But Felix was used to it. He was actually enjoying himself, despite the tension and danger and tingling of fear. The heat and humidity and mosquitoes didn’t bother him — he’d grown up in Miami. Felix always thought of himself as the archetypal happy warrior. Tonight, he couldn’t have been happier. He’d led a clean life. He had a supportive wife and two wonderful infant girls to go home to. Felix’s mind was at peace, which was good. He needed every neuron focused on doing his job right now.
Felix was a master chief in the U.S. Navy SEALs, in the field in hostile territory, on a clandestine operation during war. His lieutenant, a promising kid but young and inexperienced as SEALs go, was in nominal charge of the group — but it was Felix, with his maturity and strong grasp of tradecraft, who worked hard to keep the team undetected, safe and alive and on schedule. Every man among them was Latino, handpicked for their language skills and knowledge of local cultures.
Felix was of Brazilian descent. His parents were born in São Paulo, the country’s biggest city and main business center. They’d been sponsored to the U.S., given green cards that allowed them to take menial factory jobs in southern Florida. When baby Felix arrived, at a Miami hospital, he was automatically a U.S. citizen. Eventually his parents were naturalized too. Felix was pretty good in Spanish, which he spoke with a Cuban-American accent, and he was fluent in the idiomatic Portuguese that was Brazil’s national language.
So his mission was like coming home, visiting the old country. He could blend in well.
Felix wasn’t tall, five-foot-six, but he had a blocky, muscular build. When not on an operation, he liked to comb his jet-black hair straight up, forming half-inch spiked bristles with styling gel. His head was very big — his hat size was a whopping seven and seven-eighths — and his neck was broad and strong. In moments of vanity mixed with self-mockery he liked to think he resembled a bullet atop a tree stump — except with a higher IQ. In bars he’d joke with his buddies that either his brain was large or his skull was too thick, he wasn’t sure which. And when people saw the old, old scar of a knife wound down his cheek, a jagged line from below his left eye socket to his jaw… He smiled to himself at the thought. Nobody in a bar ever messed with Felix.
Again Felix tried to sleep. He listened to the unending sounds of the Amazon rain forest at night. Nocturnal monkeys chattered, high up in the triple canopy formed by the spreading limbs of different species of tropical trees. Some of these trees, Felix knew, were fifteen stories tall or more; their lower trunks could reach a thickness of six or even ten feet. The mosquitoes continued to whine near his ears, but he ignored them. His team had come prepared for such pests. Too overtired to be able to give in to drowsiness and doze off, Felix double-checked by feel that the elastic ends of his sleeves were fastened snug around his flame-retardant jungle warfare gloves. He and the other men swallowed special tablets daily so that the pores of their skin secreted an odorless insect repellent. His one-piece camouflage fatigues were made of layered synthetics to draw away moisture and let it evaporate, to help keep the multitudes of biting or stinging insects at bay, and to double as a diving wet suit when the men had to go in the water. The bottom of the wet suit’s legs were tucked tightly into his boots to keep out scorpions and fire ants, which were also nocturnal; ticks and lice and chiggers stayed active all day. Every morning before breaking camp, Felix made sure each man took medications with the team’s one daily meal to prevent malaria and intestinal worms and suppress any symptoms of dysentery. Before deploying for the mission, they’d had booster vaccinations for a dozen other diseases, from cholera to yellow fever to smallpox, not to mention anthrax and some bad coronaviruses.
In the inky dark, Felix sensed more than heard bats swooping between the trees and through the brush, feeding on the copious insect life. There were many sorts of bats in the Amazon rain forest. There were also poisonous snakes and big ugly spiders… not to mention pumas and jaguars and ocelots, South America’s big cats. The countless river tributaries harbored schools of sharp-toothed piranhas, plus several varieties of mean and hungry alligators and crocodiles.
But the most dangerous life form here in the forest was man. This was why Felix’s team avoided moving by the rivers — which were lines of travel and commerce for the native population — and they avoided moving altogether at night. Horizontal sight lines were short, from all the foliage and tree trunks. A surprise encounter after dark could happen much too suddenly, literally at arm’s length, spelling disaster. Visibility under the all-concealing triple canopy of leaves and vines was bad enough in the perpetual gloom during daytime. It was because of the short sight lines, tactically, that sounds and smells were so important. That was why, for two weeks before their present mission began, Felix and his team had eaten a special diet to make their body odor blend in with their surroundings. That was also why, during the approach to the coast on the nuclear sub USS Ohio, Felix and his men never showered with soap. And that was why, right now, they had to be so quiet. A clicking of metal, the smack of a hand on a wasp or hornet sting, a muffled human cough carried a surprising distance in the rain forest, even above the forest’s natural din.
Finally, that was why the team didn’t bother bringing thermal or night-vision gear. The devices and their batteries added weight, and they tended not to hold up well under rugged use in such wet and dirty climatic conditions. Instead, at night, the men hid and watched for trouble with the naked eye.
Felix suddenly heard parrots squawking somewhere in the distance. He immediately grew more alert. He was supposed to be off watch now, but as the team’s master chief, he was never truly off watch. He’d be lucky to get by on brief catnaps throughout this whole covert reconnaissance patrol. A split second after Felix zoned in on the noise of the parrots, he felt it through his feet as other members of his team grew tense. Two of them, the most experienced enlisted men, continued to sleep. Their unconscious combat minds knew their on-watch teammates would wake them in case of real danger; in the meantime, they were fully determined to get all the shut-eye they could.
The parrot squawking continued, and now howler monkeys hooted and screeched. Felix heard the pounding of hooves as other creatures hurried along through the forest floor’s thick red muck. Sheep-sized rodents, the capybara? Miniature deer? Local types of wild boar? Felix couldn’t be sure in the dark. He noticed other, quieter stirrings high above him, probably three-toed sloths, moving grudgingly in their lazy way.
The man to his right tapped Felix on the wrist, in code. He was relaying a message from the lieutenant, who was lying in the circle facing directly away from Felix, in the opposite direction from the forest disturbance. The LT wanted an assessment from Felix immediately. Someone might be approaching, and no one the team might meet here was friendly.
Felix tapped the man in a signal meaning “Wait.” The men would relay this around the circle one by one, back to the lieutenant — a silent jungle telegraph.
Felix shifted his body slowly and smoothly, like a sniper. Actually, Felix had begun life in the navy as a hospital corpsman on a cruiser, before being seasoned enough to put in for the SEALs. But he had become a very good shot during firearms training, and he’d thoroughly learned what it took to be a skilled sniper or spotter observer.
Felix was careful not to brush against the leaves of the bushes right overhead. He was cautious as he moved slightly, so his arms or legs wouldn’t give off a sucking sound from the mud. Gingerly, he shifted his weapon and then brought his hands toward his head, trying to avoid getting snagged on the thorns and needlelike leaf ends abounding in this underbrush. Because it would leave lasting signs that they’d been here, the team dared not do any pruning with the one machete they shared.