‘Hot as hell. Just a little camp surrounded by jungle. There’s one Huey here, but it’s gone US. Spare parts are supposed to be on the way. What news your end?’
‘The SEALs are deploying. They’re going in tonight to stick a tracking device on the Santa Maria. Then it doesn’t matter where she sails — we can go get her to coincide with your operation.’
‘Great!’
‘Your Boat Troop guys are on their way, too. I don’t know how he hacked it, but the CO’s got an RAF TriStar held back, and they’re flying direct to Belize tonight. One hop only. They’ll be there at 0100 local time.’ He paused, then said, ‘Hey — I got you some pretty good detail from the satellite station. You have a pencil and paper?’
‘Wait one.’ I brought out the little notebook I always carry in the breast-pocket of my shirt, with a miniature pencil down the spine. ‘OK. Fire away.’
‘The new lab complex is near that big bend of the river, like we said. But it’s four ks north of the Caquetá. The airstrip’s confirmed along the bank of the tributary, and some kind of jetty’s been built there, on the west bank. The buildings are grouped round a small compound one k west of the airstrip. There’s a road of sorts connecting the two, probably earth. It snakes around through the trees.’
As he talked, I was drawing a sketch. ‘D’you have the layout of the building?’
‘Sure. There’s two rectangular structures that look finished, each about fifty metres long. They’re set out in a line, running east-west. The third building, across the end of the compound, is still under construction.’
‘Tony,’ I said, ‘I’ve been thinking the best way to make a covert approach would be to come down the tributary at night in a rubber dinghy, then slide in for a CTR. What about that?’
‘Sounds good. I confirm. Chopper out of your present location on zero-eight-seven, dead straight for sixty ks. Then you hit the Cuemani, coming down from your left across your front. The alignment of the tributary’s very nearly north-south. It’s coming from three-five-zero and heading to one-seven-zero. Famous last words, but you really can’t miss it. OK, Geordie? But for Pete’s sake don’t try swimming. Those rivers are full of crocs.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’m calling this Operation Crocodile. Op Croc. Listen, the lieutenant here doesn’t speak much English. Could you run through the plan with him? Thanks.’
I handed the receiver over. Suddenly I began to feel rather good. We were within spitting distance of some action. Things were about to become interesting.
The lieutenant listened to Tony for a while, asked a few questions, and said, ‘Si,’ a great many times. When he seemed to have finished, I beckoned for him to hand the receiver back. ‘Tony,’ I said, ‘tell him for Christ’s sake to get the Huey airworthy. I don’t know what’s wrong with it — I think it’s a gearbox problem. He’s supposed to be flying parts in, but I’m not too sure.’
The guys were humping the stores out of the Herc and loading them on to a trailer pulled by a Willys jeep, vintage about 1942. ‘As you value your bollocks,’ I told them, ‘no swimming in the river. It’s heaving with crocodiles.’ I turned to the beshaded lieutenant and made extravagant jaw-snapping motions with my arms. ‘¡Si, si!’ he confirmed. ‘¡Cocodrilos — muchísimos!’
‘Fucking great!’ said Murdo. ‘That’s all we want. If the Amazon’s the arsehole of the world, I reckon we’re about 5,000 ks up it.’
Murdo had a point. The facilities the Colombians offered us were as crappy as could be. They themselves looked to be fairly well set up in the better of the two barrack-blocks, with a generator, mozzie screens and fridges — and I didn’t grudge them whatever comforts they’d been able to devise. If you had to spend any length of time in that hell-hole, you’d need everything you could get to stay sane. The block they gave us was another matter: no electricity, bare concrete rooms without doors, the iron bedsteads all rusted, no water in the showers, the bog an open hole in the floor.
When we unpacked the stores, things looked up a bit, because the General had done us welclass="underline" there were four dinghy packs, two outboards, hammocks, mozzie nets, waterbottles, machetes and twenty sets of jungle DPMs. Once we’d sorted them out, everyone got a size that more or less fitted him, with another set in reserve. There were also four big boxes of MREs — US forces’ standard-issue Meals Ready to Eat, or, as they’d been known in the Gulf, Meals Rejected by Ethiopians. In fact they were pretty good, especially the things like corned-beef hash and chilli con carne. The guys soon got brews going with their hexi cookers, and after some sort of a meal, spirits picked up.
In the usual way, we planned our tactics at an O-group that took the form of a Chinese parliament, with everyone sitting round in a circle on the ground. Obviously we weren’t going anywhere that night, but there was no harm in having a plan ready. The sun was already sinking towards the jungle in a thick haze, and the temperature was dropping slightly. Even so, we were all still sweating like pigs.
Even if the Huey became airworthy, its maximum load, besides the pilot and navigator, would be three guys plus kit, one dinghy kit plus engine, and skeleton equipment and stores.
I offered to stay back, but everyone agreed I should lead from the front. That made me one of the three to fly. The second had to be Sparky Springer, as he was our radio specialist. For the third, I nominated Murdo McFarlane. Provided he left his blasted pipes behind, he’d be as good as anyone in the jungle.
The next wave — which would follow us in the next evening by the same route, provided the Huey was serviceable — would consist of Johnny Ellis, Stew McQuarrie and Mel Scott.
THIRTEEN
Author’s Note
Because I was in the jungle at the time, I could not witness the SEALs’ approach to the Santa Maria de la Mar, or the Boat Troop’s assault on the island of Desierto. I have therefore built my account of the actions on the reports of men who took part. All were well known either to Tony Lopez or to me, and I am satisfied that the account is substantially accurate.
The SEAL team landed at a military airfield outside the old colonial town and port of Cartagena. The unmarked Herc which brought them from Florida touched down at 1600 local time, leaving them enough daylight for a quick scout round the port. As Tony later emphasized, they would normally have carried out a much more thorough reconnaissance, watching their target for several days to establish the routine on board and looking for weak spots; but this was a. fastball, and left no time for niceties.
DAS had laid on two nondescript vans to transport the team and their gear. They also provided a local liaison officer to brief Master Sergeant Al Layton, the team leader. The Colombian informed him that the ship was lying in berth No. 7 on No. 1 Pier, the western of the two main arms at the Terminal Maritimo on Manga Island, at the north side of the bay. The dock gates were guarded by regular police, and there was no chance of gaining access through them, but the ship could be seen from the south side of the bay. Al therefore had the team driven to an observation point on the southern shore.
Casual clothes did much to disguise the physiques of the eight team members. Al was twenty-six, and although of only medium height he was extremely powerful, with particular strength in his upper body. His colleagues were all much the same, built up by years of swimming, running and work in the gym. Had they all stripped off on the beach they would have started a riot.
The vans parked on the south-east side of the bay, on a stretch of the shore that nobody had yet got around to developing. Other vehicles were already scattered along it, so that the new arrivals attracted no attention, and Al’s guys were able to carry out covert observation without hindrance. The Old Town, out on the point beyond the harbour, did not interest them. Nor did the new, high-rise blocks in the smart suburb of Bocagrande, away to their left. They wasted no time looking at the tourist boats drifting in and out of the harbour as they plied to the coral reefs offshore. Their attention was focused exclusively on the Santa Maria.