Into the Jungle

by David M. Salkin

  Stewart was reloading when a Guarani seemed to appear from out of nowhere, brandishing a long club. The warrior, painted red and green, screamed as he flew through the air and swung his weapon at Stewart, who was on one knee changing magazines. Stewart managed to raise his small MP-5 and absorbed the blow, but it knocked him over. The Guarani raised his battle-ax a second time, about to open Stewart’s head, when a tremendous blast sent the man flying through the air. Mackey had fired his shotgun and chambered another round as he ran towards Stewart. “Being quiet” was no longer a concern.

  Mackey pumped off another three rounds in the general direction of their enemy, and his men continued to fire their machine guns.

  Ripper, Cohen and Jones arrived to reinforce Mackey’s team, and the Guaranis began disappearing back into the jungle. They reassembled and stopped moving, then Mackey called back to Cascaes. “Jimmy leader, this is Team Two leader. We are reinforced and holding our position. The enemy is retreating.”

  “Roger that, Team Two. Hold your position,” said Cascaes.

  Moose, Theresa and McCoy arrived back at Cascaes’s location, carrying Santos. As soon as they arrived, Moose looked around and asked where Hodges and Smitty were.

  “Hodges is still out on the left flank trying to find something to shoot at—I thought Smitty was with you?” asked Cascaes. He called Smitty on the radio several times but got no answer. The fourth time he was sounding frantic. He popped open his laptop and pulled down the screen to show their locaters. He found Smitty’s number at the far edge of their grid, still moving away from them.

  “Where the hell is he going?” said Cascaes out loud. He pressed his throat mic. “Hodges—it’s Jimmy leader, have you seen Smitty?”

  “Negative, Jimmy leader.”

  Cascaes frowned. “Moose, take Jensen and get back to Hodges. Then the three of you guys see if you can locate Smitty. He is way out there and still moving. Maybe he’s running for his life. But stay in touch! I don’t want everyone scattered all over the jungle!”

  Behind him, Theresa was cutting Santos’s pant leg open. The spear was protruding from the front and back of his thigh. She wrapped a pressure bandage around it and popped an IV into his arm. Cascaes knelt down beside her. “Well, doc?”

  “This guy’s got a spear the diameter of a damn baseball bat through his leg. If I try and pull it out, he’ll most likely bleed to death. I don’t know how close it is to his femoral artery, and I don’t know if I could remove it even if I had to.

  “Well, it’s too dangerous to leave him here with only one or two men, and I can’t spare more than that. We’ll have to take turns carrying him until we take out the village, then we’ll all get the hell out of here together.”

  “If he doesn’t bleed to death by then,” said Theresa quietly.

  “I thought you said he wasn’t bleeding badly?” asked Cascaes.

  “Yeah, well that was before he was bounced another mile on somebody’s back through this jungle.”

  “Sorry, doc. I don’t have a lot of options here. We need to move before they regroup and realize they outnumber us twenty to one.” He stood up and checked his weapon. “So much for the element of surprise.”

  Mackey’s shotgun blasting in the background punctuated his sentence.

  Chapter 33

  Second Assault

  The Guaranis melted back into the jungle silently, and eventually reached Vega’s men, who were holding their position with AK-47s at the ready. Kuka and his warriors passed them by without slowing down, and Vega’s men yelled at them to stop running. Kuka had no intention of running away, but rather was finding a better location for ambush. Not speaking much Guarani, Vega’s men could only yell obscenities at them and call them cowards as they passed. They hunkered down and waited for the soldiers to approach. Further in the woods to their right, a dozen Guaranis ran through the woods carrying an unconscious soldier, his wrists and ankles bound, bleeding from a head wound. They would be bringing him home, a prize from the battle.

  Theresa was pleading her case to Cascaes, about Santos not being moved, when he began convulsing and going into seizures. White foam came out of his mouth, following by waves of vomit as his eyes rolled back in his head.

  “Holy shit,” screamed Cascaes, “What the hell is wrong with him?”

