First In: Jim Thorn Pathfinder Thrillers, #1

By Karl York

Sudden death is easy in the jungle. Slippery. Precipitous. Snake-infested.

A steaming hell on Earth.

Ex-Pathfinder elite soldier and tough guy Jim Thorn calls it Home. And he's invited a group of outsiders to 'find themselves' under his instruction.

But Thorn's plans fly out the window when one of his pupils gets torn apart in a hail of gunfire.

He knows his past has caught up. They are after him. And he must use his jungle combat and survival training to save himself and his team before they all succumb - to the hunters or the jungle itself...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karl York
• Release date: Sep 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781502282491

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

‘Keep in single file. Watch your footing,’ said the leader of the team as they carefully picked their way through the clammy jungle. Branches and vines snaked above and below the ragtag gang, and the humidity squelched against their faces and bodies, hugging them and weighing down their every step. They were already beginning to wilt.

‘Come on, you guys. Look sharp. We’ve only been out here for fifteen minutes.’

Staff Sergeant Thorn had barely finished his sentence. At the rear of the group, a loud scream pierced and temporarily silenced the otherwise incessant background din. It was a man scream, followed by a frantic rustling of branches, then a high-pitched string of expletives, and ended with a loud splash.

‘Bleedin’ idiot,’ muttered Thorn, as he tracked back past the rest of his team, barging them as he went. One of them laughed.

‘You’ll join him in a minute.’

Thorn had stopped dead. His cold, steel-blue eyes scythed through her, and she froze. Her heart pounded. She didn’t dare breathe while fixed in his stare.

‘Sorry,’ she said in a monotonic high-pitched whisper.

Her voice was tinged with fear. But there was anger as well. Cate didn’t like being called out by anyone. And then there was the shock of it. She didn’t like it, but she also couldn’t believe he had spoken to her like that.

Cate watched him disappear back down the slippery jungle trail and duck into the trees. She started breathing again, relieved. Her face blushed faintly as if she’d been scolded by teacher for being a naughty little girl.

‘Wow. What a jerk.’

‘I’ll tell him you said that,’ replied Rico.

Cate scowled and elbowed him in the arm.

A few minutes passed and then Thorn reappeared with the soggy idiot in tow.

‘Right. Drop your bergen over there and open your shirt.’

‘Bergen?’ said the slightly confused young man.

‘Your backpack, man. Get it off. We need to check for leeches.’

The others turned away, hoping to avoid disgust.

‘Okay. Here, see. Just a tiddler,’ said Thorn, running his thumbnail alongside the small black creature and unsealing its sucker. Finally he flicked the leech off its victim.

‘Drop your duds,’ Thorn said in a matter of fact way, the slang and the roll of his r betraying his Glaswegian roots.

‘Duds? Oh, right.’

He dropped his trousers.

‘Okay, son. You’re all clear. Get your stuff and watch where you’re treading in future, alright?’ said Thorn, turning and striding back to the head of the group.

‘How long will this keep bleeding?’

‘We’ll find something for it along the way. Let’s go.’

They set off again, tentatively and sweatily. The cloying heat sapped their concentration as they played follow the leader, while branches pulled at their hair and tugged their clothes. Insects buzzed around their heads, like kamikazes dive-bombing their mouths and ears and into their eyes.

‘Let’s all go on a team-building course in the jungle, she said,’ mocked Rico, turning to Cate. ‘It’ll be fun and awesome for morale, she said.’

‘Shut up. I didn’t know it was going to be like this. Or with him,’ Cate replied, nodding her head in the general direction of their new drill sergeant. ‘Are the others from your office?’

‘Two of them. Actually, three. She’s new,’ Rico replied, pointing to the athletic looking petite brunette floating effortlessly along behind Thorn despite the oppressive jungle. ‘Oh, and Leech Man is from the Washington office.’

Rico looked back towards the man at the rear of the group and winked. He was more worried about the growing bloodstain seeping through his shirt, from the leech attack.

The path took the group down to the side of the stream which they could hear to their right-hand side. A few yards further along, the jungle receded slightly and there were rocky outcrops interspersed with young, new vegetation.

‘You,’ shouted Thorn, pointing to the leech victim. ‘Come here. What’s your name, son?’

‘Josh, sir,’ he replied.

Thorn crouched down onto his left knee, and gently stroked at one of the plants nestling among the moist rocks. He picked off a few of the fronds.

‘Here. Chew on this for a while. Do not swallow. Just chew it up and make a paste. Stick it on your wound. It’ll help stop the bleeding.’

Josh did exactly as he was told, trusting the man who had rescued him from the pool and de-leeched him.

‘Guys,’ Thorn continued to the rest of the group. ‘The jungle contains all sorts of useful things. Many are helpful. Bush medicine. Many are deadly. You have to be alert to danger even if you’re knackered. If you eat the wrong thing, even touch the wrong thing, you’ll end up in a whole world of pain. Okay, lesson over. Press that paste onto your wound now, kid. We’ll rest up here for a bit and do the intros. And then we’ll build a bridge across this stream. We should make camp before sundown.’

The group took off their backpacks and sat down on them, drinking water after their exertions.

*****

CHAPTER 2

‘Right, listen up guys. Let’s get the intros out of the way. I’ll start. My name is Jim Thorn, and I’ll be your instructor for this team-building course. You’ll also meet my colleague once we make camp later on. You’ll probably already have worked out that I’m a Brit. I’m ex-army, served in various regiments including the paras. Apart from jumping out of planes, I’m an expert in desert and jungle survival, and I’ve spent a load of time here in the forests of Belize.

‘We are all going to have to help each other here. The jungle can be an unforgiving place, very challenging. So we’ll do a bunch of tasks. You’ll all survive them and take the experience back to your workplace. You’ll know each other better, and work together better as a result.

‘Now, let’s go around, starting with you.’

Thorn pointed to Josh.

‘Yah, I’m Josh. From the Washington office, doing all the patent and IP stuff for the rest of you guys. And, well, yeah, no experience in jungles or anything.’

Next in line was Rico.

‘I’m Rico. I do the tech transfer work for Josh. I’m based, with everyone else here, at the labs in Austin.’

‘Hi. My name’s Cate. I guess it’s my fault we all ended up here. I thought it would be good to meet up out of work for team-building. We’ve made awesome progress in the New Technology Division, and I wanted us to bond a bit more. You know, so we can push through and get our energy prototype completed and ready for launch.’

‘Hey, guys. I’m Seth