Mercenary Part 2

'That's because you could not have fitted it into your pack. There were many people who wanted to kill Steel. I knew a few thousand myself.'

'I suppose Steel meant those who would have had the skill to find him as well as kill him. After all, considering the line of work he was in . . . Stratton was on that list.'

Victor shrugged as if he had no idea why.

'In an excerpt from Steel's report on the rebellion he wrote that Stratton had betrayed him.'

Victor shook his head, as though he was denying a statement he'd heard often before. 'What do you know of the rebellion?' he asked.

'Not a lot. There was a popular rising against Neravista's dictators.h.i.+p. It lasted several years and the government succeeded in putting it down.'

'So many suffered for so long. So many died and you describe it all in a couple of short sentences.'

'I didn't mean to make light of the conflict. There's hardly a country in this part of the world that hasn't gone through a painful change of government costing many lives in the last forty years.'

'I suppose it was a small rebellion compared with most. This is a small country. Around here it's still called Sebastian's Rebellion. It was the rebellion of many but it bears the name of one man. And rightly so . . . You heard of him?'

'I understood that he was one of the rebel leaders.'

'There were several leaders, true, but Sebastian was the main one. He was the most intelligent, the most powerful, the most determined to finish what he essentially began . . . I was his second in command, you know . . . his last one . . . Through the course of the campaign some of us lost our way. Doubt set in. Ideologies altered. Then came confusion, lies, corruption. By the end just about everyone had betrayed someone in some way. Not Sebastian, of course. He never wavered from his course, to the very end. Stratton's only betrayal was of himself. He betrayed his own code of survival. We all lost in the end.'

A flash illuminated the room through the window and a second later an enormous crack of thunder sounded as if it had detonated just outside the door. Water began to drip through the reed roof onto the floor. 'What was Stratton's part in the rebellion?' Harris asked.

'He got caught up in things he never expected to . . . He was not an ordinary man. He did not try to lead but men wanted to follow him anyway. He did not try to impress others but others wanted to be like him.'

'My report describes him as a trained killer. Is that how you yourself would describe him?'

'Would you describe a gentle breeze as a killer? But a tornado is also just a wind . . . Stratton was like a welcome breeze most of the time. But he could also become a tornado.'

'How did he come into it?'

Victor grinned. 'In a spectacular fas.h.i.+on,' he said, taking a final drag from his cheroot before tossing it into the fire. 'He arrived the same way he left . . . Like an eagle . . .'

Chapter 1.

A Hercules transport aircraft thundered low over the jungle, gracefully following the contours of the rolling peaks and troughs of the forest canopy as dawn broke over the distant horizon. The plane's sand-coloured fuselage, free of any identifying markings, was not as old as the paint job made it look. The propellers purred robustly as it banked easily onto a new heading and levelled off towards the rising sun.

As the tailgate motors whined the two large doors separated, the upper one folding into the fuselage, the bottom one lowering to form a level platform.

Stratton, wearing camouflage clothing, with a holstered pistol on his belt and a parachute on his back, stepped from inside the dark interior onto the ramp. The wind tousled his unkempt dark hair and he looked down at the jungle speeding past several hundred feet below. The dense forest spread beneath him like a vast undulating carpet, with distant rocky hills on one side and a series of table-top plateaus on the other. He tried to clear his mind and enjoy the spectacular view but he couldn't. There was too much to think about.

He hooked the b.u.t.t of a short black M4 carbine to a clip at his shoulder so that the barrel pointed down and secured it to his waist with a bungee. Meanwhile the crew extended a section of parallel rollers that looked like a large ladder from inside the cabin to the end of the ramp and quickly clamped it to the floor. The loadmaster, wearing headphones, strode out to Stratton and put a hand on his shoulder. 'One minute!' he shouted.

A crewman handed Stratton a helmet while another placed a heavy camouflaged backpack at his feet. Stratton buckled on the helmet, turned the pack upside down, stepped through the shoulder straps, pulled the pack up in front of him and clipped it to his belt harness. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly to help ease his growing tension. It was always the same, he thought. The only time he remembered ever being totally indifferent about a jump had been when he was doing half a dozen a day, and only then by around day three of the jump schedules. Otherwise every time he'd pulled on a chute and stood on a ramp ready to go he had experienced b.u.t.terflies to some degree. Stratton wasn't the daredevil type but then again, if the odds of survival were in his favour and, most particularly, if the reason for jumping was good enough, he would go for it. But he had every excuse to feel a tad uneasy about this jump. It was a LALO - low alt.i.tude, low opening - and it was above jungle. That would never become routine.

