The Power of Five Oblivion

that number were going to be crammed inside.
    “OK. Começar dentro!”
    Once again the order was barked out in Portuguese, but the sight of the helicopter had been too much for one of the prisoners, an older man with wide eyes and a thin, pockmarked face. As the soldiers pushed the others in, he panicked and broke free, running across the bus station, weaving from side to side with his hands still tied behind his back. One of the soldiers lifted his rifle, aimed and fired. The man’s legs tied themselves in knots and he went down. Lohan watched the body hit the ground. Well, there was fifty dollars wasted, he thought. But on the other hand, the soldiers probably didn’t care too much. After all, they had got him for nothing.
    Nobody did anything that would get themselves noticed after that, climbing into the helicopter and taking their places on their feet in the metal cabin. The seats had been taken out, but even so they were jammed in so tight that there was barely room to breathe. Lohan and Matt had become separated. They couldn’t have been far apart from each other but it was impossible to be sure. Their faces were pressed against the necks and shoulders of people they didn’t know. They could taste sweat on their lips.
    The soldiers slammed the door shut. Only two of them were making the journey. One was the pilot. The others would presumably follow another time. The engines started up. The blades began to turn, picking up speed until the noise became deafening. The cabin began to vibrate. Some of the boys were sobbing.
    The helicopter left the ground. It hovered, turned, rose into the sky, then soared, carrying its human cargo into the unknown.

THIRTY-TWO
    At last the helicopter landed.
    They had been flying for about two hours but it had been impossible to tell which direction they were taking, whether they were heading inland or out to sea. Nobody could see anything unless they were pressed up against the cabin window, and even then the clouds had covered everything for much of the time. The helicopter might be droning forward but time seemed to have stood still for the unfortunate passengers who were there, breathing in the damp air, suspended in darkness and misery with the noise of the engines all around. At last they felt the pressure change as the helicopter began its descent. There was a sudden bump. The door was opened. And there it was … the most secure prison in the world, in the middle of the rainforest, surrounded by it, thick and impassable on all sides. If anyone was going to leave here, it would certainly not be on foot … not without a compass, drinking water, a machete, food and medicine.
    A miniature airport had been hacked out of the middle of the jungle and this was where the helicopter had come to rest. It was sitting in a wide compound, penned in by a tall wire fence which had been built fairly recently, although it was already covered in rust. A tarmac road followed the fence on the inside and there were more slaves, part of an earlier intake, hard at work, unloading heavy boxes from a truck. A single armed soldier watched over them.
    A runway stretched into the distance, stopping at the edge of the rainforest, which stood there like an impenetrable barrier. The soldiers had constructed an ugly, uneven control tower using a patchwork of wooden panels ripped out of crates and squares of beaten tin. It was surrounded by covered wagons and a jeep and a second helicopter. Battered drums of aviation fuel were stacked to one side, partly covered by tarpaulin.
    Lohan realized that Matt was standing next to him. He looked at the boy almost reproachfully, wanting to blame him for the situation in which they found themselves but at the same time knowing that it would do no good. But Matt’s eyes were fixed on something behind him. Slowly, Lohan turned.
    And there it was, the one sign of hope in this nightmare, the one small chance that there might be a way out. It was parked on the rubble, waiting to take off. Lohan knew it at once … a Legacy 600, made in Brazil, old and dusty with fading paint but surely still capable of flight. Already, Lohan was doing the sums. A Legacy had a range of six thousand kilometres. They couldn’t be more than four thousand kilometres from the tip of South America. The plane could take them to Antarctica.
    “Can you fly?” Matt asked.
    Lohan nodded slowly. “Yes.”
    How could Matt have known? There had been a time when the Triad had been given the