The Severance Trilogy Box Set

by Mark McKay

  ‘This man sells me love potions,’ said Pablo, obviously amused. ‘My wife is a very happy woman.’

  They drove to the airport, where they took a side road. It led to a military entrance gate, manned by two armed policemen. Pablo presented a document and the barrier gate swung up. They drove through and were now directly airside. One hundred yards ahead, a large civilian helicopter stood waiting for them. It only took a few minutes to transfer their gear from the car to the helicopter and then they were airborne, rising into a cloud-smeared morning sky. Their pilot was dressed in civilian clothes but must have been another policeman, he also knew Pablo and Alberto. He said that the trip to Angoteras would take approximately two and a half hours and to sit back and enjoy the ride. In lieu of anything else to do they followed his instructions and watched as the jungle and the Amazon and its tributaries rushed away beneath them, with no end in sight.

  They landed not in Angoteras itself, but in a clearing about a mile away. The town, which was really more of a village consisting of a few houses, was visible from the air as they descended. When the rotors had finally come to a halt and there was silence, they had a council of war.

  ‘We have a light plane flying around this area looking for a clearing or a compound,’ said Pablo, once they’d all had a chance to stretch their legs and were sat down next to the helicopter, checking their gear. ‘We will get a call from him, shortly.’

  ‘Won’t that arouse suspicion?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Civilian light aircraft fly around here all the time. It is nothing unusual.’

  Pablo went on to inform them that Ibanez had thirty men who would be in two military helicopters due to leave Iquitos once the site’s location was confirmed. They would land a half hour’s flight time from here and await further instructions.

  ‘When I detonate my explosives is when you send those instructions,’ he told Nick.

  They waited for the civilian plane to do its stuff and get in touch. Alberto produced a little gas-fired cooking ring and a stainless steel pan. Water was boiled and Don Gilberto took it upon himself to be the brew master. As the water came to the boil, the radio crackled inside the helicopter and the pilot picked it up. He spoke quietly for a minute and then came over to Pablo and passed on the message.

  ‘Ten kilometres directly north of here,’ said Pablo. ‘A partially-fenced compound, according to the report, and a runway cleared through the forest. About two kilometres in from the river.’

  ‘Can we go up the river?’ said Nick.

  ‘Not unless you want to swim,’ said Pablo. ‘We’ll set a course through the jungle and go in that way.’

  Don Gilberto had made tea, another one of his herbal brews, dark and strong. He gave each of them a cup, but before doing so he pulled two plastic bags from his pockets. One was full of green leaves and the other contained a rusty red powder. He dropped a few pinches of the powder into each cup.

  ‘This isn’t hallucinogenic tea, I hope,’ said Nick.

  Pablo spoke to the old man for a bit. Don Gilberto held up the bag of red powder and said something, which made Pablo whistle.

  ‘They are all, how you say? Stimulants. When we go into the jungle we chew the coca leaves for stamina. The tea is a herbal mixture, also for endurance. And the red powder, he says, will make you one with the forest. OK?’

  Mariko and Nick exchanged glances. The two policemen had no hesitation, they were already drinking their tea. Mariko smiled and nodded and the shaman inclined his head as if in acknowledgement of the wisdom of her decision. They drank. A few minutes later and Nick could already feel the effects. His eyesight had sharpened and he was buzzing inside.

  ‘OK,’ said Pablo. ‘Let’s go find these bastards.’

  They hoisted their packs on to their backs. Pablo handed Nick and Mariko two Kalashnikov AK47 rifles and three spare magazines each.

  ‘You OK with these?’

  They both nodded. Pablo gave the pilot the thumbs up and he climbed back into his cockpit. Then the four man and one-woman assault team made their way into the jungle and passed out of sight.

  Chapter 15

  They bypassed Angoteras and headed north, following the compass. Pablo set the pace and both he and Alberto had machetes, in case they needed to cut a path through the jungle. Each of them, with the exception of Don Gilberto, had an AK47 rifle. He by contrast, had a long wooden tube that he carried using a shoulder strap. It must have been six feet in length and an inch in diameter, with a wide mouthpiece at one end. Nick was sure that it must be a blowgun, which shot poisoned darts and had been used for centuries around here as a hunting weapon. In the right hands it was deadly and it had one great advantage as far as their current mission was concerned: - silence.

