Countdown: M Day (33 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“Fetchez la vache!”

—
Monty Python and The Holy Grail

MV
Maria Walewska,
Puerto Cabello, Venezuela

The port pilot’s own launch had been released on Liu’s promise that he’d have the pilot brought back to port in his own boat. That wasn’t going to happen.

“I’m afraid you’ll be coming with us,” Kosciusko told the port pilot, Carver, standing in temporary command on the bridge. Carver was an American, a former merchant skipper—a former naval officer, too—who’d elected to settle down with one of the local girls. They knew of each other, but only by reputation.

With Kosciusko were two armed guards. Liu, standing beside the pilot, reached over and flicked off the radio as soon as the leader of the regiment’s naval squadron made his appearance. Besides the guard, there was a uniformed sapper, Sergeant Collins of the Engineer Company. To him, Kosciusko said, “You may man your engine, Sergeant. Commence fire at my command.”

“Yessir,” Collins replied, giving a hasty salute and racing off the bridge to the reassembled trebuchet that sat in the reformed cavity made of the containers.

“Captain Liu, have the flag of Guyana run up, then take us out.”

“You sure you no want Jorry Logah?”

The Countess
already had her dispensable cargo laid out. At the stern were two ex-Yugoslav M-70, four 240mm shells, and seven thirty-gallon barrels, all fused, all programmed, and all set to be armed. These rested on two broad beams the crew had turned into a roll-off system, of sorts, that they’d salvaged from scrap in the “lumber” container. A stack of half meter by three millimeter steel dummies sat off to one side.

To port and starboard, each side, were another four shells and six barrels. These sat right on the edge of the gunwale, waiting to be heaved over. These, too, had their dummies standing by.

In the center was the turntable mounted trebuchet, aimed for now to port. Six shells and six barrels waited in a line, off to one side.

The shells weighed nearly three-hundred pounds, with adaptors and destructor kits. And the explosive-filled thirty-gallon drums they’d thrown together for more blast effect, deeper, were four-hundred and thirty. Even for a trebuchet, this was a lot, and didn’t give all that much range.

Fortunately, it didn’t have to give much. The objective was mainly to scatter them, so that no precise line could be calculated from finding two of them and matching it to the ship’s course.

“Stern?” Kosciusko asked, over a small, handheld, short-ranged radio.

“Here, Skippah,” came the answer.

Hmmm. What’s Mrs. Liu doing back there? Oh, well, if she can load precisely, she can unload as well.

“You may commence unloading in the sequence as given.”

“Aye, aye, Skippah! We fucking staht now.”

“Port side, starboard side; begin sequence now.”

“Aye, sir …aye, aye, Commodore.”

“Sergeant Collins?”

“Here, sir.”

“Your target one and target two are coming up on the port. Fire as she bears.”

“Yessir.”

It wasn’t a classical trebuchet, since it lacked a counterweight. Neither was it an onager, which relied on the power of torsion in the form of twisted skeins. Instead, the motive power came from a battery of six helical springs, attached to a welded-on crosspiece at the bottom of the lever, above, and to the frame, below. These were already at full extension, and practically humming with the urge to release.

At the other end of the lever was a hook. From the hook hung a steel eyebolt, from which a cable ran. Just below it, from another eyebolt, this one affixed to the beam, ran another section of cable. Still below that was another cable, this one hung on a hook and running through a shackle to a power winch. A rope led off from the hook to one of the Chinese-born sailors, Yee.

Both of those upper cables led to a net of steel mesh, laid out under the crosspiece of the lever. Inside the net, laid transversely, was a single 240mm shell, with an odd extension screwed into the fuse well.

Collins had already set the arming delay and the counter, electronically, using a kit supplied by Victor and his Israeli pals.

“We’re ready,” Collins said to himself, with no small amount of pride.

“Yee?” he asked.

“Yes, Sa’gin?”

“At my command.”

“Yes, Sa’gin.”

The ship was picking up speed, if only slightly. Collins ran to an eight foot ladder, previously placed against and tied off to one of the surrounding containers, and scaled it. The ladder was set off well to one side, because,
You never really know, do you?