A heavy crate one metre wide by two metres long emerged from the hold on the rollers and was brought to a stop on the edge of the ramp where a block prevented it from falling off. Strapped to its top was a large chute with a static line attached. Half a dozen similar containers were rolled out behind it.

'We gotta standby!' shouted the loadmaster, his voice echoing over speakers throughout the hold.

Crewmen took up their positions alongside the crates. A plastic bag shot out from somewhere inside the cabin and spiralled away in the slipstream.

'Secure that tras.h.!.+' shouted the loadmaster.

A series of bright red lights flashed on around the ramp. The crewman on the end of a safety line crouching by the lead container, his clothes flapping furiously in the turbulence, gripped the restraining block.

One of the men leaned close to Stratton. 'You're one crazy son of a b.i.t.c.h!' he yelled.

Stratton ignored him. He fitted his goggles and braced himself for what was coming next. The guy was perfectly correct but not in the way that he meant. He probably thought Stratton was looking forward to the jump. He was wrong. Stratton was looking forward to being on the jungle floor, sure - but not to getting there.

'Goin' up!' shouted the loadmaster, grabbing a firm hold of the side of the ramp.

Each man braced himself as the pilot powered up the engines to maximum and pulled the nose of the aircraft up into a steep climb. The view out of the back was suddenly all green. The containers shunted against their restraining blocks and everyone hung on to their handholds as gravity tried to suck them out.

Stratton could smell the exhaust from the engines, a sweet odour that tickled the back of his throat that was now dry. He looked down to see a large clearing in the jungle appear directly below. It was the drop zone and he could only pray that they were on target.

The red lights changed to green. Stratton's nervousness suddenly peaked and then fell away sharply as the climactic moment drew near and his concentration intensified.

'Go! Go! Go!' shouted the loadmaster.

A crewman yanked free the first restraining block and the heavy crate rolled on, tipped off the edge of the ramp and plunged into the slipstream where it was grabbed and ripped away in an instant. The attached static line went taut and dragged from the chute pack a long stream of pink nylon that inflated into a ma.s.sive mushroom shape that slammed the brakes on the container, which swung violently in response. The other crates followed in quick succession.

Stratton took a deep breath, turned around and shuffled backwards to the edge of the ramp, keeping an eye on his feet to make sure that he didn't fall off prematurely. He looked through the gap between the ramp and the bulkhead to see they were still over the clearing and then watched as the remaining crates rolled towards the edge of the ramp. The seconds to his jump were ticking away. He could not turn back now. At that moment it felt as though his mind was processing a million thoughts, not all of them helpful. He gripped the pilot chute and looked for the jungle again. The end of the clearing came into view. That was not good. He felt a sudden rush of concern. A glance to the other side revealed the last container slipping off the tailgate platform. Stratton ignored a warning from inside his head to abort and threw the pilot chute out behind him. He braced himself for the part of the jump that he hated most.

The pilot chute sprang open as it sailed out on the end of a long bridle that wrenched a deployment bag from Stratton's parachute pack. He braced his shoulders and pressed his chin against his chest in preparation for the inevitable whiplash as the main chute deployed. It felt like he'd been standing there for an age although in reality it had been less than a second. The chute cracked open, yanking Stratton off the ramp like a rag doll, and for a few seconds he had absolutely no control. He tried to wrap his arms tightly around himself, as if to stop his limbs from being torn off.

As the aircraft levelled out the crew shuffled to the edge of the tailgate ramp to watch the progress of their payload. Stratton's chute was a bright green nine-cell square with a red blotch across its top which, when the chute was fully deployed, became a large fire-breathing dragon.

'That is one crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' someone shouted as Stratton recovered to make a tight turn barely a couple of hundred feet above the jungle.

'He ain't gonna make it to the edge of that clearing,' the loadmaster mumbled into his headset.

'Don't matter,' said a big man in civilian clothes and with a thick head of white hair who was standing behind him. He was wearing his own headphones. It was Maxwell Steel, a colonel in the US Marine Corps. 'He's just the pizza boy. As long as they get the pizzas.'

The loadmaster looked around at the man who was running the show. The crewman did not try to conceal his contempt as he walked away to operate the machine that pulled the flapping static-line cables and deployment bags back into the aircraft's hold.

