Jungle Kill Read Free Page A

appear with a bunch of heavies as some sort of test for me.’
    Two Moons chuckled. ‘You are one suspicious fella, Mitch! You’re the one who killed his captain, right?’ The rest of the men in the group had moved away.
    Mitch hesitated, then shrugged. He’d already guessed that everyone knew what he’d done. Maybe it was best that way.
    ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ he said.
    ‘On purpose?’
    ‘Right again.’
    Two Moons nodded. ‘I know how that feels. I killed my sergeant when I was in the regular army, back in the States.’
    Mitch was surprised, both at the information, and at how willing Two Moons was to reveal it.
    ‘On purpose?’ he asked, echoing Two Moons’ question to him.
    ‘Yes and no,’ said Two Moons. ‘The court martial said it was an accident. But I gotta tell you, Mitch, when I hit that nasty piece of work I may not have been intending to kill him, but I sure as hell wasn’t pulling no punches.’
    ‘You killed him with a punch?’
    Two Moons nodded. ‘One punch,’ he affirmed. ‘Turns out he had a thin skull. He was also the most racist man I ever met in my whole life. Enjoyed making life miserable for anyone who wasn’t purebred white. Indians, blacks, Asians, Mexicans – you name it, he hated them. He should never have been made a sergeant in the first place.’
    ‘What happened?’ asked Mitch, curious as towhat could have made the friendly Two Moons go so far.
    ‘As I said, he had been making the lives of all of us non-whites a misery,’ said Two Moons. ‘But I learnt to handle it. Kept my head down and just got on with things. But there was this young black guy from Chicago: skinny kid, seventeen. Brand new. No confidence in himself. Everything he did, this sergeant found fault with and kept punishing him. And I mean
really
punishing him physically. Finally the boy couldn’t take it no more and he took a gun and shot himself.
    ‘Well, when I heard that news something inside me sort of snapped, but I still kept my cool. Then, at parade the next morning, this sergeant comes out to give us the official announcement about the kid killing himself, and he makes some sick joke. It so happens that when he said it he was standing right in front of me. If he’d been a few yards either way to my left or my right, I’d have left it. But he was right in front of me, with that stupid grin onhis face, and before I knew it: wham! Smack!’ Two Moons held up his right fist, and Mitch saw that it looked pretty powerful. ‘Got him right between the eyes. End of story. Lucky for me my court-martial decided there’d been strong provocation.’ Two Moons gave a wry smile. He paused. ‘So that’s my story, let’s hear yours.’
    Mitch shrugged. But before he could say a word they heard Nelson’s voice rap out: ‘OK, take your seats, guys.’
    ‘I’ll tell you about it later,’ said Mitch, relieved at the reprieve.
    Along with the others, they took their seats in front of a screen fixed to one wall. It showed a map of the Niger Delta. Nelson waited until they were seated, then he addressed them.
    ‘This is Plan A to rescue Joseph Mwanga,’ he said. ‘And just to let you know, there is no Plan B.’ Nelson pointed to a spot east of the Delta. ‘This is where Mwanga was last seen, out in the bush, before he and whoever’s holding him disappeared into thejungle. Our job is to get in, find him and get him out. One thing’s for sure, people will know about us. So, we’ve fixed up a cover story.
    ‘Spencer-Tado Oil and Gas, one of the many American-British oil companies drilling for oil in the Niger Delta, has recently received threats that some of its employees are going be taken hostage and held to ransom.’
    Mitch nodded to himself. Kidnapping for ransom was something that happened all the time in Nigeria. The American or British hostages were generally released when a substantial ransom had been paid, but in a few cases they had been killed and their bodies found floating in the