  “Oh my God,” yelled Theresa, as she ripped open her bag, looking for a syringe, “It’s poison! The fucking Guaranis poisoned the arrows!” She was ripping through her kit, and had pulled out epinephrine just as Santos went limp. “Oh shit—he’s crashing!” She popped the epinephrine into his thigh and flipped him on his back, tilting his head, clearing his mouth with her fingers, and started mouth to mouth. Cascaes didn’t need an invitation to start CPR as she blew into his mouth. Ernie P. ran over and watched them work on the injured marine.

  “Oh shit, doc! What can I do to help?” He pleaded.

  She ignored him and kept trying to revive Santos, hoping the epinephrine would relax his airways and tortured blood vessels enough to save him. Cascaes stopped CPR and checked his carotid artery. He had no pulse.

  “Don’t give up on me, Raul!” he screamed and thumped his chest hard with the bottom of his fist. He started pumping again, Theresa still giving mouth to mouth. They kept at it for another three full minutes, but Santos was completely unresponsive. He was gone. Cascaes stopped first, sitting back on his haunches, looking at the dead body that was Raul Santos. Theresa felt him stop the CPR, and sat up, looking up at Cascaes, tears now starting to come.

  “Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit!” She punched Santos’s still chest. “Fucking poison—I should have assumed they would use it. I should have given him epinephrine as soon as I got to him.”

  Cascaes looked at her and put his hand on her shoulder. “No way for you to know. It might not have saved him anyway. But distribute what you have to the men. If you have enough, everybody should get a syringe. Tell the crew—they get hit with an arrow or dart, they pop one of those into their thigh and call out for help. Got it?” She nodded, and started taking out all of the epinephrine injections she had.

  “Ernie!” yelled Cascaes. “Get some help and double-bag Santos. We’ll get him up in a tree for now to keep the animals off of him. His locator is on. We’ll pick him up on the way back. Stay alert.”

  Cascaes called on his throat mic to Mackey. “Jimmy Leader to Team Two leader, you copy?”

  “Roger that,” said Mackey quietly, as he scanned the jungle in front of him, his shotgun now fully reloaded.

  “Santos is KIA. We are regrouping and moving around the left flank to try and find Smitty. Smitty is missing—you copy?”

  “Affirmative Jimmy One. Should we hold position or come back around to you?”

  “Advance slowly. Move to your left flank as you advance until you join up with us. Alert your team that they will be rejoining us and to check their fire. Over.”

  “Understood Jimmy One, out.”

  Cascaes reorganized his team, said a quick goodbye to Santos, and then began moving quickly to their left flank. They came up behind Hodges, who was still scanning across the field with powerful binoculars. He saw the team approaching.

  “Skipper, I got nothing. I think they boogied outta’ here.”

  Cascaes nodded and updated Hodges about Santos’s death.

  “Where are Moose and Jensen? I sent them up here to find Smitty with you?”

  “They just checked in, they’re doubling back. The jungle got thick as shit out there and they were afraid they were getting lost. They should be back here in a minute. I’ve just been eyeballing the area across the clearing, hoping maybe I’d spot Smitty, if not the Guaranis.” Hodges quickly broke down the bi-pod and stowed his binoculars, and jumped in behind Cascaes’ team as they moved out.

  With Santos and Smitty both gone from Team One, it ceased to exist. Only Hodges the sharp
shooter and McCoy were left from the original four, and they simply rejoined the main group. Team Two, under Mackey, was ahead and to the far right, with almost half of their manpower. Cascaes and his team continued along the edge of the clearing arriving at the scene of the dozens of large spears sticking out of the ground like the back of a porcupine. Theresa had passed out epinephrine to each man and told them to pop one if they got hit by any Guarani projectiles. Seeing the spears in the ground where Santos had gotten hit was a visual reminder. It was there that Moose and Jensen rejoined the group, shaking their heads about not having any luck with Smitty.

  Ten minutes of quiet movements through the woods brought them to the center of the opposite side of the clearing. The dead Guarani archer squad leader was their landmark. Hodges saw him and remembered his face through his scope.

