Adventure and Intrigue

It's thirty-five degrees and raining in Boston.

It's raining here too.

Last night I boarded a plane with three other "fund accountants" and flew south out of Hanscomb Air Force Base.

We flew for four hours and disembarked at a private airfield. We were met by another "fund accountant" who had written instructions and coffee for each of us. Refueled, we got back on the plane.

We flew for another seven hours. Keira slept. Jo stared out the window. Dimitri kept his iPod on the whole time, blasting metal. I watched them. The same team that came with me to Alabama. The same team I had in Chicago. Now the jungle.

I read. Simple instructions: A place, a photograph, an abort code. Get in, get the package, get out.

At the pilot's signal we got ready for the jump. Dimitri took the guns, Keira took the explosives, Jo took the bulk of the rations. I had the communications gear.

We jumped pre-dawn, silent, and unseen. Our parachutes were dark above, and light underneath to fool airborne and ground-based observers.

The target area was a small clearing, about a hundred yards across. Three of us landed together. We all landed safely.

What happened next happened in quick succession. An explosion - bright, loud, miles above us. The plane. Then, a shout from the jungle, and gunfire.

We were on the ground as soon as the light from the plane's fireball hit us, scrambling for what cover there was as the first shots were fired. Leaves were rattling under the hail of bullets, they were shooting from the north end of the clearing.

I was in the middle of the clearing, prone behind a rock, Jo was in a shallow depression ten yards to my left. Dimitri was ten yards to my right. He was dead.

Keira had landed closest to the north end of the clearing, she was already into the jungle. Bullets were thumping into the ground around us. I heard three machine guns, a few small arms. Then I heard only two. The pause was too long to be a reload. It must have been Keira.

When the next gunner went down I called to Jo for cover and sprinted, crouched over, to Dimitri's body. My knife out, I cut through the straps holding the pack to his body and ripped the bandolier of grenades from his chest. I dove back to my rock, unhit.

"Idiot," Jo called. "What good are the weapons going to do us with Keira in there with them? We can't just start shooting at them!"

"He still had the photo." I said. That shut her up.

The gunshots stopped. Dawn had broken. Keira emerged from the tattered leaves, pushing a man in front of her. We walked over to her.

"The rest are dead. This one lost a few teeth, and I think I broke a couple ribs." she said when we reached her side of the clearing.

Jo moved to pat him down for weapons.

"He's clean," Keira said, "I checked."

"Better safe than sorry." Jo stepped back, and the jungle around us erupted with men. They were dressed in black and green camoflauge, camoflauge exactly like ours. There were six of them at least. No guns. Totally silent. The first took Keira by the neck from behind, another leapt past me and took Jo in a flying tackle. Two of them moved toward me.

I was already swinging Dimitri's pack up. One caught it on the chin as I struck out with my free hand at the other. I blocked a slashing stroke from his knife with my forearm and I completed the arc with Dimitri's pack by crashing it down on his head. How many left? Two?

As I looked back the man with the broken teeth charged me. He was holding a six-inch blade. I dodged the thrust and, spinning, drove my hand into the back of his neck.

Jo and Keira had taken the fight into the jungle. I started to follow them when more gunshots rang out. Behind me, the other side of the clearing. Twenty men, at least, all in the same camoflauge. I ran.

Once under the canopy the sunlight all but dissapeared. I kept running, slowly putting more distance between me and my pursuers.

Where did Toothless get the knife? Had Keira and Jo both missed it when they searched him? Had Jo slipped it to him in the pat down? Did he have time to pick it up from on of the camoflauged guys I was fighting?

Where did they come from? Why were they wearing the same camoflauge? Was this a set up? But who is setting us up? And why? What do we know?

I have a message set to send out, sitting here. Do I contact the team back home? What if I'm the target? Do I go after Jo and Keira? Are they in on it? Either of them? Both?

I'm cold. I'm hungry. I'm writing from a hill in the South American jungle. I have a patchy satellite link, six grenades, and no rations. Is this adventure?

It's raining here too.