Countdown: M Day (20 page)

“Yes,” Lada whispered, moving her head as if still in full buss. “I think we need to get rid of him.”

“How? I don’t want to kill him; he’s just a regular guy.”

“Yeah,” she admitted, then commanded, “Lean back in your seat.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

Morales did as commanded. He wasn’t quite sure what Lada intended until she bent her head over his lap. Once she had, he was sure what she intended, but,
I don’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed.

He was wrong. She went through the motions, the simulated belt unbuckling, the head bobbing, but that was it. As her head bobbed, quite to no direct purpose, she whispered, “He either does the decent thing and goes away or he comes over here to arrest us where you can kill him.”

And I still don’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed.

Morales looked at the cop, standing a bare thirty feet away. One hand placed itself more easily to reach the pistol Lada had acquired. The cop looked back, sternly, then laughed, shook his head, and turned away to continue his stroll down the beach.

“Lada,” Che said, “you can come up now.”

“I’ll kill the son of a bitch,” Tim said, as the rubber boat scrunched its way up the sand. He drew his pistol, adding, “He’s dead.”

“What are you talking about?” Litvinov asked.

Musin launched himself for the shore, saying, “That fucking American. With Lada.” His feet churned sand as he raced for the car.

“You’re being a fool, Tim,” Litvinov muttered, following at a brisk trot.

Outside the rental car, Morales scanned around for the cop that had been there. There was no sign of him. Satisfied they were safe from arrest, he went to the trunk, opened it, and began unloading their couple of bags to carry down to the shore. Lada emerged on the other side, her head twisting back and forth searching for both cop and rescue party. She walked back to join Morales at the rear of the car.

Lada managed to get out, “I see them,” only a split second before Tim was upon them, and the fist bearing the pistol had lunged out, striking Morales to the asphalt below.

“You son of a bitch; I’ll kill you,” Musin said, taking aim.

“What the fuck?” Lada threw herself across Morales’ prostrate form and, over her shoulder said, “Tim, stop it. What do you think you’re doing?”

“I …” The muzzle wavered a bit.

“Tim,” she said, sadness in her voice, “stop being an idiot. You and I need to have a long talk. A very long talk. But none of that is about him, because he and I did nothing. Understand? Nothing.

“Now put away that pistol and get the bags.” Musin hesitated, though his pistol’s muzzle moved away from Lada and Morales. “Now!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Victory, speedy and complete, awaits the side

that employs airpower as it should be employed.

—Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris

Bolivar State, Venezuela

It’s amazing,
thought Larralde,
what the words, “Hugo wants,” will do to move things along. “Hugo wants,” and I get an open area as big as Cheddi Jagan airport. “Hugo wants,” and I get nine maintenance tents. “Hugo wants,” and I get engineer support like I never dreamed of, to build us a pretty good mockup of the airport. “Hugo wants,” and I get chairs and lumber and damned-well anything else
I
want, and right fucking
now,
too.

A series of Quonset-hut-shaped maintenance tents sat on elevated berms the engineers had thrown up. The tents were set up in groups of three, end to end. As such, they mimicked very closely the interior dimensions of the three transport aircraft—all American-built C-130’s—Larralde was going to use to move his reinforced company. Venezuela owned four of them but Larralde’s plan assumed that at least one would go down between now and M Day.

The flight crews for the actual aircraft—all four of them—were currently sleeping. They had to be, since they’d spent the previous several nights practicing near-to-the-earth formation flying and rapid sequential landing.

“Behind” each of the aircraft mockups were well-constructed wooden platforms, with cleats, also put together by the engineers to simulate the loading ramps. Inside each of two of the mockups were an AMX-13C tank—a French-built light job with a 90mm gun, while along each side of the hull, in chairs set up to simulate troop seats, an additional forty-four armed and equipped soldiers sat. The other mockup contained no tank, but one Tiuna utility vehicle, and ninety-two sardine-packed soldiers. That last mockup was one the left of the three.

For operational security’s sake, Larralde had a number of vehicles parked around the area. It did, in fact, look a lot more like a maintenance facility than like three aircraft mockups set up for a rehearsal.

Larralde stood in that central mockup, though in practice he would be belted in along with the troops. Beside him stood a member of the Bolivarian Air Force, a Captain Monegas—large and beefy and surprisingly Irish looking—with a hand-held loudspeaker.

“Tell ’em,” Larralde said.

“All right,” said Monegas. He lifted the loudspeaker to his mouth and announced, “Though you’ll all have had antiairsickness pills, we’ll be flying low and rough. So this is what the inside of the aircraft is going to look and smell like.”

Monegas pointed at the deck with one hand. He waved the hand slowly, from one side of the mockup to the other, as if following some unseen tide.

“There’s going to be a sea of vomit there, about an inch thick if it were even. But it won’t be even. Every time the plane banks right, that sea is going to turn into a tide that washes left before receding. When we bank left; it’s going to roll right. All over your boots and maybe up to your ankles.”

