Fault Line (8 page)
Authors: Chris Ryan
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General, #Juvenile Nonfiction, #Science & Nature, #Environmental Conservation & Protection
As she spoke there was a loud rumble followed by a crash. The trees shook, sending birds squealing into the sky.
The five friends froze in a shocked tableau: Hex wrapping the mask in cotton wool from the medical kit; Paulo at the stretcher, adjusting the robber’s splint; Alex getting up off his bergen to go down into the tomb with Li and Amber.
Li swallowed nervously. ‘Was that a quake?’
Amber moved cautiously towards the mouth of the tomb. ‘Oh,’ she said.
The other four went to join her.
One side of the tunnel that led down into the tomb had caved in.
‘I think,’ said Alex, ‘we’d better leave the dangerous stuff to the archaeologists.’
The birds, barely settled again, suddenly took off in a squawking panic, bright feathers flashing through the green foliage. And there was another sound – the steady beat of rotors; the high whine of an engine. The helicopter was coming.
8 L
ANDING
Z
ONE
ANDING
Z
ONE
They ran to the little clearing and looked up at the signal balloon. It was buffeted in the air currents like a punch bag. The bright sky hurt their eyes after the permanent twilight under the tree canopy; they felt like nocturnal animals as they squinted up into real daylight. The belly of the helicopter passed over, a black torpedo sliding through the sky. It circled away then hovered, the winch man at the open side door, looking down.
Alex waved. The winch man waved back. They had contact. Alex lay down flat on his back, his legs straight out and his arms stretched above his head. It was the international sign for ‘casualty on a stretcher’.
Above him, the heli flew away and circled back again. As it passed the gap it did a wobbling movement, tipping its rotors from one side and then the other. Alex knew what that meant:
message understood
.
message understood
.
The heli came back and hovered. Soon a shape began to descend out of the aircraft, a strange black silhouette. As it came below the tree canopy the light changed and they realized what it was: two chainsaws, lashed together. All of them asked themselves the same question: why was the winch man sending down chainsaws?
Li leaned close to Paulo so he could hear her above the noise of the heli. ‘Maybe you’re supposed to cut the robber’s leg off.’
He looked at her and shrugged, just as mystified.
The chainsaws were rustling through the lower leaves and heading for the ground. Hex went to grab one.
‘Don’t touch it!’ yelled Paulo. ‘You’ll get an electric shock. Aircraft build up a lot of static electricity. Let the cable touch the ground first.’
Hex stopped where he was. ‘Whoa,’ he muttered to himself. ‘That could really liven up my day.’
The chainsaws touched down and the rope went slack. Up above, more strange shapes were coming down on ropes. When they arrived they turned out to be fuel cans, two orange suits of protective chain-mail clothing and a metal box about the size of a shoebox.
Once everything was safely unloaded, Alex waved up at the winch man. The ropes snaked back up into the sky. The winch man gave a final wave and the heli moved away.
Once it had gone the jungle seemed strangely still and quiet.
‘OK, Alex,’ said Amber. ‘I thought he was picking us up. Why has he gone away again? And what are all these toys for?’
‘The pilot can’t land to pick up the stretcher,’ replied Alex. ‘He wants us to cut a landing zone.’
Amber scratched her leg. The wait-a-while cuts were still really itchy and tender. She’d been hoping that if they went back to Belize City she could get some antibiotics. ‘This jungle business just gets better,’ she grumbled.
Paulo was also disappointed not to be getting in a helicopter immediately, but the thought of an engineering challenge perked him up. ‘We want a flat area about thirty metres wide, with a firm surface. Not here,’ he added. ‘Those tombs won’t cope with ten tonnes of helicopter landing on them.’
‘We need to be on a ridge line,’ said Alex. ‘Then the trees will be easier to clear.’
Amber unfolded the map briskly and pointed. ‘There’s an ideal spot just there. About ten minutes’ walk away.’ She was keen to get moving. When she had a job to do the wait-a-while itching wasn’t so bad.
