Chapter 13: Advance to Contact

After the capture of the illegal miners and their gold the helicopter retuned to its base and life returned to normal at Camp Szuts until a telephone call from Lieutenant Colonel Picard early the following year started a series of events that brought me close to death. The telephone call was to inform the Chevalier that the Colonel would be visiting Camp Szuts in two days’ time and wanted all and any maps of the Communes of Saül and Maripasoula, the latter of which is in the south west of French Guiana adjacent to the border with Surinam. Colonel Picard made it plain that no one at Camp Szuts must be aware of his interest in the areas.

’As if anyone here would show the slightest interest,’ I thought, and wondered why the secrecy.

I found several maps buried away in cobwebbed cabinets but, as I pointed out to the Chevalier, most were of WW2 vintage and some from even before.

“Not much will have changed since then,” he said. “Saül, the town, or rather the village, is the main habitation in the Saül Commune and has no proper road access and can only be reached by air, on foot, or on hoof. I doubt there has been any significant building in the place since the Saül Mining Company pulled out in the sixties, although I know the airfield has a runway. The town of Maripasoula, the major town in the Maripasoula Commune, is larger than Saül but it too has no proper road access and is reached either by air, river, or shank’s pony. The town is located on the east bank of the River Maroni, which forms the border with Surinam. A platoon from Second Company Three REI is posted there to deter immigrants but with little effect.”

“I wonder what the Colonel has in mind,” I mused,” and why the secrecy?”

“Picard is nearing retirement,” the Chevalier said, “and he is thinking of his future. A successful military operation would give any future career a boost, particularly a political career.”

“Assuming the operation is a success,” I said.

“Precisely! That’s why he is involving only us in any plan. If it goes tits up, as Alfie Hinds would say, you know who will take the blame ... the two men already in the merde, that’s who!”

The Colonel arrived, by helicopter, and took us into his confidence. “What I’m about to tell you must not be discussed with anyone else.” The Chevalier and I exchanged glances. As usual the Chevalier had called it correctly. “I was at a meeting in Washington DC a week ago where several members of NATO were present: the USA of course, Canada, us, the Brits, the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Spanish.”

I could understand why the Europeans were present as all had at one time or another ‘owned’ their own slice of Guiana, but why the Canadians? Colonel Picard must have been able to read minds.

“The USA and Canada were at the meeting because they fear an escalation of the drug trade. Although Columbia is the main source of cocaine there are other Central and South American countries producing cocaine — besides other drugs — specifically targeting the USA and Canada.”

“So it is a drug busting operation in French Guiana we are talking about?” The Chevalier asked.

Colonel Picard shrugged. “Perhaps. It is too early to make a judgement as to what is happening in the jungle along the border with Surinam. During the meeting photographs taken by a surveillance satellite were shown us, courtesy of those nice gentlemen who work at Langley in Virginia.” I was bewildered by his remark, and my face must have shown it, as the Chevalier mouthed. ‘CIA’.

The Colonel pushed an A4 sized photograph across the table and the Chevalier and I peered at it.All I could see where tops of trees; the whole area was a panorama of treetops and nothing else was showing other than in the top right quarter of the photo I could see a river and a treeless area alongside. He pointed to the river. “That’s the Maroni River, and the photograph was taken during the Damp Season. In the Wet Season the river would be over the banks and up to the treeline.” He tapped the photograph. “As you can appreciate there is no way of knowing what is happening under the canopy of thousands of trees. The Americans found that out when they sent drones over the jungle of Colombia to locate the drug factories, but being a technologically savvy Nation they have come up with a solution.” He pushed another A4 sized photo across the table that was almost identical to the first photograph other than a swathe of yellow alongside the river Maroni in the top right quarter of the photograph. The Chevalier and I looked at each other. What were we supposed to be seeing?

The Colonel chuckled. “Yes, I had the same expression on my face when first seeing this. The first photograph I showed you was taken a year ago by a KH-8 Gambit 3 satellite of an area some twenty or so kilometres south of the town of Maripasoula. The second photograph was taken a month ago by the same satellite of the same area. The yellow shows where trees have been felled by illegal loggers since the first photograph was taken.” He pushed a third A4 of a higher resolution, across the table for the Chevalier and I to view. I then saw that the yellow swathe was made up of hundreds of pin pricks of yellow. “Each tree in the first photograph that has been felled by the time the second photograph was taken is shown by a pin prick of yellow,” Colonel Picard explained. “A computer program calculates the number and position of each tree on a photograph and when the same area is rephotographed, the missing trees are plotted with a pin prick of yellow. Those particular illegal loggers have been apprehended.” He then pushed another photograph across the table to us. “Now take a look at is this photograph.”