As the aircraft banked steeply away Steel took a last look at the man he had hired to deliver the load. He couldn't understand what all the hoo-ha was about. If you made it you made it, if you didn't you didn't. That was his philosophy.

It took only a second for Stratton to confirm his fear that he was not going to make the clearing. If he'd been as certain of it when he'd been on the ramp he would have cancelled the jump and asked to go around again even though that would have p.i.s.sed off everyone, especially Steel. The drop had started three seconds too late. That meant hundreds of metres in this business. Most of the bundles had landed inside the clearing but not all of them. He saw one strike the outer edge of the surrounding trees, the parachute ripping into the branches as the heavy bundle dropped between them. Not that he gave a monkey's. He had his own problems.

Stratton's square had a seventeen-foot horizontal gain to a one-foot drop. The wind was light and not a huge factor. Hitting the trees was. That could mean broken bones and getting hung up in a branch, and, depending on the extent of the injury, that might be the end of it. He had to find a way through - and quickly. A swift turn presented a choice of several gaps big enough to slip through. There was no way of knowing the obstacles he'd encounter inside the darkness, of course. He would find that out the hard way. His immediate task - one of many - was to sort out the angle of approach.

Stratton selected a hole directly beneath him. He soared out for some distance before turning back around. His experience told him that the trees were very tall and umbrella-like, and most of their branches would be near the top. If he could get past those then below would be mainly tree trunks - not that easy to steer through either.

Stratton concentrated on the dark opening, deftly pulling and releasing the toggles to adjust the chute's glide path. He had to drop in perfectly or he would overshoot and that would be that.

The closer he got the deeper inside the hole he could see, but there was still no clear route through. At the crucial moment he pulled down on both toggles to remove much of the chute's lift. As he plunged inside the gap it went dark and his eyes took a moment to adjust. He dropped rapidly and released the toggles to regain some lift. But as he did so a dense array of tangled branches appeared and he yanked down fiercely on one side to turn away, using what little control he had left. The chute's fabric sc.r.a.ped against branches as Stratton swung in a tight arc. His legs struck them hard and they clung to him like grabbing hands. The reduction of weight took the air out of the cells and the parachute threatened to collapse. A violent and desperate kick released him but not before the chute had almost dropped level with him. He fell and for a moment was unsupported, but as he swung beneath the canopy his weight snapped the risers taut once more, the cells reinflated and he sailed on inside the jungle.

He was through the worst part of the descent but the dangers were not over. The tree trunks stood like vast pillars in a cathedral, the s.p.a.ces between them barely wide enough to turn in. Littered across the jungle floor lay the decaying remains of past generations of trees. He pulled and released the chute's toggles, using all his concentration and skill to weave between the ma.s.sive columns.

The parachute flapped noisily as Stratton kept the speed as low as he dared without stalling, making the turns like a slalom skier, sometimes grazing a tree trunk.

The ground rushed towards him and as a small clearing appeared he lined it up. He released the toggles in order to eject his backpack, which he kicked off while he grabbed for the controls again. The pack dropped several feet before it jerked to a halt at the end of a line that was secured to Stratton's harness. He took the lift out of the chute to stall it. The backpack hit the ground as his forward momentum ceased, and he dropped onto his toes beside it as if he was stepping down from a chair.

The parachute collapsed and once Stratton had unclipped it he slumped down to recover. One near-disaster after another within seconds was more than he had bargained for. He looked up at the hole in the almost solid roof of jungle, wondering how the h.e.l.l he had managed to get through. If he'd ever needed a reminder that he'd been born lucky, the last few minutes had been it.

The sheer beauty of the forest was captivating. For as far as Stratton could see the trees stood majestically, higher than telegraph poles. In places the sun's rays broke through to light up patches of the jungle floor. The air smelled sweet and tangy and he could practically taste the moisture in it. It was eerily quiet too but that was only to be expected. Every creature in the area would have scattered when he crashed through the jungle canopy and they were probably now silently watching him from cover.

