Jungle Kill (7 page)

If the mission was to rescue hostages, you had to know where the hostages were being kept. Were they together or separate? How many guards were with them? Were they inexperienced and trigger-happy, or more cautious?

‘What’s the longest observation you’ve done, Gaz?’ asked Mitch.

Gaz thought about it. ‘Three weeks,’ he said. ‘Sitting in a hole in the desert watching a border and waiting for some terrorists to come over.’

‘Did they come?’

Gaz nodded. ‘Problem was they came over the day after we were pulled out.’

‘So your position had been betrayed?’

Again, Gaz nodded. ‘That’s the way it looked to me afterwards. It’s often struck me that it’s a crazy situation: the enemy tries to kill you, and the people on your side betray you. You and me and the others have got to be mad to be doing this.’

‘Of course we are,’ agreed Mitch. ‘That’s why we like doing it.’

Gaz laughed. ‘True,’ he agreed. Then suddenly something at the hotel caught his eye. He lifted his binoculars and looked hard at the building.

‘What have you seen?’ asked Mitch.

‘One of the downstairs windows,’ said Gaz. ‘The corner of the sheet of iron has come loose. I didn’t notice it before, but then I saw the shadow. It’s bigger in that one corner than at the other corners.’

Mitch scanned the window through his own binoculars.

‘I think you’re right,’ he said.

‘If I am, then an observations gizmo would
serve us well. A camera would be good, but even a microphone should be able to pick things up.’

Mitch studied the side of the building. ‘Getting there to put it in place could be a problem,’ he said. ‘There are ten armed men between us and the hotel building, remember?’

‘There’s enough cover,’ said Gaz. ‘Bushes, vehicles, outbuildings. I’ve done this with less cover and more guards around. Like you said, these guys aren’t professionals. They’re sloppy, which helps us.’

‘I’ve nearly been caught out by sloppy guards before,’ said Mitch. ‘I was hiding in a ditch once, keeping observation on a building, when this guy came out for a pee and actually pissed on me. If he’d looked more closely at what he was doing, I’d have been caught for sure.’

Gaz grinned. ‘I’ll watch out for anyone taking a leak,’ he said. He triggered his headset intercom, giving the call sign, and they heard Nelson’s voice. Using as few words as possible, Gaz outlined the proposal for him to get to the window and plant a
listening and viewing device at the exposed corner of the downstairs window.

There was a brief muttered discussion between Nelson and Tug, and then Nelson’s voice said: ‘We’re thinking the same on this side. We reckon we can get a mic in place. So go. But if it looks sticky, abort. We don’t blow this.’

Gaz clicked off his intercom and then pulled a roll of cloth out of his pack, which he opened to reveal an array of tiny transmitters and cameras.

‘Were you a private eye before you came into this?’ asked Mitch, impressed.

Gaz shook his head. ‘No, I was a burglar. These things saved me from getting caught. Well, not these
exact
things, but earlier versions.’

‘How long were you a burglar for?’ asked Mitch, surprised and intrigued.

‘From the time I was ten until I was sixteen. I worked with my Uncle George. He showed me the ropes,’ explained Gaz.

‘So what made you join the army?’

‘Uncle George robbed some big-time gangster in Gateshead who took offence and had him killed. I had to disappear before he worked out I was in on it, so I joined the army.’ He shrugged. ‘Burglary taught me a few useful skills, but it’s not a part of my past I’m proud of, and it’s not something I’d ever go back to. I hated doing it. But hey, you live and learn.’

Gaz had selected a small piece of apparatus and tucked it into his top pocket. Then he handed something to Mitch. It looked like a mobile phone, complete with a small screen.

‘This the receiver?’ asked Mitch.

Gaz nodded. ‘I’ve set the frequencies so it should start picking up as soon as I’ve got it in place.’

Mitch lay down near the edge of the clearing and trained his rifle on the armed men hanging around outside the front of the hotel. He put the small mobile-phone-like receiver on the ground next to him so he could see the tiny screen.

‘Let’s keep radio silence,’ Gaz said. ‘Just in case
they’ve got sharp hearing.’

Mitch nodded in agreement. ‘If any shooting starts, I’ll come and get you,’ he promised.

Gaz shook his head. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘Just give me covering fire if it comes to that. I’ll look after myself.’

