Jungle Kill (6 page)

‘Not yet,’ said Two Moons. ‘Give him time.’

‘You guys been together long?’

Two Moons nodded. ‘Nearly two years, which – in this business – is a long while for a bunch of guys to stay together as one unit.’

‘What happened to the guy I replaced?’ asked Mitch.

Two Moons shrugged. ‘Joe McNeil,’
he said. ‘He died. He was trying to defuse a bomb. The bastard who rigged it had booby-trapped it.’ He gave a wry sigh. ‘I liked Joe. We all did. He used to make us laugh.’

‘We all lose people in this game,’ said Mitch. ‘It’s the way we live. Doesn’t matter how on the ball we are, we’re always on the edge and one breath away from dying.’

Two Moons laughed. ‘When you say it like that, it sure is a hell of a stupid way to earn a living.’

They woke before dawn the next morning, refreshed. Nelson gestured at the bandits’ jeep. ‘They’d better not leave that sitting around,’ he commented to Mitch. ‘If the bad guys show up and see it, this village will be in real big trouble.’

‘I was just thinking the same,’ agreed Mitch. He called Adwana over and passed on Nelson’s advice about getting rid of the jeep, with a few extra tips of his own.

‘What did you tell him?’ asked Nelson after he’d finished.

‘Told him to take it out into the jungle and abandon it as far away as possible. If he can, find a ravine to run it into.’

‘Good,’ said Nelson.

The unit gathered up their gear, then set off for the bandit stronghold, with Oba leading the way.

As Mitch had said, with a guide like Oba who knew the jungle like the back of his hand, they covered the ten miles in five hours. On difficult terrain like this, with swamps and deep gulleys to get across, it was fast going.

Suddenly Oba began to slow down and then stopped, his eyes darting around, obviously afraid. The confidence with which he had moved through the jungle suddenly vanished.

‘I think we’re here,’ Mitch murmured to the others.

He whispered something to Oba in Igbo, and Oba nodded, pointing ahead. As gently and as calmly as he could, Mitch talked to Oba, gesturing at the other men of Delta Unit, and assuring Oba that no harm would come to him while they were with him.

Oba nodded slowly, but it was obvious from his face and his body language that he wasn’t
convinced. However, he dropped down on to his hands and knees and began crawling slowly forward through the jungle. Delta Unit dropped down too, and followed him.

It took ten minutes of slow and careful crawling through the tangle of bush and tree roots, but at last they could see a huge clearing in the jungle. The clearing was covered in overgrown foliage from ornamental plants and bushes, small trees and shrubs that had once been cultivated and kept neat and tidy, but had now grown wild. Rising up from the rampant vegetation was a dilapidated two-storey-high concrete building. The remains of a tennis court could be seen through the trees, as well as the cracked tiles and empty shell of what had once been a large swimming pool. A faded broken sign hanging on the wall near the main entrance announced it was the ‘Malinawi Hotel'.

‘Nice place to come for a holiday,’ commented Gaz.

The place had obviously been built for better
times, in the hope that tourists would come out with their dollars and pounds and bring luxury to the area. Either the tourists hadn’t materialised, or the developer had run out of cash before the place could be completed. Or maybe a civil war had just overtaken the place. Now, the hotel looked like a makeshift fortress. The windows had been boarded up, sheets of wood and corrugated iron nailed into place over them.

‘Making sure no one throws any grenades into the building,’ murmured Benny.

The grounds were patrolled by guards, all dressed raggedly and as casually as the other crew of bandits had been. But they were all heavily armed, bandoliers of ammunition hanging from their shoulders, assault rifles dangling from their hands.

Nelson and Tug scanned the building and the armed men through their binoculars.

‘How many can you make out?’ asked Nelson.

‘Ten,’ muttered Tug. ‘And that’s only from this side. My guess is there’ll be at least another ten
out of sight on the other side.’

‘That’s what I’m thinking,’ agreed Nelson. ‘So, twenty outside. How many inside? What d’you think, Mitch?’

Mitch shrugged. ‘Hard to tell,’ he said. ‘Ten, twenty. It depends if they’ve got any of their men out on patrol.’

