Fault Line (2 page)
Authors: Chris Ryan
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General, #Juvenile Nonfiction, #Science & Nature, #Environmental Conservation & Protection
Now his abseil rope was stuck. He couldn’t move down at all. He was helplessly attached to the great big machine. He imagined rotor blades chopping towards him like a giant windmill, spilling fuel that would ignite the trees in an orange fireball.
He saw ropes snaking up into the belly of the craft. The others had reached the ground. He was the only one still attached to the heli now, and like some tentacled monster in its death throes it wouldn’t let him go.
The winch man was waving frantically, yellow gloves trying to get his attention. Paulo suddenly realized that the problem was him. His line must be tangled. The rope below him must have got wrapped around a branch. Whenever the heli drifted on an air current, it was yanked back by a big, solid tree. Paulo was on a tug-of-war rope between the two. And his earlier instinct had been right: if he didn’t act quickly, the heli would definitely come down.
Paulo looked down. Below was dense foliage. He couldn’t even see the rope, let alone where it was tangled. He’d have to tell the winch man to cut him free.
He worked like lightning. He had a spare lanyard on his harness; a short length of rope with a karabiner clip. He grabbed a branch, hooked it around and tested it. Yes, it would take his weight. He clipped his harness onto it, looked up at the winch man and drew his hand across his neck in a throat-slitting motion.
The winch man was ready for his signal. He cut the rope immediately and it came snaking down towards Paulo. Paulo grabbed for it and the heli lifted away, moving smoothly and safely once more. Then he tied the free end of the rope around the branch in a figure-of-eight knot. His heart was hammering so hard his hands shook and it took a few goes to loop the rope back into the karabiner. He’d nearly brought the helicopter down.
Now he had secured the rope, he could continue abseiling – once he’d untangled the end. He pulled it up and glimpsed a big purple knot. This was going to take some time. Perhaps it was just what he needed to help him calm down – something monotonous, like knitting in reverse. He sighed and got to work.
2 T
HE
M
ISSION
HE
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ISSION
When Paulo finally reached the bottom of the tree his four friends were sitting on their bergens drinking from their water bottles.
‘I thought you’d decided to stay up there,’ said Li.
Alex looked at his watch. ‘Twenty minutes. I reckon that must be the world record for the slowest fast-rope.’
Li screwed the top back on her water bottle. ‘I think next time I race you, I’ll have a snooze first and then catch you up.’
Paulo was drenched in sweat. He shrugged his bergen off his back and took off his harness. But he wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t give as good as he got from Li. ‘The whole point,’ he said to her, ‘was to be the last down, not the first.’ He peeled off his abseiling gloves; they had moulded themselves to him like a second skin.
‘You should have seen Hex,’ grinned Amber. ‘One moment, I didn’t know where any of you were. The next, he was shinning down a tree like a rat down a drainpipe.’
‘Closely followed by you,’ Hex rejoined. Her pink harness was lying on the ground next to her bergen. Hex picked it up and put his hands through the leg holes, flapping his hands to mime someone running very fast on tiptoe.
Amber snatched the harness from him and swiped him with it before stuffing it into the top of her bergen.
Paulo drank some water, leaned back against a tree and breathed a long sigh of relief.
Then he froze.
A snake hung down from a tree. It had a dark brown body the colour of tree bark, but the underside was bright yellow. The yellow edged its mouth like a thick coat of lipstick. It hissed at him, the inside of its mouth glossy black, like patent leather. ‘That’s all I need,’ he said softly.
‘Wow,’ breathed Li. ‘A vine snake.’
Paulo remained stock-still, his neck twisted round, staring at the snake. ‘Yes, but is it—?’
‘It’s not poisonous,’ said Li.
Paulo believed her; her parents were naturalists and she knew her flora and fauna. But all the same, he stayed exactly where he was.
‘There,’ said Li. ‘It’s going already.’
The snake slithered down the tree and disappeared into the undergrowth. Paulo relaxed.
