by Geoff Wolak
‘I’ll be better in a few days, get back to it, hit the communists again – before they recover.’
Tomsk took a call, and thanked whoever it was. ‘The Army say the bomb was local.’
‘Someone we hit has friends, but who?’
‘The Colombians, who else.’
‘So ... they paid a guard to plant the bomb.’
‘Must have done.’
‘I’ll sleep in the jungle,’ I suggested. ‘Always loved the jungle.’
‘Eh, yuk.’
‘Did Frank say how the FBI were onto me in Panama City?’
‘Something about Dominican Republic.’
‘Ah. I got a ship from there, fucking captain sold me out; someone else on my list of people to kill.’
‘It must be a long list,’ Tomsk quipped. He took a moment. ‘Did you mean to kill the CIA and FBI men?’
‘Yes, I was paid to do that,’ I lied. ‘But there’s no evidence, just that they think it was me because I was operating in that area, a good guess.’ After a sip of my beer, I said, ‘We should ask for a military liaison, maps, so that we can coordinate against the communists.’
‘You think they’d send one?’ Tomsk puzzled.
‘We’re doing their fucking jobs for them, why not. Where’s my sat phone?’
‘Here, your stuff was brought down, what they salvaged.’
Tomsk asked a guard to fetch it, and then handed it to me. I checked the time and selected the number. ‘Minister, it’s the nice Russian gentlemen in La Palma, I hope I am not calling too late.’
‘No, and I was going to call you. You suffered a bomb blast our soldiers tell us.’
‘Yes, Minister, an attempt on me. I must have upset someone’s wife.’ He laughed. ‘Anyway, we’d like to request a military liaison, with maps and radios and phones, to help coordinate our activities against the communists.’
‘I might have suggested that yes, I’ll get it sorted.’
‘Thank you, Minister, and if there is anything we can do to help ... let us know. Goodnight.’
I faced Tomsk. ‘They’re keen to send a liaison. And what we need ... is good intel on the movements of the communists. Do you have anyone inside their ranks?’
‘Fuck no, they’re all communists die-hard maniacs, fighting for a cause not money.’
‘If they join forces with the Colombians, it will be you and me tied to a tree, a very slow death.’
‘You’re more of a target than I am,’ Tomsk noted with a grin.
‘If they capture me, I’ll tell them it was all your idea and your fault.’
‘Ha, like that’ll make a difference!’
I took in the view. ‘There’s no spy here.’
‘No?’
‘A spy for the Americans would be interested in your drug pipeline, not what I do in the jungle.’
‘Well ... yes, that’s true. So someone took money to plant the bomb, from the Colombians.’
‘Anyone new ... asking about your pipeline?’
‘No, definitely not.’
‘Not Americans then. And what the fuck would the little British island want with you, eh. Did you commit any crimes in England?’
‘Never been there.’
Bob’s assistant stepped in looking worried. ‘Wilco’s contact in Panama failed to call in, so I checked the local newspapers, and we have a police contact nearby. The man was sliced up and tied to a tree, a sign around his head saying DEA informant.’
Bob nodded. ‘That was the backstop stop we created. Any word on Wilco?’
‘This man must have talked.’
‘If they believed him, they would not have strung him up – and Wilco would be dead, so we must assume Wilco’s story held.’
Two days later I was back at the base, back in uniform, and keen to get back at it, but also wondering what Echo was up to, and what Bob wanted me to do here. I had gone a little off-plan.
We now had three Portakabins with air con, and now a shit load of sandbags – just in case. My teams had been very concerned for me, and welcomed me back. They had kept training under Number Two, they had not sat idle, and the wounded men were healing. They had even raided a new town, forty gunmen killed in a night.
That evening I led out my team, Number Two heading in a different direction, and we both set ambushes, plenty of trade early on, gunmen in jeeps shot up. And, as was now common, I would call the local colonel and his men would claim another great result, pictures taken as my men sat high up a ridge, laughing.