Above the ladder’s top, on the container, Collins had also put down two cans of food, still filled, that he’d earlier scrounged from the galley and emplaced to define a line parallel to the swing of the trebuchet’s beam. Next to those was a single night vision scope.

He flicked it on. The navy never got the best of such things, of course, since they didn’t need them. This one was old, Gen One, technology. It whined, most annoyingly.

Sighting that along the cans, Collins saw the grainy green image of the opening of one of the port’s sub-harbors, his “target one.”

“Fire,” he said.

Yee pulled the rope, which twisted the hook off its restraining eyebolt. Now freed, the lever swung up, dragging the net and the shell with it. The netted shell, accelerated by the swing, arced out and then up. The top hook kept the net in control until it was just past apogee. Then the net’s eyebolt let go of the hook, releasing the mine to sail forward and onward. The springs groaned and whined with their torture, as the upright lever hit its padded stop, making the entire contraption shudder.

Collins just caught the spash, about two hundred meters away, and perhaps fifty inward, past the mouth of the sub-port.

“Reload,” he shouted, as one of the sailors rolled a plastic barrel up to a convenient load point, and Yee scrambled up the framework to reattach his hook. The long steel lever began to descend as the winch turned. As the beam reached the reload point, Collins was sure he heard a splash from the port side of the ship.

The RSM is absolutely right,
thought Collins, with satisfaction.
It’s been all downhill since Varus lost his legions and his eagles.

Two Venezuelan sailors, wearing brassards indicating a certain police authority, walked the dock by which three of Venezuela’s five frigates were tied. The frigates had come back, after escorting the amphibious ships back to harbor. From here they would return to Georgetown, after the transports picked up a largish chunk of First Marine Brigade’s wheels. The lack of those trucks was seriously hampering the effort to spread out over settled Guyana from Georgetown.

“Did you hear something?” one of the sailors asked of the other.

The other shook his head. “Something like what?”

“I dunno …a kind of an odd clang. Can’t recall ever hearing anything like it before.”

The second sailor again shook his head. “No, not really. Probably some construction going on further into town. You know how the harbor distorts and carries sound.”

“Yeah, but this was really odd. Like …oh …maybe a chunk of metal hitting wood at really high speed, with a sort of aerial
buzz
tossed in there somewhere, too.

“Aha, there it is again,” the first sailor insisted, “coming from that freighter just pulling out of port.”

“Maybe,” the second one half-agreed. “But ships are always making odd sounds.”

“And I think I heard a splash. A big one.”

“Now
there
you’re imagining things. A splash in port? Oh, my, that’s ever so unusual.”

The second sailor, who was actually the senior of the pair, consulted his watch and said, “C’mon, let’s get back to the guard shack for our relief.”

“Bring us around north for two miles and then head east, Captain,” Kosciusko commanded, as the ship eased out of the harbor. “We’ve got a lot more mischief to do before we turn ourselves in.”

Carver, the American-born pilot, still on the bridge and watching events with keen interest, asked, “Um …what happens to me?”

“You’ll be freed as soon as we turn ourselves in for internment at Trinidad.” Kosciusko shrugged. “Assuming they believe us when we tell them you’re a captive rather than one of us.”

“Yeah, but what are the odds?”

Naughtius,
Waini River, Guyana

The sub had doffed her thin disguise, back at what passed for a base. Now, just a couple of meters below the surface, with only her periscope showing, she cruised a very sedate three knots. Inside her, along with her four-man crew, sailed Biggus Dickus Thornton, Eeyore Antoniewicz, two M-70 mines, two thirty-gallon barrel mines, and two 240mm shells, all fused and almost armed.

I really don’t like this poor, worn out excuse for a commando sub,
Biggus Dickus mentally bitched. He had to keep his complaints unvoiced; there was no sense in worrying the men.

The problems with
Naughtius
were multifold. She was old. She’d been rode hard for years. She’d been put away wet. And she hadn’t really been cared for in years, before the regiment took her. Even in her best days, she’d been, to quote the film,
Dragnet,
“The cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology.”