With that, Gaz edged forward, crawling to the point where the jungle became the overgrown garden of the hotel.

Mitch watched as Gaz slid out towards the hotel.

On this side he could see six armed men keeping guard, but only one of them really seemed to be alert. Three of them were playing with dice, while two others sat on the fallen trunks of trees, their rifles held casually by their sides. The sixth stood up and paced around, jerking his rifle this way and that, aiming it into the jungle.

Mitch shifted his binoculars to follow Gaz’s progress. As Gaz had said, there was lots of cover. But in a few places there were just open areas of grass. If Gaz was spotted moving across these open areas, the trigger-happy bandits would open fire and the operation would be blown. The firing would bring the rest of the bandits out of the hotel.

As Mitch weighed up the situation, he found himself fingering the trigger of his assault rifle, ready to swing into action. If anything went wrong, he was determined to do everything he could to make sure Gaz wasn’t killed.

He kept switching his attention backwards and forwards between the armed bandits and Gaz.

Mitch prided himself on being able to move covertly, but as he watched Gaz, he had to admit that the Geordie was a real expert. Gaz seemed to slide from bush to bush, tree to tree, keeping flat, using no rapid movements, but at the same time progressing so swiftly that there was no time for anyone to get a fix on him. It was the nearest Mitch had ever come to seeing a human snake on the move.

Gaz reached the building without an alarm being raised and slid up to the window where the corrugated iron sheeting had come away at one corner. Slowly, Gaz rose up from the ground, his back against the wall, his eyes on the armed guards.

The guards were still in the same positions as before: one reasonably alert, with his assault rifle at the ready, three playing dice, two lounging around and chatting.

Gaz turned and began to prise the iron sheet apart, but as he did so Mitch saw one of the men suddenly stand up and raise his gun.

Gaz must have seen him too, because he dropped out of sight behind a shrub.

Had the man heard something? Seen a movement out of the corner of his eye?

Mitch moved the barrel of his rifle so that it was now aimed at the man who’d got up. His finger was poised on the trigger. To shoot now would blow the mission, but so would letting Gaz be captured.

The man who’d got up said something to the others, and then headed for the main entrance of the hotel. There was no urgency in his movements. Maybe he just wanted to get something to eat or drink.

Mitch’s attention switched back to the window.
There was a pause as Gaz waited for the man to get inside the hotel entrance. Then he rose up slowly and quietly again. Mitch saw him push the transmitter in between the corrugated iron and the window, and then he dropped down out of sight.

Immediately the small receiver by Mitch’s side began humming, and then voices could be heard coming from it. They were muffled, but if he strained hard to listen Mitch could pick up what was being said.

On the small screen Mitch could make out some movements, but nothing very clear – mainly just shadows in the background.

Mitch kept his eyes and his rifle on the building and the bandits, watching out for Gaz. He spotted the Geordie every now and then, surfacing from beneath a bush or from a dip in the ground, and then sliding on to another sheltered point.

Finally, Gaz made it back to the hide and Mitch. He gestured at the small receiver.

‘Getting anything?’ he asked.

Mitch nodded. ‘Sound and vision working OK,’ he confirmed. ‘Now I guess we just wait, watch and listen.’

After some close observations using the transmitter, they heard Nelson radio with instructions for everyone to regroup at the original location.

‘Looks like we’re ready to roll,’ muttered Gaz as he and Mitch gathered their weapons and headed back through the trees.

When they arrived, Two Moons and Benny were already there with Nelson and Tug. Nelson had drawn a more detailed plan of the hotel buildings and grounds, with extra information from what he and Tug, and Two Moons and Benny, had observed and picked up.

‘We managed to get a mic and camera in a hole in the wall,’ explained Two Moons.

‘We did the same thing in one of the windows,’
said Mitch. Then he added with a grin, ‘Or, to be fair, Gaz did. I just watched him.’

Quickly, Mitch and Gaz told the rest of the unit what they’d been able to pick up from their own observations.

‘There are between five and six men on guard at the front as a general rule. Another three, all fully armed, roaming around the side. Now and then they join up with their pals at the front, and then go off and chat to their mates round the back of the hotel,’ said Gaz. ‘There was a change-over about an hour ago. Nothing organised, it all looked pretty casual. Some guys came out from inside, and some of the guys who were outside went in. But the numbers stayed pretty much the same.’

