Ghost Flight (27 page)

Nods from the others.

Jaeger glanced at Dale. ‘You guys take one Thuraya between the two of you. That’s Wild Dog Media’s satphone. I’ll take another. Alonzo – you take a third. That’s three between us, and the rest we leave in the cache.’

There was a series of grunts in the affirmative.

‘And guys,’ he eyed Dale and Kral, ‘either of you know how to use a weapon?’

Dale shrugged. ‘Nothing more than doing a shoot-’em-up on Xbox.’

Kral rolled his eyes in Dale’s direction. ‘I tell you – everyone learns to shoot in Slovakia. Where I come from, we all learn to hunt, especially in the mountains.’

Jaeger gave a thumbs-up. ‘Go grab yourself an assault rifle, plus six full mags. That’s one weapon for the two of you. You’d best shift the load between you as you go, ’cause I know you’ve got the extra weight of the camera gear.’

For an instant Jaeger weighed Narov’s knife in his hand. It joined the pile of kit to be left behind. In theory, the cache was there to be picked up later – stored as best they could in a known location. In practice, he couldn’t imagine who was ever going to get back here to retrieve what had been discarded.

In truth, he figured once it was gone it was gone.

He changed his mind, adding Narov’s knife to the pile of kit that he was taking with him. He did the same with the C-130 pilot’s Night Stalkers coin. Both were decisions driven by emotion: neither knife nor coin was crucial for what was coming. But Jaeger was like that: he was superstitious, saw portents, and didn’t easily discard things that meant something to him personally.

‘At least now we know who the enemy are,’ he remarked, trying to buoy everyone’s spirits. ‘They couldn’t have left a more direct message – not if they’d spelled it out in the sand.’

‘What was that message, do you think?’ Kamishi asked, his voice suffused with its signature quiet, measured calm. ‘I think maybe it can be read in different ways.’

Jaeger glanced at Kamishi curiously. ‘Santos’s scarf, tied on a spear and planted in the sand? I’d say that’s pretty clear: come no further, or meet the same fate.’

‘There is perhaps another way to interpret it,’ Kamishi ventured. ‘It is not necessarily a direct threat.’

Alonzo snorted. ‘Like hell it’s not.’

Jaeger waved him into silence. ‘What’re you thinking?’

‘It may help to try to see from their perspective,’ Kamishi ventured. ‘I think perhaps the Indians are scared. We must appear to them like aliens from another world. We drop from the sky into their isolated world. We glide across the water on these magical craft. We carry thunder sticks that explode the very river. If you had never seen any of this, would you also not be scared? And the overriding human reaction to fear – it is anger; aggression.’

Jaeger nodded. ‘Keep going.’

Kamishi ran his eye around the others. They had stopped what they were doing to listen, or, in Dale’s case, to film.

‘We know this tribe have only ever suffered aggression from outsiders,’ Kamishi continued. ‘Their few contacts with the wider world have been with those who seek to do them harm: loggers, miners and others intent on stealing their lands. Why would they expect anything different from us?’

‘Where’s this going?’ Jaeger pressed.

‘I think perhaps we need a two-track approach,’ Kamishi announced quietly. ‘On the one hand, we put ourselves doubly on guard – especially once we are in the jungle, which is entirely their domain. On the other, we need to try to entice the Amahuaca in; we need to find ways to show them we have only friendly intentions.’

‘Hearts and minds?’ Jaeger queried.

‘Hearts and minds,’ Kamishi confirmed. ‘There is one other advantage we may gain by winning this tribe’s hearts and minds. We have a long and difficult journey still ahead of us. The Indians – no one knows the jungle better than they do.’

‘Come on, Kamishi, get real!’ Alonzo challenged. ‘They’ve taken one of our own, probably boiled and eaten her, and we’re just gonna go and cosy up to them? I dunno what planet you come from, but in my world we fight fire with fire.’

Kamishi bowed slightly. ‘Mr Alonzo, we should always be ready to fight fire with fire. Sometimes it is the only way. Yet we should also be ready to hold out the hand of friendship. Sometimes that is the better way.’

Alonzo scratched his head. ‘Man, I dunno . . . Jaeger?’

‘Let’s be ready on both counts,’ Jaeger announced. ‘Ready to hold out the hand of fire or the hand of friendship. But no one takes any unnecessary risks to draw the Indians in. No repeats of what went down before.’

