Chase examined his own map. ‘If we come in from this big hill to the north-west, that gives us higher ground and a better vantage point.’
‘If that is where they are at all,’ Castille pointed out.
Sullivan surveyed the location. ‘If they’ve got prisoners, they’ll have to secure them somewhere, so they can’t just bivvy down and be ready to move at a moment’s notice. They’ll need space for an actual camp.’ His eyes flicked over other possibilities. ‘That’s as good a place as any. If they’re not there, then we just continue the search — but it’s our most likely target.’
Hoyt hefted his AK-47. ‘Good. Then let’s go in there and get ’em.’
‘Minimum force,’ Sullivan reminded him sternly. ‘I want this to be easy in, easy out if we can manage it.’
‘You’re the boss,’ said the American mildly, though he kept his gun raised.
Chase took a compass bearing. ‘That way,’ he said, pointing south-east. ‘About a mile. It’ll be dark by the time we get there, though.’
Castille peered unhappily up at the swaying trees. ‘The storm will have reached us, too.’
‘All the more reason to stop talking and start walking,’ said Sullivan. ‘Okay, let’s move.’
The rain began soon after.
Even beneath the tree cover, it was a deluge. The rising winds tore through the canopy, exposing the ground beneath to the torrential fall. Soil turned to mud, the thick, cloying sludge clinging to the team’s boots with every step. The last daylight had faded too, turning the jungle almost pitch black. Even though their eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, the mercenaries were forced to slow even further, each footfall perilous on the uneven ground.
Crossing a slope, Chase almost stumbled where a rivulet of running water had loosened the topsoil. He held in an obscenity, mindful of the need for stealth. ‘Are you okay?’ Castille whispered from behind him, holding up one hand to warn the others to stop.
‘Yeah,’ Chase replied. ‘Watch your step, there’s a lot of water coming down the hill.’
‘If it gets much worse, there could be a mudslide,’ Sullivan warned. ‘Everyone stay close to those large rocks down there.’ He pointed at a line of rain-slicked shapes below their current path.
Chase was about to move again when he caught a flicker of movement in the distance. He raised his hand, this gesture signalling potential danger. The other men immediately crouched, drawing their weapons. ‘What is it?’ hissed Castille.
‘Saw something.’ The Englishman shielded his eyes from the rain, watching the site of the movement intently. He spotted nothing but the vague shapes of trees swaying in the darkness for several seconds… then it reappeared.
A light. Faint, but in the black of the jungle it stood out like a beacon. It bobbed between the trees, then vanished again, obscured by the trunks.
Chase didn’t need to see any more. The only person who would be strolling through the jungle at night with a typhoon bearing down on them was a sentry. ‘It’s a torch,’ he whispered as Sullivan moved up to join him. ‘We’ve found them.’
The news sent a crackle of electricity through the group. They had been alert before; now they were fully focused, ready for action. Hoyt spat out his damp cigarette and crushed it under his boot. ‘Okay,’ said Sullivan at another glimpse of torchlight, ‘he’s about two hundred metres away. We’ll stay on this level and move in to one hundred for a better look. We don’t get any closer until we’ve got an idea of how many there are — and where they are. Spread out to five-metre spacing. Eddie, lead on.’
Chase slung his rifle over his shoulder and crouched, almost on all fours as he began his cautious advance. Castille waited until a gap had opened up between them, then followed. The other men picked up the trail one by one after him, Hoyt at the rear.
By the time Chase had covered roughly half the hundred metres, he had already spotted further signs of life. The torch definitely belonged to a sentry, trudging back and forth along a curving path. There was at least one other sentry farther away, forming a perimeter. Within the circle, more lights were revealed as he got closer. Diffuse glows gradually took on the form of several tents with lamps inside, and a lantern hung at the entrance to another shelter.
He stopped a hundred metres from the camp. Beyond the tents was some sort of building, a boxy cabin. Reflected light picked out the rain running in sheets down its slab-like sides. A faint glowing rectangle marked a window in one wall. It didn’t seem to be a bunker left over from the war; it looked more like a caravan or shipping container.
He had more immediate concerns than the mystery structure, however. The two sentries were still slogging around the perimeter, and as he watched, a man emerged from one of the smaller tents and scurried across the camp to enter the largest of the shelters. The guards were not the only bandits still awake.
The other mercenaries reached him. Chase gave them a brief summary of his observations. ‘No idea what that cabin is, mind,’ he concluded.
Sullivan took out a pair of binoculars and scanned the camp. ‘Can’t see a damn thing in all this rain,’ he muttered. ‘The small tents, I’d say you could get three, maybe four men in each of them at a squeeze. The big one… ten, or more.’
‘So we’re looking at, what, up to thirty guys?’ said Lomax unhappily.
The New Zealander shook his head. ‘I doubt it. The hostages are probably being held in the big tent — it’d be a lot easier to keep them all together in one place. So that’s eight people accounted for already.’
‘Still twenty-two against six. I don’t like those odds.’
‘We’ve got surprise on our side,’ Hoyt pointed out. ‘We could take most of ’em out before they even knew we were here. If we had to,’ he added, as Sullivan frowned at him.
‘If the aid workers are in the big tent, I think we can get to ’em without being seen.’ Chase pointed at a patch of darkness between the shelters and the path the first sentry was following. ‘If we timed it right, we could hide in the bushes and get across the perimeter when that guy’s heading away from us, then sneak right up behind the tents.’
‘Has he followed the same route every time?’ Castille asked.
‘Since I’ve been watching him, yeah. He’s probably made a path and doesn’t want to move off it in the dark.’
Rios bit his lip. ‘We need to be sure where the hostages are. If we go in, and they are not where we think…’
‘I know,’ said Sullivan. ‘We need a better idea of how many other guys we’re dealing with, too. Somebody’ll have to take a closer look.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Hoyt at once.
Sullivan regarded him with an unreadable expression, then shook his head. ‘Eddie, Mac told me you’ve got recent experience in jungle infiltration and hostage extraction work. Correct?’
‘If two years ago counts as recent, then yeah,’ Chase replied.
‘Think you can get in closer without being seen?’
He gave the encampment another look, judging distances, paths of approach and exit, the movements of the sentries… ‘Yeah. I can do it.’
‘Good man,’ said Sullivan. ‘Hugo, you’re with me — we’ll move down to those rocks there and cover him. The rest of you, stay here and keep watch.’
Lomax, Rios and Hoyt all nodded, then spread out to positions where they could observe what was happening below — and maintain a clear line of fire. The other three men moved carefully down the slope to the rocks. Castille and Sullivan stopped, watching the tents, as Chase prepared to advance. ‘Good luck,’ Sullivan whispered.