Ghost Flight

63

Jaeger sat on a fallen log and munched on a bag of what was supposedly chicken and pasta but which tasted like congealed glue. His mind drifted to memories of hippy Annie’s carrot cake, back on her barge in London. Probably raining there too, he reflected ruefully.

He finished off with a handful of dry biscuits, but still he could feel the pangs of hunger gnawing at his stomach.

Alonzo dropped his backpack and plonked himself down beside Jaeger. ‘Ouch!’ He rubbed his backside, where the piranha had bitten him.

‘How does it feel to be bested by a fish?’ Jaeger needled him.

‘Freakin’ piranha,’ Alonzo growled. ‘Can’t take a goddam crap without thinking about goddam fish bites.’

Jaeger glanced around at the dripping vegetation. ‘So, the fates seemed to have smiled on us at last.’

‘You mean the rain? Damn rainforest livin’ up to its name. Let’s just hope it holds right through.’

‘Puruwehua says it’s rain that lasts for days and days.’

‘Puruwehua should know.’ Alonzo clutched at his stomach. ‘Man, I could murder a McDonald’s. Double Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries, and a Triple Thick chocolate shake.’

Jaeger smiled. ‘We get through this, I’m buying.’

‘Deal.’ Alonzo paused. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking. Doesn’t happen much, so pay special attention. We got us a Predator on the hunt. Only a few governments in the world operate that kind of hardware.’

Jaeger nodded. ‘Can’t be the Brazilians. Even if they do have Predator, which I doubt, Colonel Evandro’s watching our backs.’ He cast a sideways glance at Alonzo. ‘Most likely scenario – it’s your fellow Americans.’

Alonzo grimaced. ‘Man, don’t I know it. South America: it’s our backyard. Always has been. But you know how it is: lot of agencies out there – lot of ’em are borderline rogue.’ He paused. ‘Whoever it is operatin’ that Predator, what’re they gonna make of the Airlander? You thought about that?’

‘It’s got good cover,’ Jaeger replied. ‘Colonel Evandro’s assigned it B-SOB special mission status. It’s terra incognita out there, and the Brazilians have had flights out surveying the borders for months now. The Airlander’s flying the Brazilian flag, plus B-SOB colours, like it’s on a bona fide survey mission.’

‘You figure it’ll work? Bad guys won’t smell a rat when it’s sat right above us?’

‘The Airlander cruises at ten thousand feet. Predator orbits at around twice that. Airlander will be sitting there clear for all to see, hiding in plain sight. Plus it doesn’t need to be anywhere near us. With its surveillance technologies – with PWAS – it can keep watch from several miles away.’

‘Goddam better be right, Jaeger, or we’re toast.’

Jaeger glanced at Alonzo, who was likewise tucking into a cold boil-in-the-bag. ‘So, you got anyone you could call?’ he ventured. ‘Like in spec ops? Try to get a fix on who the hell it is hunting us? See if whoever’s unleashed their dogs of war can be persuaded to call them off again?’

Alonzo shrugged. ‘I’m a SEAL reservist, rank of master sergeant. I do know folks in that world. But post 9/11, you know how many spec ops agencies there are out there?’

‘Hundreds?’ Jaeger ventured.

Alonzo snorted. ‘Right now, there are eight hundred and fifty thousand Americans with top-secret clearance. There are twelve hundred government agencies working on secret projects – largely counter-terrorism – plus two thousand privately contracted companies.’

‘That’s… hard to believe.’ Jaeger shook his head. ‘It’s messed up.’

‘No, man, it’s not. That alone isn’t. It’s what comes next that is truly unbelievable.’ He glanced at Jaeger. ‘In 2003, the President was persuaded to sign an EXORD: a presidential executive order. It gave his blessing for those eight hundred and fifty thousand guys to do pretty much as they please; to mount operations without any need for clearance. In other words, to act with zero presidential oversight.’

‘So whoever’s deployed that Predator, it could be one of a thousand different outfits?’

‘Pretty much, yeah,’ Alonzo confirmed. ‘And whatever son-of-a-bitch is trying to take us out, that’s how they’ll be operating – deep in the black. Trust me – no one knows what anyone is doing out there. And with an EXORD like that, no one thinks they have the right to challenge anything, or even to ask.’

