“I’ll call our ride and tell them we’re five by five.”
Nathan turned around so Harv could access his pack.
“This is a perfect LZ. We should have a clear line of transmission out to the Hawk.”
From what Nathan could gather, the pilot had dropped them in the precise spot Cantrell had identified on the aerials. They were about a third of the way up the north side of a small mountain. Scatter point alpha should be four miles directly south-southwest of their position.
Harv powered on the handheld radio and pressed the transmit button. It was preset to the right frequency. “Good to go.”
They received an acknowledgment click.
Harv turned it off and returned it to Nathan’s pack. “Whatever they’re paying us, it ain’t enough.”
Nathan half laughed, knowing this was a gratis mission. “Our pilot did a good job. I wish I could’ve looked over her shoulder on the flight.” He hadn’t been able to see the flight deck because of the bulkhead separating their compartment. Rescue Hawks employed terrain-following software, and he’d never seen it in action.
“I wonder how many pilots are women these days.”
“Probably more than we’d imagine. She’s got the best job in the Navy.”
Harv said, “Spoken like a true helicopter pilot.”
“On our feet-wet leg, we were never higher than fifty feet.”
“Driving Hornets may seem more glamorous,” Harv continued, “but helos are where it’s at.”
“I don’t think we’ve landed on a Perry-class frigate before. The seas had to be ten to twelve feet. The McClusky’s helipad looked really small during the approach. Did you notice how she hovered above the deck and let the ship come up to her? That was a good trick. She timed it perfectly.”
“Fixed-wing landings on carriers are tough, but I’d be willing to bet that landing a helicopter on a missile frigate that’s rolling and pitching is just as difficult, maybe even harder.”
“No argument here,” Nathan said. “It’s incredible they do it at night on blacked-out ships. Squid aviators are a rare breed.”
They fell silent a moment. Some of the forest’s sound had returned, mostly insect buzzing. The birds and amphibians would take a little longer to feel secure again.
“I’ll take point,” said Nathan. “You ready to go?”
“Not really, but we’re a little short on options. Let’s just make sure we get to our extraction point on time. I don’t relish spending more than one night down here.”
CHAPTER 9
Nathan and Harv had been hiking for nearly three hours, and both were soaked, though not from rain. This northern area of the central region didn’t have enough elevation to get them above the heat. In neighboring Honduras, it got plain cold in cloud forests. According to Harv’s GPS reading, they’d traveled slightly more than three miles. The device supplied their current location along with a vector to their destination. It also calculated the remaining straight-line distance.
Four hundred yards up a fairly steep slope, Nathan pivoted and issued a low warbling whistle. He couldn’t see Harv, but gave the form-up hand signal. His friend would be along shortly. Thirty seconds later, Harv seemed to materialize out of the undergrowth. He’s still got the touch, Nathan thought, impressed with Harv’s stealthy approach. They were nearly certain their insertion hadn’t been detected; otherwise they would’ve been intercepted by now. Still, they never spoke above whispers.
“Let’s take a breather and drink more water,” Nathan said.
“Sounds good. We should chow down a couple of energy bars. This is a serious calorie burn.”
“Listen to it, Harv. It’s incredible.”
“I think it’s noisier at night.”
“It definitely is.” Nathan knew this jungle was teeming with life with a common goaclass="underline" to reproduce itself. The combined drone from hundreds of frogs, buzzing insects, and high-pitched bird calls created an eerie sonata. Adding to the mood, a musty rotting odor hung in the air. Nathan didn’t care for jungles much. Even though desert temperature changes could be extreme, Nathan preferred them over jungles. He also liked conifer forests. This place was beautiful in its own way, but its randomly entangled environment didn’t suit him. It seemed like organic chaos.
Harv looked around and shook his head. “I keep thinking about Jesse Ventura’s line from Predator. ‘This place makes Cambodia look like Kansas.’”
“Amen to that.”
“The going’s a little easier under the canopied areas where the ground vegetation is thinner. So far, we haven’t had to make many significant detours. I’ve noticed a lot more cleared areas that weren’t here before. Think it’s from illegal logging?”
Nathan peeled the wrapper from an energy bar. “Probably. It makes our slog a little easier in places, but it’s a shame to see.”
“Enforcement of preservation is probably spotty at best. I wouldn’t imagine Nicaragua has a large budget for forest rangers.”
“It definitely doesn’t. Sadly, it’s the honor system out here. I’m no expert on the subject, but I imagine Nicaragua has the same problem as many other parts of the world. People need wood for cooking.”
“That was a beautiful stream we crossed down there with the waterfall into the pool and all the moss-covered rocks. There must be hundreds of places like that in these mountains.”
“No doubt there are.”
“How’re you doing?” Harv asked.
“I’m okay. You?”
“I keep flashing back to carrying you through two miles of this stuff. I don’t think I’d ever been so exhausted.”
“I don’t remember it.”
“You were mostly unconscious and damned close to dying.” Harv grinned. “You told me you loved me… several times.”
“Don’t ever repeat that, or you’ll die slowly… It’s true, though.”
“I know,” Harv said.
“You want to take point for a spell?”
Harv took another bite from his energy bar. “No problem. Alpha is just beyond this next ridgeline. At the top, we’ll take a few minutes to look the area over, but I doubt we’ll see anything.”
“I keep wondering who we’ll find up there.”
“We might find no one.”
“We’re outta here then,” Nathan said. “We aren’t hanging around. We’ll make the best possible speed back to the extraction point.”
“Let’s do another TI and RF sweep.”
Nathan removed the handheld thermal imager from Harv’s pack and placed its rubber flange tight on his face before powering it on. He conducted a slow 360-degree sweep of their immediate area. It wasn’t supereffective in this environment because of all the layered plant life, but it confirmed there weren’t any warm human forms within its reach.
Nathan untied Harv’s ghillie suit coat and draped it over his friend’s head. The thick shaggy garment would block the illumination on Harv’s face from the radio frequency detector’s small LCD screen. Even though the brightness had been adjusted to its lowest setting, it could be easily detected by a night-vision device. Nathan waited for Harv to give him the okay before removing the ghillie top.
“We’re good,” Harv said. “Just to be on the safe side, I’m setting it to vibrate and leaving it on.” Harv tucked the device into his thigh pocket with the LCD screen facing in, toward his thigh. Third generation night-vision scopes were so sensitive, they could pick up invisible light bleeding through fabric. Even with the device facing inward, its bleed light could still be detected but not as brightly. “Okay, I’m on point. Let’s close it up to a ten-yard separation until we reach the ridgeline.”