  “That’s for Santos, muthafucker,” he said quietly.

  Cascaes’ earpiece whispered—it was Mackey. “Chris—I’ve got you dead ahead about a hundred yards. Watch your left flank. They fell back in that direction and should be closer to you than us. We are moving in your direction slowly.”

  Cascaes motioned his men to stop and spread out, and they went low and quiet, fanning out in the thick jungle. Birds and monkeys began chattering again, now that the gunfire had stopped. Julia and Theresa stayed close to Cascaes in the center of the team as McCoy, Moose and Jensen worked their way forward and to the left. Hodges began scanning with his sniper scope for any movement.

  After a few tense moments, Mackey advised that they were coming in, and to hold fire. The two teams rejoined each other and Mackey and Cascaes caught each other up quickly. Mackey reported on the large number of Guaranis, and confirmed at least twenty kills. He estimated at least twice that number had retreated. There had been no automatic weapon fire, so perhaps Vega’s men were guarding the camp.

  “The element of surprise is gone,” said Cascaes. “We’ll keep moving this way and try and track them as we follow Smitty by computer. I don’t know if he’s running away from them or after them, but we can’t leave him lost out here. He seems to be going the same general direction we are, so we can try and keep up with him at the same time that we try and locate their base. I’d still rather get into position near their village and go in at night.”

  “Absolutely,” said Mackey. “They won’t have night viz, and the natives won’t be as happy about coming out to attack.”

  “Okay, then let’s just keep moving forward, due north, and hope we can pick up their trail. Theresa’s got epinephrine syringes for you and your men. Pass them out and tell them the arrows are poisonous—that’s what killed Santos. If they get hit with anything, tell them to pop a syringe and call out for the medic.”

  Mackey was moving towards Theresa when all hell broke out on the left flank. The sound of AK-47s firing long bursts filled the jungle, sent birds up in great clouds.

  Moose called in over his mic. “Skipper! We have contact, unknown number at this time, but we are pinned, over!”

  “God damn it,” said Cascaes. It hadn’t been a good day. “Advance! Everyone move up!” The team moved faster through the jungle towards the left flank and sounds of gunfire. Moose, McCoy, and Jensen were returning gunfire in short muffled bursts in the background.

  Cascaes and Mackey were running forward and to their right, trying to get behind the sound of the AK-47s, with Ernie P right behind him. An explosion to their far left had Cascaes calling back to Moose on his throat mic. “Moose! What’s your situation?”

  “That was us. We just cooked a couple of Vega’s men. They’re falling back and we’re moving up. Over”

  “Roger that, we are working up to the right,” replied Cascaes.

  By the time Cascaes and his men linked up with Moose, McCoy and Jensen, the jungle was quiet again. Moose had managed a grenade with his pitcher’s arm from a pretty good distance, and had killed three of Vega’s men. The rest retreated; Moose was guessing another two or three men at most. Mackey snapped pictures of Vega’s men, which he sent via burst transmission back to Langley in case they were valuable targets. The men reloaded, checked weapons, and spread out in a slight “V” with Ripper on point in the center and Moose right behind him. They moved as silently as possible, following the occasional boot prints that they hoped would lead them to Smitty or the village, or maybe both.

  A few quiet moments passed, and the jungle was still. The men moved like ghosts through the jungle, not knowing if their enemy was miles away, or behind the next tree. Cascaes whispered into his throat mic to stop, and the men took a knee in the soft jungle floor. Cascaes opened his small computer and scanned for Smitty. The locator was still working, showing Smitty due south, straight ahead of them, but almost a mile out and still moving.

  Using Smitty as their new bearing, Cascaes signaled the men to move out again, and they silently worked through the jungle. Julia had come up behind Cascaes when he was using the computer and gave him a smile, but no one was feeling romantic—just sad, angry and stressed. He patted her thigh, a sort of “mini-hug,” and then hustled up ahead with Moose and Ripper. They had traveled less than half a mile when the jungle floor began dropping. They found themselves walking down an incline which was becoming steeper. And the ground grew wetter. The vegetation began to change as the earth became swampier. And then they heard it—the sound of running water.

