“Faster,” Felix urged as they ran. Each breath was sheer agony. The strain in his legs and back muscles was painful beyond description. His eyes teared from the effort, but his tears were masked by sweat. His insect head net was lost somewhere, torn off as he ran, but his speed through the rain forest kept most bugs from homing in.
Felix eyed his men. They were all grouped together now to boost one another’s morale through simple companionship. On and on they hurried. Arms and legs pumped endlessly; chests heaved. Heads in helmets bobbed. Fourteen different feet rose and fell, pounding the earth relentlessly, jaggedly out of rhythm for mile after mile. The combined huffing and puffing sounded like an overtaxed steam locomotive struggling up a hill. Rucksacks and dive-gear sacks bounced heavily with each stride.
Each face was a mask of utter exhaustion. Felix forced himself to smile. He looked at his men with pride. To talk he drew a breath so deep his stomach pushed out at his flak vest. “And you thought Hell Week was bad.”
The man who was carrying the dead lieutenant looked at Felix blankly. There was grief in his eyes, for the loss.
“Don’t think of death until later. Just put out for me, for the team.” Felix threw his head back to pull in more air.
The wounded man tripped. Felix reached and caught him. The man lost consciousness and wouldn’t revive. Even with other guys lugging his gear, Felix was amazed he’d managed this far. He quickly inserted another transfusion of blood expander and lifted the SEAL in a fireman’s carry; SEALs took turns running beside him, to hold the plasma bag high.
With this new burden over his shoulders, Felix gave his men another forced smile. They still had so far to go. “Faster. Quit slacking off. The only easy day was yesterday.”
At dusk, Felix hid in the stinking trash dump, making observations. His team rested in the jungle growth behind him.
The small village beyond the outskirts of Ferreira Gomes was crawling with Brazilian Army troops. From things they said to one another, Felix knew the troops were preparing to make a sweep to the south. He wasn’t surprised — he’d heard the noise of helicopters during the late afternoon.
The wounded SEAL was in very poor condition now. Felix was sure that if he didn’t get into surgery before dawn, he would die.
Felix didn’t like the options. He couldn’t afford to wait for the Brazilian troops to leave. They might take hours yet, assembling for a night reconnaissance — he saw some men with night-vision goggles. Even if they did depart soon, to scour the country Felix and his team just covered, they’d surely leave behind a rear element for communications and logistic support.
We’ll just have to brazen it out.
Felix crawled backward out of sight of the village. Dogs barked, chickens cackled, pigs oinked, but they’d been doing that already because of the army troops. Felix pulled rotting fruit rinds and maggot-ridden animal bones, and even more unspeakable waste, off his clothing and equipment. But the garbage pile had been high ground of a sort — and he was unlikely to be disturbed by playing children, or villagers dumping trash, without enough warning to slip away.
Felix rejoined his worn-out men. He led them forward, along a well-beaten trail running from some cultivated fields into the village. Felix already knew that most of the villagers had gone indoors because it was getting dark — and also to avoid interfering with the well-disciplined, orderly troops. He saw and smelled wood smoke coming from village shacks on stilts grouped around a main clearing. He also smelled delicious cooking smells, even above his own stench.
“Hey!” Felix yelled. “Hey! Patrol coming in!”
“Password!” a young and scared private shouted from behind a straw-thatched storage shed.
If he thinks that shed is good cover, I’d hate to see what his marksmanship’s like…. Still, I’d rather not find out.
“Password?” Felix shouted. “How should I know? Special Forces! We’ve been wild-westing it for two weeks!”
The private came forward, shrugged, and let Felix and his men go by. The private stared wide-eyed at the wounded man — carried now on a stretcher improvised from saplings and uniform shirts — and at the dead man in the body bag — carried now by two men using the handles on the bag’s sides.
“Be careful out there,” Felix said to the private. “You could be next!” As expected, he saw that the soldier held an M-16.
In the village, a Brazilian Army sergeant spotted Felix and walked over. He sniffed when he got closer, then tried not to breathe too deeply. “Do you need an evacuation? We can call back a helicopter.” The sergeant looked up at the sky. It was growing dark very quickly. “But I’m not sure they land at night.”
“No,” Felix bluffed. “Thank you, but we have our own arrangements.”
“I think your man needs a hospital.”
“Yes. Leave that to us.”
“I think I should tell my lieutenant.”
Felix hesitated. “Please be quick. We have a schedule.”
“Yes, yes. Quick.”
This is where it gets dicey.
The lieutenant approached. He seemed capable and battle-hardened, not someone easily fooled. He wrinkled his nose at his first whiff of Felix.
Good. The more I stink, the less he’ll really look at me, and the less he’ll think to ask me awkward questions.
Felix knew the best way to lie was to use as much of the truth as he could.
“Special Forces, sir. We met some opposition. Our officer was killed. We have our own plan of egress. Classified mission orders.”
The lieutenant called the sergeant over. “Give me the map.”
As they wasted precious minutes and the sky became increasingly dark, Felix showed the lieutenant the vague area of where he’d made contact with the enemy — it had poured rain again that afternoon, and the brushfires from the fighting had surely been snuffed. Felix was certain the Germans would be hiding or gone long before the Brazilians could get anywhere near them on foot.
A villager lit straw torches. They gave off dancing yellow light.
The lieutenant went to brief his squad leaders by red flashlight. Felix led his men in the other direction, toward the river. The Araguari was high and running fast, and Felix could hear it even before the torchlight outlined the near edge of the riverbank against the wet blackness beyond. To his great relief, there were a handful of boats tied up at a rickety pier, at an indentation in the bank sheltered from the main flood current.
To steal a boat at this point, they’d have to wait some time for all the villagers to be asleep, and even then they might be caught — some shacks with light in their windows were close to the pier. Time was one thing the team’s wounded man did not have. Getting caught would surely start a noisy, attention-getting argument with the natives, or an even more compromising waterborne chase. No, outright theft, discovered quickly or at first light, is definitely not advisable with genuine Brazilian forces right here.
Felix found an old man who owned one of the boats and said he needed to requisition it. He told the man to speak to the authorities in Ferreira Gomes, and he’d be reimbursed. That ought to create enough bureaucratic confusion to cover the SEAL team’s tracks. Felix wasn’t happy about needing to tell this sort of lie to an innocent villager.
The man wasn’t going for it. He threw up his hands. “How am I supposed to get upriver to Ferreira Gomes without my motorboat?”
Felix forced himself to hide his real annoyance. “How much?”