‘Crazy.’

‘You got it.’ Alonzo glanced at Jaeger. ‘So, yeah, I could call a couple of people. But honestly, I’d be pissing in the wind.’ He paused. ‘Can you run through our exfil strategy one last time?’

‘Think of the Airlander as a massive lozenge-shaped airship,’ Jaeger began. ‘It’s got four propulsors, one at each corner, via which it can make a direct thrust and lift in any direction: up, down, back, front, sideways. The flight deck is situated in the centre of the underside, between twin air-cushion landing systems – basically a pair of mini hovercrafts situated to either side of the hull.’

He grabbed one of his uneaten biscuits to represent the airship. ‘It can move or hover at any altitude, in any direction. It’s fitted with internal winches and cranes, to enable loading and unloading. Plus the main cabin holds up to fifty passengers. Best-case scenario, we confirm on the ground that the Airlander’s safe to come in. She drops to low altitude, hovers over the jungle, we throw some airlift slings around the warplane, and she lifts it out of there – us with it.

‘That’s the plan if we get there well ahead of the bad guys,’ Jaeger continued. ‘And if the toxic threat proves manageable on the ground. The Airlander’s slow. She cruises at around two hundred kph. But she’s got a three and a half thousand kilometre range. That’s more than enough to get us back to Cachimbo, and a rendezvous with Colonel Evandro.’

Jaeger shrugged. ‘Worst-case scenario is the toxic threat’s a killer, the Airlander can’t do the lift and we’re left running for our lives.’

Alonzo rubbed his chin pensively. ‘I sure hope we ain’t headin’ for scenario number two.’

‘Evo’ipeva,’ a voice called over. It was Puruwehua, and he had something dark and bloody gripped between his fingers. ‘I do not know the English word. Rain brings them out; they suck the blood.’

‘Leeches,’ Jaeger muttered. ‘Bloody leeches.’

Alonzo shuddered. ‘Yeah, and monsters by the looks of ’em.’

Puruwehua indicated his legs and groin area. ‘We Amahuaca wear no trousers, so we can see them to pull them off. But you… you will need to check.’

Jaeger and Alonzo glanced at each other.

‘Rank before beauty,’ Alonzo announced. ‘Schlong the size of mine, they got the whole nine yards to feast upon.’

Jaeger got to his feet reluctantly. He undid his trousers and his belt, and dropped his pants. Even in the dim light he could see that his legs and groin were a mass of writhing, glistening bodies like short, stubby tentacles. Tiger leeches. God, how he hated them. Black body, slashed with stripes of violent yellow, each by now engorged to five times its normal size.

When the first leech had slithered up Jaeger’s trouser leg, searching for somewhere warm and moist to attach itself, it had been the size of a small pen lid, no bigger. Now, after a few hours’ feeding, each was the size of a thick marker pen and swollen fat with Jaeger’s blood.

‘Lighter?’ Alonzo offered.

The most satisfying way to get rid of them was to burn the bastards off. The second most satisfying method was to dose them in insect repellent and watch them twist and worm.

Jaeger held out his hand for the lighter. ‘Thanks.’

He knew he really shouldn’t. Leeches secreted an anaesthetic in their saliva, so the victim didn’t feel their bite. Once attached, they pumped hirudin, a powerful enzyme, into the victim’s veins, to stop the blood from clotting – enabling them to feed and feed and feed.

If you put a naked flame to one, it immediately contracted, withdrew its teeth and dropped off – but in the process it voided much of its stomach contents back into your bloodstream. In other words, it vomited all the blood back into your veins, including any diseases it might be carrying.

But Jaeger hated tiger leeches with a vengeance, and he couldn’t resist the urge to get even. He flicked the lighter, lowered the flame and watched the first of the swollen black tentacles hiss, writhe and burn.

‘We’ve got Hellfire missiles trying to blow us to shit… I’ll happily risk burning a few of these bastards off.’

Alonzo laughed. ‘Yeah – that’s one battle we can win.’

After a few seconds, the leech dropped, leaving a stream of blood pouring down Jaeger’s leg. The wound would bleed for some time, but he figured it was worth it.

He had tortured the leech in two ways: one, it had lost its precious meal of blood; and two, it would never recover from the burns.