He indicated the cache of gear. ‘Kamishi, choose some stuff from there you think they might like. Gifts. To take with us. To try to lure them in.’

Kamishi nodded. ‘I will make a selection. Waterproofs, machetes, cooking pots – a remote tribe will always have use for such things.’

Jaeger checked his watch. ‘Right, it’s 1400 Zulu. It’s a day and a half’s trek to the start of the path – the one that descends the escarpment – less if we really push it. We set off now, we should reach it by nightfall tomorrow.’

He pulled out his compass, then collected up a few counting pebbles similar to those he’d used before. ‘We’ll be moving under the canopy, by pacing and bearing only. I figure some of you,’ he eyed Kral and Dale, ‘are unfamiliar with the technique, so stick close. But not too close.’

Jaeger glanced at the others. ‘I don’t want us bunched up so we present too much of an easy target.’

48

The trek through the jungle had gone as well as Jaeger could have hoped for. Their route lay along the rim of the fault line, and the ground had been rocky and drier underfoot, the forest slightly less dense. As a result, they’d made decent progress.

The first night they’d camped in the jungle and put into practice their dual strategy – to double their watch while at the same time trying to lure the Indians into making some kind of peaceful contact.

During his time in the military, Jaeger had done his fair share of hearts-and-minds operations – designed to befriend the native populace wherever they might be operating. The locals would have invaluable knowledge as to enemy movements, and they would also know the best routes to use to track and ambush them. It had made every sense to try to bring them onside.

With Hiro Kamishi’s help, Jaeger had strung up gifts for the Indians, hanging them in the forest just out of visual range of their camp. A few knives, a couple of machetes, some cooking pots: it was the kind of equipment Jaeger would have appreciated were he a member of a remote tribe living in the midst of the world’s largest jungle.

They didn’t bother with the kind of note that Joe James had written for the Indians. Uncontacted tribes didn’t tend to read. But the good news was that by morning, several of their offerings had been taken.

In their place, someone – the Indian warriors presumably – had left gifts: some fresh fruit; a couple of animal-bone amulets; even a quiver made of jaguar skin for holding blow-darts.

Jaeger was heartened. The first signs of peaceful contact appeared to have been made. Even so, he was determined not to relax their vigilance. The Indians were definitely close. They were on the trail of Jaeger and his team, and that meant the threat remained very real.

Jaeger had led the way towards their second intended campsite, at the lip of the thousand-foot precipice, and the path leading to the lowlands far below. It was beginning to get dark by the time he had found a suitable spot to spend the night.

He signalled the team to a halt. They dropped their packs and settled themselves upon them, not a word being spoken. Jaeger had them spend ten long minutes doing a ‘listening watch’; tuning into the forest and scanning for any threat.

All seemed quiet.

That done, he signalled that they should set camp.

They worked away in the gathering darkness by feel alone, so as not to show any lights and alert the Indians to their exact location. Once camp was set, Jaeger and Kamishi planned to hang out more offerings – but they’d site them a good distance away from the camp, to furnish an added layer of security.

Jaeger unrolled his poncho from his pack and tied it between four trees – forming a waterproof roof. That done, he changed out of his sweat-soaked trekking gear. Everyone on his team carried one set of dry clothing: combat shirt and trousers, plus socks. The night was dry-kit time – a precious few hours in which to allow the body to recover a little.

Having dry time was crucial. If it were left permanently wet, skin would quickly start to rot in the hot and humid conditions.

Once in his dry gear, Jaeger slung his hammock beneath the poncho. It had been hand-stitched from parachute silk, making it strong, lightweight and durable. There were two layers of para-silk – one to lie on, and the other to pull over the top, forming a cocoon. It helped keep the mozzies off and the heat in – for the jungle at night could prove surprisingly chilly.

On either end of the hammock’s lines was threaded a squash ball cut in half, cup face towards the tree. It was there to prevent water running down the lines and soaking the hammock’s head and foot ends. Jaeger sprayed the area directly behind the squash ball with a powerful insect repellent: it would soak into the hammock line and deter any insects from crawling in.

He placed his compass into his dry-kit pocket. If they did need to make a run for it during the night, he had to have such vital kit to hand. His wet kit was stuffed inside a poly bag and strapped beneath the flap of his backpack. The pack was laid beneath his hammock, with his weapon placed on top.