The next day the local colonel informed me that a captain would come out, and be our liaison to military HQ, and that he would have good communications equipment.
When he arrived, I hid my smile. Captain Running Bear, Delta Force, stepped down from a green Army jeep, bags offloaded, a room set-up for him, no one particularly interested in him since all local Army staff could be bought. With his kit down, communications gear being set-up by a sergeant, I made him a coffee, my Number Two with me.
‘You speak Russian or English?’ I asked Running Bear.
‘English, Spanish, and native Indian.’
‘Indian?’ I repeated.
‘My family is from the north, the islands.’
‘You look like an Indian,’ I commented. I sipped my own coffee. ‘Your English is good, but you sound American.’
‘I went to college in America, military exchange programme, two years in the US Army, then back here to start a family. Many of our officers train in the States.’
I nodded, trying not to grin. ‘You can supply us with the movements of the communists?’
‘As far as we know what they are, which is shit normally. If we knew where they were we might do something about it.’
‘But you know their old bases, patrol routes, places where there was an ambush?’
‘Yes, that you can have.’
‘That’s a start,’ I told Number Two, and he agreed, and we left our guest to unpack.
In my own office, I called Tomsk. ‘It’s Petrov, the liaison is here, but I suspect he’s CIA.’
‘Why?’
‘He studied in America, a military scholarship, be easy to recruit him.’
‘Many officers here do that. You don’t trust him?’
‘I don’t know, we’ll see if he asks questions – or tries to blow me up. Nothing is certain, just that he was in the American military a few years.’
‘Don’t shoot him, we’ll piss off the Army.’
‘I’d not do that. If we think he’s CIA we feed him some shit intel, we don’t need the US Marines landing on your lawn.’
‘No, things are going well, fucking Army is in the papers every day claiming another success. We should be on a commission!’
I laughed, and said goodbye.
With Running Bear - known as Captain Pasa, providing maps and intel, I made a plan, and the following day we flew out in three Hueys, abseiling down through high trees, all down safely, grouped and off, three separate teams. I worked hard at not smiling too much, or enjoying this too much.
My team followed a high ridge but got stuck with a sheer cliff face, so we abseiled down it, the gloves coming in useful. All safely down, we advanced parallel to a dirt track that the Army believed the communists favoured, and we could see coca plants across the valley.
As night fell we hid under camouflage flysheets, and we keenly yet quietly observed a communist patrol move into position and set-up camp across the valley. I called it in, and the other teams knew where the danger lay, No.3 asking me if I thought the communist men fucked the communist women of a cold night in the jungle.
At dawn, Team Two crept over the top of the opposite ridge, made themselves known, and rudely opened up on the communist camp below – whether the communists brothers and sisters were shagging or not. That resulted in the communists turning their backs to my own team, and in the confusion and the noise we hit them from behind, and we wiped out their patrol of keen card-carrying comrades.
Team Two withdrew, but we sta
yed put, getting some food on and some rest.
The day grew hot, then the mother of all thunder storms hit, so we sheltered, soldiers never wanting to fight in the rain. The storm lasted an hour, the ground soaked, the sun coming out and burning off the moisture, everyone soaked through.
The next morning a patrol was spotted coming in from the south, a larger patrol, but with a few men in civilian clothes, long rifles seen. Peering through my sights, I figured the rifles to be fifty cal, and I warned everyone. I also wanted to pinch the rifles away.
I let the patrol get in close, and Team Three made themselves visible down the valley. The communists snuck along, right below us, and the men with fifty cal’s got ready. I got on the radio, and Team Three vanished.
The men with the fifty cal below scratched their heads, and got up ready to move off, just as my team lobbed down grenades, sixteen thrown high, the birds shrieking, the lush green valley shrouded in grey smoke, calls and cries reaching us. Few communists made it away.
