Bear Grylls - Ghost Flight

And neither was Hiro Kamishi. Jaeger reckoned there was a lot he could share with the quiet Japanese – a man steeped in the mystic warrior creed of the East; of Bushido. But he needed to get to know Kamishi first. Both he and Alonzo were diehard elite forces types, and it took a while for such guys to drop their defences and open up.

In fact, the very same criticism could be levelled at Jaeger himself. After three years in Bioko, he was acutely aware of how comfortable he had become with his own company. He wasn’t quite the archetypal loner – the trust-no-one ex-military type – but he had become adept at surviving alone. He’d grown used to his own company, and at times it was just easier that way.

For a moment Jaeger wondered how Irina Narov would have borne up. In time, would she have proven someone he could talk to? A soulmate? He just didn’t know. Either way he’d lost her, and long before he’d been able to figure her out – if that would ever have been possible.

In her absence, the camera was an odd kind of a confidante. It came with another major downside: it had Dale attached, which meant it was hardly very trustworthy. But right now it was about all Jaeger had.

The previous evening, camped by the riverside, he’d filmed a second interview with Dale. Over the process of doing so, he’d found himself gradually warming to the man. Dale had a remarkable way of drawing out moments of real honesty from his interviewees with calmness and dignity.

His was a rare gift, and Jaeger for one was developing a grudging respect for him.

After the interview, it was Stefan Kral who’d lingered for a private chat. While he packed away the camera gear he’d proceeded to offer a mini confession about the forbidden filming episode back at the sandbar.

‘I hope you don’t think I’m telling tales, but I figured you needed to know,’ he had begun, that odd lopsided smile twisting his features. ‘That secret filming – it was Dale’s idea. He primed me with the questions, while he kept an eye on the camera.’

He had glanced at Jaeger uneasily. ‘I said it would never work. That you’d get wise to us. But Dale wouldn’t listen. He’s the big director and I’m only a lowly assistant producer, as he sees it – so he gets to call the shots.’ Kral’s words were thick with resentment. ‘I’m years his senior, I’ve done many more jungle shoots, but somehow I’m the one under orders. And to be honest, I wouldn’t put it past him to try the same trick again. Just flagging this up for you.’

‘Thanks,’ Jaeger told him. ‘I’ll be on the lookout.’

‘I’ve got three kids, and you know their favourite movie?’ Kral had continued, that crooked half-smile spreading further across his face. ‘It’s Shrek . And you know something else? Dale – he’s Prince bloody Charming. And he uses it. The world of TV media is full of women – producers, executives, directors – and he’s got them wrapped around his little finger.’

During his time in the military, Jaeger had acquired a reputation for nurturing zeros into heroes, which maybe went some way to explaining why he had a natural affinity for the underdog – and Kral was definitely the underdog in the expedition’s film crew.

But at the same time he could well appreciate why Carson had put Dale in charge. In the military you often had younger officers commanding those with far more experience, simply because they had what it took to lead. And if he were Carson, he would have done the same thing.

Jaeger had done his best to reassure Kral. He’d told him that if ever he had serious concerns, he could bring them to him. But when all was said and done, it was up to the two of them to get it sorted. It was vital they did so.

That kind of tension – that seething resentment – it could tear an expedition apart.

Beneath the prow of Jaeger’s kayak the white and the black river waters were mixing into dirty grey now, the roar of the Devil’s Falls growing into an ominous, deafening thunder. It drew Jaeger’s mind back to the relentless priorities of the present.

They needed to make landfall, and quickly.

Ahead and to his right he spotted a stretch of muddy riverbank, half hidden beneath overhanging branches.

He gave a hand signal and turned the prow of his kayak towards it, the other canoes swinging into line behind. As he thrust ahead with his paddle, he spotted a flash of movement beneath the canopy – no doubt some animal or other flitting along the shoreline. He studied the darkness beneath the trees, waiting to see if it might show itself.

The next moment a figure stepped out of the jungle.

A human figure.

Barefoot, naked except for a belt of woven bark strung around his waist, he stood in plain sight staring in Jaeger’s direction.

A five-hundred-yard stretch of water separated Jaeger from the warrior of this hitherto uncontacted Amazonian Indian tribe.

Jaeger was in no doubt that the jungle warrior had chosen to show himself. The question was why. The Indian had melted out of the shadows, and doubtless he could have remained hidden had he so desired.

He held a gracefully arched bow and arrow in one hand. Jaeger was familiar with such weapons. Each of the long arrows was tipped with a twelve-inch length of flat bamboo honed to razor sharpness, and with vicious serrated edges.

One side of the bamboo arrowhead would be coated in the poison of the tiki uba tree, an anticoagulant, and the rear end would be hafted with a parrot’s tail feathers, to ensure that it flew true. If you were pierced by the arrow tip, the anticoagulant would prevent your blood from clotting and you’d bleed to death.

The range of an Indian blowpipe was little more than a hundred feet – enough to reach the forest canopy. By contrast, the bow and arrow could fire four or five times that distance. It was these kind of weapons that the tribe would use when hunting large prey: caiman maybe, jaguar certainly, and without doubt any human adversaries who trespassed on their lands.

Jaeger used the flat of his paddle to beat out an alarm signal on the water – alerting those behind him, in case they hadn’t noticed.

He lifted the paddle out of the river and laid it lengthwise on the kayak, resting his right hand on his shotgun. He drifted forward for several seconds, silently eyeing the Amazonian Indian, who in turn was staring right back at him.

The figure gave a signal: a single hand gesture, made to one side and then the other. Further figures stepped out to left and right, similarly dressed and armed.

Jaeger counted a dozen now, and more were very likely secreted in the shadows to their rear. As if to confirm his suspicions, the lead warrior – for leader he had to be – made a second hand gesture, as if cueing something.

A cry rang out across the river.

Animal, guttural, deep-throated, it rapidly grew into a chanted war cry, one that rolled across the water in challenge. It was punctuated by a series of incredibly powerful percussions, as if a massive drum were beating out a rhythm through the jungle: kabooom-booom-booom, kabooom-booom-booom!

The deep beats echoed across the water, and Jaeger recognised them for what they were. He’d heard something similar when working with Colonel Evandro’s B-SOB teams. Somewhere just inside the treeline the Indians were beating their heavy battle clubs against a massive buttress root, the blows ringing out from the wall of wood like thunder.

Jaeger watched as the Indian leader lifted his bow and brandished it in his direction. The war cries rose in volume, the beating of the buttress-root drums punctuating every shake of the weapon. The gesture – the entire effect – needed no translating.

Come no further.