If he needed to reach for his shotgun in the night, it would come easily to hand.

They were six days into this expedition now, and with the constant exertion and the need for permanent vigilance, everyone was getting seriously fatigued. But keeping a strict wet-kit/dry-kit routine was vital. Jaeger knew from experience that the moment someone failed to get into their dry kit on a long expedition such as this one –
I’m too tired; I can’t be bothered
– they were done for. Likewise if they allowed their dry kit to get wet. Trench foot and groin rot could come on fast and would slow the pace of a man almost as fast as any bullet.

Before retiring to his hammock, Jaeger would rub a dab of anti-fungal powder into his most vulnerable parts: between the toes, under armpits and in the groin. Those were the places where dirt, moisture and bacteria tended to collect, and they would be the first to start to rot and turn septic.

Come morning, he and his team would reverse the entire night-time routine, changing out of dry kit into wet, stowing their dry kit away, dosing socks and more with talcum powder, and preparing for the onward journey. It was laborious, but it was also the only way to keep the body functioning in these kinds of conditions.

Lastly, Jaeger checked the sticky plasters that he had taped over his nipples. The constant friction of wet gear tended to rub your chest raw. He cut off some fresh strips, applied them, and stuffed the old plasters into a side pocket of his pack. The less they left behind, the harder it would be to track them.

That done, he was ready to hang out tonight’s presents to lure the Indians in. He and Kamishi did a repeat of the previous night – tying their few remaining gifts in the low-hanging branches amongst a distant patch of trees. Then they returned to camp, where they would be taking first watch. There would be two sets of eyes alert and watchful all night long, standing a rota of two-hour sentry duties.

Jaeger and Kamishi settled down, focusing intently on their senses – chiefly hearing and sight, their best early-warning systems. The key to survival in the deep jungle was watchfulness in every sense of the word.

It was like a form of meditation, this tuning in to the night-dark forest – and Jaeger could feel Kamishi doing the same at his side.

He opened his mind to changes in the setting, becoming hyper-alert to any hint of threat. If his ears caught the faintest sound – anything distinct from the deafening night-time beat of the insects pulsating out of the shadows – his eyes immediately swivelled around to focus on the threat.

Tension rippled back and forth as he and Kamishi sensed movement in the darkness. Every noise from the brooding bush sent Jaeger’s pulse racing. Weird animal noises echoed through the jungle, ones that Jaeger figured he’d not heard before. And tonight he was convinced that some of them at least were human.

Odd, unnatural piercing shrieks and wails echoed back and forth through the trees. A lot of jungle animals did make similar calls – troops of monkeys in particular. But so too did the native Amazonian tribes as they signalled to each other.

‘You hear that?’ Jaeger whispered.

Kamishi’s teeth showed white in the faint moonlight. ‘Yes. I hear it.’

‘Animals? Or Indians?’

Kamishi eyed Jaeger. ‘I think Indian. Maybe they signal they are happy to find our new gifts?’

‘Happy is good,’ Jaeger muttered.

But those cries – they weren’t like any shouts of joy that he had ever heard before.

49

Jaeger awoke.

It was sometime in the depths of the night. At first he was unsure what had disturbed him.

As his senses tuned in to his immediate surroundings, he detected a thick and ghostly tension about the camp. And then, from the corner of his eye, he spotted a wraith-like form melt out of the dark jungle. Almost at the same instant, he became aware that there were dozens more such figures emerging from the trees.

He saw all-but-naked forms detach themselves from the gloom, and flit noiselessly through the camp. Weapons held at the ready, they moved with a single-minded purpose. Jaeger reached down, his fingers feeling for the cold steel of his combat shotgun. He slipped his hand around it, drawing it into the hammock beside him.

Other than himself, he could see that only Alonzo was awake. An unspoken understanding was telegraphed across the darkness between them: somehow the team’s watch must have fallen apart, and the Indians had stolen unnoticed into their camp.

They were outnumbered many times over, that much was clear, and Jaeger felt certain the Indians had further firepower secreted in the forest. It was also clear what the consequences would be if he and Alonzo opened fire. There would be a bloodbath, but by sheer force of numbers the Indians would end up slaughtering the lot of them.