I had the men wait an hour, we double-tapped bodies, and Team Three progressed down the valley to recover the weapons as we covered them from high above, all of us now smelling damp.
‘This is Team Three, we have three fifty cal, about sixty rounds.’
‘Carry them,’ I ordered. ‘It will keep you fit. We move south, you follow their tracks dead slow, we’ll move along the ridge. Team Two, go south, but stay on the far side of the valley. Move out.’
A hard slog on slippery mud was moaned at by the men, a trail left behind us that anyone could have followed, and it took three hours of steep slippery slopes before we spotted a compound below us. The military intel map said it was abandoned, the earnest cooking going on within suggesting otherwise.
I had Team Three climb up a steep ridge, taking almost an hour, but before sunset they were in place, and they duly opened up on the compound, the loud discharges of the fifty cal echoing down the valleys; the comrades were cheekily being hit by their own weapons.
Meanwhile, I was leading my team down a muddy slope and trying hard not slip and break my neck, or slide over the side and down a deadly rocky ravine.
At one point we tied off ropes to help the men behind, but finally got position, two hundred yards above the compound. We got comfy, wiped muddy gloves, settled rifles, and started to snipe at the comrades below as they snuck about avoiding the fifty cal fire.
As we lost the light it looked like we had killed thirty or more, no fire coming back at us, so we simply set-up ponchos and covers and got some sleep, a damp lofty perch, a few men on stag to observe the compound.
I woke at 1am and found it all quiet, so sent four men down, and they snuck into the compound and set fire to buildings before withdrawing. But they had found some RPGs, and so blasted the buildings to bits for fun.
An hour before dawn I led the men off, further south, and now to the border, its ill-defined line through the jungle just a mile away, the teams joining up as we moved parallel to obvious tracks. I had called our trusty local colonel, and he had dispatched the Army to the compound we had hit, another great victory claimed by the Panamanian Army.
At the border, simply denoted by a high ridgeline, we split up and moved off parallel to each other, Team Three reporting movement first. I turned my team northeast, and we eventually came across a long snaking line of communists heading towards the burnt out compound – and now on a collision course with the Panamanian Army.
Fortunately, we were almost four hundred yards above them, and so simply opened up, sniping down at them, the fifty cal in action further down the steep valley.
The result of us opening up was for the communist brothers and sisters to try and scramble up to us, which they did, with varying degrees of success - the mud, the gradient and the heat taking its toll. I had my team spaced out - Team Two had joined us after an arduous climb, and we hid ourselves in dense bush.
With our camouflage, our silencers and rags, we were damned hard to spot, and none of the communists made it up to us – none got within a hundred yards despite a valiant effort.
After checking the map, I had Team Three back-track and come around the long way, the rest of us climbing up and over the peak and dropping down, away from the action, and we descended past high waterfalls along tight animal tracks.
Finding a coca field at a steep angle we set about destroying it, a group of peasant farmers scared off. Having driven off the farmers we followed their trail, and took position above a rickety old rope bridge straight out of the movies, the bridge perched perilously above a hundred foot drop and a raging waterfall.
If it hadn’t been the fact that this was a warzone, full of drug gangs, this would have been a nice spot for tourists, the mist from the raging waterfall rising and keeping everything nearby permanently very damp. We were breathing in water with each breath.
Two jeeps eventually pulled up on the far side, under the branches of lush green trees bending over, armed men seen inside, and those men started across the bridge, not the best of ideas.
We let the lead man get almost halfway across before hitting him, and over he went and down the waterfall, the man behind getting caught and dangling by an ankle, the jeeps hit by fifty cal, those men seen legging it away not getting far.
It grew quiet, apart from the constant roar of the waterfall, so for fun we laid off bets and tried to hit various parts of the jeeps, or the man swinging by his ankle. An hour of earnest effort had destroyed the jeeps, but had also cut many of the bridge supports. Crossing it would now be a risky venture for the locals, and since the only employment in this picturesque remote location was the drugs trade - I didn’t care. I led my men north along a track, and we bedded down after sundown, everyone soon to be rested – yet very damp.
