James Falgate, aged 12 from Leeds

Mission Bolombolo

Just outside Bolombolo, Medellin. Columbia.

It might have been the world’s most beautiful night. No moon. Stars like searchlights. A thin layer of ice covered every branch and leaf and blade of grass. It was perfectly, eerily, still. Nothing rustled the hedges and I could imagine the rabbits and ground squirrels, rolled up tight in their underground dens. It took the haunting scream of an owl to tear me out of my dream, remind me that I was not here to enjoy nature. There was work to be done.

There were obviously new footprints here; the translucent ice that blanketed the muddy earth had preserved them to the extent that I could make out the logo on the heel. The foot must have been holding up a heavy load, as the grip sunk deep into the frosted bog. I checked my silenced pistol was still strapped firmly round my chest and swung my army issue rifle around my neck, I wasn’t going to be caught off guard.

As I crept cautiously towards the now dazzling light that shone through the trees, I suddenly realised how vulnerable I was. Not just the fact that I was in the middle of a forest, miles from anywhere, but that there would be guards crawling all around the perimeter. This meant I had to follow the very definite line of redwoods so as not to be seen.

As I reached the end of my safety cover, I noticed the deep footprints veered off to the right. Out of curiosity I wanted to follow them but I had to concentrate on the task in hand, I didn’t have long now.

I hadn’t realised how late it had become as I looked up at the bare branches, silhouetted against the moonlit sky. I’d left my seedy hotel on the out skirts of Medellin at 7 this morning, in search of a little village about a mile away from the Cauca River, called Bolombolo. It had been a day’s drive and I’d had to sell my Jeep to pay for a guide to the edge of the these woods where she wouldn’t go any further in fear of being shot. This meant I’d been walking blindly for an hour now, following what could have been a light from anything.

There was a clear ark of trees, falling away either side of me forming a natural wall around the building in the middle. Now I was really vulnerable. I dropped to my knees, then down on my elbows. The two foot high stalks gave me cover from the light but were so densely grown it would be impossible to move undetected; I tried to flatten down the stalks in front of me, but they covered in a dark, sticky liquid…

Then, there was a shot; the light shattered and everything went black.

I whipped out my night vision lenses and leapt into gear. Now in complete cover I could sprint towards the wooden, run down shack. Just in time, for the whole circle of crops surrounding where I stood exploded in a sea of flames, the night sky lit up like millions of floodlights saturating the area in a matter of seconds. The roaring flames temporarily disorientated me but I snapped back as the tongues of burning oil tried to lick my chest. A noise made me spin round, I could just make out a big diesel truck spluttering into life as it fired up. I tore round the other side of the house just managing to plant a tracker on the underside of the old truck.

As it pulled away down the bumpy trail, a bundle of cocaine leaves bounced out of the rear door before coming to rest at my big brown boots. I smiled for the first time in a long while. They might of thought they’d burnt all evidence but they won’t get away with it this time, not again. I turned and walked away. My work here is done.

Mission Accomplished.

James Falgate

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