Into the Jungle

by David M. Salkin

  Chapter 36

  Hot Pursuit

  The trail wasn’t hard to follow, for a change. While the warriors were truly invisible in the jungle, a couple of hundred panic stricken women and children were not. Hundreds of footprints and broken vegetation made their exit from the village easy to follow for the first half mile. As the Guaranis calmed down, they began moving more carefully, and the trail became slightly harder to follow, but still, a few hundred people left signs in the fragile jungle.

  The team maintained silence for almost two hours, each person in total concentration of their surroundings. Each person would constantly check the person on his right or left, and use hand signals only, but focused on following as quickly as possible. As the sun started to drop behind the jungle canopy, the shadows of the jungle made the trail more difficult to follow. Cascaes quietly told his team to halve the size of their intervals, so they’d be closer together. They took a five minute break for water, a power bar and a pee, then broke out their night vision equipment. It was still too bright out to use it, but at least they’d be ready.

  Another thirty minutes of following the trail through the thick brush went quickly, and then all of them sensed it simultaneously. The jungle had gotten very still. Cascaes signaled a halt, and they all crouched in the thick underbrush. Was it just the setting sun that had the animals settling down for the night, or was it the natives scaring them off? Cascaes signaled Woods and Koches to scout ahead. They were both army rangers and very comfortable in the jungle. In fact, Koches had eaten some of the caterpillars that Fuzzy had eaten earlier just to gross out his squad mates. It had worked.

  The two of them moved slowly ahead of the group until they disappeared into the thick vegetation. Theresa used the down time to change some of Smitty’s bandages and pop an IV into his arm to make sure he was hydrated. Within five minutes of the IV drip, his color got much better and his eyes started to clear for the first time. Moose knelt next to him, holding up the drip bag like Poppa Bear protecting a cub. Moose had pretty much carried Smitty with one arm for most of the evening, but looked no worse for wear.

  It started getting dark and Mackey’s nerves finally got to him. He spoke into his mic, “Jimmy to point, sit-rep, over.”

  There was a few seconds before a very quiet whisper came back from Koches.

  “Point is in the middle of Guarani central. Looks like they are making some kind of shelters. They’re all huddling up. Hard to see much, it’s really thick out here. No sign of our three primary targets yet. Still scouting, out.”

  It was obvious they didn’t want to keep speaking from their location, so Mackey bit his bottom lip and tried to be patient. Cascaes whispered for him to “be cool” and took out an MRE, which he held up for everyone to see. It was the dinner bell. Everyone took out their foil packs and tore them open, adding water from their canteens to enjoy the delicious freeze dried dinners they would try and choke down. Cascaes mixed up his pack and then crawled over to Julia and handed it to her.

  “You only bring me to the finest places,” she said.

  “Yeah, the service is better than the food though,” he said with a smile.

  “Well I wouldn’t know about your service, would I?” she said, dramatically batting her eyelashes. Even though she was joking, it still gave Cascaes a pang. She was beautiful, even covered with grimy grease paint and dozens of cuts and bruises. He considered a comeback, but opted not to speak. He just broke out another MRE and added some water for himself. Julia smiled at him, a genuine smile from her heart. She was partly laughing at herself. After being around hundreds of guys who fought for her attention, how was it possible that she found herself falling for a guy in the middle of a sweaty jungle during a small war.

  She “clinked” his foil bag with hers, as if to say “cheers,” and whispered, “Our first dinner date. How romantic.” They were somewhat lost in each others’ gaze when Koches’s voice broke up their little dinner party.

  “Jimmy, this is point. There is zero movement out here right now. It’s like with Fuzzy, these people don’t like the dark. They made little shelters out of wood bark and leaves and some of the stuff from the village, and they are all piled up together in little groups. There was something big going on a few minutes ago about a hundred yards ahead of me, beyond the Guaranis, but I couldn’t see anything from here. Some kind of commotion, then nothing. When it gets darker, I’ll move around the villagers and take a look.”

  “Negative, point. Hold your position. I am tracking your location by computer and we will move up to you. When it gets darker, we’ll take a look. Sit tight,” said Cascaes.

  Koches and Woods moved a few yards back into the jungle, thirty yards from where the Guaranis had settled into their night encampment. They lay on their stomachs, weapons in front of them at the ready, and tried to relax and wait.

  Fifteen minutes later, the rest of the team arrived, belly crawling up from behind them. Cascaes stopped right at Koches’s elbow. Koches pointed to some piles of leaves and wood that blended into the jungle floor and underbrush. As if by magic, a couple of hundred people had simply disappeared into the jungle floor. It was now dark enough to pop on their night vision goggles, and in the bright green world in front of them, they could easily make out Guarani women nursing babies under the sticks and leaves that made their temporary home. Men sat with spears across their laps and children sleeping behind them.

  Cascaes whispered to Koches, “I wish all of our enemies were scared of the dark.”

  Following Cascaes and Koches, the team moved single file, extremely slowly around the makeshift camp. No one made a sound, but kept close watch on the figures they could make out in the dark. Koches led to where he had heard the commotion earlier, somewhat guessing at the exact location. He was the first to see it. He couldn’t help an audible “holy shit.”