They studied the men outside the hotel. Most of them seemed very relaxed, joking and laughing with one another, but a few stalked around, guns levelled. They carried a mixture of weapons. Some had AK-47s, one or two had Steyr AUGs and a couple were carrying SKS semi-automatic rifles. One thing was sure: all the weapons had deadly firepower, even in amateur hands.

‘Considering they’re supposed to know we’re here, they don’t seem very bothered,’ commented Two Moons.

‘They don’t know we’ve got this far yet,’ whispered Tug.

‘And this isn’t an army,’ added Mitch. ‘This is
just a bunch of gung-ho trigger-happy bandits. My guess is they think they’re safe here. Look at the building. There’s no sign of any damage to it from weapons. No burn marks. No shell damage.’

‘There are bullet holes in the walls,’ pointed out Gaz.

‘Target practice when they’re feeling bored,’ suggested Nelson.

‘This place has never been attacked,’ agreed Mitch. ‘Why should it be? Locals wouldn’t attack it because they’re too scared of this Ngola. Just take a look at Oba.’

Oba was crouched low, his eyes darting from the derelict hotel to the armed men.

Nelson turned to Mitch. ‘Ask him if he knows the layout inside this place.’

Mitch nodded and asked Oba if he or anyone he knew had ever been inside the building. Oba’s answer brought a smile to Mitch’s face.

‘We’re in luck,’ he told the others. ‘Oba worked here for a while years ago when he was a kid, when
the place was a working hotel. He was a cleaner.’

Taking a sheet of paper and a pencil, Mitch persuaded Oba to draw a rough plan of the hotel to show where the various rooms were: the bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room, the toilets. All the time he was drawing the sketch plan, Oba kept throwing nervous glances towards the building and the armed bandits.

‘He’s terrified,’ said Two Moons.

‘I don’t blame him,’ said Gaz. ‘We know what these people can do.’

Mitch tried to calm Oba down, assuring him that the questions would only take a little longer, but it soon became obvious that Oba’s fear of Justis Ngola and his gang was overwhelming. He looked more and more towards the building and the armed men patrolling outside. Mitch was finding it harder to keep his attention.

‘We’d better let him go,’ Mitch said to Nelson. ‘We don’t want him suddenly freaking out and doing something that draws attention to us. He’s
been brave enough to bring us here, and he’s given us a plan of the inside of the place. I think he’s done enough.’

‘Agreed,’ said Nelson, nodding.

He smiled at Oba and held out his hand to the man. Oba didn’t take it – his attention was now focused entirely on the wrecked hotel. In a quiet voice, Mitch thanked Oba and told him he was free to go. Oba gratefully slipped back into the jungle and had soon disappeared from view.

Mitch handed the sketch plan of the hotel to Nelson, who studied it.

‘Good work,’ Nelson said. ‘Some of this may have changed, of course.’

‘True,’ said Mitch, ‘but even if they’re using the rooms differently my guess is the walls will still be in place.’ He tapped the sketch map. ‘There’s a basement. I bet that’s where they’ll be holding Mwanga.’

‘Makes sense.’ Tug nodded in agreement. ‘More
secure.’

Nelson folded the sheet of paper up and tucked it into his pocket. ‘Now to scout the place out,’ he said. ‘See where the weak points are. We need to confirm that Mwanga is in the basement. We need to see if we can work out how many men are in this place, and where they are. Make sure we know the location of all the entrances and exits. Any windows that look like they can be opened up. Possible traps. Everything we can.

‘Mitch and Tug, you’re with me. Gaz and Two Moons, you’re with Benny. Get as much intel as you can about the place. Meet back here in thirty minutes.’

Mitch and Tug followed Nelson to the east. Two Moons, Gaz and Benny headed west, all of them crouching low and keeping to the cover of the jungle.

A motley collection of vehicles was scattered outside the front of the building: six off-road cars, a battered ambulance and two lorries, including one with the words ‘Food Charity’ stencilled on the side.

‘Hijacked vehicles,’ muttered Tug.

He produced a small digital camera and began taking photos of the building every ten metres or so to get shots from different angles. Memory could play tricks; a photo was hard evidence.

Doing the recce was slow work. Fast movements could catch the eye of anybody watching and it was crucial not to rustle branches and disturb things, both plants and animals. Scare a bird and it would give away your position. So the men moved forward on their hands and knees, bellies sliding over the uneven ground, stopping for a minute at each vantage point before moving on, aware all the time of the armed men patrolling just a short distance away.