‘What intel did you get from your mic and camera?’ asked Nelson.

‘It looks like that room at the front is some kind of eating place,’ said Mitch. ‘You can just make out a fridge in one corner. And there are cans and bottles. Lots of sounds of cans being opened. We
picked up a flare that looks to me like a flame from a stove of some sort. From what we can see, the place inside is a dump. They cook, eat and drink without clearing up and throw their rubbish and their clothes on the floor.’

‘Sounds like some of the places I used to live in Newcastle,’ said Gaz, smiling.

Nelson added their information to the plan. Then, ‘Do we know if Justis Ngola is actually in the building?’ he asked. ‘Or are we just watching a bunch of second-grade bandits hanging around?’

‘We think he is,’ said Benny. ‘We couldn’t work out what was being said, but there’s one voice that sounds like it’s giving orders.’

‘How can you be sure?’ asked Gaz. ‘Could just be someone drunk and lairy.’

‘No one talks back to him, though,’ said Two Moons. ‘They all shut up when he speaks.’

‘Might be a good idea if Mitch took a listen to it,’ said Nelson. ‘See if he can make anything out.’

Benny handed the receiver over to Mitch.
‘This is it,’ he said.

Mitch took the small machine and began to listen, making notes on a pad. Now and then one voice stood out, clearer and louder than the others. As Two Moons had said, when this voice spoke there were only muted responses and no one seemed to argue with him.

‘That sounds like the boss, all right,’ said Mitch. ‘He’s telling the others what to do. It also sounds like he’s getting phone calls now and then, so I guess he’s got a satellite phone. That’d be the only way he’d get a signal in this jungle. When he got a call just now, he shouted and said: “I don’t care about that. Where’s the money?” At one point he yelled, “If I don’t get the money by tomorrow I’ll kill Mwanga.” And then he says to another caller: “Bring me the money tomorrow and I’ll kill Mwanga right in front of you."’

‘So tomorrow is Big Decision day,’ said Nelson thoughtfully.

‘At least we know Mwanga is still alive,’
said Benny.

‘Any clues on where he is?’ asked Nelson.

Mitch nodded. ‘When Mwanga’s name comes up the words “downstairs” and “basement” are used, so I think we can safely say that’s where he is.’

‘It would help to know where exactly in the basement,’ put in Benny.

‘I reckon he must be in a room near the main stairs,’ said Mitch. ‘At one point someone goes to take him some food, and there’s not much time between him leaving and coming back.’

Nelson marked the four rooms on his plan that were nearest the bottom of the stairs. ‘So, let’s assume that he’s in one of these,’ he said.

Tug shook his head. ‘I think you can cut out those two,’ he said, pointing to the two larger rooms. ‘They’re too big. According to what Oba told us, one was a conference room, the other’s a ballroom. Mwanga’s a prisoner. They’ll have put him in a small room, the nearest thing they’ve got to a cell.’

‘Makes sense,’ agreed Nelson. He put a cross by
the two smaller rooms. ‘So, these are our targets. Right, let’s sum up the whole situation as far as getting in.’

The six soldiers began to run through all the information they had gathered, but suddenly they heard the sound of vehicles.

Into view through the trees came a beaten-up open-topped 4x4, and immediately behind it came the jeep last seen at the village, with Adwana and two other villagers in the back. Their hands were tied and their faces bruised and cut from where they had been beaten.

Nelson turned angrily to Mitch. ‘I thought you told them to get rid of the jeep,’ he exclaimed.

‘I did,’ said Mitch. He groaned. ‘They must have thought it was too good to dump.’

‘And now they’re paying the price,’ muttered Benny.

The armed guards ran to meet the two vehicles, shouting and waving their rifles. The vehicles pulled up and the armed men in the jeep kicked
and pushed Adwana and the other two men out on to the ground, shouting and jabbing their rifles threateningly at them the whole time.

‘We have to save them,’ whispered Two Moons.

Nelson shook his head. ‘We can’t,’ he said. ‘If we step in now we blow the operation. Our mission is to save Mwanga.’

A man came striding from the hotel. The unit realised from the way the armed men stepped back to clear a path for him that this must be the bandits’ leader, Justis Ngola. Ngola was shorter than many of the men, but even from this distance he seemed to give off an energy and an impression of raw violence. Gold Headband – Ngola’s cousin – was just a hoodlum by comparison.