  Enrique Antonio Vega had caused trouble for Kuka for the last time. His body was hanging between two large poles that had been thrust through his armpits and out his shoulders, and he had been stripped of his clothes. The Guaranis had skinned his chest and stomach, presumably while he was alive, and pulled out some of his intestines. His face was frozen in a silent scream, his mouth propped open with small sticks—his tongue having been removed. Blood must have been pouring out from his mouth and exposed body, as it covered him and the plants beneath him, now festering with bugs eager to have a late supper. Only the top portion of Vega’s face was without blood, and his eyes were wide open, frozen in his final second of terror. There was no way for Koches to know as he looked at the mutilated corpse, that a young Guarani girl had been the one to hack off his genitals as payback for his abuses.

  Koches was no lightweight, and thought he had seen it all over his twelve years in the rangers, including a stint in Somalia, but he almost vomited. Cascaes saw it a few seconds after him and felt a similar retching in his stomach.

  “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” he whispered to Koches. He took out his tiny computer, which had a built-in camera, and snapped a few pictures of Vega. He typed out a quick message: Primary target found. Guaranis beat us to him. He hit send and the burst transmission was encrypted and bounced off a satellite to Langley.

  Mackey came up slowly and whispered to Cascaes. “We call this a success and get the hell out of here, or you think we have a shot at getting the other two?”

  Cascaes thought for a second. “I think Smitty is keeping up just fine. Let’s keep moving in this direction and see if we can catch up to the other two jokers. My guess is, they are terrified, assuming they are still alive, and must be running like hell through the jungle. If so, they’ll leave an easy trail and we’ll find them tonight or tomorrow morning. If we don’t catch up to them by tomorrow afternoon, we’ll let the jungle or the Guaranis have them and start working on our extraction plan. According to the map, we should hit a river up ahead in about three miles. The current will bring us
back out of the jungle and save a day of travel time.”

  “We don’t have the boats,” said Mackey, thinking about Piranhas and alligators.

  “We’re SEALs, Mac. We always have a way to work the water—don’t get yourself all worked up,” he said with a smile. “Don’t worry; I won’t let anything eat you.”

  Julia worked her way up to Cascaes. She had already gotten an eyeful of Vega hanging between the poles. “Hey,” she whispered. “I have an idea.”

  “Shoot,” said Cascaes.

  “You know, the reason the Guaranis are afraid of the dark if because they are animists. They believe in the animal spirits that come out at night. Let’s fuck with them.” She said it with anger in her voice.

  “Say what?” asked Cascaes.

  “They killed one of your men, almost killed another, and you can see what they’ll do to all of us if they catch us,” she said, pointing to Vega’s festering corpse. “They are scared of the animal spirits. Let’s give them something to be scared of.”

  Without waiting for permission, she knelt in the direction of the Guaranis, cupped her hands around her mouth, and let out a long “arrrrrroooooooooooooo!”

  Cascaes and Mackey were shocked. “Are you fucking insane?” asked Cascaes, “why don’t you just tell them where we are while you’re at it!”

  “No, no!” said Mackey, “She’s right. Look at their little shelters, they’re pulling them as tightly closed as they can!” Mackey scrambled through the underbrush, closer to the natives and let out a blood-curdling howl. He spoke into his throat mic and called to the entire team. “These fuckers are scared of the animal spirits! Give them something to have nightmares about!”

  The entire team was up in an instant, running through their makeshift shelters, howling like monkeys, coyotes or just outright screaming. It was actually very cathartic for the team that had been in combat mode for so long. They were up and running like lunatics, their night vision equipment giving them perfect glimpses of the terrified Guaranis huddled under their giant leaves and pieces of wood. The longer it went on, the bolder they got, running closer to the shelters, even smacking them as they screamed and howled, trying their best to sound terrifying. The adrenaline and borderline hysteria fed upon itself, and before long, every member of the team, including Smitty, was up and running around the shelters. For the terrified Guaranis, all they could see were the bright green eyes of the phantom animals that glowed in the dark. They huddled close, spears at the ready—but they were not feeling like warriors anymore, they were simply terrified children living a nightmare.

  When the team had run out of adrenaline, they reassembled on the back side of the camp by Vega’s body. They smiled as they heard children crying from the small shelters. Smitty quietly said, “Fuck you” to the sobbing as he touched his pounding arm. “I hope you have nightmares for a year,” he said quietly. The team fanned out and began moving away from the Guaranis, trying to pick up the trail of their last two targets. Jones was the one who found the footprints.

  “Skipper! I got boot prints!” he called in from the left flank. The team moved to his location, and sure enough, the boot prints were clearly visible in the mud. Broken plant stems and footprints continued ahead of them, and they reassembled single file behind Jones. Jones, a marine recon scout, was an excellent tracker, and led them through the jungle at a brisk jog. They moved quickly through the cooler jungle, with only occasional bats fluttering overhead. For the most part, the jungle was quiet.