Nelson, Tug and Mitch crawled along until they came to a dust track that cut through the jungle to the hotel. The lack of weeds and the many tyre tracks showed the road was still in constant use.

So far they had scouted two sides of the hotel.
The third side faced away from them, and to get to that they’d have to cross the road. Mitch gestured at the jungle on the other side of the road.

Nelson shook his head. ‘Too risky. We don’t want to get spotted this early. The road’s a dead end, so the other guys should be able to check out that side from their direction.’ He checked his watch. ‘We’ll head back and wait for them.’

The three men retraced their steps, using the same ‘crawl and stop’ routine as before. They got back to the rendezvous point first. Benny, Two Moons and Gaz joined them five minutes afterwards. They moved deeper into the jungle to avoid detection and swapped observations.

‘Fifteen men outside at different places,’ summed up Nelson. ‘Ten at the front, five at the back, but they keep moving around, exchanging positions.’

‘The good thing is there’s lots of cover because of all the overgrown vegetation,’ said Tug.

‘And it goes right up to the walls of the building,’ added Benny. ‘Plus there are the old outbuildings
for the tennis courts, and storage sheds. All offer good cover.’

‘The question is: how many men are we dealing with?’ asked Tug. ‘How many are inside the building?’

‘The villagers said they reckoned about thirty men are here,’ said Mitch. ‘That makes sense, if you think about it. The satellite showed twenty men with Mwanga. Add another ten who stay and keep guard on the place when the raiding party is away and that gives us our thirty. So, we saw fifteen outside, and although some men may be out on patrol I think we should assume at least fifteen inside.’

‘OK, let’s look at ways into the building,’ said Nelson. ‘We saw the main entrance and two smaller doors round the side. The doors to the main entrance looked open, but there are at least two armed guards just inside them. The two smaller doors were shut, but whether they’re locked, and how thick the doors are, we don’t know. What did you see, Benny?’

Benny shook his head. ‘Two small doors at the back. Both shut, could be locked. No windows easily accessible. The downstairs ones are all very tightly secured with sheets of corrugated iron. Wood’s been used to board up the windows on the upper floor.’

‘It looks like the building’s power comes from a generator,’ said Gaz. ‘There’s an outbuilding with an oil tank next to it on the far side.’

Nelson nodded thoughtfully, taking all this in.

‘We really need more intel on what’s going on inside,’ he said. ‘Where Mwanga is. Where Justis Ngola is inside the building. Where the other fifteen men are. We need to get the intel and set up a proper plan of attack, and then we go in as soon as it gets dark. They’ve got a numbers advantage, but we’ve got night vision. If we take out the generator that provides electricity just before we go in, it’ll be pitch black inside there. That makes it almost a level playing field.’

‘I’m thinking the longer we wait the more chance there is we’ll find Mwanga dead,’ put in Tug.

‘I don’t think so,’ disagreed Mitch. ‘Mwanga’s their pay cheque. OK, one side wants him dead, but it’s looking like someone equally rich wants him alive. Justis Ngola will want to keep Mwanga alive until the money arrives.’

‘Makes sense to me,’ said Nelson. ‘So, the plan is we split up again and do a full recce. See what intel we can get. Then, tonight, we take out the generator and go in. Right now, three teams of two spread out to watch the place. Me with Tug, Benny with Two Moons, Gaz with Mitch. Stay in radio contact, but keep it to a minimum. Let’s not alert the opposition. OK?’

The first thing Mitch and Gaz did when they reached their observation point was make a hide for themselves. They chose a spot just inside the jungle, but with a clear view of the hotel through the trees and bushes.

They found a dip in the jungle floor and dug and scraped away at it until they had created a shallow trench, large enough for the two of them to lie down. Then they covered it with branches to make a roof, and overlaid that with big leaves and brush. They knew that the other two teams would be doing the same at their vantage points, covering the bandits’ HQ from three positions, which would give them an overall view of the whole place.

As Mitch and Gaz settled down under their hide,
Mitch reflected that during his time in Special Forces he’d spent more time carrying out observation than he had in actual combat. Gathering intelligence was what kept him alive. You had to know where the enemy was, and how many you were up against. What weapons did they have? If they were in a building, was the building booby-trapped? Which were the fastest ways in and out of it?