Gaz whistled. *A whole load of trouble," he said.
*You got it," agreed Mitch. *Problem was Danvers didn"t just threaten. He took us into this tribal area and told the head man that if they didn"t tell us what he wanted to know he"d kill his children. And, to show he meant what he said, he took his gun , aimed it at the head of this fourteen-year-old boy, a nephew of the head man, and pulled the trigger. Bang! One dead kid."
*He was cracked," said Two Moons.
*Yup, mad in the head," agreed Mitch. *Once he"d done that, there was only one thing to do if we were going to get out of there alive. I put my gun to Danvers" head and shot him there and then. Eye for an eye. That"s the way the tribes there see it. As soon as Danvers had pulled the trigger on that kid, any hope of us getting any intel had gone, then or ever after."
*I can see why you did what you did," said Two Moons. *Killing Danvers in front of them was the only way to save the situation."
*And get out of there alive," agreed Gaz. *I"ve been with those tribes. I know what they"re like."
Mitch gestured towards the front of the plane, where Nelson, Tug and Benny were engaged in whispered conversation. *Trouble is, the bra.s.s don"t see it that way. I shot an officer. Makes me dangerous."
Two Moons shook his head. *Not here, Mitch," he said. *You had no other choice. No one holds it against you in this outfit."
Mitch shrugged. *Maybe, maybe not," he said.
Two Moons leant across Mitch and nudged Gaz. *So, mate," he said. *That"s me and Mitch here both with a murky secret. You got any you want to share?"
*Oh, I"ve got plenty of secrets, mate," said Gaz, grinning, *but none that I want to tell the likes of you!"
Mitch and Two Moons laughed. Mitch realised that was the first time in a long while he"d been able to laugh properly. Since he"d shot Captain Danvers, in fact. With a bit of luck, being with these guys could be fun, as well as hard work.
Mitch looked out the window as the plane droned.
*The colonel says you know Nigeria," said Two Moons after a pause.
Mitch smiled. *No one knows Nigeria," he said, chuckling. *People who say they do are lying. I"ve done two tours of duty there and it"s still a mystery to me."
*Who runs the country?" asked Two Moons.
*That"s the big question," said Mitch. *It depends who"s in power, and that can change. Basically the place is about civil war, with uneasy political truces now and then to keep some sort of government, and lots of corruption. And, out in the bush, no one runs it."
*Big corruption?" asked Gaz, interested.
Mitch nodded. *When one ruler died in suspicious circ.u.mstances they found he had several hundred million dollars stashed in different bank accounts."
Gaz whistled appreciatively. *Several hundred million," he said. *I wouldn"t mind laying my hands on a slice of that!"
The plane flew on, hitting a bit of turbulence as it crossed the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, and then settling down for the rest of the journey to Lagos.
Things continued to move fast when they arrived at the Nigerian city. Within fifteen minutes of landing they were strapped into their seats in the bay of a Bell UH-1 helicopter and heading east. Inside the helicopter there was no chance for chatting. The sound of the giant rotors above them made sure of that.
Mitch looked out through the open bay doors of the chopper as it flew over the Delta. As he watched the dense jungle unfold beneath him, he thought about their mission. It wasn"t just a case of finding Mw.a.n.ga. Their biggest problem would be recognising the good guys from the bad guys when they came across them.
When the chopper neared their final landing site Mitch could feel every nerve in his body alert. They were going into trouble. The one question was: how soon would they find it? On a training mission there were always ground rules. You generally knew that, unless you made a stupid mistake, you would come out of it alive. On a real mission the threat of dying was ever-present.
The jungle through the open hatch of the chopper looked like it was getting thicker. Rainforest made for tough terrain. Beneath the thick canopy of green leaves, trees sprang up like weeds from the wet and dark forest floor, the ground uneven and filled with roots twisting like contorted snakes, bursting up out of the soil. One moment you could be on solid ground, the next up to your waist in swamp, with leeches crawling all over you, getting inside your clothes, biting into your skin and sucking your blood.
Then there were the mosquitoes, also looking for blood, and giving you malaria in exchange. Mitch knew disease was the biggest killer in the jungle.
It was a dangerous place, but western companies still came here for one simple reason: oil. Some two million barrels a day were extracted in the Niger Delta. For that kind of money, oil companies were willing to take a risk. Or, at least, they were willing to allow their employees to take a risk. They did as much as they could for their workers. They paid for protection, they spent money locally, they bribed. But not everyone was happy. Some locals were angry that the profits from the oil were going out of the country, instead of helping to solve local problems. Some were furious about the environmental destruction to the Delta.
These were the problems that Mw.a.n.ga felt he could solve. Colonel Nelson and his superiors obviously believed that Mw.a.n.ga could solve them too, or they wouldn"t be here.