Stratton would have been content to sit where he was for a while and even make himself a brew but he didn't have the time. This was hostile country and a multi-bundle drop could have been seen for miles around. On top of that the intended recipients would show up at some stage, he hoped. The rendezvous procedure he'd been given was terrible. 'You'll know 'em when you see 'em,' Steel had said. When Stratton had asked for a little more info, the American had replied sarcastically, 'On one side are soldiers and on the other side are rebels. Don't give 'em to the soldiers. And if you do, make sure they pay for 'em.' He'd amused himself, at least. It had heightened Stratton's suspicion that this was a cowboy operation. So had missing the drop zone by several hundred metres. The good news was that as soon as the rebels showed up he would have one small task to do and then he could get out of there.

He unclipped his M4, untied the line to his pack and took a walk to check out the immediate area. Satisfied that he was alone, he leaned his gun against a tree and removed his chute harness. He took a nylon bag from his pack and folded the chute into it, then removed a smaller pack that contained a semi-automatic pistol, a change of clothing and boots, medical equipment, some money, a pa.s.sport, GPS, a bottle of water and some rations, all inside a waterproof bag. He dug a hole between two large roots at the base of the tree, placed the small pack inside and covered it up. He pulled his knife from its sheath, cut a large triangle into the bark at head height and stood back to memorise the tree's characteristics. He used his compa.s.s to note the bearing from the clearing, which he could see through the trees, and felt confident that after he had paced the distance to the edge of it he would be able to find the tree again, in daylight at least.

Stratton secured the parachute bag to the top of his pack, heaved it onto his shoulders, grabbed his gun and started to march to the clearing, counting the paces as best he could while stepping over dead trees.

As he reached twenty steps his senses screamed out a warning and he stopped dead. He was being watched. He was not a hundred per cent certain - he wasn't psychic - but he was experienced enough never to ignore such warnings.

A glance around revealed nothing and he eased the pack off his shoulder, lowering it soundlessly to the ground.

As Stratton turned he saw a young man, an Indian by the look of him. The youth wore only a pair of trousers that were cut off just below the knee and he held a bow in one hand, with an arrow placed lightly against the string: his fingers gripping the nocked shaft in readiness to pull it back. A quiver filled with more arrows hung by his side. Stratton guessed that he was about sixty metres away. The Indian would have to be good to get him at that range, especially if he were moving. Stratton needed to know if the youth was alone so he turned slowly. Directly opposite the young man, about the same distance on the other side of Stratton, stood a near-duplicate figure who was watching him with the same calm intensity, a bow and arrow in his hand too. Stratton had to respect their ability to get so close to him, and from opposite directions at that. So much for his keen senses, he thought. Defending himself against two bowmen who'd bracketed him like this would be that much more difficult. Cover from one would be exposure to the other. And if their shooting skills were anywhere near as good as their stealth technique, Stratton was in trouble. But they had not yet drawn back their bowstrings. With any luck, he thought, they did not mean to hurt him. He suspected that he would already have a couple of arrows in him if they did.

Stratton rested the M4 on his pack and held out his open hands, a smile spreading across his face. 'Hola,' he called out.

The young men did not move, their hawkish stares fixed on him. Stratton swivelled his own gaze from one side to the other, keeping them both in view. They didn't appear to want to communicate in any way. It was all a little weird. As he pondered his next move a sound that grew louder by the second came from the trees. It was the unmistakable noise of people moving through the undergrowth. He could only hope it was the men he was supposed to meet and that these Indians weren't working for the other side. If it was government forces he didn't think they would allow him to leave. In that case he would have some explaining to do.

Stratton kept his hands in view as he looked in the direction of the new visitors. Another half-naked Indian appeared but this one was older and stockier and carried his bow across his back. The heavy trudging sound came from behind him - it sounded like there were a lot of men.

The next man to appear was not an Indian but a dark-skinned Latino wearing military fatigues and carrying an AK47. Behind him walked half a dozen others and when they saw Stratton they stopped to allow two more men through. The one in front looked similar to the Latinos but seemed seriously intense. He walked as if he expected someone to shoot at him any second and looked like he was ready to fire back. The man just behind him was short and stocky, in his forties and with European features. He wore a multi-pocket fis.h.i.+ng waistcoat over his camouflage s.h.i.+rt, a floppy hat on his head and the only weapon he appeared to have was a pistol in a holster on his hip. His dress and bearing alone singled him out from the others. It appeared that he was the one in charge. Stratton would have been surprised if he turned out to be a local.

The man in the fis.h.i.+ng jacket said something to one of the others who walked back towards the main group shouting at them to halt. The order was repeated for some distance back into the jungle. His intense-looking colleague stopped to let the leader pa.s.s. The man eyed Stratton as he approached. When he stopped a few metres in front of Stratton he took a good look around, in particular up at the trees. Stratton maintained a pleasant smile. He felt sure these were rebels and not government troops.