Moving out before dawn, we followed the valley and its raging stream, and we finally came across a village nestled into the trees, and it struck me that this place would be mostly invisible from above. It also struck me that you would never get a helicopter in here, and that the only way in and out was via a donkey track, a track that would be easy to defend.
On our side of the gorge rested a few houses built into the steep slopes, smoke climbing lazily, a rope bridge across a rocky point where the gorge narrowed. I halted the men and turned up the ridge, ropes used. Dogs barked as we moved parallel to the huts on this side of the gorge and we took position.
Across the valley, people came out and looked around, no one figuring we’d be daft enough to climb up and around. I got ready, took aim through the trees, and a man with an AK47 soon went down.
Hardly anyone noticed, but his dog was going nuts. That attracted other men, also armed, as well as four communists - red scarves around their necks proudly proclaiming their political allegiances.
We patiently waited till they grouped around the dead man, then picked them off quickly, each hit several times. Now three dogs were going nuts, and disturbing the birds in the trees.
As we observed, an old lady came out a small hut, plodded along, picked up and AK47, fumbled with it and accidentally shot into a body, finally got it right, and fired bursts into the trees behind the huts on her side of the forest, but fell backwards and into the mud. If any of my lot could have stopped laughing long enough they may have shot the old lady, the ‘Babushka’ in Russian.
A man just waking up came out in his pants, shouting at the old lady as if she had gone on a killing spree. She got back up, took aim and hit the man in the leg, my lot laying off bets as to what would happen next.
As she approached him, he kicked with his good leg and sent her down and back, a dog attacking her. That was not fair, so we shot the dog, the wounded man easing up and wondering who shot the dog.
He crawled back into his hut, the old lady finally righting herself. With her rifle not working she fetched another, checked it, and sprayed the man’s house, his windows shot out, his door peppered, no one on this side of the valley with a dry eye.
She eventually hobbled off dow
n the track, but after twenty yards was hit and killed. We all peered down, and finally found a man this side, and he had shot her. Well, that had spoilt our fun, so we shot him, a fifty cal round taking his head off.
With little more to see, and not wanting to go house to house, we moved off along the ridge, hard slow going, but found an area clear of trees and so picked up the pace, a great view north offered to us.
Through moist vegetation, huge plants looking like something from a dinosaur movie, we dropped down, parallel to the raging stream, and three hours of steady progress brought us to a point above a road junction, a good place to set an ambush.
After we had settled ourselves the roar grew, suddenly a helicopter flying down the valley so low it was trimming the trees as it went, a black Jet Ranger helicopter, and it disappeared behind a ridge.
Ten minutes later it was back, and as it drew level with us we shredded its light skin, the helicopter hitting high trees and crashing down into dense undergrowth. I led my team down to it, slipping down muddy slopes on my arse much of the time.
The helicopter was not on fire, but smoking as it hung upside down, its sole pilot very dead. I reached up and opened a door, bags falling out, a shit load of cash and drugs, so I called down the rest of the lads.
Everyone was given something to carry, the load evened out, and we scrambled back up the slope, ropes fixed, hard going, all sweating profusely at the top.
Back-tracking, we moved to the open ground and I called in our rides, assuring them it was safe, since the local colonel’s map suggested we were across the border.
The Hueys arrived half an hour later, a bit overloaded with us and the bags, but we made it back after a greatly enjoyable thirty-five minute flight, legs dangling. I had called Tomsk, and he was stood waiting with Running Bear as we touched down, bags carried or dragged, the Hueys heading off home.
All of the bags were lined up, opened and checked, a hell of a haul, worth millions. But in one bag a manual was found, and handed to me. My face dropped. I handed the manual to Running Bear. ‘Let your government know; this lot was the payment for eight heat-seeking missiles.’