Spider Shepherd: SAS: #1 by Stephen Leather

nodded. ‘Another lesson learned. There’s a knack to seeing beyond the surface of the foliage. The trick is to focus on the nearest leaves and then re-focus the eye to look through them. Keep practising and it’ll suddenly click, but you need to learn it - I won’t always be next in line on patrol.’ He winked at Shepherd, taking the sting out of his comments. ‘You did all right in the contact though.’
    They RVed with Jimbo, Geordie and Liam and searched the ambush site. Among the small bare footprints of the Mayan villagers were the booted tracks made by the Guatemalan soldiers who had attacked them. Shepherd stared at them for a moment. ‘The boot treads are the same pattern as the ones we’re wearing.’ 
    Pilgrim gave a shrug of his shoulders. ‘All supplied by the good old USA, always playing both sides against each other.’
    As they looked around for further signs, Liam spotted a battered torch, lying in the dirt near the edge of the track. He was already stooping to pick it up when Pilgrim grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t touch it, it’ll be booby-trapped.’
    He examined it from all angles, then led them back down the track fifty yards, sighted on the torch and fired at it. The round struck home and there was the flash of an explosion, setting the birds in the canopy to panic-stricken flight once more. Pilgrim glanced at the others. ‘Learn from this,’ he said. ‘A torch is a valuable possession here. Why would one be lying in the dirt? A month ago I had to treat a Mayan kid whose hand was blown off when he picked up a torch like this and tried to switch it on. Right, we’ve bought ourselves and the villagers a bit of time, but we need to find a more permanent way to discourage the Guatemalans.’
    Liam smiled thinly and Shepherd patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. ‘Not your day, mate,’ he said.
    ‘Hey, I could have lost an arm there,’ said Liam. ‘I’m ahead of the game.’ He gestured at Pilgrim, who was checking his weapon. ‘He knows his stuff, doesn’t he?’
    Shepherd nodded. ‘It’s a pity he’s not on the DS,’ he said. ‘I’ve learnt more from a few days with him than all the time we were in Hereford.’
    Pilgrim led the way back to the village, this time using the track. He exchanged a few words with the alcalde, who was hovering nervously at the edge of the village, his smiles now replaced with a worried frown. Pilgrim shook his hand, murmured some more words of reassurance, then led the patrol away, moving fast towards the RV point for a heli lift-out.  Just as dusk was falling, a Lynx helicopter clattered out of the sky. Shepherd and the others threw their bergens into the loading bay and jumped up after them and within five minutes the chopper was airborne again. It was now dark - Shepherd still hadn’t got used to the speed of nightfall in the tropics - and looking down from the chopper, he could see nothing but the dark mass of the jungle, extending to the horizon, unrelieved by any glimmer of light.
    They flew in to the dusty airfield camp on the outskirts of Belize City, half-dead from fatigue, but at once went to the headquarters building for a briefing with the Chief of Staff, an Infantry Colonel with thinning, sandy-coloured hair, fleshy features and sweat patches beneath the arms of his shirt. He came straight to the point. ‘As you know, the Guatemalan Army are making cross-border incursions and appear to be waging a terror campaign. We believe it may be the prelude to a full scale invasion, since they’ve long wanted to take Toledo Province from Belize.’
    ‘Why would the Guatemalans want Toledo?’ Jimbo said. ‘As far as I could see, there’s nothing there but jungle.’
    ‘They want a port on the east side of the continent, giving them access to the Atlantic. Punta Gorda would do that, but an oil company has also been prospecting in Toledo and there are rumours that they’ve found significant deposits.’ The colonel paused, putting the tips