“Actually,” Ian clarified in a helpful tone, “there’s a small bush elephant population in this area. Sambisa was originally a game reserve—”
David cut him off, transmitting, “Would you shut. The fuck. Up.”
Worthy reached the end of the tree grove, arriving at a more open patch of ground that flanked the thorns on its way to his intended heading. Ordinarily he’d bypass anything this open, but they were already far off course and the risk was worth it to reach their destination before daybreak. Given that the current heat was as cool as Nigeria ever got this time of year, he couldn’t imagine how much this little adventure in the Sambisa would suck in the daytime—particularly once he donned his ghillie suit.
His first indication of an abnormality in the terrain ahead came with the appearance of an open patch between the bushes—possibly another clearing, though something caught his eye and forced him to proceed out of a morbid sense of curiosity as much as anything else.
Stopping at the edge of the trees, he keyed his mic and said, “Hold up a second—I’ve got UXO up here.”
David transmitted back, “Landmines?”
Not a bad guess, Worthy thought, considering that the forest was supposed to be littered with them.
But the visible portion of an aerial bomb at the center of the jagged clearing was ringed by three enormous craters. “Looks like a Mark 82.”
Cancer replied, “500-pounder? Go give it a good hard kick, see if it’s still good.”
Worthy’s attention drifted away from the torpedo-shaped bomb casing rising from the earth, its tail fins suspended three feet in the air.
At the outskirts of the craters, he made out the skeletal remains of multiple bodies—five or six by the looks of it, though some were sufficiently dismembered to make an exact count futile short of a forensic analysis. Ribs were interspersed with the concave shells of partially intact skulls, the pale remains glowing a surreal shade of seafoam green in his night vision.
He transmitted, “Probably a half dozen bodies, too. No weapons. Survivors must have recovered those. I’m taking us around.”
Reilly replied by the time Worthy had begun moving around the bombing site.
“Nigerian tax dollars at work. Frankly I’m pleasantly surprised their air force managed to hit anything.”
Worthy made his way through the brush, pausing mid-step to make out a long, irregular object beneath his boot—a human femur, probably flung through the trees from the bomb blasts.
Diverting around the remains, Worthy continued leading his team deeper into the Sambisa Forest.
12
I trudged through the trees, doing my best to follow Worthy’s path lest I take an errant step onto a landmine.
It was easier to follow him with the approach of nautical dawn. Birds were beginning to chatter, their calls increasingly taking the place of nocturnal insects. The scene through my night vision was bright green and staggeringly clear, allowing the best view of the Sambisa Forest since we departed the van the previous evening. That fact provided limited comfort, however, given that we were now within ninety minutes of sunrise and still had yet to reach our destination. At the very least, the improved visibility should have allowed us to speed our pace, but even that was a pipe dream because we were simply too worn out to do so.
We’d been on the move for over six hours, placing us an hour behind even my most pessimistic projections. Between the impenetrable walls of thorn and the clearings that pervaded the forest, we didn’t have much say in the matter. Add in the dehydration and muscle cramps associated with any foot movement of this duration, and were all in the hurt box. The Sambisa had dictated innumerable adjustments to our intended azimuth, and by now I thought it was no wonder the Nigerian military could do little to control this vast swath of wilderness—if we could barely make our way as a highly trained five-man team, I shuddered to think what an actual clearance operation would require.
Worthy came alongside a thick tree trunk that had been split, presumably by lightning. Turning to face me, he circled a hand over his head and then pointed to it, and I silently mirrored the motion before he turned forward and continued walking. Once I was abreast of the tree, I repeated the procedure for Ian’s benefit—the poor guy was more exhausted than any of us, and it took him a moment to notice the hand signal before I saw his return confirmation. The tree was now an en route rally point, a spot where we’d meet up if we became dispersed by enemy fire or something as mundane as a break in visual contact from one another. Worthy had been establishing them all night, at intervals every few hundred meters, using whatever notable landmarks he could find among the seemingly endless forest.
This was part and parcel of every foot patrol, which was, by my estimation, the worst part of every mission.
While we had yet to put on the sweltering ghillie suits, our rucks were stuffed to the bursting point and had taken their toll on our stamina. We had no idea how long we’d be out here, and absent any ability to resupply, we had been forced to pack as much food and water as we possibly could.
The water in particular had taken up an inordinate amount of our packing space—we were now a few months into Nigeria’s dry season, and had to assume a dearth of local water sources. If our all-night patrol was any indication, this was a wise precaution; we’d yet to tread through anything more substantial than a few dried-out streambeds, and once in position, we would have to ration our supply accordingly in the interests of maximizing our time on target.
Within half an hour, Worthy transmitted, “Major clearing ahead—I’m going to skirt it to the right.”
As I followed in his footsteps, I glanced left to see that it wasn’t just a clearing, but a vast field extending hundreds of meters to the next patch of forest, an area so wide and open that Boko Haram could have camped a battalion there. But that would have removed the overhead cover they relied upon to remain hidden, and the massive clearing appeared to be completely free of people.
That didn’t mean it wouldn’t be traversed by enemy fighters looking to move quickly when there was no sound of aircraft overhead, however, and I remained unsettled by the presence of such a key terrain feature so close to our destination.
I considered how defensive the Boko Haram forces would be. On one hand, it was a miracle that an American team happened to be in close enough proximity to respond as quickly as we had. On the other hand, any terrorist organization that had survived as long as Boko Haram, fractured or otherwise, might just as easily assume that a military presence was never too far away. That was, of course, if the hostages were present in the Sambisa Forest at all.
My thoughts were interrupted by Worthy’s next transmission.
“Boss, I’m about ten meters out from the destination.”