  Jones held up a hand and the team stopped. Cascaes moved up behind him.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “They must be getting tired. They’re walking now. Check out the spacing of their prints. Also—you notice we’re drifting right? The slope goes that way. They’re tired and moving downhill—I bet they don’t even know it. They can’t be that much farther ahead of us, Skipper. They can’t see at night and it’s zero-viz without night vision. They are walking blind up ahead. Are we capturing them or just taking them out?”

  That was an interesting question. It had never occurred to them that they could potentially take prisoners. Live terrorists might be worth more than dead ones. It would also be a major pain in the ass getting them out of the jungle and back to an extraction point. “Sit tight,” he told Jones.

  Cascaes moved back to Mackey. “Hey, Mac. We can probably take these alive at night. They’ll never see us coming. What do you think?”

  Mackey rubbed his chin. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”

  “Let’s make a phone call,” he said. They signaled for everyone to take five, and the team dropped to a knee and made a quick perimeter. Mackey and Cascaes opened up a satellite phone and unfolded a small dish that they gave to Hodges, who uncoiled some wire and climbed a tree to get some clearance.

  Mackey dialed the secure number for Darren Davis’s portable emergency phone and waited. The conversation would be sent via small burst transmissions that were encrypted, bounced off a satellite, and then unscrambled at the other end. It made the voices tinny and created gaps between speakers, but at least they could call direct from anywhere in the world.

  Thousands of miles away, Darren Davis was having dinner at his desk in Langley. It was bad Chinese take-out, but in a pinch, it was food. When his emergency phone turned red and buzzed, he almost spit out his bok choy.

  “Wolf here,” he said into the small phone.

  After a brief pause, he could hear Mackey’s voice. “This is Jimmy leader with a sit-rep. We have one KIA and one minor wounded, but have eliminated one target and found the other dead. Powder (the code name for Vega), is very much dead, and so is Rag Two (Code name for Aziz). Picture should be in your computer. Rag One and Rag Three (Raman Qasim and Hakim Bin-Salaam), are on the run. We may be able to take them home gift-wrapped. You want to open the present at home, or should we just open it here and leave it?”

  Davis was a little taken back on his end. He processed the information as fast as possible, then responded.

  “Jimmy leader, I am sorry to hear about your team member. I need his jersey number. If you can bring me two souvenirs from your trip without compromising your safety, I’d love to open those presents. But only if you can bring them home without any problems. First sign of trouble, you throw them away, understand?”

  “Understood. Number nine on the roster is gone. We will try and bring him home on the way out if possible. We will attempt to grab you the souvenirs and expect a two-day trip to an extraction location. Will we have a taxi waiting?”

  “We will need to work out some details if you have two packages. Advise me as soon as you can. Good luck.”

  “Okay, we’ll be in touch, most likely before first light. Over and out.”

  The phone and dish were disassembled in seconds and the team moved out after Jones. Several of the team members had turned off the night vision to get a taste of the jungle without their goggles, and they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces. There was no moon, but even if it had been out, the double canopy of the jungle was much too thick to let in any light anyway.

  They moved quickly through the jungle, following the footprints. It was evident from the occasional handprints and flattened undergrowth that the men they were chasing were stumbling and falling. Jones smiled as he moved. “We’re coming mutherfuckers,” he said to himself, then sang his best Jimi Hendrix impersonation. “Here I come, baby…comin’ to getcha’…”

  Chapter 37

  Night Terrors

  Raman Qasim and Hakim Bin-Salaam had seen with their own eyes what the savages did to Enrique Antonio Vega. The once powerful, self-proclaimed king of the jungle had been ripped apart before their very eyes, and it was only the frenzy of hate and anger directed at him that kept them from being next. When Kuka ordered Vega put up on stilts, the warriors were quick to respond and enjoyed every minu
te of what they considered revenge for the loss of their homes and deaths of some of their people.

  It didn’t take more than two seconds for the two Arabs to decide it was time to start running for their lives. Although they knew they were already lost in the jungle, they would rather take their chances with animals and starvation than be tortured or eaten by these savages. Qasim was the first to bolt, but Bin-Salaam was hot on his tail. They both ran for almost forty minutes straight, ignoring the stitch in their sides and heaving lungs. Fear was a powerful motivator. What they had witnessed with Vega would keep their legs moving much longer than they had thought possible.

  The problem was, they had no idea where they were going. They didn’t know what direction they were moving in, and had no idea of their location. They did know it seemed to be further into the jungle, which was obviously not where they wanted to go, but until the sun came out, they just wanted to get as far away from the Guaranis as possible. They were both completely hysterical for the first twenty minutes, awaiting arrows or poison darts that never came as they ran.

  After about an hour, their legs and lungs finally started to betray them, and as the adrenaline left them, they found themselves terrified and exhausted. They hadn’t eaten much that day because they found everything but the fish and bananas to be disgusting. There hadn’t been fish that morning, hence the grumbling in their bellies. Now, it was pitch black and they could be walking in circles for all they knew. At one point, maybe an hour or two earlier, it was hard to judge, they thought they had heard the howling of a pack of animals, and that had increased their pace for a while. Now, however, they were lost, tired and terrified. Bin-Salaam was barely keeping it together. The man who had been responsible for murders all over the globe was now crying like a baby, scared of the dark, and truth be told, of being eaten alive.