Ted Bell - Spy

These men were, for the most part, seasoned fighters, battle-hardened veterans, recruited for their experience in modern guerilla warfare. Many had been flown to Key West from Martinique, home of Thunder and Lightning, a mercenary outfit without parallel in modern jungle warfare. To them, this was just another opportunity to beat unbeatable odds and snag a hefty paycheck.

The ante was raised, however, when it suddenly became a hostage rescue operation to boot. And it was no secret to anyone aboard that the hostage needing rescue was the closest man on earth to Alexander Hawke.

Hawke had overheard bickering in the crew’s mess. It wouldn’t do. In an hour’s time, he would gather them all in the wheelhouse. Show them his belief in them and this mission. His optimism. His absolute conviction that they could and would overcome every obstacle and succeed despite any difficulty. They would find Congreve alive and get him out. They would destroy Top. Put an end to his intentions, whatever the hell they were.

Nec aspera terrent, as the lads of the King’s Regiment have it. That’s what he would tell them. Difficulties be Damned.

They’d been slowed by the bloody engine repair; but now they were slowed by the very river itself. Twisting, turning, endless. They’d been steaming nearly fourteen hours on the smaller rivers now, since they’d left the wide Amazon. Many hours on the much smaller Madeira, and now they were headed due south on the comparatively narrow Rio Roosevelt.

Many natives still called it by its original name, the River of Doubt. Now he could see why.

The wilderness had closed in on the crew of Stiletto just as the sea closes over a diver. Hawke and his men felt cut off from all they’d ever known; each man felt as if he were on a journey back to the beginning of time. They had entered a brooding world of plants, water, and, except for the deep rumble of the engines, silence. Everywhere you looked, a riot of vegetation. The big trees were kings of the earth this deep in the jungle. The forest air was thick and sluggish. The only sunshine was directly overhead and little comfort.

He’d forgotten, or erased, his well-stocked stores of bad memories of this hellish place.

All afternoon they’d been butting against shoals, trying to find the channel. Hawke had posted two men on the bow, looking for signs of hidden banks and sunken stones, some sharp, unseen edge that would rip the bottom out of this otherworldly craft and doom what was left of his hopes. To make matters worse, he heard the roll of drums inside the curtain of jungle now. And whether they represented war or peace or prayer he had no idea.

Xucuru scouts, maybe. Announcing his return.

Kill you, kill you.

Hawke tried to tell himself he was only imagining a vengeful aspect to nature here, but he couldn’t do that either. Couldn’t shake the notion that even bloody nature was deliberately conspiring against him. He’d felt this dreamy notion during his captivity. And, the deeper Stiletto traveled into the jungle, the more reality seemed to fade. He pressed his fingertips deeply into his eye sockets and willed himself to stop this foolishness. Only looking into Top’s eyes would end this bloody nightmare. And that moment could not come soon enough.

Suddenly, Captain Girard Brownlow was standing beside him at the stern rail.

“Skipper, sorry to disturb you.”

“Not at all, Brownie.”

“At roughly 0330 we will be approaching a stretch of river where Brock has indicated submerged mines may be protecting the main enemy compound. I’m ordering the crew to deploy the mine probes in half an hour.”

“Good. Take her speed down to fifteen as well, Captain. Mr. Brock has been known to be less than precise.”

“Aye, sir. Anything I can do for you?”

“The PAM system,” Hawke said, his eyes scanning the thick green vegetation, “Death from above. Missiles armed and ready?”

“Aye. Fire Control Officer Lewis confirms both PAM and LAM systems up and functioning normally, Skipper. We are currently mapping and tracking two targets.”

“What targets?”

“Appear to be two small unmanned vehicles, sir. Couple of bots pulling guard duty, I’d say. Mr. Brock’s recon report identifies these vehicles as Ogres. Mobile machine guns on tracks, really. Operating on either bank, parallel course, equidistant from the river, outbound range one mile. Our companions for the last ten minutes, sir, matching our speed and corrections. We did heat signatures on both vehicles. They definitely appear to be unmanned. Scouts, we think.”

“So. The enemy already knows we’re coming.”

“That’s accurate, sir.”

“Tell fire control to monitor the scouts. As long as they’re running parallel courses, leave them alone. They turn toward us, threaten the boat, take them out.”

“Aye, aye, sir. I’ll inform Fire Control Officer Lewis immediately.”

Brownlow saluted smartly, left the stern, and went forward to convey Hawke’s orders to Lewis. Hawke looked at the two ungainly black boxes mounted side-by-side on his stern. State of the art, Harry Brock had told him, missiles in a box. He just hoped the bloody things were all they were cracked up to be. Brock was convinced they’d need them where they were headed. And Brock had procured them.

Harry Brock, Hawke said privately, was a bit of a piss artist.

The two men had worked together a year ago in Oman. Hawke had rescued Harry from a Chinese steamer carrying the CIA officer back to prison in China. Then, to his credit, Brock returned the favor, getting Hawke alive out of the bloody jungle. That made them even, which is the way Hawke liked it. He had never liked the feeling of being beholden to anyone.

But now Hawke would have to rely on Brock’s boots on the ground intel about the enemy’s exact location, defenses, and fortifications. Harry was coming aboard Hawke’s boat for the final leg of the journey. Stiletto would make an unscheduled stop tonight, just after nightfall, at an abandoned river outpost called Tupo. With any luck, Brock would be there as planned.

Hawke had entered uncharted territory. He’d never ventured this far down river during his captivity. Much as he hated to admit it, he needed Harry now. Navigation from this point onward would be exceedingly difficult without someone aboard who knew what physical landmarks to look for on the river. Maps were virtually useless. Because of flash flooding, the beds of rivers changed constantly. The rivers, forks, and tributaries had become indistinguishable. Some rivers were mined and some were not. Harry knew. It was Harry who’d told him about the armed drones and robotic weaponry. Harry who’d sold him the big black boxes on the stern.

PAMs were the fifteen Precision Attack Missiles mounted in a second 4X6X4-foot black container just aft of the wheelhouse. Fire and forget, meaning once a target was acquired, it was dead. Realizing that, in the jungle, there would be many targets the boat’s myriad sensors wouldn’t pick up, Hawke had also ordered this second NetFires missile system installed, the Loitering Attack Missile, or LAM.

These mini-cruise missiles were the same size and weight as a PAM missile. Unlike it, the LAM missile can fly around an assigned area for forty five minutes looking for a target. If none is acquired, the missile simply crashes. If a target is detected by its built-in Laser Radar system, Ladar, and the onboard software recognizes the target vehicle as an enemy one, the missile attacks from above. Its warhead is sufficient to take out all but the largest Main Battle Tanks of any known enemy force.

At that moment, a flying object struck the PAM box, hard, and fell to the deck at Hawke’s feet. Hawke bent to pick it up. It was an arrow. A long one, maybe four feet, which meant the Xucuru warrior who’d fired it was not too deep inside the wall of jungle. Hawke leapt up into the protected Fifty-caliber machine gun turret just in time. The air around the boat was suddenly filled with poison-tipped arrows, a cloud of them, flying from both banks. Most bounced harmlessly off the carbon fiber hull or superstructure and sank. Still, it was unpleasant and there was always a chance someone could get hurt.