Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (29 page)

Overhead, the Pilatus made a single circling bank of the airstrip, at a range of about a dozen kilometers out. Inside the plane, Reilly barely noticed the turn, and had no real eye for the jungle below. His heart was too full of joy for that.

It's hard when you're a kid, he mused, and too bright to have any friends. Hard when even the adults treat you like some odd little specimen, neither one thing nor the other. And then you grow some and you find a job you love and, for a change, real friends, people you care about and who care about you. And then you find, best of all life's pleasures and joys, a woman that you love and loves you back.

And then God takes the woman, and fate takes the job, and you're alone, all, all alone. And you stay that way, for years, alone and miserable.

And then someone gives you a second chance.

Reilly cast his eyes upward. God, if this thing works out, please kill me before letting me be lonely again. Please.

And then the plane was bouncing down the rough runway, and Reilly knew, just knew, that his solitary existence was at an end.

Phillie had to do a double take. The man she remembered as looking vaguely clerklike, suited or in ragged blue jeans, depending, wearing glasses, with a slightly receding hairline and a bit stooped, could not possibly be the same man as the one exiting the aircraft in a single nimble leap to the ground.

But, she thought, if the words he spoke then-"Patience, my ass, I'm gonna kill something!"-didn't quite fit the man who spoke them then, they sure as hell do now. Why, he looks so young, so rejuvenated, he wouldn't even look interesting, if he weren't an asshole. Which he is.

George, who had marched around the column to take a position in front of it, called out, "Sergeant James, get the CO's baggage." A tall, skinny sort, Phillie thought he might have been in his mid forties, rushed over to the plane, saluted Reilly before throwing his arms around him, and then let go and reached up to grasp a greenish flight bag that someone inside threw to him.

Reilly marched, rather than walked, to a position a few meters in front of George. The latter then saluted and reported, "Sir, Company A, for armored, regimental lineage to be determined, all present or accounted for."

Reilly returned the salute sharply, Phillie thought, even stylishly, and with a subtle confidence that said he felt entitled to it; that, and that he was pleased as could be to be able to return it.

"Post!" he ordered. George then faced left and marched off to one side. Four others, who had been standing behind, did the same with four more who had been standing in front. Reilly waited for the movement to finish, then ordered, "Fall out and fall in on me," while raising his hands to beckon the flanking platoons inward.

"Gentlemen," he said, once six score and change faces-some grave, others smiling broadly like himself-were gathered about, "gentlemen, we're going to have great fun together."

The best word to describe Reilly's feelings was "home," and the best phrase, "where the heart is."

There was a low and comforting hum of a generator, dug in against excessive noise, sounding from somewhere nearer the river. The tent flaps were raised and tied, letting in a cooling, if damp, breeze. On one wall was a hand-drawn chart that said:

Reilly glanced over the chart, temporarily ignoring his exec. About two fifths of the names were of old comrades, and most of the rest he either knew more distantly or had good reports on.

"Cross out Fletcher and put in Schetrompf, Top," he said, turning away from the chart. "Welch put in a bid to keep Fletcher for his team and, given that Pete became available, I didn't bitch about it."

"Pete opted in?" George asked.

"Yeah, finally. I knew he couldn't stay away. He'll be along in the next few days."

"Scott, you're up," Reilly said to his exec.

"Besides the song," Reilly's XO, Scott FitzMarcach, said, shaking his head in pseudo-disapproval at the time spent on that, "we've gotten all the organizational clothing and individual equipment issued. We've got small arms and machine guns and night vision gear issued and the troops familiarized on them. Those Russki burst firers are pretty nice, by the way, but mechanical training took up two whole days and a night. Unlike most Russian weapons, they are not simple, either to use or to care for."