Amber pulled the map out of her belt kit and unfolded it on the forest floor. ‘Well, guys – we’re on our own. Seven days until we see the heli again.’
‘We’ll try not to pull it out of the sky when we see it,’ said Li, and dragged Paulo towards the map.
They hunkered down to get their bearings. The map showed just dense jungle – no paths, no signs of civilization. Probably no human had set foot there for centuries. This place belonged to the birds, small mammals, snakes and insects. Now the five friends would be living by their wits and their skills.
It felt like the holidays had really started. The rest of the time they were all at various schools all over the globe – Alex in Northumberland; Li in whatever corner of the globe her parents were working in; Paulo in Argentina; Hex in London; and Amber in the US. But now they were together and they were Alpha Force again.
Ever since they’d been thrown together on a ship sailing around Indonesia, this was what holidays were about. The five teenagers had been marooned on a tropical island and disaster had followed disaster. They had to live off the land, fighting hostile wildlife. When a rescue boat arrived it turned out to be crewed by a vicious band of pirates – and their struggle to survive became all-out war. When they finally came through, none of them would ever be the same again.
But there was more to that summer than survival. When they’d fought off the pirates, they had saved the lives of a French family. It was a turning point for all of them. Together, they could help people. Their muddled teenage lives suddenly had purpose; Amber in particular felt able to face the world for the first time since her parents had died on an undercover mission. The five knew they had found their raison d’etre. Alpha Force was formed in memory of Amber’s mother and father – and to carry on their work helping disadvantaged people.
Every school holiday Alpha Force came together to face different challenges. They were helped by Amber’s uncle, her guardian John Middleton. He’d arranged the helicopter they’d come in on, persuading a friend in an oil company to let them hitch a ride on one of the craft used to ferry workers to the offshore rigs. John Middleton had been a key player in her parents’ missions – using his powerful friends to organize and fund missions and provide equipment. He was pleased when his niece had found an interest in life through her new friends. He was happy to pull a few strings if it kept her amused and would even rustle up demanding challenges for them, such as breaking into a secure military building. He would not have been so willing if he’d known that Alpha Force’s ‘challenges’ were often as deadly as the missions of Amber’s parents.
Right now, their challenge was a seven-day trek through the deepest jungle – to refresh survival skills and hone their navigation techniques.
The map was unlike any they’d seen before. On most maps there were tracks, railway lines and rock features; here there was nothing. Just a big area marked with wavy red contour lines, height markers and the odd tree symbol. Endless, featureless jungle.
Li sat up and slapped her palms against her thighs decisively. ‘That’s enough of being lost. Hex, just get out your box of tricks and tell us where we are.’
Hex carried a sophisticated palmtop computer on his belt. It could do many amazing things – one of which was to use satellites to calculate precisely where they were – a global positioning system. But he wasn’t using it. ‘No good,’ he said. ‘The tree canopy here’s too thick. It can’t punch through.’
‘Damn,’ said Li. ‘Thought I could tempt you to try.’
‘For this trip it’s old-fashioned map and compass, I’m afraid,’ said Alex. He identified where they were from a grid reference taken in the heli and scored the map with his fingernail to mark it. ‘You can’t always rely on boxes of tricks. There are times when GPS might not work.’ But he knew they all understood the importance of this exercise. In the kinds of places they worked in, they might find themselves stranded without any equipment. And as they would probably be coping with all sorts of other problems – such as surviving – their navigation skills had to be second nature.
Alex stood up. ‘Ready to go?’
They shouldered their bergens and got into single file. Completing this exercise would take teamwork. There were clear roles: Paulo would go first; Amber and Alex would follow with a map each, checking and double-checking the route – with no horizon to help them and no landmarks, sticking to the map was vital; Li and Hex would bring up the rear, keeping track of how far they had travelled.
‘Follow the ridge,’ said Amber to Paulo.
