The Jungle

tropical heat and soaring humidity, he figured each of them would drink nearly a gallon per day.

Gomez finished the preflight warm-up and asked, “Everybody ready?” His voice was muted through the headphones everyone was wearing.

He didn’t wait for a response before putting on more throttle. Rotor wash whipped through the chopper like a gale-force wind. The headphones kept Linda’s baseball cap in place, but her bunched and rubber-banded hair danced like the tail of an agitated cat.

The noise and wind built to a crescendo that rattled the helicopter within what seemed like an inch of its life. And then the ride smoothed as it lifted gingerly off the deck. The Oregon was at a dead stop, and there was no crosswind, so Gomez easily kept the craft centered over the large H painted on the cargo hatch. Ahead of them a loadmaster was watching the steel cable trailing up to the aircraft’s winch. As the chopper rose higher into the air, more and more cable was taken up until it went taut. The whole time, Gomez had inched the chopper forward so that at the exact instant the line started taking the load he was directly over the rigid hulled inflatable.

As delicately as a surgeon, he lifted the boat off its cradle. They were at the very limit of what the helo could take, and for a moment Adams paused, as if to let the chopper get used to the great weight hanging from its belly. And just as quickly he heaved it farther off the deck and sent the helicopter crabbing sideways, plucking the boat from between the stern derricks. As soon as they had cleared the rail, Adams applied even more power, and they started eastward to where the jungle crouched just over the horizon.

“How’s it feel?” Juan asked the pilot.

“Like we’ve got a two-thousand-pound pendulum swinging free under us. That boat might be pretty sleek in the water, but it’s got the in-flight aerodynamics of a barn door. I hope you aren’t expecting to chopper it back to the ship when you’re done.”

“I’d like to, if we can,” Juan told him. “I recall, though, that our contract does mention being reimbursed for expenses.”

“Good. Write the damned thing off. The strain we’re putting on the airframe and rotors ain’t worth bringing it home.”

Cabrillo laughed. Complaining was Adams’s way of dissipating stress. Max Hanley was the same way. Juan felt humor helped him a little, but the truth was that before a mission he liked to keep that stress bottled up inside. It was like the coiling of a watch spring; it was energy he would release later as he needed it. The more dangerous the situation, the tighter, and thus more explosive, he became. Right now, and until they crossed the border into Myanmar, he was truly relaxed. After that, he knew the tension would mount. Like always, he hoped he wouldn’t need to let it out, at least not until he was back aboard the ship soaking in a hot shower after a hundred or so laps in the Oregon’s indoor swimming pool.

Because the chopper was so grossly overloaded, Adams kept the speed down to around sixty knots, but it seemed only a couple of minutes passed before they thundered over a white sand beach at just enough elevation for the bottom of the RHIB to clear the mangrove swamp beyond. That was it, a thin pale strip of sand delineating a world of blue water from an equally monochromatic world of green jungle.

It seemed to stretch forever, rolling and undulating with the vagaries of the topography, but always covering every square inch of the ground below them. They were still in Bangladesh, but Juan knew the jungle stretched uninterrupted all the way to the coast of Vietnam and that it really was terra incognita— land unknown. Neil Armstrong once described the surface of the moon as “magnificent desolation.” This was the same, only this landscape was verdant yet nearly as hostile to human life.

They were so overloaded the chopper was barely able to keep the dangling boat from smashing into the taller trees. Gomez Adams wasn’t so much as flying the aircraft as he was fighting to keep it airborne and on course. His snarky comments had long since dried up. The sweat that shone on his face was only partially due to the high humidity.

Cabrillo plucked a handheld GPS from a pouch hanging from his combat harness. In a moment it told him that they were about to cross into Myanmar’s airspace. He didn’t bother announcing it to the others. But he kept a sharp eye on the jungle below for any sign the frontier was protected.

They had planned their route in to avoid rivers or major streams because any settlements in this remote part of the country would be built along their banks. There were no roads, and for as far as Cabrillo could see there were no signs that loggers had been attacking the jungle. Judging from the view alone, it was as if the human race had never existed.

The ground below started rising, and Adams matched the earth’s contours. Below them their shadow leapt and jumped across the canopy. It was not as crisp had it been earlier because clouds were moving in from the north. Behind the grayness loomed ominous black thunderheads that towered into the sky. They flickered with lightning.

“I’d say you’re in for a spot of weather,” Gomez said, his first words since making landfall.

“Of course we are,” Cabrillo replied. “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

They continued on for another hour and were now deep into Myanmar. Adams had flown masterfully, and, just as they had planned, they crossed over a hillock and there was the target, the river, a narrow slash through the jungle with trees almost meeting overtop. The pilot checked his fuel gauge and did some quick calculations.

“Sorry, but this is as far as I go. As it stands, I need the ship to come east to meet me if I’m going to make it back.”

“Roger that.” Cabrillo twisted in his makeshift seat so he could look at the trio in the cargo area. “Did you hear that? We need to do this quick. Linda, you’ve got point, then MacD and you, John. I’ll be right behind. Linda, make sure you wait to unhook the boat.”

“You got it,” she replied, and kicked a rappelling rope out the hole where a door had once been.

Adams maneuvered the big chopper into a hover directly over the fifty-foot-wide river. The tops of the trees danced and swayed in the rotor wash as he threaded the RHIB through them on its way to the water below. Such was his skill that the boat barely made a splash as it hit. And no sooner was it in place than Linda Ross threw herself down the rope. She dangled precariously for a moment, then arced her body over the RHIB’s inflatable skirt and landed on her feet on the deck. MacD Lawless was halfway down and dropping fast. Linda positioned herself to release the winch hook and waved up at Adams, who was watching the procedure through the Plexiglas windows at his feet.

“See you later,” Juan said to the pilot as he unstrapped himself for his turn down the line.

Before following the others, Juan clipped a D ring from the bundled packs to the line and looked down at the three people in the boat. All were looking up at him. Linda made a gesture to indicate they were ready, so Juan pushed the packs out. They hit the deck hard, but there was nothing in them that could break. Juan slung his carbine over his shoulder and threw himself down the rope, his hands protected by special gloves with leather palms and fingers. He arrested his fall an inch from the boat before letting go. No sooner had his boots hit than Linda released the winch, and Gomez Adams torqued the chopper up and away, heading back to the ship, and flying even closer to the ground now that he didn’t have to worry about the RHIB.

After so much time in the helicopter, it took several minutes for the ringing in their ears to subside.

They were on a deserted stretch of the river, which at this point flowed at a snail’s pace. The banks were about a foot above the water, composed of reddish soil that crumbled in places. Immediately behind the banks exploded a riot of vegetation that was so dense it appeared impenetrable. Cabrillo stared at a spot as hard as he could and estimated he could only penetrate maybe five feet before his view was completely blocked. For all he knew, a division of Myanmar’s Special Forces was lurking six feet in.

The temperature hovered around ninety degrees, but the lack of wind and the thickness of the moisture in the air made it feel like they were breathing in a sauna. In moments, perspiration stains bloomed under Cabrillo’s arms, and sweat trickled down his face. The coming rainstorm would be a welcome relief that couldn’t get there fast enough.

“Okay, we’ve got about sixty miles to cover. I want MacD and John on the bows as lookouts. Linda, you’re with me, but keep an eye on our six. The guys back on the ship beefed up the outboard’s exhaust, but anyone upstream will still hear us coming, so stay sharp.”

With that, Juan took his place at the control console slightly aft of amidships. Other than the ring of rubber fenders that encircled the boat, it was the only thing that stuck up above the deck of the spartan assault boat.

“Gear all secured?” he asked.