  Pablo was up front and not wasting any time, with Don Gilberto close behind. The old man seemed to transform in the forest. He grew a couple of inches taller and moved with assurance and grace, like some sure-footed animal. Nick was reminded of the jaguars he had seen in his ayahuasca trance. He certainly had no trouble keeping up with his younger companions. Nick himself was feeling strangely exhilarated, which he could only attribute to the ‘stimulants’. The humidity and clinging heat in the jungle had soaked his shirt with sweat and it stuck to his back as if glued there. But for some reason he didn’t feel uncomfortable, or hot, or lethargic. He felt at ease in this place. Perhaps this was what the shaman meant about becoming one with the forest.

  They took a break after three hours and stopped for twenty minutes. More tea was made. The objective was to find the rebel compound before dark, so they could get a good look at it. Unless they went way off course they should find it with time to spare. Mariko was interested in Don Gilberto’s blowgun and more specifically, the darts he used. The two of them were crouched together chatting, with Pablo doing the translating. Apparently the effectiveness of the darts was down to how much poison you used. It was a mixture of curare and other substances and it paralysed the muscles of the body, including the diaphragm, which meant the victim was unable to breathe. Death came through asphyxiation, and the good part as far as they were concerned was that if you couldn’t move or breathe, you couldn’t shout a warning, either. Mariko pulled out her high-tech bow and demonstrated its use and the shaman got quite enthusiastic about it. He took Mariko’s arrows and dipped them into a small jar of liquid that he kept in his pack. Nick walked over to watch.

  ‘He’s putting enough poison on the tips to ensure that a man shot with an arrow will be incapacitated almost immediately,’ she said to him, by way of explanation.

  ‘Won’t your arrows go straight through a person?’

  ‘Depends on the range. This could be useful if I have to shoot from a distance.’

  Don Gilberto passed each arrow to Mariko as he finished, and she carefully stored them away. The tea was ready, now. More of the red powder was added and after they’d all finished drinking they packed everything up and set off again.

  ‘No talking, now,’ insisted Pablo. ‘We will go slowly and carefully.’

  The pace dropped a shade, to ensure they made as little noise as possible. If there were other people nearby, Pablo wanted to spot them before they spotted him. Nick’s sixth sense was of limited use in this situation. It was at its most acute when someone was focused on him from a distance, not the other way around. And it wasn’t infallible anyway. He hadn’t registered Valentina’s presence at the retreat centre, and neither had Mariko. That was unusual, especially when someone was so close, but they’d missed her, nonetheless. In this environment the best person to read the signs was a native of the jungle, which was where Don Gilberto came in. Aided, no doubt, by the substances he used to integrate himself with that environment.

  Another two hours passed. The hum of the insects and the call of birds and the occasional monkey were the only signs that they weren’t alone. Nothing seemed to suggest another human presence, at least not to Nick. So he was surprised when Don Gilberto, who was
right behind Pablo, put a hand on the policeman’s shoulder and brought him to a standstill. He put a finger to his lips, motioning everyone to be completely quiet.

  The shaman just stood there for a full minute with his eyes closed. Then he turned and signed to Mariko that she should bring her bow and go with him. The two of them went on ahead and were lost from sight. There was nothing to do but wait for their return. A few minutes later there was a crashing sound somewhere ahead, as though a troupe of drunken monkeys was tearing through the trees, but without the raucous howling. Then Mariko suddenly reappeared and beckoned them forward. They walked on until they found the cause of the disturbance. A green clad man, not dissimilar in appearance to the one Nick had met at the retreat centre, lay crumpled in a heap on the jungle floor.

  ‘He was in that tree,’ whispered Mariko, pointing upwards. ‘You can just about see the platform he made.’

