‘Yes, yes.’
‘Keep away from the door. After I’ve knocked, keep on the front wall, at the far end from the door. OK?’
‘All right.’
‘Hang in there, then.’
Back on the mound, we speculated furiously about what had happened to the woman. As far as we could see, there was no other room in which she could be held. Could she have been flown out to some other narco hideaway?
There was no way we could do any more recces. The chances of being compromised were too high. The operation had to go down.
I assigned everyone a role. Whilst Murdo would hit the ether, I would see to the door-charge, and escort the hostages when they came out. Sparky would help me with them; obviously they’d be disorientated and need close supervision. Johnny would be away down the approach road with the chain-saw. The moment the ether went up, he’d start cutting, with the aim of dropping a good-sized tree. Once he had a barrier in position, he’d jettison the saw. Stew and Mel would give covering fire from the top of the rampart for as long as they could, or as long as seemed necessary. As soon as the whole party was on the move, we’d pepperpot our way back to the boats.
‘Easy peasy,’ said Stew.
SEVENTEEN
We’d synchronized our watches down to the last second. I stood back round the end of the accommodation block. My watch read 0259. One minute till things went noisy. The night had been long. Those of us not on stag had tried to get our heads down for a couple of hours, but sleep had been elusive. The locals had held some form of piss-up round the cookhouse fire, and there’d been a good deal of drunken shouting. We’d seen the three players go into their room at 11.30. At least we knew where they were; but we weren’t so certain about the guards. We reckoned that some of them were living in the far end of the accommodation block, but a few must have been sleeping somewhere else. I kept thinking about Farrell and I kept thinking about Luisa.
At midnight Sparky had sent his last sitrep back to our forward mounting base at Puerto Pizarro, confirming that our operation would go down at 0300, and that after it we’d make our way out to the airstrip, then upriver to the LZ.
0259 and everyone in position. Murdo was up at the ether store with a one-pound charge of PE, already made up with a detonator pushed into it, and a thirtymetre length of black Don Ten wire for cracking it off from a distance. I’d already crept along the front of the building and placed a tiny charge no bigger than my little fingernail on the padlock of the DA’s door. I’d also given a couple of gentle warning taps.
Now I held the clacker in my left hand, MP 5 in my right. Sparky was with me, to give covering fire and help propel the hostages in the right direction. Johnny was away down the road to a tree that he’d selected in a midnight recce, and the other two were on the rampart, ready to put rounds down if the defenders started to come forward. They’d done useful work up there, clearing out a second position about ten metres along from our OP, so that they could open the firing from there, and then move along if anyone started to shoot back.
Another storm was brewing. Big bangs of thunder were rolling gradually closer, and the darkness was intense. The usual two bulbs were burning in the lab area, and in their glow I saw Murdo slinking up the side of the building. He was moving carefully, with his MP 5 slung over his back and the made-up charge in his hand.
Then I caught my breath. In a sudden flurry of movement a figure rushed out at Murdo from the right. Murdo obviously had his mind on planting the explosive, and was taken by surprise. But the assailant had picked the wrong man; before he could even grapple, Murdo had let go his charge and dropped the attacker with a kick in the groin. Next second he was on top of him, arms round his neck. The man didn’t even have time to scream. One of those big, tattooed hands had clamped over his mouth, and with a violent jerk his neck was broken. The whole incident was over so quickly that our timing remained as planned.
I saw Murdo pick up the charge, go forward, place it and move back out of sight. Fifteen seconds to go. If we’d been properly kitted up, with covert comms, I’d have been giving a countdown into the guys’ earpieces. In the absence of radios, I was counting to myself. ‘Seven, six, five, four.’ I closed my eyes. ‘Stand by… stand by… GO!’
BOOM!
I’d been expecting a good bang, but this was mega. It was nuclear. The whole compound twitched and juddered under the shockwave. As I opened my eyes again, a fireball fifty feet wide exploded into the air and continued up in a searing pillar of fire. Suddenly the jungle all round was lit by a ruddy glare. Pieces of debris rained down all over the place.
My heart was pounding, but I forced myself to wait — wait for doors to open, wait for the locals to run away from me towards the fire. There they went: the guards first, then the PIRA. Three guys out of the PIRA room in a flurry of movement. In the dark it was hard to see if they were carrying weapons; they were just ragged silhouettes against the leaping flames.
One more shout wouldn’t matter now. ‘Block your ears!’ I yelled. Then I closed the clacker. Boof! went the lock charge. I ran forwards. The door was swinging outwards. I leapt into the room and found the DA standing dazed right inside.
‘Come on!’ I yelled. I knew he’d be deafened and disorientated, so I grabbed hold of his arm and started dragging him.
‘RUN!’ I roared. ‘RUN! RUN! COME ON!’
In the glare of the fire at the far end of the compound, men were racing all ways. One started to run in our direction, but a burst ripped out from the top of the rampart, stopping him in his tracks and swivelling him round. As he went down, he tried to bring his Uzi to bear, but another short burst nailed him to the floor of the compound, and he lay still.
I could see the DA was in deep shock. He tripped over the door and half-fell — he felt like a sack of suet. I grabbed him tighter and held him up. ‘Listen!’ I screamed. ‘WHERE’S LUISA?’
All he did was shake his head. We had to go. The flames had built up to such an intensity that steam was hissing out of the leaves of the nearest trees, and some of them were catching fire. More rounds rattled off the rampart. Then came another explosion and another. First I thought that isolated drums of ether were going up. Then I realized that either Stew or Mel, or both, were putting 203 grenades into the transport.
In a few seconds we were on the road and under the trees. Sparky was at our heels, turning to put down the odd burst from his MP 5. Murdo appeared from behind the accommodation block, running fast.
‘I found her!’ he yelled. ‘She’s dead. Go for it!’
He started to run with us. The other two were still on the rampart. Ahead of us I heard the chain-saw screaming, then a crash as Johnny dropped his tree.
Light from the fire penetrated only a short way down the road; further under the trees the night was intensely black. Now we’d have to be bloody careful not to score own-goals by shooting each other.
‘You OK?’ I shouted to the DA. He was still so shattered he didn’t answer. From the smell I knew he’d shat himself.
‘We haven’t far to go,’ I told him. ‘Only to the airstrip.’
We came to Johnny’s barrier. He’d seen us approaching, silhouetted against the fire. ‘This end,’ he called softly. ‘It’s easier here.’
Our own covering fire had died down. Looking back, we saw Stew and Mel running like hares to join us. I rapped out a warning so that they didn’t go arse-over-tit into the felled tree. Just as they reached us, rounds began to crack past and smash their way into the jungle farther down the road. Our guys hit the deck, but the DA just stood there.