The air force officer began swaying from side to side. “You might think you have a strong stomach. You don’t; not for that. No one does. Yeah, yeah, you’ll have air sickness bags. They won’t help all that much. And for those of you with really strong stomachs, no matter. That first heady whiff of puke is going to have you shooting the contents of your guts all the way to the other side of the plane.”

Monegas laughed, jerked a thumb forward, and added, “Which, by the way, is why the hatch to the cockpit is going to be sealed. Trust me; you don’t want your flight crew barfing, too.

“Now some of you might have the bright idea of using your gas masks to seal off the stench. And it is a bright idea. How-the-fuck-ever, if you get a whiff of the puke in there with you, you will fill up those masks with vomit before you can get them off. And, even if you don’t, ninety percent of you are going to hurl just from air sickness. The masks, if anything, will make that worse.”

The flier looked around at the twin rows of faces and was quite pleased to see how many of them had gone pale already. Indeed, a couple of them looked ready to throw up at the thought alone. And one girl, perhaps with more imagination than most of the troops, seemed to be following with her head and eyes an imaginary wave, rolling back and forth across the deck.

“We’ll give you a signal,” Monegas continued, pointing at a wall mounted light, “a red light, when we’re five minutes out. That’s not normal procedure, no. We’re modifying procedure for you folks.

“If you think that the ride was rough before that, you won’t have seen anything yet. It’s gonna get worse, boys and girls. A lot worse.

“And then we’ll give you another signal, a green light, when we start to descend. That descent is going to be fast and rough, too. The next thing you know, you’ll be bouncing down the strip, puke flying up in big globules. Then your pilot will have reversed engines to try to stop as quickly as possible. Expect that the puke will fly and roll forward.

“At that point, it is not improbable that one or two of you will have shat yourselves …”

Lily Vargas, balancing on her lap a rucksack that was almost bigger than she was, with her chin resting of the pack’s frame, looked seriously queasy. Her eyes fixed on the air force officer recounting the horror-story-to-be, watching with terrified fascination as the flier bounced and swayed and made projectile vomiting motions.

“Never flown before?” Carlos Villareal asked in a whisper.

She gulped, shaking her head “no.”

“Neither have I,” he admitted, patting her thigh for comfort’s sake. “But how bad can it be, really? People do it all the time.”

“Not usually like he’s describing,” she answered.

“It’ll be fine,” Carlos insisted. “Don’t worry so much.”

Lily forced a smile, glancing at her squad mate, sitting calm and confident or, at least, unworried. After a moment, and for a change, the smile reached her eyes.

Mao Arrivillaga tried to hide his smirk as the air force lecturer on his mockup, Number Two, to the right of center, did his best to terrify the new personnel. He was saved by a beep from his belt mounted radio and the words, “XO, Sergeant Major, Larralde here.”

Mao pulled the radio to his mouth, covering the smirk, and announced he was monitoring. The XO likewise answered.

“Yeah,” Larralde said, “we’re about finished here with the air force’s terror session. You guys?”

Mao replied, “I think they rehearsed it. From what I can hear, what your guy is saying there my guy is within a few seconds of.”

“Same here,” agreed the XO.

“Good …standby …all right … .he’s talking …he’s describing bouncing down the strip …and the ‘plane’ has stopped. Out, here.”

“We’re down!” Larralde announced. Maybe the air force guy needed the loudspeaker but he, by God, was a soldier and could do without the gizmos. “Tank team and unbuckling team; Go! The ramp is coming down.”

Immediately the three-man crew of the AMX-13 raced to their vehicle. The engine cranked, stalled, and then growled to life. While that was happening, four others, two from each side, all of them medics or supply personnel, ran to the vehicle and began loosening the buckles to the straps that held it down. Those were attached to only a rough simulation of the actual deck arrangements, but they would do. A seventh trooper, bearing a radio in his rucksack, went to stand next to his commander.

All the others, thirty-five of them, stood, recovered their rucksacks, and put those on.

“Infantry sections,
Go!”

The remaining troops faced aft and began filing out at the double Larralde watched them break into teams and disappear around the sides.

As soon as all four of the unbuckling team were standing, Larralde and his radio bearer jumped onto the back of the AMX-13. They helped the others load up, pulling the men and women onto the vehicle by main strength. Larralde then said to the driver, “
Go!
The terminal.”

As soon as the tank bumped its way down the cleated mock loading ramp to the ground, Larralde’s eyes began searching the area. The other “planes” were already unloading, first Mao’s, then the XO’s. The other teams from his were hoofing it—maybe a little uncertainly—for their initial objectives.
So far, so good …so far, so …shit.

Mao was the first dismounted soldier off of his plane, right behind the churning tracks of the AMX-13. He stopped once his feet hit the ground and began encouraging the troops onward. Like his commander, Mao’s eyes, too, scanned the developing deployment.

