Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (26 page)

And I suppose they're really not that surly, he thought, just really, really tired looking and, if smell in anything to go on, badly hungover.

In any case, neither chaplain nor team paid much attention to each other, beyond Welch having introduced himself as they boarded the plane. Of small talk, once aboard, though, there'd been none.

So Wilson spent the flight looking out the small window at the trees passing below. Not that they're all that far below, he mused. I wonder why the pilots are . . .

The thought was interrupted as the plane took a sudden, violent dip downward, causing Wilson's stomach to lurch upward. He barely contained his bile. The special operations types, most of whom had been dozing, awakened with sudden startled cries. Wilson gulped even while thinking, Nice to know they're human after all.

Stauer heard the Porter's engine, even muffled through the trees. He caught the briefest glimpse of it. And then the thing was diving for the deck, or-in this case-the freshly laid PSP.

The pilot pulled out, barely in time, Stauer thought. In what seemed mere moments he had touched down on the PSP, bouncing a few times before settling in to a rather nice landing roll. He reversed engines shortly thereafter, slowing quickly to a stop maybe sixty percent of the way down the field.

Nagy was right, Stauer thought. Cruz was being overly careful. But, then again, this was the best pilot Cruz came up with for the Porters. Maybe the others will need a bit more space. And, maybe too, we might have to fly a load or two out of here.

Harry Gordon, Gordo, had arranged for half a dozen little All Terrain Vehicles with dump truck platforms on back to be sent to the camp via the leased civilian riverine landing craft. The things were six-wheeled-though the wheels were covered with rubber treads-and amphibious. Each had a ton and a quarter winch. They drove pretty much like an M-113 armored personnel carrier, having two control sticks to steer and stop. Best of all, they were completely non-suspicious.

Of course, at twenty-six thousand dollars and change, each, they hadn't come cheap.

The ATVs had been there mostly for Nagy's sake, initially, but since he no longer really needed them they'd been parceled out among the other organizations, with two of them reserved to the air operations company. Those two were waiting when the Porter came to a stop. There wouldn't be room for the men, of course. They could walk. But there's no sense in making them carry all their shit while they do, Stauer thought. Not in this heat, anyway.

As the plane's hatch opened, Stauer adjusted the pull throttle, pressed the starter button, readjusted the throttle and took off to meet his incoming crew, grass and dirt spinning up behind him, until he reached the PSP of the airstrip. The things were a ball to drive, despite the pounding of the junctures where PSP section joined section. The propeller was changing from a blur to a visible set of blades as he stopped the ATV near the hatch.

Terry was first off, tossing an informal-to-the-point-of-ragged salute Stauerward. Stauer frowned until Terry made it more formal. "One or the other, Terry, would be fine," Stauer said. "Salute or not, as the spirit moves you. But making a sloppy, half-assed, ridiculous attempt at the thing is just stupid."

Terry nodded and said, "Sorry, boss. Won't happen again."

"All right," Stauer agreed with good grace. "And well done on springing Victor. You and your boys are part of Headquarters"-Stauer pointed down a rutted trail in the direction of the river-"so you billet in main camp. Sergeant Island's been expecting you. You can feed before you rack out. The sergeant major will be by to brief you and your men on camp routine and layout tomorrow morning, 0600. You're on your own ‘til then."

Welch nodded wearily, then turned back to the plane from which all of his men had now debarked. "Buckwheat," he passed on to his senior sergeant, "The vehicles can lead off. Mess in the camp, then rack out. Sergeant Major visits us in the morning, 0600."

"Roger, sir," Fulton said. He turned to the rest and ordered, "Column of twos . . . ForWARD . . . March."

"Sergeant Fulton has another mission, too, Terry," Stauer said as the others marched away.

"Recon of the objective?"

"Yes; that and pick up our local attachments. Him and Wahab. Leave in about two weeks. Buckwheat's the only one we've got with both the training and the color to blend in."

"I'm not sure color matters, boss," Terry said. "That place gets overrun with western journalists and other progressive sorts on a regular basis."

"It still matters," Stauer replied.

"Taciturn bunch," Jim Wilson said to Stauer as he watched the backs of Welch's team march away.

"Not so very," Stauer replied. "They just don't know you. Hop in."