The noise of the rotors whirling overhead filled the chopper bay. Mitch looked around at his comrades. Like him they were kitted out in combat gear with all the gizmos: night-vision goggles, hi-tech headset communication, laser sights on their rifles. And then, of course, their major weapon, the SA80 a.s.sault rifle each man held cradled in his arms, ready for use as soon as they hit the ground. The SA80 was perfect as a close-combat weapon: light to carry but powerful and very effective.
In addition, Two Moons was the unit"s ordnance and explosives expert and had a range of more powerful weapons and explosives in his kit, including a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and mortars.
Mitch suddenly felt the helicopter bank sharply, and then turn. They were going down. Nelson"s voice came through his headphones.
*Here we go, guys!"
The helicopter touched down in a small clearing in the jungle. It took just seconds for the six men to jump down from the open bay doors and head for the trees, where they took cover. The helicopter soared back up into the sky, and roared away, the beat of its rotors drumming against the air. Then it was gone, back towards the refineries and the oil pipelines of the Niger Delta. It was still in view when the firing opened up: bullets from machine guns and rifles pouring into their position. They were under attack.
5.
It was the trees that saved them.
The six men threw themselves to the ground, taking what cover they could behind tree roots and gulleys in the uneven jungle floor. The trees around them took most of the damage, wood splinters and chunks of bark flying off as bullets smashed into them.
*It"s an ambush! We"ve been sold out!" came Nelson"s angry voice through their headsets.
The six men already had their own guns pointed in the direction of enemy gunfire, which was wild and haphazard, suggesting they weren"t being attacked by trained soldiers. But bullets killed, no matter who was shooting.
Lying in a dip in the ground, behind a tree root, Mitch scanned the area where most of the firing seemed to be coming from, on the other side of the clearing. It had been sheer good luck that the unit had run for the trees at this side. If they"d gone the other way, they"d have walked straight into the ambush.
How many of them? It was hard to tell.
*I"ve got a fix on the source of most of the machine guns," came Two Moons" voice. *I"m going to stick an RPG in the middle of them, see what shakes the tree."
Two Moons already had the launcher ready, with the rocket-propelled grenade in place, poking out of the barrel. He levelled the rocket launcher and fired. It wasn"t an easy shot, with trees and foliage on the other side of the clearing blocking the way, but Two Moons was an expert. There was an explosion from within the trees, a huge flash of fire, followed by screams.
*Hit *em!" yelled Nelson.
While Two Moons reloaded the rocket launcher, the other five soldiers poured tracers of bullets into the smoke where the RPG had struck. As men stumbled out of the jungle into the clearing, some with their clothes on fire or smouldering, the bullets cut them down.
More bullets. .h.i.t the unit"s position from other parts of the jungle.
*They"re trying to come from the sides!" came Tug"s voice. *Troopers!"
Immediately Mitch switched a solid stream of gunfire to his left, while Gaz opened up to the unit"s right. Benny continued laying down fire across the clearing into the trees opposite. Mitch could tell their shooting was having an effect by the fact that the firing from across the clearing had lessened.
*OK, let"s take it to them!" Nelson said. *Round the sides of the clearing. Mitch, you"re with me. Gaz, you"re with Tug. Benny and Two Moons, keep hitting them from here!"
Mitch followed Nelson as they began to work their way through the trees, heading towards the area at the left of the clearing. They crawled forward at speed, on hands and elbows, over tree roots and through gulleys, through shallow, swampy, stagnant mud that squelched and oozed and sucked at them. Tug and Gaz were doing the same on the other side. Meanwhile Benny kept up a steady stream of gunfire directly across the clearing, while Two Moons launched another two RPGs. More explosions, more screams, more smoke. It would create a diversion and give the four soldiers cover as they launched their counter-attack.
All Mitch"s senses were alert as he scanned the shadowy trees ahead. Like Nelson, he kept low, his head popping up to check the area, each time in a different place and at a different angle, before ducking down again. Never give a marksman time to line your position up for a shot.
Suddenly Mitch saw them! Six men, moving forward, crouching, armed with machine guns and rifles. Nelson had seen them too. He nodded at Mitch, and both soldiers jumped up, fingers on their triggers, their streams of bullets tearing between the trees at their targets. Five of the six men crumpled to the ground. The sixth man swung his gun to aim at Nelson, but Mitch took him out with one burst.
There was the sound of rapid fire from their right, and then it fell silent. Benny and Two Moons had also stopped firing.
Mitch and Nelson waited, crouching behind the cover of the jungle trees, guns at the ready.
