubber dinghy from its pack, inflated it with the hand-pump and lowered it over the cliff, followed by the outboard on a separate tether. Within ten minutes of landing, we were drifting downriver, steering with the paddles and letting our eyes become accustomed to the gathering dusk.
Except where there was a rock-face similar to the one we had come down, the jungle pressed in to the very edge of the banks, overhanging the water. The river was at least two hundred yards wide, and I could see from the bare face of the banks that it was below its highest level. Because we were out in mid-stream, and the forest was so uniform, with few landmarks, we found it hard to tell what speed we were making; but when we augmented the current by paddling, we reckoned we were doing at least three knots, or about five k.p.h. At that rate, we’d be at the airstrip within two hours.
Occasionally a loud slap and a splash would sound from the stream. In fact I think most of the disturbances came from fish, but several times I felt the hair come up on my neck just from the thought of crocodiles. The pilot of the Herc had told me that the Caquetá was over two thousand kilometres long. Even though we were only on a tributary, our own river was big enough – and here we were, going down it in a tiny rubber boat to an unknown destination in the heart of the biggest rainforest on earth.
We must have been travelling faster than we thought, because after only one hour forty I suddenly realized that there was no longer a wall of jungle on the right bank. We had come to a place where the trees had been cut away. Further downstream I made out a long, grey shape which could only be the landing jetty.
‘Look out!’ I whispered. ‘Back up! Paddle for the bank.’
Murdo and Sparky spun the dinghy and headed across the current for the shore. A few trees still clung to the edge of the water, and we came in under them among a mass of roots. Standing up in the back of the little rubber boat, I got hold of an overhanging branch and pulled us in.
The roots, over which we had to scramble ashore, were treacherous in the extreme: invisible, uneven, and slippery as ice. Getting wet up to mid-thigh hardly mattered, though as the night was so warm; more serious was the noise we made floundering about. W
e tethered the boat temporarily to a branch and scrabbled up the steep earth bank, to find ourselves on the edge of a flat, clear space: the new airstrip. Away to our left, glimmering like a big, white moth, was a twin-engined plane, a square-bodied Islander.
Immediately we had a problem: what to do with the boat? To drag it ashore, through the mat of roots and branches, would be impossible. An alternative was to climb back on board and let it drift downstream, bringing it ashore on the new wharf. The trouble with that one was that the jetty might be guarded – and if we got the dinghy on land, what would we do with it then? A third alternative was to head back upstream and cache the boat on the edge of the virgin jungle; but, given the strength of the current, I doubted we’d make any headway with paddles alone, and I didn’t want to risk starting up the outboard. In the end, after a rapid Chinese parliament, we decided to leave the dinghy where it was. It was well hidden from boats passing on the river by overhanging branches, and the chances of anyone searching the bank along the perimeter of the airstrip seemed infinitesimal. Once on the airfield, we took a note of the boat’s position by reference to a single tree that stood taller than the rest.
Pepperpotting was the order of the night. By luck we’d come ashore near the northern end of the landing strip. The plane was parked at the south end, about six hundred metres away. While one of us went forward to check our immediate surroundings, the other two covered him from a distance. Then, at a low whistle, they moved up, and one of them took over the lead. We stalked the aircraft with extreme care, moving silently over the raw, scraped earth of the runway. We expected to find at least one guard stationed by it, or in it, and we were surprised to find the Islander deserted. The temptation to booby-trap it was almost overwhelming: we had the explosive and detonators. But I had to keep reminding myself that our mission was one of covert approach and extraction, not one of sabotage.