Alex nodded. ‘Yeah. Take someone and scout ahead; the rest of us can follow with the stretcher.’
She picked up both chainsaws and swung one over to Hex. ‘Congratulations. You’re my pacesetter.’
Hex barely caught it before she turned round and set off. ‘See you in a bit, guys,’ he said to the others.
As soon as Hex started walking behind her, he was counting paces. It seemed like second nature now; once he got back to civilization he probably wouldn’t be able to stop himself doing it. It would be like a subroutine forever running in his head.
As Hex and Amber disappeared, Paulo did a quick check on the patient. Not having a common language he couldn’t ask him how he was feeling, but he guessed the splint had made him more comfortable. Certainly his breathing was steadier. Paulo felt the man’s toes. Both feet were the same temperature. So no circulation problems yet.
Meanwhile Alex cut the cord of the signal balloon with his knife. Another important rule of survival: never leave your distress markers once the call has been answered.
The free end of the rope drifted up. Li came and watched as the balloon caught a thermal and shrank until it was only a dot in the sky. ‘Maybe we should have put a message on it:
Dear Mum and Dad, Having a super time
. . .’
Dear Mum and Dad, Having a super time
. . .’
The three prepared to follow the others, distributing the rest of the gear. Alex made a bee-line for the metal box. The others didn’t notice the smile playing across his lips as he put it in his bergen. He was sure it was going to make clearing the landing zone an awful lot more fun.
Li and Paulo lowered the stretcher carefully to the ground so as not to jar the injured man’s leg. Alex put down the fuel cans.
Hex was taking his bergen off. ‘Do you want the good news first? No old Maya structures, so it should all be solid ground.’
Amber was standing next to a mahogany. ‘But the bad news is we’ll have to clear nearly twenty trees.’ She thumped the trunk of the tree behind her. ‘And that includes this monster.’
The tree was nearly three metres in diameter, with buttresses flaring out like a bell of fabric from the bottom. They looked around at the rest of the area. Many of the other trees were not as big, but they were solid oaks – at least a metre in diameter. It looked like hard work.
Paulo unloaded the protective chain mail off the stretcher. ‘Alex, what’s so funny?’
Alex was smiling as he slipped his bergen off. He opened the top and took out the metal box. ‘I’ve almost been hoping we’d have a chance to do this.’
‘Yeah,’ said Amber. ‘Somehow we can tell.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Li. ‘You’ve brought some wood lice.’
‘Beavers?’ suggested Hex.
Almost reverently, Alex opened the box and revealed the contents. It contained forty white sticks about the length of a Cumberland sausage, wrapped in cellophane. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is plastic explosive. I went on a course at half term. Ladies and gentlemen, I am now qualified to blow holes in things.’
‘I admit that’s very cool,’ said Li. ‘But what good is it right now?’
Alex lifted the sticks of plastic explosive out of the box. Underneath were drilling tools and some other, smaller boxes. ‘We put a couple of holes in each tree and stick some explosive in. Then – bang. Job done. We’ll be back in Belize City in time for dinner. I don’t think we’re going to need those chainsaws.’
His words lifted the group’s mood in an instant. It was though the sun had come out.
Amber felt her old positive self again. ‘Hex has marked the trees we need to move. There’s a cross on each of them.’
‘That wasn’t me,’ said Hex, his voice full of doom. ‘That was the Blair Witch donkey.’
They all started to giggle. Amber poked him in the ribs. ‘Don’t start us off again.’
Alex handed Paulo the drilling tool. It was like a giant corkscrew, with a handle and a long twisted shaft. ‘Bore two holes in each tree, opposite each other and one slightly below the other. The one below creates a weak spot; the one above pushes the trunk over.’
Paulo nodded. ‘Like a topcut and undercut when you’re felling a tree with a saw or an axe?’
‘Exactly. And make the undercut so that the tree falls outside, not in towards the landing zone.’