  Nick saw it. The man’s rifle had been arrested in its fall in a tangle of vines and seemed to be eerily suspended there by its strap, like a coat hanger in a wardrobe. Its owner, though, had made it all the way down.

  ‘Did you shoot him?’ he asked her.

  She shook her head and nodded towards Don Gilberto, who was at that moment extracting something from the man’s neck.

  ‘We must be close,’ said Pablo.

  ‘Any more where he came from?’ asked Nick.

  ‘We don’t think so,’ said Mariko. ‘Not above us, anyway.’

  They proceeded now with great care and ten minutes later they came across what was clearly a trail, leading somewhere. They followed it for a while, ready at any moment to vanish into the forest if necessary, until Pablo brought them to a halt. You could see that it was getting lighter up ahead; in all this undergrowth they were approaching a clearing. It could only be one thing.

  ‘I will go and do a reconnaissance,’ said Pablo. ‘Stay here.’

  ‘No,’ said Mariko. ‘Let me go. I can be very quiet.’

  If Pablo took that as a lack of confidence vote, he didn’t show it. It was clear to him that Mariko was a little out of the ordinary.

  ‘Ten minutes, OK?’ he said to her.

  ‘Fine.’ She dropped her pack and got out the Beretta and a green balaclava. Pablo’s eyes widened at the sight of the gun, but he said nothing. They were all wearing green fatigues in an attempt to blend in with the jungle, like their adversaries out here. When Mariko put on the balaclava and moved off with her bow over her shoulder and her tiny quiver of arrows, she looked like some green ninja assassin from a bygone age. She went into the forest and was instantly invisible. Pablo, Alberto and Don Gilberto stood looking at Nick with interest.

  ‘Who is she, exactly?’ asked Pablo. ‘Your wife?’

  Nick smiled. ‘Not exactly. Actually, I work for her.’

  This was a blow to machismo, if the look on Pablo’s face was any indication. But it was obvious that he knew competence when he saw it. He just shrugged. The group of men stepped off the trail and waited for Mariko to come back. She was back, right on the stroke of ten minutes.

  ‘Two hundred yards ahead. A compound with tents and what looks like a latrine area. And beyond that, an air strip.’

  ‘How many people?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Pretty much as Valentina said. Twenty soldiers and ten domestic people, plus the Indians. They are putting up a fence. The natives are doing all the work and some of the soldiers are supervising. There are still plenty of gaps in that fence at the moment.’

  ‘Did you see Torres?’

  ‘No. I went up a tree to get a better look. I’ll draw it for you.’

  She had a notebook and pen in the pack. She sketched out what she’d seen. All the confiscated plants were dead centre of the compound, surrounded by tents. It would probably be the growing area once the fence was done and the Indians could start work on preparing the soil.

  ‘There are guards stationed at each corner,’ she said, marking them with a cross. ‘If you’re going to set charges, we need to take out at least two of them first. When it gets dark, that is.’

  ‘OK,’ said Pablo. He translated this for the benefit of Alberto and Don Gilberto, who both nodded their assent. Pablo switched back to English. ‘Let’s get further into the forest and rest for a while. We can discuss exactly what will happen when I detonate the explosives.’

  They found a suitable spot and settled down. Don Gilberto got Alberto to get out the ring burner again, so he could brew up more tea. Nick had been chewing the coca leaves at hourly intervals as directed and his mouth was now rather numb. The leaves tasted pungent, but weren’t unpleasant. Now, Don Gilberto instructed them to dispense with the coca leaves and instead to take on a double dose of the red powder. Nick felt a bit like an athlete using performance enhancing drugs. The energy rush from the tea this time was intense and as the light began to fade he realised his vision was adjusting well to the darkness. He had eyes like an owl, no night-vision goggles required. Which was just as well really, because they didn’t have any. Mariko finished her drink.

  ‘I’m going back, to observe,’ she said. She was gone before anyone could raise an objection. Two hours later, as darkness descended completely, she returned.

  ‘There’s a big tent at the southern end,’ she said. ‘I saw Mr Torres go in and out. That’s where we’ll find him.’