'My scout says you came through the canopy?' The man's accent was distinctly French.

'Yes,' Stratton replied in a tone that conveyed regret.

'I would have thought that since this time they were also dropping a man they might make an effort to hit the clearing.' The group's leader looked and sounded irritated. His face had not seen a razor in days. 'I've been up there too so I know what it's like. It was difficult enough in a balloon. By parachute I would have said it was suicidal.'

Stratton could only puzzle over what he meant about the balloon. 'It wasn't by choice,' he said.

'Did they push you out of the plane?'

'Good point,' Stratton conceded.

'I hope they're paying you enough.' The man scrutinised him more closely. 'You're English?'

Stratton nodded, wondering what his story was and how he came to be here.

The man remained moody but he seemed to become less stand-offish. 'My name is Victor,' he said by way of introduction.

'Stratton.'

'I am Sebastian's second in command.'

Stratton knew nothing about the conflict nor did he know anyone's name, thanks to Steel's terrible briefing. But he smiled politely and nodded as if it was all quite clear.

'Did any of it reach the clearing, do you know?'

'I think most of it did.'

'If you would lead on, then,' Victor said. 'Neravistas are in the area. We must a.s.sume they saw the drop.'

Another snippet of information. Neravistas were obviously the bad guys. Stratton picked up his pack and weapon. Someone called out the command to march and the shout was repeated several times, echoing back for some distance.

Stratton had already walked several metres before he remembered that he was supposed to be counting paces. He made a rough estimate of how many he'd taken so far and as they headed up an incline he looked back to see a long snaking line of men and burros. He could not see the end of the column.

They came to the first container. It was hanging several metres above the ground, dangling from its shredded parachute which had snagged in the upper branches of a tree. The crate had broken open and several large plastic boxes lay on the ground.

Victor was incensed. 'If those idiots only realised that it takes valuable time to retrieve these. We must get these boxes loaded as soon as possible!' he called out over his shoulder.

Orders were shouted and a group of men set about gathering the container's contents. Stratton continued on. The undergrowth grew taller and thicker as they approached the edge of the clearing and men came forward with machetes to clear a path. They all looked like they had been living rough in the jungle for a while. They were unwashed and grubby, and most of them had long hair and beards. Apart from their camouflage gear, which seemed to have come from several different sources, they didn't look like soldiers. But there seemed to be a solid enough rank structure and the discipline was there. Stratton wondered about their soldiering skills, though. Not all the weapons he could see looked in good condition.

The men soon cut through to the clearing where the bundles lay scattered over a wide area. Stratton took a count.

'That's it,' he said to Victor. 'They're all here.'

Victor nodded to the serious-looking officers, who barked some orders and the rebels hurried into the clearing with their burros in tow. There must have been over two dozen animals and a hundred men.

Stratton made his way to one of the pallets to inspect a plastic container that had fallen out of the crate and had been damaged. He opened the lid and lifted a sponge cover to reveal a couple of dozen green tubes marked with black stencilling.

'Rockets!' exclaimed one of the men who saw them. Within seconds several rebels surrounded the box, removed some of the launch tubes and inspected them excitedly.

Stratton watched one of the men holding his tube up the wrong way round. When he began pus.h.i.+ng in the rubber firing b.u.t.ton, even though the device was not armed at that stage, it was evident he had no idea how to use it. Stratton watched other rebels beginning to do things with the tubes that were definitely inadvisable. He was suddenly alarmed.

'Whoa, whoa, guys,' he called out. 'Stop. Just a minute. Hold on. You, don't do that . . . Listen in!' he finally shouted.

They stopped talking and gave him their full attention.

Stratton looked at the men, most of whom were a few inches shorter than him. At six foot he wasn't particularly tall, neither was he noticeably muscular, though he was athletic. But he was quite big compared with most of the rebels, this bunch at least. 'Does anybody here know how to fire these weapons?' he asked calmly.

A barrel-chested man held his launcher confidently as he stepped from the group. 'You just pull this bit here and then-'

'Stop, stop, stop,' Stratton asked, holding out his hands. 'Don't pull anything anything . . . Do you know what kind of a rocket this is?' . . . Do you know what kind of a rocket this is?'