Fitz was standing, briefing from a clipboard. The unoccupied folding chair behind him was part of a semi-circle holding the platoon leaders, all but one of whom were noncommissioned, platoon sergeants, and some section leaders, and the company's small staff, including the first sergeant. The sergeant major, an always-invited guest, stood in back, just listening, as did Sergeant Coffee who would be leading a medical team in support of A Company during the operation. Oddly enough, after George and Joshua, the next oldest man present was Duke, who hadn't joined the Army until the day before he turned thirty-five, and stayed to retirement. He hadn't even needed to, either; Duke was independently wealthy.

"My Russian 120mm mortars are simple enough," said the mortar section sergeant, John R. Peters. He was a big boy, a tobacco dipper and cigar smoker, who'd been out of the Army for almost ten years. Still, some things one never forgets. He didn't forget, now, to refresh his dip, either, fingers pinching out a bit of the worm dirt and packing it between lip and gum. "And we've gotten the gunnery drill down pat." He shrugged. "Gun's a gun, basically. Problem is, I don't have any live ammunition- "

"And we won't have until we get on the ship," Reilly said. "Sorry, but that's the way it is. More or less innocent shit comes up the river from Manaus. War material comes in by air. And those couple of Pilatus Porters we're using just aren't up to carrying enough 120mm ammunition to be useful, even if we could get away with firing it. Not if we're going to eat, anyway."

Peters shrugged broad shoulders. "I know. And that part of it doesn't worry me too much. Like I said, a mortar's a mortar and a shell's a shell. And we've been able to program the TI-84's we've got for the Russki ballistics. But, what does worry me, training-wise, are the forward observers. Their job isn't just muscle memory. And I don't have any shells, or any sub-caliber ammunition, to retrain them on adjusting fire. It's a problem, boss. And Stauer's forbidden me to use smoke grenades, which we do have, to simulate ‘rounds' while we have people run around the jungle using GPS to mark impact points. Not that anyone would see the smoke rising above the jungle canopy from ground level, mind you, but that was all I could think of."

"Try this," Reilly advised. "This afternoon, and tomorrow, too, if it takes that long, build a whopping big terrain board. Find a fairly open spot in the jungle for it. Draw up a map-Top, does headquarters have at least one copier?"

"Yessir," George said.

"Fine. Take the map you drew and make some copies for the FOs. Then build a bunker on a hill overlooking, with a restricted vision port, so the FOs can't see anything that isn't to scale; have a trench lead into the bunker so they lose their orientation to the lifesize while crawling up it. Can we get some plastic sheeting to string around the perimeter to hide the trees? Good.

"You can toss grenade simulators to mark rounds. As they get too used to using one observation post, you can be building others. From four different directions, one chunk of ground is four chunks of ground."

"How big you think?" Peters asked. "What scale?"

"How big a space can you find?"

"There's an area maybe two klicks from here," Peters answered, "maybe one hundred and twenty by one hundred and fifty meters. An old Indian slash and burn area. Only a couple of trees inside it and the engineers can take those down for us."

"One to twenty-five scale, then, ought to do."

"Wilco, boss." One thing you could count on with Reilly was that when you hit a brick wall, training problem-wise, he would come up with a workable solution. Fast. It was bizarre, really; the man didn't even have to think about things like that; solutions just came.

"Physical and medical issues?" Reilly asked, looking directly at his first sergeant.

"Nobody in too bad a shape made it through to this point," George replied. "But we've got maybe a ton, ton and a half of lard to work off before we'll really be ready. Everybody, and that includes the present company, has anything from fifteen to thirty pounds excess baggage."

"God knows, I do," Reilly agreed. Again, he didn't even hesitate to add, "Twice weekly jungle marches, starting tomorrow, full kit and equipment."

Peters looked dubious. "The mortars we got sent are 2S12's, boss. Nice guns but heavy. Man, are they heavy. Maybe four hundred and fifty pounds or so. No way me and my thirteen guys can carry those on a real march. They couldn't when they were twenty, and sure as shit not now."