  At 9pm, they made their move. They advanced slowly to the jungle’s edge and looked out over the compound. They were at its northern end and from here you could see the partially completed fence and the sentries, who were just shadows at both corners. Behind the fence and about fifty yards away there stood the first row of tents and there was some light inside these, coming from what were probably petrol lamps hung from the ridgepoles. The noise and sounds of people talking and laughing drifted towards them.

  ‘Where are the Indians and the domestic slaves?’ asked Nick.

  ‘In one of those tents, I expect,’ said Pablo. ‘Until the fence is finished, someone will have to keep an eye on them. Look for tents that are guarded.’

  Don Gilberto whispered something.

  ‘He wants to know how you all feel,’ said Pablo.

  ‘I could do one hundred metres in nine seconds,’ said Mariko, with a slight smile.

  Pablo grinned. ‘You may have to.’ He conveyed this to the shaman, who also smiled.

  ‘You all know what to do,’ said Pablo. ‘Let’s go.’

  Don Gilberto went one way with his blowgun and Mariko went in the opposite direction, with her bow and arrow. The remaining three men watched the silhouettes of the two sentries and waited. Five minutes later both men collapsed, practically in unison.

  ‘Our turn,’ said Pablo.

  He and Alberto moved at speed. They lay down explosive charges against the line of the fence at intervals, until they had the whole length covered. They came back from both corners, unreeling wire as they went. The whole operation had taken them less than ten minutes. Everyone retreated back to the line of the jungle and stood watching while Pablo connected the wires to a little metallic box with a switch on it. Nick handed Pablo the radio.

  ‘Give us ten minutes to get to the southern end. Then send the message and blow the fence.’

  Pablo nodded. Nick and Mariko began making their way around the perimeter. They hadn’t quite made it all the way to where they wanted to be when Pablo flicked the switch. Suddenly, they saw the fence line light up like a Christmas tree and the noise of the explosion ripped a booming hole into the night. Then it was madness.

  Men emerged from tents brandishing weapons and headed for what had been the fence. Alberto and Pablo opened up on them with the AK47s and dropped four of them before the others realised what was going on and returned fire. The two policemen had to adjust their positions. The muzzle flash from their weapons had made them targets and they retreated, temporarily. Don Gilberto had already taken evasive action, as he wasn’t armed, at least not with a gun.

 
Nick and Mariko used the sound of gunfire to cover the sound of the Berettas as they shot both sentries at the southern end. It went unnoticed. All the attention was focused at the far end of the compound, now. They went through a gap in the fence and made their way towards the row of tents at this end. There were more soldiers here, who were leaving their tents to join their comrades in the fight at the northern perimeter. Nick and Mariko set their sights on the larger tent that should be housing Torres, approaching stealthily from the rear. They were only yards away, when they saw the entrance flap move. Two men were coming out. Instead of following the other soldiers, the men skirted around the side of the tent and went south. They pulled up sharply when they saw Nick and Mariko, and there was just enough time for Nick to recognise Torres before his companion, who was a middle-aged man in the green uniform of the rebels, raised his rifle. He had no time to fire. He looked blankly at the arrow in his chest and then fell backwards in a heap. His rifle skidded across the ground and Torres thought momentarily about reaching for it but was dissuaded by the Beretta Nick had pointed at his head.

  ‘Any noise and you’re dead,’ said Nick. ‘Drop the bag.’

  Torres was holding what looked like a canvas sports bag. He did as he was told and raised his hands. He seemed to be somewhat shocked, but not completely out of sorts.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he said, sounding more assertive than he must have felt.

  ‘First things first,’ replied Nick. ‘Where are you keeping the Indians and the domestics?’

  ‘At the far end, where all that shooting is coming from. In the tent opposite mine.’

  That was all Mariko needed to hear. She went off in that direction.

  ‘In answer to your question,’ said Nick, ‘I’d like you to tell me who you hired to murder Julian Frost and Ray Curtis.’

  Torres was confused. ‘What?’