Countdown: M Day (2 page)

I’m counting on it,
von Ahlenfeld thought.
If not, I wouldn’t even be here.

“God knows,” Stauer continued, “the locals couldn’t afford to pay us for their defense. They’re dirt poor and they’ll stay dirt poor, too, because almost no one is willing to invest here lest the country be partitioned and they lose their investment. The Canadians are almost unique, and either very cagey or very stupid, for putting new money into the place.

“So, anyway …that’s a few of the Second Battalion’s missions: to provide training support to—well, to be honest, to
be
—the jungle school here, to manage personnel to provide company command for the three Guyanan battalions, and to provide initial entry and more advanced training. There’s one other.”

“Yes?”

Stauer smiled. “Yes. Typically we only need one of your three line companies for lane walking squads and platoons for the jungle school at any given time. One of the others trains itself. The last mission, for whichever company isn’t doing one of those two, is to be ready to conduct and to conduct special operations, on order, on our own behalf, or, more typically, on behalf of someone who has contracted for our services.”

“Now, do you want to look the place over before you make a decision? We can grab lunch at the O Club on the way.”

“Sounds good,” Lee agreed. “By the way, were those tanks I saw from the air as I came in? And if so, where did they come from? I didn’t recognize the model.”

Stauer nodded. “Yeah, those were tanks. Half of them we captured in Africa, the other half we bought from Israel through the good offices of the government of Guyana, of which we’ve been an official reserve since about five hours before we landed near Paramaribo. They’re Ti-67s2 tanks; that’s what the Israeli company that did the mods calls them, anyway. The mods themselves were from China and Textron, who call the model the ‘Jaguar.’ We just call them ‘tanks.’ Basically they’re modified T-55s with a new American turret configuration, a thermal-sleeved 105mm gun, Israeli fire control, explosive reactive armor, and a host of other improvements. They’re a good buy for the money, and when you capture half of what you need …”

“Should I ask?”

Stauer shook his head. “Nah. I could tell you, but …“On the other hand, I
can
tell you that, outside of your battalion’s, most of our arms are Russian.”

Von Ahlenfeld didn’t sneer, as some might have.

“We mostly went
high end
Russian, mind you,” Stauer continued. “No Kalashnikovs, for example. We bought Abakans. No PKM’s, we’ve got Pechenegs. Grenade launchers are GM-94’s. Heavy machine guns are KORD’s. Our light machine guns are RPK-74’s, though.

“We stayed away from RPG-7’s. Instead we’ve got RPG-16’s. For medium antiarmor work we’ve got Vampires. Chile sold us a couple of dozen Israeli-built 60mm High Velocity guns on old QF Six Pounder carriages, plus spare barrels and a shitload of ammunition. We’ve got a very limited number of SPG-9’s. We didn’t bother with antitank guided missiles, other than a couple of launchers in your battalion, and Reilly’s antitank platoon, because the terrain just doesn’t generally suit them.

“For artillery we went French, because they were available. Mortars are Israeli. Sniper rifles are Barretts, in .338, from home.

“And then, every light battalion has a platoon of Eland 90’s as armored gun systems …”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” von Ahlenfeld queried, “meaning that I’ll survive the answer, where did you get all that shit?”

Stauer scratched lightly at his nose, hesitated a moment, then answered, “Mostly …ummm …Victor.”

“Victor? No shit?” Von Ahlenfeld looked and sounded incredulous. “We were all sure he was dead.”

“He would be,” Stauer replied. “He would be right quick like, if he ever tried to settle down somewhere without at least a regiment to keep him alive.”

Stauer had released Hosein to the RSM and was driving himself. He hated riding in the back of a vehicle, didn’t much like making someone else do so, and wanted to talk to von Ahlenfeld one on one.

“How the
fuck
do you pay for all this?” von Ahlenfeld asked, as Stauer’s Land Rover passed a row of substantial, white stucco-covered barracks before turning north from the last outlying camp, Camp Python, to head back to Camp Fulton. A housing area lined the eastern side of the road as they progressed. A sign announced that the name of the place was “Glen Livet.” It, too, was white stucco though, unlike the barracks, built mostly to single floor plans.

“I mentioned that Canadian energy company,” Stauer answered. “We have funding, some of it regular, some of it spotty, from eight other sources.