Wilson shrugged and tossed his small carry-on into the truck bed in back. Sure, it was still dirty but what's a little dirt among friends. It's true enough, he thought, that I'm a stranger. Even so, I am a man of the cloth. Could they be militant atheists? Never met one in the Army, that I know of, but you never know
.
He swung a leg over, grimacing at the click-click-click that he felt in one arthritic knee, and climbed over the side of the little tracked amphib, settling down in the cramped passenger seat.

Stauer once again started the ATV, then used the control sticks to head generally around the base camp and its outliers. As he drove, he talked, speaking loudly over the sound of the engine.

"I'm surprised you came," he said to Wilson.

"You called; I came," the chaplain replied. "Even got a portable organ on the plane."

"It's never that simple, Jim. There was an implicit question in there: Why?"

Stauer may never have shown his fangs to Phillie in the time they'd been together. Anyone who had known him before knew also that he wasn't to be balked or stymied. And for God's sake, one should never lie to him.

"I lost my congregation," Wilson admitted. "About six months ago. Little to-do about literal interpretations of the Bible versus more . . . enlightened views. Anyway, I got the boot. I was getting desperate when you called, to tell you the truth. Wife and mortgage to support. Two kids in college."

Those were reasons Stauer could accept without much reflection. He nodded, then pulled both sticks back and locked them, stopping the ATV. Pointing at a collection of olive drab tents under camouflage screens, he said, "That's the main camp. You'll be billeted there. I had sergeant major give you your own tent, about the size of a GP small. Will it do?"

"Sure, Wes. Whatever's available."

"Good enough." Stauer clasped the hand releases and let them go, easing the left stick forward while keeping the right one pulled back. The ATV turned right, then, as he guided it along the dirt path down towards the southern camp, the one that would house B Company (Marine). He pointed this out, too. "Not sure if we should have separate services yet," Stauer said. "Have to see how ex-Army infantry gets along with "former" Marines."

Again Stauer turned the ATV, heading north this time, towards the other outlying camp. "You remember the speech?" he asked.

Wilson sighed. "'Your job, Chaplain,'" he quoted, "'has nothing to do with spreading the word of God. You are not here to comfort the afflicted. Your function is not the saving of souls. You, like me, like the doctors, the lawyers, the everything else, have one true mission: You are here to serve the ends of military effectiveness and efficiency. What you do toward those ends is good. Anything else you can shitcan.' Did I get it right, Wes?"

Stauer laughed aloud. "Pretty good," he admitted, "considering it's been what? Twenty years?"

"Well," Wilson grimaced. "It wasn't like I didn't hear it once a week until I got it through my skull."

"Very true," Stauer whispered. "Very true." More loudly he said, "I called you, as opposed to someone else, Jim, because out of dozens and scores of chaplains I knew in the Army, you were one of maybe three who could understand that speech, one of a very few I thought was worth a shit.

"Join me in my quarters this evening for a drink, why don't you?" Stauer asked. "Be a good chance for you to get to meet the staff and the chain of command. Some of them you'll already know."

"Like Reilly back in San Antonio?"

"Well, him you already knew, of course. He'll be down later on. What did you think of him?"

"Hasn't changed a bit," Wilson replied, without further comment. Again, Stauer laughed.

"Hey, what's that sound," the chaplain asked.

Stauer listened for a moment, then breathed a sigh of relief. He answered, "With any luck that sound is three LCM-6s that unloaded at Manaus a couple of days ago and are just making it up the river to us now."

D-98, San Antonio, Texas

Phillie had never seen the expression "ROFLMAO"-rolling on the floor laughing my ass off-given life in quite the way Seamus Reilly managed. Reilly was, literally, rolling on the floor, occasionally rolling over onto his belly to beat the rug with his fists. And all she'd asked was, "Why can't you be a little kinder, a little more considerate, like Wes is?"

Even Cazz, normally a fairly cold fish, had to smile at the question. Sure, Stauer had been a different service, but they'd worked together enough to know that neither kindness nor consideration were words that really quite fit. To Reilly, who knew the man very well, the idea was uproarious, even preposterous.

