The lieutenant signaled a pause in order to refill their empty canteens. The men used their upturned floppy hats to help catch the rain and funnel it into canteen mouths, through fine mesh filters. The water was very dirty. Over their heads, in each level of the multiple-canopy tree branches, dwelled entire ecosystems. Plants lived on other plants, which lived on branches of the larger trees, and died and rotted. Bugs and bacteria thrived in puddles caught on leaves or in forks in the trees, a hundred feet in the air. Different birds, rodents, and mammals populated different zones of altitude, eating and mating and defecating. Frogs, snails, ants, spiders, termites — all led their daily existences high above.
The rainwater that reached the ground was truly filthy. Felix and his team added water purification tablets to their newly filled canteens. The tablets made the water stink of chlorine and taste even worse. They used powdered tea mix, fortified with extra tannin, to cover the taste; the tannin also helped fight tropical diarrhea.
The rain continued to drum and pour. With their canteens replenished, the lieutenant signaled for the SEALs to move out. The rain was so heavy it pelted their faces with mud splashed back up from the ground. The runoff gushed in streaming rivulets and formed ever-widening pools. A wind began to rise, slashing the treetops. The team closed up amid the almost solid, streaking vertical torrent to keep in better touch now that sight lines were so reduced and the noise of the rain was deafening. They moved faster, since the rain would obliterate much of their spoor. Moving faster also gave them better forward momentum — in case they crashed into an enemy patrol that crashed into them.
Now, with two full canteens instead of one, and waterlogged from head to toe by the all-surrounding thunderstorm, Felix carried a much greater weight load. The rain was cold, so cold it made him shiver.
The rain had stopped, and the rain forest was steamy, stinking, baking hot. Felix’s team halted for a brief rest. The two compass men compared notes to cross-check their navigation. Felix and the lieutenant surveyed the ground ahead. It was time for the team to turn due west. Ahead in that direction, on the near side of the railroad, lay the Pedreira River, which the men would have to cross to continue their recon. The Pedreira ran south, paralleling the railroad, until the river fed the Amazon itself. Crossing the river would be a time of maximum peril, but it was necessary.
Quietly, the team reviewed their plan and rechecked one another’s equipment. Again the lieutenant led the point element and Felix oversaw securing and sanitizing their rear. Tomorrow they would trade places, with Felix in front and the lieutenant protecting their backs, and Felix was already looking forward to it. Tonight, maybe, once across the Pedreira, he might get some sleep for a change. And tomorrow, the mental and physical strain of taking point, as wearing and dangerous as it was, would be a welcome change from the constant peering and smoothing and rearranging, the endless stooping and kneeling and patting and brushing, that it took to maintain secrecy as the SEALs covered more and more distance.
Felix was jarred by another crack. He knew at once it wasn’t more thunder. He ducked as his whole body tightened instinctively; his heart was in his throat. Razor-sharp steel from a fragmentation grenade whizzed overhead. Felix heard crackling bursts from AK-47s. None of my guys are carrying Russian weapons. Then Felix heard the puff-puff-puff of silenced MP-5s responding. He lay flat just in time. There was a tremendous blast, and hundreds of metal pellets tore through the air. Pieces of bark and shredded greenery flew and fell. Tree branches rocked and swayed from the mighty concussion.
That was a Claymore mine. And not one of ours.
Every sight and sound and smell became ten times more vivid; every trace of fatigue in Felix vanished.
Felix’s lieutenant shouted in Portuguese. The team had been ambushed by antigovernment militants — the Brazilian Army didn’t use AK-47s either. Felix crawled forward. He and the lieutenant pulled white phosphorus grenades from their rucksacks and armed them. As bullets zipped overhead or slammed into trees or kicked up muck, they lobbed the grenades well to their front and yelled for their men to withdraw. They took disciplined care with their throwing so the grenades didn’t hit a tree and bounce back.
The grenades exploded. Burning white phosphorus spewed in all directions. Thick, choking smoke covered the ground and spread through the trees. Fires began, from the heat of the incendiary grenades, even with everything soaked. The grenades would form a good antipersonnel barrier. White phosphorus burned human flesh down to the bone; it was unquenchable.
The SEAL team crawled to the rear, quickly taking turns firing their weapons back through the smoke. Felix let loose a three-round burst and heard an enemy scream.
“Let’s go,” Felix shouted.
The SEALs stood and regrouped on the run. On and on they ran, away from the ambush site.
The lieutenant cursed. “We’re compromised,” he said in Portuguese, “and we haven’t found out a single useful thing.”
Felix concurred, did a head count, and turned and fired another burst through the drifting white phosphorus smoke. “I don’t think we’re being pursued,” he said between ragged breaths. “Irregulars… Must have thought we were Brazilian Army, tired and bored after lunch.” He vaulted a protruding root as the other SEALs kept pace. One of the enlisted men fired a burst toward the ambushers, then another.
“Didn’t expect us to be so alert,” Felix panted. “Surprised we reacted so fast and violently.” He ran on, breathing heavily, reviewing the action in his mind. “They set off that Claymore a moment too late.” Pant, pant. “Most of their bullets went high.”
The lieutenant nodded. He was shaking now from the surge of adrenaline and gasping too fast to speak.
Felix signaled the team to halt and take up a defensive position. The men quickly checked one another for wounds or equipment damage. They were okay. Felix listened; he let a few minutes go by. The bird and animal noises told him his team wasn’t being followed.
“Which way now?” he whispered to the lieutenant.
“Let me think.”
Felix didn’t like this. To accomplish their mission, they needed hard proof that Axis agents were operating in this area, if indeed they were. To come back empty-handed meant failure.
We have to at least probe farther in. If Axis agents aren’t involved, we need to see much more to know it for sure.
“Head north,” Felix whispered, still speaking in Portuguese. “Outflank these guerrillas, then turn west. Get behind them.”
“Concur,” the lieutenant whispered. “Move through their rear. See what we learn that way… But why not outflank them south?”
“We came from south. North, we cover new territory.”
The lieutenant nodded. He began to catch his breath.
“We change our route formation. Column, single file. I want more weapons covering west in case the hostiles come at us again.”
“I don’t know, LT. We still need good all-around defense.” Felix gestured out at the jungle. “We don’t know who else is hiding where.”
“Negative.”
“But—”
“Do it my way.”
Felix had to agree — the lieutenant was the man in charge.
An old saying ran through Felix’s mind, seeing the LT’s hardened attitude: It’s better to be sure than right.
The only thing is, in Special Warfare clandestine ops, being sure but wrong gets people killed.