“Our jungle school makes a profit—pretty good profit, as a matter of fact—from selling training to the Army and Marines. We can handle up to a regiment or brigade at a time. And, once a year, we give the Guyanan’s own infantry battalion a free rotation. I write that off as a good will measure. We go pretty easy on them, actually, which is only fair since, as mentioned, we’ve wrecked them.

“You will, by the way, see a lot of oddities in our table of organization because, officially, we primarily support a jungle school. For example, we’ve got mules and small submarines, hovercraft, unmarked civvie cars, and even bicycles because you can reasonably expect an irregular force to use any or all of those to move people and supplies. And landing craft because a regular force can expect to be moved by those, sometimes, anyway.”

Stauer paused, then added, “Anyway, we wrecked the Guyanans. Except for their Second Infantry Battalion—‘Two Battalion,’ they call it. It’s a reserve formation and it’s better than you would expect because a number of the people who take their discharge from us, and take on civilian employment, opt to keep their hand in with the GDF reserve. We don’t have a reserve of our own, though we’ve considered it. Each of our two light infantry battalions have adopted two of those four GDF companies, unofficially. Our Third Battalion took on ‘Big Brother’ duties for their 242 and 244 companies, while our Fourth, FitzMacach’s crew, helps out their 243 and 245 companies.

“Doesn’t cost us much, really. And they’re happy to get whatever help we can give them.

Von Ahlenfeld coughed in such a way as to mean,
And, again, you
pay
for this how?

“Oh, right,” Stauer said. “At any given time, some of Third and Fourth Infantry battalions, along with Fifth Combat Support and Eighth Service Support, are away under a personal security contract. Right now it’s ninety-four gringos and Euros and five hundred and ninety-one Guyanans deployed. Those battalions are all overstrength, anyway. We make a pretty fair amount of money out of those, more than enough to pay the expenses of those four battalions But then you’d know all about
that
.”

Von Ahlenfeld just smiled. Post retirement from the Army, he’d been CEO of a major security provider for quite a few years before he’d gotten tired of the thing.

“And, yes,” Stauer said, “I knew you were sick of it, so I didn’t even think about offering you that job.

“We also get the occasional paid mission for one of Second Battalion’s line companies, or a portion thereof. We charge through the nose for those, though. You may recall those eight ships running Israel’s blockade of Gaza that sank in the Med?”

“What did the Israelis pay you for that one?”

Stauer smiled broadly. “The
Israelis
didn’t. They could have done it themselves for cheaps, if they still had the balls for that kind for thing. A pro-Israel group in the United States did. It was just good luck that a storm picked up when the limpets started going off.” His broad smile became a laugh. “Just think of it; seven hundred and nineteen ‘peace activists’—unusually well-armed ‘peace activists,’ at that—drowned overnight Except for the fifty or so who blew to atoms when the mine set off the what we think were a hundred and fifty-odd tons of rockets, shells, and explosives they had hidden under the concrete and food.”

Stauer sighed contentedly. “Sometimes, you know, the satisfaction of just knowing you’re doing the Lord’s work is more important than what you’re paid. One of our ex-SEAL types is Jewish. He took special pleasure in mining the
Saint Rachel of Ihop.
”

Von Ahlenfeld thought,
Oh, yes, I am going to enjoy this job.

“Are you the folks who fed Julian Assange and his eight pals feet first into a wood chipper and then posted the video on Wikileaks?” he asked.

Stauer shook his head, “Nah. We’d have done it, happily—happily killed the fuckers, anyway—but someone beat us to it. Not sure who, maybe it was Mossad.” For the briefest of moments, his face looked mildly piqued, as if he wished it had been his people who had done the killing. The look faded.

“We run a shipping company with a freighter we originally leased but later decided to buy, plus a sister model we outright bought, and another eleven we lease. Two of the crews and all of the captains and XOs are our people, but we never move anything for ourselves, or anything under the table, except with a ship fully crewed by our folks. Sometimes we exchange crews completely so we can do that with ships we’re surer nobody’s watching.

“Mostly all I expect out of the freighter business is that it pay for itself, while letting us move people and things around. It does. Barely. Long term, if the economy turns around, we should make a good profit.