This time the photo was of a smaller area on a larger scale. In the top right hand corner of the A4 sized photograph I could see the confluence of two rivers and could just about make out individual trees. However there were a series of yellow dots on the photo indicating a number of trees had been felled that looked to be in a roughly drawn circle. The Chevalier noted the same pattern of dots.

“This photograph shows where trees have been felled but not so many as the previous illegal loggers had taken,” he said.

Colonel Picard nodded. “Yes, there has been felling of trees but not for selling into the timber trade but to build some sort of structure in the jungle. A programmer has written an algorithm that computes where the structure could be given the location of the felled trees, the rationale being the tree fellers would not go too far from their intended building site to get their material.” He pointed to an X drawn near the centre of the area of felled trees. “The algorithm places the building, which could either be a drug manufacturing facility or a terrorist training camp or a combination of both, at this location.”

“Is there any reason to suspect either, Colonel?” the Chevalier asked.

“Straws in the wind, Maurice, straws in the wind,” Colonel Picard replied. “It was something those illegal miners we caught last year said that first alerted me. They complained bitterly that they, ‘hardworking, honest, miners’, were being arrested while ‘bigger criminals were doing far worse things’ without any notice being taken of their nefarious activities. At the time I thought it just them spreading confusion. However the Americans have had whispers from their agents in Colombia of new factories being set up outside of Colombia as the DEA/ CIA and Colombian government are hitting the in-country facilities harder. There is also Intel that Venezuela is taking an interest in the drug trade and that the USA is having problems with the new government in Caracas. Finally, rumours are rife that farc are moving some training camps out of Colombia due to the air strikes and attacks from US aided government forces.” He saw neither I nor the Chevalier had any idea of what he meant by ‘farc’. “FARC is Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia— Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organization in Colombia,” he said, then sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Put together all those straws in the wind and I have a strong compulsion to get boots on the ground in the area of this photo and determine what the structure is and who is building it!””

The Chevalier and I exchanged concerned glances. What was Colonel Picard getting us in to?

The Colonel seemed unaware of our misgivings. “Unroll the maps on the table and we will determine where exactly this structure is in relation to Saül and Maripasoula,” he said.

After some discussion it was agreed the location of the suspected drug factory/terrorist training camp lay 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Maripasoula and about 5 kilometres (3 miles) south of where the River Tampok joins the Rio Lawa, as the Maroni River is known in the area. A Surinam village, Talhuwen, was located nearby on the west bank of the Rio Lawa, which could be from where workers, construction as well as drug producers, were recruited.

“It’s a long trek from Camp Szuts,” the Chevalier said.

Colonel Picard nodded his agreement. “We will need bases closer to the target. A main base at Saül and a forward operating base nearer the target area, a helipad in fact.”

“Why not use Maripasoula as the forward base?” The Chevalier said. “We could helicopter into the airfield with some rubber dinghies and paddle up river to --”

Colonel Picard stopped him with an upraised hand. “I had thought of that, Maurice, believe me. The Maroni River is not only a travel route but also an information highway. As soon as the rotors of the helicopters stopped turning on Maripasoula airfield the news of the arrival of a company of legionnaires with rubber boats would be on its way up and down the river, alerting whatever and whoever is at the site of the suspected drug factory. I cannot take the chance that any river borne assault would be met with machine guns, RPGs, and who knows what else.”

The Chevalier nodded. “Yes, I can see that we need to make a reconnaissance of the site before making any further decisions.”

“There’s another reason why I cannot agree to the river plan, not military but diplomatic. We, that is the Republic of France, has a treaty with Surinam not to militarize the border between French Guiana and Surinam. The number of troops we are allowed to have along the border is fixed and any addition, however small, would have the Surinamese running to the UN bleating that a European colonial power was intimidating them. That is why there is only a platoon of the Second Company at Maripasoula, another at Apatou, and a third, with the company HQ, at St Laurant du Maroni.”

“So what do you want us to do, Colonel? We only have Camp Szuts personnel, about twenty five men, and fifteen Tarmackers from the former Heavy Construction Company. We won’t be able to cover much ground with them,” the Chevalier said.

“I will attach a platoon or two from First Company to your force.” Colonel Picard paused in thought for a moment or two. “The Special Military Operation sCompany! Yes, that will be the title of the new unit, and will be responsible for Jungle Warfare Training and the locating and the construction of helicopter landing sites.”

“When you say ‘constructing’ do you mean as like the hard standing we have here at Camp Szuts, Colonel?” the Chevalier asked.

“Yes of course. Without a tarmacked surface the Wet Season will turn a landing site into a mud bath!”

“But we will be operating in the Guiana National Park; environmentalists will go mad if they discover...” The Chevalier began before Colonel Picard interrupted him.

“Bugger! I clean forgot about that, Maurice. Yes, you’re right. The President would have the balls off anyone spreading tarmac in the primeval rain forest. Good thinking; but how can helicopters operate in the Wet Season from landing sites without a tarmacked surface?”