“That bitch,” Mao said aloud, as soon as he saw the presidential limousine. “Next time Larralde takes my cousin on a date, he has my express permission to fuck her …in the ass …without grease. Imagine the cunt not telling me Hugo was going to be here.” The sergeant major shook his head with disgust. “What the hell has happened to family loyalty in this country, anyway?”

Mao still had the radio in one hand, a rifle in the other. He moved the radio to his lips and said, “You go report to him, boss. The XO and I can handle this well enough.”
Rather, we can handle watching it turn into a disaster as well without you as with you.

Despite Mao’s and the XO’s best efforts, the thing unfolding on the field looked disastrous, just a ruin of a plan. Troops milled about aimlessly. Two sets of two had taken to fisticuffs on the field. Chavez, though more politician than soldier, noticed. He couldn’t help but notice. And he had to ask.

“What do you expect, Mr. President?” Larralde answered. “It’s their first full speed run through so of course they fucked it up. We’ll be doing this fifty more times before we’re done.”

Chavez nodded, saying, “I believe you.” He was really kind of pleased that Larralde had actually thought through what looked like a competent rehearsal plan. It wasn’t something one could count on, with the army in the state he’d driven it to.

“Bottom line, Larralde; are they going to be ready?”

“That’s …a qualified ‘yes,’ Mr. President. By M Day, they’ll be able to board the aircraft, fly, unload in a hurry, overcome light resistance, if there is any, and secure the airport. The specialist teams will be able to do their part, running the control tower and refueling from the stocks there in Guyana. That’s the most I can promise. I think it’s enough for your purposes.”

“Do they know what their mission’s going to be?”

The major shook his head in negation. “Mao does; my XO, too. Nobody else beyond very broad lines we’ve tried really hard to blur.”

“When are you planning on telling them?”

“Not more than forty-eight hours out, sir. And they’ll be in isolation by the time we do. I can’t vouch for operational security from any other group. Mine …we’ll have it.”

Chavez gave off a snort. “I can’t vouch for operational security, either,” he said. “I can tell you that we don’t have any reason to suspect we’re compromised. Yet. And I can tell you that all the other components are going into isolation, too, three days before we jump off.”

“Oh, and I can tell you one other thing. The gringos won’t have any troops in country at that mercenary
cum
training base.”

Larralde thought about that for a moment. If he were inclined to be honest with his president he’d have said he really didn’t want to fight the gringos. Instead, he simply asked, “How did you manage that, sir?”

“Two ways. One is that we’re behind—far behind, but behind—the riots that have been sweeping Guyana of late. That gave the gringos the excuse not to send any troops for a while. The other way is that someone in the White House is our ally.”

“Their president?” Larralde asked. He didn’t believe it.

“No,” Hugo replied. “Oh, he’s sympathetic, but it isn’t him. One of their president’s mentors has pushed to cancel that deployment, even before we got the riots started. The riots helped. The riots also got us a few other things we can use, but you donneed to know about those.

“And now, if you don’t mind, Major, get your people back on those mockups and show me a dry run that
doesn’t
end in disaster. However many it takes; I’ve got all day.”

The sun was long down. Monkey and other jungle dwellers were out, the monkeys, in particular, raising a hellacious racket.

Lily Vargas—who normally did not much care for spiders and snakes—groaned as she lay down atop her poncho. Sore and tired, even putting up a mosquito net was beyond her strength. At least she’d found the strength to douse herself liberally with insect repellent.

Carlos Villareal, standing over her, said, “Mao sees you sleeping without your mosquito bar, he’ll stake you out over an ant hill. He said he would. I believe him.”

“I’m just so
tired,
Carlos,” she replied “We did that pointless shit all day. In the sun. With hardly a break.
And my fucking rucksack and rifle together weigh more than I do!”

“Yeah …yeah,” he said, “I understand.” Without another word he took one knee beside her rucksack and began to rifle through it. Eventually, he touched upon the unmistakable stiff mesh of a fairly new mosquito net. This he took out and began to erect over her supine form, using a couple of trees that framed her at head and feet.

The alignment wasn’t perfect so, since trees were not going to be moved, Carlos walked around to the other side of the girl and dragged her by the poncho to a better position. Then he spent a few minutes arranging the net so it would have a fair chance of not coming in contact with her skin. He’d already learned the hard way just how many of the little winged bastards could gather for a feast on any flesh that touched the net. He was still scratching from that one.

“Thanks, honey,” Lily said when he was done. She thought about it for just a moment—
Carlos
always
does things like that, whether it’s helping me over an obstacle or feeding me when I’m sick or just generally being nice. A girl could do worse
—before adding, “Would you like to join me in here. I stink, but …”

“I didn’t do it for that,” Carlos replied, turning away, embarrassed.