*OK," said Nelson. *Move forward, but keep under cover the whole way. Let"s see what we"ve got. Watch out for tripwires."
They moved forward slowly through the swampy jungle, every sense alert, ready for a sudden attack. But it didn"t come. The final rustle of movement in the trees was the men of Delta Unit regrouping in an area scorched and devastated by Two Moons" rocket-launched grenades. Seven men lay dead around them.
*Seven here," murmured Nelson. *We caught six on the way, so that makes thirteen."
*We took out eight," said Tug.
*Twenty-one accounted for," said Nelson thoughtfully. *What do you think, Mitch? That all of them?"
Mitch shook his head. *Depends who they are, but from my experience gangs here going out to attack tend to be bigger. Thirty at least."
*The satellite pictures only showed twenty with Mw.a.n.ga," pointed out Benny.
*That"s after they got him," said Mitch. *After the event they usually split into smaller groups."
*So at least nine managed to get away," said Nelson. *Maybe more." He turned to the unit. *OK, guys, we all knows what this means, but I"m going to spell it out all the same. We were betrayed. This lot knew we were coming, and when and where. It may be nothing to do with Mw.a.n.ga. For all we know they didn"t learn the real reason we were coming in but decided to get rid of us because we got in their way. Or someone does know why we"re really here and is set on stopping us. The bottom line is we"re exposed. From now on we are a definite target. And we can"t trust anyone. It could have been our chopper pilot who gave our position away, so we can"t risk calling up a chopper to get out. We can"t risk calling up anyone.
*So, we go on with the mission: we find Mw.a.n.ga, and then we take him somewhere safe where we can get away, out of the Delta, but we do it on our own terms."
*Mw.a.n.ga may already be dead," said Mitch.
*Or this attack may be proof he"s still alive," said Tug. He gestured at the dead bodies. *If these men were part of the crowd who"ve got him, they could have been the first line of defence."
*Maybe," agreed Nelson. *The thing is we don"t know. Only one way to find out. We go on."
*What do we do with them?" asked Benny, pointing at the dead bodies.
Nelson shrugged. *Leave them," he said. *The jungle animals will take them soon enough. We move on."
6.
The jungle was thick and dark, and the men found themselves sinking into wet soil sometimes up to their knees if they strayed from the rough tracks made by animals.
They were travelling in single file, Nelson and Tug at the front, with Benny bringing up the rear. Gaz, Two Moons and Mitch were in the middle. Every man had his rifle at the ready in case of another ambush.
The air was so hot and humid that every movement covered the men with sweat, which attracted insects that clung to their skin.
*Is it always like this here?" asked Two Moons.
Mitch grinned. *It never drops below sixty per cent humidity and sometimes goes right up to one hundred per cent. Think yourself lucky we"re here in the dry season."
*This is the dry season?" queried Two Moons.
Gaz laughed. *Mitch is right," he said. *I did a couple of tours of duty in West Africa. Not in Nigeria, but in nearby countries. It"s much the same there. Stinking hot and the air is just steam."
*How long"s this dry season last?" asked Two Moons.
*Two months," answered Mitch. *January and now, February. Once the rain kicks in, this jungle becomes a proper swamp. Then we"d be wading through it, up to our waists in water a" and that"s when the mosquitoes really come out and attack you."
They saw that Tug, ahead of them, had stopped and thrown up his hand in the signal to freeze. They all stood and listened.
The sounds of the jungle were all around them: insects clicking, birds calling and fluttering through the leaves. Then they heard what Tug had heard: a heavier sound, something crashing through the leaves of the canopy above their heads.
*Monkeys," said Mitch.
*Do they bite?" asked Two Moons.
*Only if you attack them," replied Mitch.
*My cousin got bitten by a monkey," said Gaz. *He got infected and lost his arm."
*Where was that?" asked Two Moons. *One of these other West African countries you were talking about?"
Gaz shook his head. *A zoo. He stuck his hand through the bars. He was an idiot."
Suddenly the crashing sound got louder, and five monkeys pa.s.sed above them, swinging from branch to branch, calling loudly to one another. Then they were gone.
Nelson signalled for the unit to move forward.
Mitch, just behind Tug and Nelson, heard the two commanders talking tactics.
*It"s slow travelling through this jungle," said Tug. *If we travelled on open ground, we could get to the target quicker."
*I thought of that, Tug," said Nelson. *But that ambush worries me. If they knew we were coming, the rest of the group will be watching out for us. Out in open ground we"re an easy target for them. At least in the jungle they"ve got to come in and find us, and we"ll hear them coming. Yeah, it"s slower, but at least we"ve got more chance of staying alive."
*But does Mw.a.n.ga?" asked Tug. *The longer they"ve got him, the more chance there is of them killing him."