“They can’t, and in any case flying during heavy rain in the Wet Season would be extremely dangerous,” the Chevalier said. “Air Guyane cancels many flights during the Wet Season and I believe they have had a few crashes over the years. Not many helicopters pilots would risk flying in the practically zero visibility during a tropical rain storm. We would have to operate during the Damp Season. Helicopter landing sites without a tarmacked surface will be suitable for operations most of the time, then.”

While that discussion was taking place I had unrolled one of the older maps of the Saül Commune. “There are some habitations shown along a stream named Crique Chariot on this old map of the Saül area,” I said, pointing at three named locations on the 1937 dated map. “They are about forty klicks due south from Saül and roughly the same distance from the target area. An excellent location for a forward operating base.”

The Colonel peered at the map. “Rainbow’s End! El Dorado! Eureka! What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“They might have been gold mining sites as they are all located along the same creek,” the Chevalier said. “However the Saül Mining Company pulled out of French Guiana nearly twenty years ago. By now any buildings will have decayed and the jungle will have taken back the place.”

The Colonel stood up. “Well, it’s worth having a look and see what’s left of the place. There might even be a helipad in situ at one of the locations. But first things first. Your mission is to plan, and then execute the plan, to get the men and the equipment of the Special Military Operations Company to Saül. I have a section of three helicopters at my disposal...”

“I will need to know the capability and capacity of the helicopters,” I interrupted. “How far they can fly with what sort of load - “ I saw annoyance clouding the Colonel’s face and ended, “Sir.”

“You are right, of course, Professor, we will need that information. Get in touch with the ALAT (Aviation Légère de l’Armée de Terre {Land Force Light Aviation}) squadron who supplied the helicopter we used to catch those illegal miners. But no one must know what we are about. There are leaks in our system, not from the legion of course, but there are too many civilians with high security clearances at GSC (Guiana Space Centre), and who knows what they are finding out and passing on to who knows who?”

“There are spies at GSC?” The Chevalier asked.

“Not enemy spies, but even friendly spies are spies, and I don’t want word to leak out what I have in mind, which is why we use the Jungle Warfare courses as cover when scouting locations for landing sites.”

“Perhaps someone from ALAT could also give their opinion on what constitutes a suitable landing site for a helicopter, Sir.” I said, knowing full well what was required as a helicopter landing site — basically more than enough room to swing a cat and foliage free — but hoping to show Picard how keen I was on his plan.

“Good thinking, Professor, and well done spotting those old mining camps on the map,” he said and clapped me on my back. Actually it was more of a thump! “Well, I’ll be off. When, if, I have more photos from the surveillance satellite I will be in touch. Meantime get an operational plan written up and I’ll give it the once over before setting it in motion.”

I enjoyed the challenge of planning the logistics for the operation but first I needed to know how much freight and men could be loaded into the helicopters allocated to the Special Military Operations Company. I contacted the Engineering Officer of the 7th Transport Helicopter Regiment’s flight at Cayenne whose helicopters we would be using. I explained the plan to transfer the Jungle Warfare Training Centre to Saül and needed to know the range and carrying capacity of the helicopters before drawing up a schedule of loading.

“You’ve only just had a helipad built, why are you now moving the centre to Saül?” The ALAT Engineering Officer asked, which was a fair question under the circumstances. I needed to come up with an answer to why the centre was being moved without blowing the gaff. (An Alfie Hinds expression, meaning to let out a secret)

“Ecological reasons,” I said. “We’ve just discovered the Amazonian spotted horny swamp toad lives in the area and we have disturbed its mating ritual. We are leaving so more Amazonian spotted horny swamp toads can be born and repopulate the area before we move back in a year or two.”

. ““Bloody tree huggers, they are for ever making life difficult for us.” The fellow on the other end of the ‘phone said.

“Yes,” I agreed, “but nowadays we have to share the planet; biodiversity and all that stuff.”

The man on the other end of the telephone gave a sigh I took to be of resignation before he continued speaking. “If you are free tomorrow I’ll send our Alouette to bring you to Cayenne...”

“Who is Alouette?” I said, worried that more people might get involved in what should be a closely guarded secret.

A burst of laughter came down the telephone line. “An Alouette is a helicopter not a person. We have an Alouette Three on strength and use it as a runabout.”

“Oh!” I felt like an idiot and probably sounded the same but the voice continued without expressing what he must have thought me: a dick head! “When you arrive I will show you over the aircraft and answer any questions you may have.”

I was free, and the helicopter arrived at 1000 hours and by 1030 I was seated in the office of Lieutenant Louis Dolbeare, the Engineering Officer of 2nd Flight, 7th Transport Helicopter Regiment. He looked if he had only left school the previous year but he knew all about his machines.