So, of course, someone had to start telling Yugo jokes, suitably modified. Of course that somebody was the sub’s crew.

“Hey,” asked the helmsman from his perch, over one shoulder, “what do you call a Yugo Class on the surface of the ocean?”

“Dunno,” said the sub’s commander, though he clearly did.

“A miracle.”

“What’s the problem with diving a Yugo?”

“Yugo down, but you can’t stop.”

The seaman who normally manned the diver lock out chamber asked, “What’s Yugo?”

Helm replied, “What doesn’t happen when we give ’er the gas or blow ballast.”

Then the captain of the boat started to sing, a parody of a parody:

“As the engine dies …

In a used sub lot at Kotor town

Gordo the loggie and Victor the clown …”

“BUY A YUGO!”

I fucking
hate
submarine crews,
Thornton thought.
Bunch of morbid bastards. Though I gotta confess, buying this thing was maybe not one of Victor’s smoothest moves.

Coco Point Airstrip,
Isla del Rey,
Panama

Leo Ross waved to the Antonovs as the second to launch joined the circling first, before they both veered to the northeast. It was pointless, of course; there were no useful windows facing in the right direction. Even so, it seemed the thing to do.

He stood there, on the beach, by the charred residue of the fire pit they’d cooked over for the last few days, until the planes were lost in the darkness. A part of him yearned to have gone, or to be with his old battalion, despite the really shitty position they were in, by all reports.

He shook his head.
But I can’t now, not anymore. Settled down. Have responsibilities. Kid on the way …even at my age. No need to let the baby grow up an orphan just so daddy can have fun.

Still, it was nice to be a part of it all again, to feel a little younger, if only for a few days.

“Come on,
cuñado,
” he said, finally. “Let’s get back to Chitre.”

After leaving Panamanian airspace, the Antonovs skirted Colombia’s northern coast for hundreds of miles, staying low and just out of territorial waters as long as possible. Veering sharply just past the town of Manaure, Columbia, both planes, close together, popped over Colombia’s eastern
cordillera
before diving low parallel to the slope of the far side. They weren’t quite skimming the treetops, but they weren’t all that far above them, either. Hearts were beating fast, breath coming in forced gulps, as the pilots leveled off just before reaching the Gulf of Venezuela.

There they split up, number two striking for Puerto Fijo to the northeast, while number one aimed itself for the narrow passageway east of San Carlos that was Lake Maracaibo’s access to the sea.

“Ready on the barrels, Tim,” the pilot warned as he used his dash controls to lower the rear cargo ramp. Wet, tropical air rushed into the cargo compartment, bringing with it smells of jungle and shore, and the fumes from the engines.

“Got it, boss,” Lindell answered. He signaled with his head for his assistant to stand by on the other side of the mine shell. Those would go first, in this first pass, as fast as they could be rolled to ramp.

“Stand by the first four,” the pilot announced. “Five …four …three …two …roll, roll, roll, roll.”

Out the open space that had been filled by the ramp, Lindell could just see the spit of land that held the small town of San Carlos. As the last of the M-240 shells disappeared over the ramps edge, to tumble to the sea, he thought that the plane was doing under eighty knots, and flying so close to the surface that it was actually getting some surface effect.

“Good drop,” the pilot announced. “Next gap, three shell mines, stand by to roll in ninety seconds …Five …four …three …two …roll, roll, roll.”

That time he was sure he saw a splash rise up, almost as high as the plane.
Oh, yeah, this is how even the cargo Air Force gets its moments of excitement.

“Stand by for course change,” was sounded just in time for Tim to expect to be thrown to his butt. He managed to get to his feet in time to hear, “Two shells in two minutes …Five …four …three …two …roll …roll. Three shells in two minutes …roll …roll …roll.”

That time Tim was certain he saw a splash.

“Okay,” the pilot said. “Next we’re going to drop dummies, as many as you can shove out the ramp. Course change in one minute.”

Lindell swayed over to the ramp and a stack of three millimeter thick, half meter in diameter steel plates. His assistant did the same on the far side, both men waiting until the turn was complete, hanging on for dear life while it was underway, before undoing the straps that held the dummy plates in position.