This Green Hell

TWENTY

‘I’m not ready to come home yet, General.’

Adira could hear the old man’s rasping breath and the scrunch of leather as he shifted in his favourite chair. She could picture him as clearly as if she was sitting across from him in his office over 5000 miles away. General Meir Shavit, the head of Metsada, Mossad’s Special Operations Division, and her uncle, was not a man to be easily swayed by speculation or sentiment. The old man’s spirit was fire-hardened by war, grief and the witnessing of many atrocities. He could be stubborn, uncompromising and quick to anger — all traits she too possessed. But Adira had an advantage — she was his favourite niece.

She could imagine his expression — countenance creased in an amused smile, one eye slightly squinting as smoke curled up beside his face from his cigarette — as he listened to her argument.

‘Your friend Jack Hammerson keeps me in training even though I have more skills than the frontline HAWCs,’ she said. ‘And I can’t get near the son of a bitch to complain. He only talks to Captain Hunter.’ Her hand tightened on the comm unit as she thought of Alex Hunter out there in a hotzone. ‘And now Hunter’s taken a team over to South America … I should be there with them. And I would be if not for that Hammerson.’

Her uncle gave a slow, dry chuckle. ‘He’s on to you, Addy — maybe from the very first day. “That Hammerson” is no fool.’

She ground her teeth. ‘Maybe, maybe not — he is not as clever as you think, Uncle. But I’m close, I know it. Their Deep Storage facility is buried many levels below the base. I can’t get to it yet, but Hammerson or Hunter are my keys. I just need more time.’

There was a long pause, and Adira heard the general sip something before he spoke again. ‘This man Hunter, his name comes up a lot when we start to talk about the Arcadian, hmm?’

Ach, stupid slip, and he misses nothing, Adira thought. She had avoided revealing that Alex Hunter was the soldier with the extraordinary skills that General Shavit had sent her to find out more about. If he discovered her subterfuge, uncle or not, he’d send other agents who may not be as careful in their information-collection procedures. Adira’s aim was to find out as much as she could about the underlying genesis of Alex Hunter’s skills and capabilities — after all, why deliver up a single man when she could deliver the means to make a thousand of them? She cursed silently; so far, however, she knew very little. It was if Hammerson was anticipating her moves, and keeping her close so he could watch her.

That said, she felt she still had a few cards to play.

‘Information is the greatest weapon we can possess, Uncle. Information on the Arcadian Project is invaluable to Israel. I just need more time, and then it will all be yours.’

‘Hmm, anyone else and I would be suspicious of their motives, Captain Senesh, and perhaps their … manipulations.’ She heard him sip again. ‘You can have your extra time, but bring me something soon … or I’ll send you something, Addy.’

The line went dead, and Adira pulled the small PDA comm away from her head. She tapped her chin with it for a few moments, musing for the hundredth time on how she might either get into the deep facility or get Hammerson to talk, or perhaps even ask Alex Hunter to tell her about the Arcadian blueprint.

If she had been sent on the mission to South America and been able to spend time alone with the man, she might have found out what she needed. There was a connection between them; they were friends. He may even have told her about it voluntarily.

She slid the back off the PDA, pulled the small chip free and replaced it with its standard HAWC chip. She put the removed chip between her back teeth and bit down hard, crushing it, then spat out the fragments.

As she headed back to the barracks, her mind was still working furiously. Being inside the tent wasn’t working; maybe it was time to try going outside. She cursed Jack Hammerson again — he was her greatest roadblock to success.

Two of the recent HAWC recruits fell in behind her and started making comments. The term Jewish princess floated in the air, spoken deliberately for her to hear. Her fists balled. You do not want to piss me off today, she thought.

The men trailed her into the barracks. Adira pushed open the doors into the large, relatively empty rec room. The catcalls from behind became louder as she went to the centre of the floor, rolling her shoulders and flexing her hands, still keeping her back to the men.

Normally, she would have ignored them — they were insignificant, little more than a distraction to her mission plan. But her anger was already at boiling point following her conversation with the general and the knowledge that she had limited time to achieve her aim. Alex Hunter, her reason for joining the unit was being kept from her; the information she needed on the Arcadian Project was out of reach; and Jack Hammerson was holding her in an operational suspended animation. And now she had to deal with a pair of silly children who might have distinguished themselves as SEALs or Rangers, but would probably last an hour in the deserts of Southern Lebanon, and less in a Gaza spiderhole.

She heard them getting closer, their footfalls loud and clumsy. How could these fools ever work with Alex Hunter? They aren’t worthy of him.

A hand alighted on her shoulder.

When she turned, she didn’t see two young men; she saw Jack Hammerson laughing at her. Her anger boiled over and she acted.

When Zac Ingram regained consciousness, he tried to move but couldn’t. Vision slowly clearing, he realised he was looking through one eye only. His face, chest and groin all hurt. In fact, there were few parts of his body that didn’t.

Slowly turning his head to the left, he could hear the metronomic hiss and pump of a respirator. Denny Wilson was in the bed next to him, purple-bruised eyes taped shut, a breathing tube taped into his mouth. Both arms were in casts and he seemed to be missing a chunk of skin from his forehead.

Zac groaned and looked up at the hospital ceiling. Slowly, a picture drifted into his mind.

The Jewish woman turning — the ferocity on her face — the speed with which she moved. She had knocked them both down, then allowed them up — just to knock them down again.

He moaned as a wave of pain rippled across his bruised diaphragm. ‘Who the fuck is she?’ His voice sounded funny as he spoke the words aloud, and he realised all his front teeth were missing.