Reilly looked up at Sergeant Coffee, smiling wickedly. "Can we come up with half a dozen stretchers?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Coffee replied.

"Good." Reilly looked back at Peters, then around the semi-circle at the rest. "Everyone is going to take a turn helping carry the mortars . . . on stretchers." He looked directly at the gunned armored car platoon sergeant and platoon leader, sitting side by side. "Yes, that includes you."

Neither Green, the platoon leader, nor Abdan, the sergeant, had any problem with that. However, "Maybe we can get away with simulating for the mortars, sir," said Abdan. "But our tankers-okay, okay-our gunned armored car crews, absolutely must have some practice with the real thing. Our old M-1s and Bradleys were the definition of sophisticated, gunnery-wise. These things are going to be almost the definition of primitive. And the antitank section will never have fired the Russki antitank guided missiles we're getting. And I gather they're not a whole lot like TOWs or Javelins."

"I know," Reilly agreed. "We're going to handle that a few ways. I checked with Gordo before flying down here. There is a package of South African 90mm training practice ammunition-the same ballistics but no high explosive in the shells, lighter projo, reduced propellant charge-coming, enough for fifty or sixty rounds per gunner. We can use that here without attracting too much notice. Then, once we're aboard ship and out and away from normal sea lanes, we'll toss some sealed containers over the side and shoot the shit out of them with live shell. Same thing with the Russian ATGM's; we'll do practice firing from the ship. Work for you?"

"Works for me," Green agreed. Abdan nodded and said, "Sub-optimal, but it'll do."

"It'll have to," Reilly said. "Speaking of the gun systems, have you figured out how to get the turrets onto the cars once both arrive?"

Abdan replied, "Nagy, the chief engineer, built four tripods out of trees over by the maintenance area, sir. He connected those with logs and added a winch to each. Not a problem getting the turrets on, or pulling a pack when we need to. Note that I said ‘when,' not if."

"All right, good. And, yeah, ‘when.' And now," Reilly said looking directly at George, "talk to me about personnel issues."

"Gun platoon's full up, sir, to include the scout and antitank sections," George answered. "Thirty men. With all the Bradleys and tanks there were plenty of turret experienced folks to choose from and long experience of turret drill, in this case, was key. Levine's signal crew is short one but he says he can manage as long as he doesn't have to lay wire in a hurry. Supply's okay. The infantry platoons are short one man, in the case of second platoon, and two in third. Mortars have a problem." George looked in turn to Peters.

"I need twenty," Peters said, his tongue working at the Copenhagen stuck behind his lip. "Twenty to run the 120's, anyway. In theory, anyway. See, originally when we were going to use the light mortars in the armored cars, I could have made do with two three-man crews, three Forward Observers-who can hump their own radios, and myself and three others for the Fire Direction Center who would also drive two more armored cars loaded with ammo.

"Now I need ten to crew two guns, plus the three in the FDC, plus three FO's, and still four men to haul and sling the much, much heavier ammunition. I've got fourteen, including myself."

"And with the line platoons short," George said, "and the scouts and guns needing everybody they have, and headquarters short one, I've got nobody to plug into mortars."

"How's B Company situated?" Reilly asked.

"I talked to their section chief," Peters replied. "Same problems, only worse. They were also supposed to get 60mm tubes and ended up with three 120s."

"Got a solution?" Reilly asked Peters.

The mortarman shook his head. He put a bottle under his lower lip and spat out some tobacco juice. "Not one I can do anything with. If the company, on the other hand, can give me a little more time to get ready between attacks, we can support. More or less. The range on the guns is good, over seven klicks, so if, say, you drop us off five or six klicks out, and move slowly yourself, we can probably be ready to fire by the time you hit. Usually."

"Have to do," Reilly said. Even so, he thought, The cooks aren't going to have shit to do once we land. And they're perfectly capable of slinging ammunition. I'll have a talk with Stauer, the sergeant major, and Island about it.