Rogue Element

Hand signals told them to stop and have breakfast. The men dropped to their haunches immediately after communicating the order along the line, and broke into their rations. Sergeant Marturak considered his next move as he unconsciously waved off the cloud of insects surrounding him. They were right on the equator and the day was heating up fast. Soon it would be almost too hot to move in the still, steamy sauna under the jungle canopy. But he was used to it. He had trained for it and he liked it. What he didn’t like was being made a fool of.

He considered it remote that any untrained person could have tracked this far into the jungle as his current position. Splitting his men into two troops, he decided, would be the best option now. He would have each force sweep the jungle at right angles to their current line of march for around three kilometres, and then turn again through ninety degrees and move back towards the crash site. In that way, he would have picked through almost fifteen square kilometres of jungle: fifteen square kilometres of one of the densest concentrations of plant life on the planet.

It was possible that the man could slip through his fingers, but improbable. Another soft bird-like whistle gathered his force together. Marturak got down on a knee, cleared a small patch of earth and outlined their tactics with his dagger. He then divided his men and told them they had five minutes to complete their breakfast. Few words were exchanged between the men. No one smoked, joked or laughed. The man they were hunting could be close by and no one wanted to compromise their position. Everyone wanted this mission over with.

* * *

Unseen, the snake silently parted the bush and made its way to its nest. Suryei shifted her weight, pulling one leg towards her. The snake instantly reacted, rearing up and flaring its distinctive hood.

‘Jesus!’ said Suryei when she saw it, louder than she’d intended.

‘What!?’ said Joe.

‘Cobra!’ For the first time, Suryei saw a bunch of leaves and twigs gathered on the ground just inside the leaf canopy. There were eggs in the centre of the nest and a couple had broken open.

The snake moved its head from side to side, sensitive to the slightest movements made by Joe and Suryei.

‘It’s seriously deadly.’

‘Seriously pissed off too, by the looks of it,’ said Joe under his breath, trying to disappear into the foliage behind him.

‘It’s a mother, see?’

Joe saw the smashed eggs in the nest.

‘We have to go. Get ready.’

Joe sat up slowly and the snake reared higher, as if it found his movement a challenge to fight.

‘Careful,’ said Suryei quietly. It was difficult for both of them to move. They had cramped into their resting positions. Joe flexed his hands. Blood cracked and fresh, crimson rivulets appeared. He ignored the pain. He slowly and carefully took his axe out of his bag. Suryei moved her foot.

The snake raised its hooded head and reared back, tensing to strike. It looked at Suryei and then at Joe and then back at Suryei, as if uncertain who to bite first. Suryei moved her foot, shifting a section of vine which sprang back. The snake reacted, striking at Suryei’s feet. It darted once, twice, advancing belligerently. Suryei screamed. Joe tried to fend it off with the head of his axe. Before she realised it, Suryei was up, pushing wildly through the vines, thrashing through the spikes that tore at her clothes and skin. Joe was right behind her. The snake moved its head aggressively from side to side as the threat retreated, and then returned to sentry duty, coiling around its eggs.

Joe found Suryei collapsed at the foot of an enormous teak. She was whimpering to herself. Her composure had evaporated. She wrenched the shoe off, examined it, and found two neat sets of punctures in the leather upper. She rapidly switched her attention to her foot, and then fell back against the tree, relieved.

‘What? What?!’ Joe found her anxiety contagious.

‘Nothing, thank Christ!’ Suryei rasped. ‘The bastard didn’t get me.’

‘Bitch.’

‘What?’

‘Bitch. You said it was a female, remember?’ Joe picked up the shoe and examined the punctures in it. ‘Saved by Nike,’ he said quietly.

Suryei stood up and hopped behind Joe. She rummaged in his rucksack and pulled out a bottle of water. ‘Shouldn’t we save that for later?’ he said as he watched her pour it over the shoe.

‘I knew a photographer once who was taking shots of one of those things in a snake park. He got cocky. Went right up close to take its photo. The flash and the noise angered the cobra and it struck. It missed the photographer but got the camera body instead. The photographer wiped the venom off with his finger. Within an hour, he was fighting for his life. So, I’m washing my shoe, okay?’

‘Okay, okay…’

‘Sorry. I’m just a bit freaked out at the moment.’ Suryei sloshed the water onto the suspect area of the shoe.