“Sometimes, but not often, we use the freighters to run arms. We make a lot more money on those jabs, but they’re tricky.”

Stauer pulled into the parking lot by headquarters, parked, tossed the keys to a waiting Hosein, then led von Ahlenfeld back to his office.

Without missing a beat, he continued there, “Then there’s what we make off of local resources.”

Von Ahlenfeld looked at him from under a furled brow. “Huh?”

Stauer rocked his head back and forth a few times before answering, “We bought this area”—Stauer stood and walked to a map and began to trace with his finger—“bounded by the Mazaruni River, the Kaburi River, and the Issano Road, plus some small outlying parcels. It’s just over four hundred thousand acres’ worth, for …well, for shit, basically. And the Guyanan government was happy to get such a good price. Besides timber, it’s got rubber, gold, bauxite, gems …Trust me, we make a fair profit on the deal and they get fifteen percent of our net. Plus we own a chunk down in Brazil that we don’t use for anything but profit.”

“How big a chunk?” von Ahlenfeld asked.

“Think, Rhode Island. Big chunk. We can’t use it ourselves because the Brazilians are highly suspicious of us, in general. They don’t know what we did, but they know we did something there that they wouldn’t like if they knew about it.”

Stauer looked Heavenward, almost as if he expected the skies to open and lighting to strike him down. “And then …well …we made a lot of money on our first operation, in Africa. A lot more than we were supposed to make, shall we say? That’s been invested and gives a pretty good return.” When no lightning came down he visibly relaxed and turned his eyes back to his guest. “And, since the world’s economy is already about as down as it can be, those investments are pretty safe, too.”

“I’m almost sold,” von Ahlenfeld said. “And the money you’re offering is …enough, if on the low side of what outfits like yours pay. But what I really want to know is, how much independence of command do I get?”

“Oh, c’mon, Lee,” Stauer admonished. “You know me. I don’t care
how
you get the job done so long as you get it done. Christ, I put up with
Reilly
, don’t I?”

Von Ahlenfeld sighed contentedly. “Good point. If you can stand him, you can stand me. Okay, pending any shocking revelations, I’m in.”

“What? You don’t even want to see the house that goes with the job?”

“Is it in ‘Glen Livet’?”

“Ummm …no. The Second Battalion’s housing area’s called ‘Glen Fiddich’. And, yes, it’s sort of an inside joke.”

“What? No Glen Morangie?” von Ahlenfeld asked.

“That’s Reilly’s battalion’s housing area,” Stauer replied, straight-faced.

“And the housing area for Headquarters is?”

“Woodford Reserve,” Stauer answered, then added, “Yeah, I fucked up and let Reilly and the sergeant major lay out the camps and name them. So sue me.”

CHAPTER TWO

No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his

senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his

mind what he intends to achieve by that war and

how he intends to conduct it.

—Karl von Clausewitz,
On War

Joaquin Crespo Room, Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela

The only thing that really bothered the president was that he’d come to the decision so easily. That said, it was an obvious decision. When one has a domestic problem one cannot overcome, very often the best—at least, the quickest—way to solve it was to create a foreign problem to take people’s minds off their petty domestic concerns. Some would have called it cynical; to Chavez, it was simply realistic.

He’d given the military arms thirty days to prepare a plan. Today, their thirty days were up and he would demand some answers.

And the filth better have some
, he thought, as he sat centered among sundry civil, political, and military advisors.

Red shirts interspersed with occasional green, tan, white, or blue uniforms lined one side and both ends of the long conference table. It was a closed meeting, so that behind that seated line there were no other shirts and no other uniforms. Before the president, standing by a map on one wall with his pointer resting on the map, stood a general staff officer in tans. The beribboned general removed the end of his pointer from the map from which he’d been briefing, letting the end fall to rest on the marble-tiled floor.

“And so you see, Mr. President,” said General Quintero, “we need to keep First through Third Infantry Divisions facing Colombia, along with Fourth Armored and the most of the Novena Division.”
Even though, since your friends at Metalurgica Van Dam refitted the French tanks, the turrets won’t even turn and a machine gun can penetrate the sides. At least they
look
threatening.

