* * *
It was another part of the jungle. They landed and ground crew winched the helicopter into the trees, where a couple of old transport planes were parked under netting. The airstrip was cut alongside a stretch of river, so slender that until the last moment Jonathan was sure trey would belly-flop into the rapids, but the metalled runway was long enough to take a jet. An army personnel carrier collected them. They passed a checkpoint and a notice saying BLASTING in English, though who would ever read and understand it was a mystery. The early sunlight made a jevel of every leaf. They crossed a suppers' bridge and drove between boulders sixty feet high till they came to a natural amphitheater filled with jungle echoes and the sound of tumbling water. The curve of the hillside made a grandstand. From it you looked down into a bowl of grassland broken by patches of forest and a winding river, and embellished at the centre with a film-set of block-built houses and seemingly brand-new cars parked along the kerbside: a yellow Alfa, a green Mercedes, a white Cadillac. Flags flew from the flat rooftops, and as the breeze lifted them Jonathan saw that they were the were the flags of nations formally committed to the repression of the cocaine industry: the American Stars and Stripes, the British Union Jack, the black, red and gold of Germany and, rather quaintly, the white cross of Switzerland. Other flags had evidently been improvised for the occasion: DELTA, read one, DEA another, and, on a small white tower all its own, U.S. ARMY HQ.
Half a mile from the centre of this mock town, set amid pampas grass and close to the river's path, lay a mock military airfield with a crude runway, yellow wind sock and dapple-green control tower made of plywood. Carcasses of mothballed aircraft littered the runway. Jonathan recognised DC-3s, F-85s and F-94s. And along the riverbank stood the airfield's protection: vintage tanks and ancient armoured personnel carriers painted olive drab and emblazoned with the American white star.
Shielding his eyes, Jonathan peered at the ridge overlooking the north side of the horseshoe. The control team was already assembling. Figures in white armbands and steel helmets were talking into handsets, peering through binoculars and studying maps. Among them, Jonathan made out Langbourne with his ponytail, wearing a flak jacket and jeans.
An incoming light aircraft skimmed low over the ridge on its way to land. No markings. The quality was beginning to arrive.
* * *
It's hand-over day, thought Jonathan.
It's the troops' graduation ceremony before Roper collects.
It's a turkey shoot, Tommy boy, Frisky had said, in the over-familiar manner that he had recently adopted.
It's a firepower demo, Tabby had said, to show the Colombian boys what they're getting for their you-know-what.
Even the handshakes had a finite quality. Standing at one end of the grandstand, Jonathan had a clear view of the ceremonials. A table of soft drinks had been set up, with ice in field containers, and as the VIPs arrived Roper himself led them to the table. Then Emmanuel and Roper between them presented their honoured guests to the senior trainers and, after more handshakes, escorted them to a row of folding khaki chairs set in the shade, where hosts and guests arranged themselves in a half-circle, talking self-consciously to each other in the way that statesmen exchange pleasantries at a photo-opportunity.
But it was the other men, the men who sat out of focus in the shadows, who commanded the close observer's attention. Their leader was a fat man with his knees apart and farmer's hands curled on his fat thighs. Beside him sat a wiry old bullfighter, as thin as his companion was fat, with one side of his face scarred white as if it had been gored. And in the second row sat the hungry boys, trying to look assured, in over-oiled hair and watered leather boots, and Gucci bomber jackets and silk shirts and too much gold, and too much bulk inside the bomber jackets, and too much killing in their fraught, half-Indian faces.
But Jonathan is allowed no more time to scrutinize them. A twin-engined transport aircraft has appeared over the northern ridge. It is marked with a black cross, and Jonathan knows at once that today black crosses are the good guys and white stars the bad guys. Its side door opens, a stick of parachutists blossoms against the pale sky, and Jonathan is rolling and spinning with them as his mind becomes a pageant of army memories from childhood till here. He is at parachute camp in Abingdon, making his first balloon jump and thinking that dying and getting divorced from Isabelle don't have to be the same thing. He is on his first field patrol, crossing open country in Armagh, clutching his gun across his flak jacket and believing he is finally his father's son.
Our paras land well. A second and a third stick join them. One team scurries from chute to chute, gathering up the equipment and supplies, while another team gives covering fire. For there is opposition. One of the tanks at the edge of the airfield is already shooting at the men ― which is to say its barrel is belching flame, and buried charges are exploding around the paras as they hasten into the pampas grass for cover.
Then suddenly the tank is firing no more and will never fire again. The paras have taken it out. Its turret is askew, black smoke oozes from its interior, one of its tracks has snapped like a watch strap. In quick succession the remaining tanks get the same treatment. And after the tanks the parked aircraft are sent skidding and reeling across the runway until, buckled and quite dead, they can move no more.
Light anti-tank weapons, Jonathan is thinking; two to three hundred meters effective range; the favoured weapon for killer patrols.
The valley splits again as defensive machine gun fire pours out of the buildings in a belated counterstrike. Simultaneously the yellow Alfa Romeo lurches to life and, remotely guided, races down the road in a bid to escape. Cowards! Chicken! Bastards! Why don't you stay and fight? But the black crosses have their answer ready. From the pampas, firing on settings of ten and twenty bursts, the Vulcan machine guns drive streams of heavy tracer into the enemy positions, cutting through the concrete blocks, plugging them with so many holes that they resemble giant cheese graters. Simultaneously the Quads, in bursts of fifty, lift the Alfa clean off the road and hurl it into a coppice of dry trees, where it explodes and bursts into flames, setting light to the trees also.
But no sooner is this peril past than a new one besets our heroes. First the ground explodes, then the sky goes mad. But do not fear: once more our men are prepared! Drones ― aerial targets ― are the villains. The Vulcan's six barrels can achieve an elevation of eighty degrees. They achieve it now. The Vulcan's radar range finder is co-mounted, her ammunition load is two thousand shells, and she is firing them in bursts of a hundred at a time, so loudly that Jonathan has set his face in a grimace of pain as he presses his hands over his ears.
Belching smoke, the drones disintegrate and, like scraps of so much burning paper, tumble sedately into the jungle's depths. On the grandstand it is time for Beluga caviar served from iced tins, and chilled coconut juice, and Panamanian Reserva rum, and single malt Scotch on the rocks. But no shampoo ― not yet. The Chief plays long.
* * *
The truce is over. So is lunch. The town may finally be taken. From the pampas grass a brave platoon advances frontally on the hated colonialists' buildings, shooting and drawing fire. But elsewhere, covered by the distraction, less conspicuous assaults are being launched. Waterborne troops with blackened faces are advancing down the river on inflatable dinghies, barely visible among the reeds. Others, in special combat gear, are stealthily scaling the outside of the U. S. Army HQ. Suddenly, on a secret signal, both teams attack, tossing grenades through windows, leaping after them into the flames, emptying their automatic weapons. Seconds later, all remaining parked cars are immobilised or commandeered. On the rooftops, the hated flags of the oppressor are lowered and replaced by our own black cross. All is victory, all is triumph, our troops are supermen!