  Cascaes sent Moose and Ripper scouting ahead and the rest of the team spread out and checked all directions for movement. Moose and Ripper were gone less than ten minutes.

  “White water ahead, Skipper. We found a place to cross, maybe twenty yards across some open rocks. There’s a waterfall up ahead to the left, which is the direction of the water flow. Beautiful spot, but maybe beautiful for an ambush. When we cross, we’ll be out in the open,” reported Moose.

  Cascaes checked his watch. It was only fifteen hundred hours, and they couldn’t wait for the sun to set. “Okay, we go now. You lead the way.”

  The team reassembled and followed Ripper single file, with the exception of Moose on the far right and Jones on the far left protecting their flanks. As they walked, the jungle floor became rockier leading to the huge boulders at the stream. The team worked their way through the rocks, and Hodges found a spot to set up his sniper rifle. He would try and cover the crossing from the top of a large boulder, where he relocated a large lizard that had been sunning itself.

  Earl Jones and Lance Woods would be crossing the stream first, and they worked their way down the rocks to the edge of the rushing water. The water was moving fast in most parts, crashing over the rocks until it came to a cliff another fifty yards downstream, then tumbled a hundred feet in a dramatic waterfall. Jones and Woods weren’t sightseeing. They moved a few feet at a time until they were at the narrowest part of the stream, where rocks protruded from the water enough to run across them without getting wet.

  Hodges called on his radio that he couldn’t see any movement across the stream, and the two men ran across as fast as they could. The dozens of painted warriors on the far side hid quietly, waiting for the larger group to make their move.

  Chapter 34

  Stream Crossing

  Jones and Woods had crouched in the rocks for what seemed like eternity, until Hodges confirmed that it was clear. They readied their MP-5’s and ran across the rocks to the far side of the stream. Once there, they took a knee and scanned the woods around them. Woods made a sour face to Jones—something was wrong. One of the things that they had been taught back in Langley by the jungle warfare expert was how to use clues from the jungle to enhance your sense of surroundings. The jungle should have been louder—instead it was still and without sound. The birds and monkeys made no noise, and it wasn’t because of Woods and Jones scaring them, or they would have seen the birds take off.

  Woods spoke softly into his throat mic. “Skipper, I don’t like this.”

  Cascaes was watc
hing through his binoculars across the stream. “Hodges, you see anything?”

  “Negative, Skipper, I…” his voice trailed off. “Woods, check your three o’clock.”

  Woods crouched lower and looked to his left. He could sense them more than see them. They were amazing people, the way they could disappear into the jungle. But he did see something. Very slowly, Woods pulled a grenade from his thigh pocket. Jones watched him and did the same thing, although he hadn’t seen anything yet. They both pulled the pins and Woods lobbed his about twenty yards. Jones threw his a few feet to the right, figuring the spot must be where Woods saw something. They both went prone and covered up as the explosions rocked the jungle.

  As soon as the grenades went off, Cascaes and his men charged across the stream, with Hodges firing at anything that moved from his location on top of the rock. Vega’s three remaining men began firing their AK-47s at Woods and Jones, who returned fire in short bursts. Cascaes and his team spread out as they came up from the rear, and began suppressing fire in the direction of Vega’s men. Kuka’s warriors attacked in a frontal assault, which was pointless. They never got close to Jones or Woods, who poured machine gun fire into them, reinforced now with the rest of the team. Jon Cohen used his grenade launcher with deadly accuracy, sending Vega’s men and dozens of Guaranis flying.

  Within moments, it was over. The Guaranis had melted back into the jungle and Cascaes and his men fanned out and secured the area. They found three of Vega’s men dead, as well as twenty-eight Guaranis. None of the team was injured. Cascaes opened his computer and looked for Smitty’s signal. It was still ahead of them, and still moving away from them.