“Thus, all that is available for the liberation of our Province of Guyana is Fifth Infantry Division, the Parachute Brigade, reinforced by a certain portion of our commando strength—whatever can be spared from the confrontation with Colombia—every helicopter we can muster, and the Marine Corps, and a small portion of Novena. We can probably muster and move two companies of Scorpion 90 light tanks, and another of AMX-13’s. And of the Marines, the most we can expect to be able to lift, given the age and condition of our LST’s, is perhaps one brigade, in three to four lifts. Even for that, we’ll have to find some auxiliary shipping, and get a certain portion of the Navy in proper condition for active service to escort the amphibious ships.”

An admiral of the grandiosely titled “Bolivarian Armada,” seated down one end of the conference table, exhaled loudly. “We’re in no condition now,” he said. “There were
reasons
why Russia was never really a naval power, despite putting on a good show during the Cold War with the gringos.”
So, of course, we
had
to buy Russian ships, didn’t we? Well …to be fair the LSTs, at least, are Korean. No thanks to you, since the slant eyes built them for us back in the 1980s.

The general turned his attention to the admiral, asking, “How long to get the fleet in shape?”
Hopefully never, or this neckless and reckless maniac will have us at war.

Shrugging, the sailor answered, “Three months, bare minimum.
If
the money is made available
now
.”
Which, with luck, it won’t be.

Turning back to the president, the general said, “That’s pretty close to how long we believe it will take to get Fifth Division and the paras ready for combat, too. They’re only at about fifty percent strength. The commandos are, of course, already ready since they’ve had a priority on personnel, training funds and ammunition. But most of them are needed elsewhere.”
And because you’ve been so dead set on aiding those murdering bastards from FARC.

“And about the same for the Marines …for
half
the Marines,” the admiral agreed. “It would take longer if we couldn’t use half of them to get the other half ready.”
Please,
please,
Chavez, you pig of a peasant, come up with some good reason why we can’t use half of them to prepare the other half.

Chavez was no fool. No one who rises to the level he had could be an outright fool.
I know perfectly well what you overbred oppressors of the masses are thinking. And I’m afraid you’re doomed to be disappointed.

He turned his large square head to his left, toward a woman, right on the cusp between mildly attractive and rather un-. “Blanca,” he asked, “how long to whip up some patriotic fervor to reclaim our stolen province?”

“We never really stopped,” the woman answered, nostrils widening in a somewhat piggish nose. “Even under previous regimes. But if you want something more serious?”

“As serious as can be,” Chavez said.

“Well …if I can borrow some of the Army to arrange a couple of border incidents, that would be a help. Do we have any antisocial elements locked up in Yare”—this was a prison southeast of Caracas—“that could be used to provide a few bodies?”

Seeing that the president’s face showed no objection to sacrificing a few enemies of the people on the people’s behalf, she finished, “The ninety days the general and admiral have claimed should be sufficient.”

A man, looking for all the world like a close cousin of the late Saddam Hussein, right down to the mustache and slicked-back hair, harrumphed from Chavez’s right.

“You have an objection, Nicholas?” Chavez asked of his foreign minister.

The minister spoke with calm and reserve, belying his youthful days as a radical. He was one of a very few in a good enough political position, as well as a position of trust, to be able to speak freely to the president. “Not an objection, so much, Hugo,” he said, “as a series of concerns. You do realize that the Colombian army is seven or eight times bigger than ours? That it has thirty combat brigades it manages to keep at full strength? That FARC can’t tie down more than a small portion of it? That our present fifth column in Guyana is only a few hundred, and those committed more to the stipend we pay them than to the revolution? That the English may not take the occupation of their old colony lying down? That the Gringos, despite having a regime at the moment in sympathy with us, tend to support the English? Ask Argentina what that means.”
In short, when’s the last time someone got away with what you’re planning?

The general raised his pointer again, tapping it onto a section of the map in the western portion of Guyana. “There’s another factor, too, Mr. President. There are a number, a fairly large number, of gringo mercenaries with local auxiliaries here. It’s the same group that trounced Suriname. The United States might not take well to their nationals being killed.”

“Fuck the United States!” Chavez shouted, his demeanor changing from calm and serious to frothing and furious in an instant. He slammed a fist to the table, knocking over several cups of coffee with the force of his blow. “Fuck those little boy buggerers! And fuck their mercenaries who are illegally in
our
province.”