Eventually, after a long and humiliating time of being laughed at by the adjutant pro-tem for the expedition, Phillie sniffed and then walked off in a huff. Once Reilly saw her ass swaying through the door that led to the bedroom, his laughter abruptly cut off. He sat up and brushed himself off, saying, "Kind and considerate," as if they were curses. He did curse, then, as he saw that he'd spilled his drink when the woman's silly comment had hit him. "Kind and considerate."

Cazz shrugged. "She's only seen the dead-inside side of him, bro. She'll see the rest soon enough. And did you have to lay into her quite so hard over chalk seventeen having their shots delayed? She's a girl, you know."

"I noticed," Reilly agreed. "And yes, I did, and yes, I did. That little show was for her benefit, mostly. So when she does see Wes in full fury, or icy exterior, she won't freak over it."

"Man can chew some ass, can't he?" the Marine agreed.

"Sure as shit can when he wants to. Now about chalk seventeen . . . "

"There's a company, Passport Health, that arranges these sorts of things. At least that's the one I know about. I think we can use them, since Phillie ran short temporarily."

"Yeah, go ahead and set it up. But she shouldn't have run out. Bad planning. Inexcusable."

"Maybe," Cazz conceded. "Oh, and just FYI, the first sergeants departed Georgetown a few hours ago for base. They should be touching down about now."

D-98, Assembly Area Alpha-Base Camp,

Amazonia, Brazil

George and Webster never saw the landing lights on the airfield. They wouldn't have seen them, in any case, because they were all infrared, visible to the pilots in their goggles but not to the casual observer. Even if they'd not been infrared, however, the strip was so narrow that they wouldn't have seen them, anyway, until landing.

"What's this Joshua like, George?" Webster had asked on the flight down.

"Hard ass," George had answered. "Very strong on what he considers the highly limited role of a sergeant major. We never really got along. The man was the senior sergeant major in the old Twenty-fourth Infantry Division and just flat refused to be division sergeant major or even a brigade sergeant major. He thought his effectiveness, any sergeant major's effectiveness, ended once he let himself be pulled above battalion level, or pushed into any kind of battalion than the kind he grew up in. He and Reilly have a mutual admiration society going back better than twenty years.

"Which makes perfect sense," George added, "since Reilly is bughouse nuts. Love the bastard like a brother, mind you, but that doesn't change that he's insane. He was insane as a private and age and experience"-George sighed-"have not mellowed him."

***

"I would not have picked you, George," Sergeant Major Joshua said, in a Caribbean accent gone nasty, as he drove the two first sergeants to their company areas. "That Reilly likes you is the only black mark I hold against what is otherwise one of the finest commanders I've ever known."

"Everyone has some major failings, Sergeant Major," George answered. I, for example, am having a hard time getting over the fact that while you stopped at being a battalion command sergeant major, I was sergeant major for a brigade and I should probably have your job now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The cruel-tyrant-sergeants . . .

-Kipling, "The ‘Eathen"

D-91, International Airport, San Antonio, Texas

By dint of sheer hard work, Cazz, Reilly, and Phillie Potter had gotten the hundreds of men ready and moved from scores of different locations around the United States to Georgetown, Guyana. (And by dint of much harder and hotter work in Georgetown, Harry Gordon and his assistant-with a considerable assist from the aviation company-had gotten them all moved onward to Base Alpha.) Now it was time to close shop and move on. Cazz was heading straight to Brazil, as was Phillie, the latter having a container of inoculations on dry ice in her baggage, for anyone who was missed. Reilly had one more stop to make, to an old Titan missile base not so very far from Spokane, Washington. He'd promised Gordo that he'd see to getting the assembled light aircraft containerized and moved to port. Gordon basically didn't trust aviators to get anything right except the actual assembly and flying. And he, rightly, considered Reilly to be almost as good a loggie as he was, himself.

Reilly wasn't quite so skeptical about the Air Force but, since he did speak Spanish, since all the aircraft assemblers were Mexican, since it was a potential failure point for the mission, he'd agreed to go. Besides, he wanted to get to know some of the pilots who would be provided recon, close air support-sorta, kinda, maybe-and medevac. And those were all up in Spokane, at a long since abandoned, sold, re-sold, and re-re-sold Titan missile base, helping the Mexicans.