Paulo looked down at his feet. There was a ridge, easy to see because it was used as a track by animals; but it forked into a Y shape. ‘Which one?’
Amber and Alex consulted their maps. They hadn’t even set off but the tiniest detail, easy to miss, could make all the difference. ‘Left,’ said Alex.
Paulo walked on. After a little while, the ground to the left fell away into a steep slope.
Alex looked at the map. ‘Is that marked?’
Amber looked at her map. Everything had to be checked. She nodded, showing it to Alex. ‘Yes. This ridge line. Looks like it’s nearly a hundred metres deep.’
‘Dios
,’ said Paulo. He suddenly had visions of blundering over a precipice, his heavy bergen pulling him over like a lead weight. He’d thought the jungle would all be flat. He’d have to be careful where he put his feet.
,’ said Paulo. He suddenly had visions of blundering over a precipice, his heavy bergen pulling him over like a lead weight. He’d thought the jungle would all be flat. He’d have to be careful where he put his feet.
Hex seemed to read his thoughts. ‘Just when you think it’s getting boring.’
‘You know what?’ said Alex. ‘I think there was an earthquake here. Dad said you came across places like this.’
‘You’re loving this, aren’t you?’ said Amber. ‘Look at your face.’
Alex was grinning. His dad was in the SAS and had told many stories of his jungle training in Belize. Now here Alex was, following in his footsteps. He felt very good indeed. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I like it here.’
Hex wasn’t feeling quite as much at home. ‘Did your dad say how often earthquakes happen here? It might be good to know.’
‘I think we’re OK.’ Li pointed down into the valley. ‘That one occurred quite a long time ago. The vegetation is well established. Those trees are at least fifty years old.’
‘Quite a long time ago – or quite recent, depending on how you look at it,’ said Hex.
They plodded on.
‘Ten-metre check,’ called Li and Hex simultaneously. This was the other vital element in the equation. As well as knowing what direction they were going in, the party also had to know how far they had travelled. On other training exercises they had learned to count their paces and judge when they’d done ten metres, adjusting for uphill or downhill slopes. Li and Hex carried hand-held clicker devices and pressed them every time they’d done ten metres, comparing the score to check they were both still accurate.
The team’s roles were carefully allocated according to their skills and aptitudes. Paulo, leading the way, had to notice whether they were going downhill or uphill. If they found themselves climbing or descending, it could mean they were going wrong. Without a horizon it was surprisingly difficult to tell, but Paulo was extra sensitive to changes in his balance after spending a lifetime in the saddle.
‘Going down,’ he called as he felt his feet moving faster and the bergen pushing him like a hand in his back.
Amber and Alex looked at the maps again, tracing the ridge lines. Yes, their ridge went down and the one next to it stayed level. ‘Down is good,’ said Amber.
Alex was a good choice for map reader because he had spent years camping alone in the Northumbrian moors where he grew up. He could look at a map and visualize the contours in three dimensions. He could tell if what looked like the shortest route would take him up a steep hill, or if he would be better taking a longer way round. The map of the Belize jungle would test this to the limit.
Amber, as second map reader, was also used to finding her way in featureless spaces. Out on the open sea in her parents’ yacht, she’d had to know exactly where she was on sea charts. Now her finely honed sense of direction was coming into its own.
Hex and Li, at the back, were the most accurate at judging distance. Li was good at it because she had trained as an athlete from an early age. She knew exactly how long her stride was and could keep it accurate. Hex was a talented hacker; his brain handled details well and he was able to lock out other thoughts and concentrate, the way he did when he was programming and one missing comma might mean disaster. He gave the job his absolute attention.
However, not all of them found their roles easy. While Alex glowed with pride, and Paulo tromped ahead in his usual happy-go-lucky way, Amber found herself longing for a breeze. The air was still and muggy. Sweat drenched her. She could have sworn moisture was pouring off the leaves onto her, otherwise why was there so much? There was no sky. When she looked up it was just deep green, with branches springing back as animals ran away from them.
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