Hex picked up the machete. ‘I’ll clear some of the smaller bushes.’
Alex took the wrapper off one of the sticks of plastic explosive, then tossed it to Amber.
Amber caught it on reflex, then realized with horror what she’d got in her hands. ‘What did you do that for?’
Alex laughed. ‘PE’s virtually inert. You could put it on a fire and it would barely burn.’
‘Very funny,’ snapped Amber. Her heart was still hammering. ‘I bet you weren’t so cool about it when they did the same to you on your course.’
Alex smiled sheepishly. She was dead right. He’d been shaking like a leaf when the instructor had tossed the stick of PE at him. You couldn’t pull the wool over Amber’s eyes.
Amber sniffed the PE. It smelled of nothing and felt like plasticine. Strange stuff. ‘How is this harmless substance going to blow down a tree?’
Alex touched the small box in the kit. ‘These detonators. You don’t want to play catch with those.’
‘Do you want this back?’
‘Pick up the box. You can help me put it in the trees.’
Alex went to the first tree. Paulo had made two nice big holes. Now the question was how much PE to use. On the course – with the Territorial Army back at home – he had learned that even a small piece could blow a hole in steel. But trees? A lot of these had just withstood a minor earthquake and probably many others in the past. They’d be pretty tough. His instructor had given them a tip: when in doubt, add P for plenty. He had then proceeded to demolish an entire house instead of merely putting a hole in the front wall so maybe he’d gone a bit too far. Alex looked at the sticks in Amber’s hand, picked one up, and squashed it into the hole. He took another one round the other side and did the same.
‘Hey, you’re really going for it,’ said Amber.
‘Trees are heavy,’ replied Alex, moving on to the next marked tree. ‘They take quite a bit to shift.’
‘So long as you don’t shift all of us as well.’
They continued until all the trees Hex had marked were drilled and plugged with PE. They’d used nearly all the sticks.
Paulo put the hand drill down next to Alex’s bergen. ‘So what’s next?’
Alex took a small box out of the metal case and picked up a reel of cord like white washing line. ‘This is det cord. I need one helper—’
Everyone said, ‘Me,’ but Li got there slightly ahead of the others. Alex handed her the reel of det cord and the knife he kept at his belt.
‘Everyone else get into the middle of the landing zone with the injured guy,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll be as far away from the blast as possible.’
While Paulo, Amber and Hex started moving the robber on the stretcher and all their gear, Alex and Li went over to a tree. Alex opened the box and revealed the detonators: silver tubes about the length of a pen top, with two wires coming out of the end. He picked one up as though he was lifting a mouse by its tail and pushed it into the explosive. ‘You have to be careful with these. The heat from your hands can set them off so you have to handle them by the wires.’ He did the same on the other side of the tree, using a slightly different detonator. The upper charge had to go off fractionally before the other to push the tree over, and so he used a slightly slower detonator. ‘OK, I need some of that wire.’
Li paid out the white cord from the spool. ‘How much?’
Alex took the end. ‘I need two pieces about thirty centimetres long.’
Li slit two lengths of cord and handed them to him. ‘How will you set it off? Light it?’
Alex carefully twisted the wires of each detonator onto the det cord. ‘No. They’re electrical. There’s a firing device in the kit.’ He knotted together the two ends and tied in a third piece so the arrangement hung like a necktie around the tree. ‘Right, we need to feed out the wire and connect it to the firing device.’
Li paid out the cord until they were back to where the others were waiting with the bergens, chainsaws and the injured robber.
‘Alex looks rather pleased with himself,’ said Paulo. Sitting on his bergen he looked like a holidaymaker waiting for his flight to be announced.
Alex put the remaining detonators carefully on the ground and cut the det cord. He picked up the last mysterious item from the kit – a small black box with a hand grip. Two wires trailed from it. He twisted them onto the white cord at his feet. When he finished his eyes were glittering. ‘This is the firing device. We’re ready. Cover your ears.’
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