The enemy continued pursuing. Felix was impressed by their tenacity and stamina, as much as he was by their weaponry and tactics. He began to worry they were forcing him into another ambush, with more German Special Forces blocking the SEAL team’s rear.
Felix and his team reentered the stand of closely clumped trees. He handed the dead lieutenant to one of his men. They’d brought a body bag, just in case, and they placed the corpse in it quickly. This would avoid leaving more of a blood trail for the enemy to track. There was still enough blood and gore on Felix for what he planned to do next.
He ordered his team to split up. Most of the men would head east, at right angles to the pursuing Germans. Felix and one other SEAL would continue south, and make as much noise as they could to draw on the enemy.
Felix picked the most experienced unwounded man to assist him. They took two weapons, from the wounded and dead, to supplement their own. They began firing back down their escape path, toward the Germans, with one submachine gun in each hand.
Without the terrible weight of the lieutenant’s body, Felix felt a renewed surge of energy and strength. He and the other SEAL, impelled by a desperate cunning, charged ahead to lay a false trail. They emptied the magazines from all their weapons in the direction of the Germans. Then they shouldered the weapons and doubled back, literally walking backward, dashing toward the Germans as quickly but as quietly as they could.
“Here!” Felix ordered in a hoarse whisper. He used a canteen to wash the lieutenant’s blood from his gear. He and the other SEAL pulled special plastic sticks from their rucksacks. They ran west for several yards. They bent double and used the sticks and walked backward again, hurrying east, and picked up and followed the footprints of the other men in their team.
The sticks ended in fake boar hooves. Still bent over, glancing between their legs so they wouldn’t trip and ruin everything, the two men disguised their trail by pressing the stick ends into the mud and earth. Right and left hooves, front and rear hooves, over and over and over. They did this until the pain in their lower backs and knees made them feel as if they’d never walk again. Then they stood and flew east as fast as they could.
Felix’s team had reunited one hour later and was hurrying north on the run. Their shrapnel injuries wore field-expedient bandages. The men took turns carrying the dead lieutenant’s body. The man with the shoulder bullet wound had been given a transfusion of blood expander to delay shock and help him keep moving. But Felix knew he had internal bleeding — the high-velocity flechette that entered his shoulder had lodged somewhere in his chest cavity.
Felix chose to head north because this was the direction the enemy would least expect him to take. North meant away from the Amazon, and farther away from the coast. It brought the team closer and closer to the Araguari River, a populated area and major obstacle, the last place a team of SEALs would want to be. The Araguari ran east, not toward the Amazon but to the coast and the South Atlantic Ocean.
“From now on,” Felix told his men between labored breaths, “I do the talking.”
Felix maintained a grueling pace. There was real danger the Germans had figured out his plan and were coming after him. There was danger the Germans were in contact with other hostile units near the Araguari, or in the big town ahead on the river, Ferreira Gomes. The team had many miles still to go. They splashed through puddles and dashed between trees with all their equipment.
From here, Felix could count on nothing but his and his men’s nerve and their will to survive. The sun was getting lower in the sky. Once it set, their progress would be badly slowed by poor visibility. The wounded man would die. German or Brazilian forces would close in. Time was vital. The enemy already knew the team was present; caution was thrown to the wind in a high-stakes gamble for life.
“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
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.
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.
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. “
“Password!” a young and scared private shouted from behind a straw-thatched storage shed.
“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