Chavez forced himself to a calm he didn’t feel.
God, I fucking
hate
gringos.

“General?” Chavez looked directly at the Army’s senior officer.

The general at the map gulped and went pale. “Yes, Mr. President?” he asked, meekly.

“When we retake our stolen province, I want every gringo in it
dead
, as an object lesson to interlopers.” Chavez gave a little mirthless chuckle. “Think of it,” he added, “as disposing of the garbage.”

The admiral’s face remained blank even as he thought,
Isn’t that a fascinating thought; getting rid of the garbage. I’ll have to think on that one.

Castillo san Filipe, Puerto Cabello, Venezuela

The air was filled with the smell of the sea and the sound of a port. Ship’s engines
thrummed
; horns blared; cranes and gantries squealed and squeaked. Overhead and at the shoreline, white and gray birds’ cries arose as they hovered and hunted for bits of floating and beached garbage.

“What would you say, old man,” asked the white-uniformed admiral. Fernandez, of the bronze, bow-tied bust of Francisco de Miranda,
el Precursor
, “what would you say today if you saw what our country has become? Not that it was your country, of course …merely your dream.”

“His dream,” said the general, Quintero, standing ahead of the admiral on a ramp that led from the courtyard of the fortress up to the crumbling battlements. “His dream,” he repeated, sneering. “Our nightmare.”

“Maybe not,” Fernandez countered, somewhat cryptically. “Or maybe it’s a way to wake up from the nightmare.”

Quintero made a “give forth” gesture.

“Well,” the admiral began, “I was against this whole scheme at first. But the more I think upon it the more I like it. After all, what’s the worst that can happen?”

Quintero guffawed. “We piss off the gringos and they decide to visit us to teach us a sharp lesson.” He turned to walk up the ramp.

“Right,” said the admiral, following behind. “You survive that. I survive that. But who doesn’t survive that?”

“My troops? Your sailors?”

“And so?” Fernandez shrugged.

“Good point,” the general conceded.

“And who else is unlikely to survive the experience?”

That brought a smile to the general’s face. “Better point,” he said. “Much better.”

“And what’s the best thing that can happen?” the admiral asked.

The general considered this while continuing to walk. He reached the crenellations and stood there for a moment, watching a midsized freighter pass into the harbor through its narrow mouth. “If this mad scheme works, we actually take Guyana.”

“Right again,” said Fernandez, also watching the passing ship. “And for that best to happen, what must also happen?”

“Money.”

“Indeed. Money for my ships. Money for your tanks and infantry and artillery. Money to become combat effective again. And why don’t we have and haven’t we had any money?”

“Because the bastard doesn’t trust us.”The general’s head rocked from side to side several times. “As he has good reason not to,” he admitted.

“Exactly. And if we have the money, and you—especially you—become combat effective again?”

“We toss the peasant piece of shit into Yare prison and throw away the key?”

“Better to just shoot him,” said the admiral, with a sneer.

The general considered that. “Firing squad, all formal, or just a bullet the back of the head, do you think?”

“We’ll have to consider that later,” said Fernandez. “There are advantages to both methods. And leaving aside the best and the worst, what’s the middle case?”

The general thought upon that for several moments, quietly. A slight smile creased his face. “We don’t get the money; we fail and …”

“And his attempt to turn the people’s minds away from their own and the nation’s problems backfires. In that case, I think we should go formal, really formal.”

“What? A silk rope?”

“Silk?” The admiral shrugged. “Whatever seems best to you. Personally, I think good old fashioned hemp would do. I’d be glad to provide it from the Navy’s own stores.”

“Something else also seems best to me,” Quintero said.

“What’s that?”

“The Fifth Division is possibly the
least
combat effective formation we have, though at least they’re spared the humiliation of tank turrets that won’t turn. I think it might be a good thing if we ask Chavez to fill it and the paras up with volunteers from his youngest and most fanatical Bolivarian supporters.”

The admiral thought on that for a moment or two, then said, “He’d like that. Then he can claim more of a personal victory.”

“Exactly,” said the general. “And, if we lose, then we’re rid of them. Of course, we’ll have to be truly serious about at least getting them
to
Guyana to have any good effect. To say nothing of not being carted off to Yare ourselves.”

The admiral sighed, then smiled broadly. “Who says soldiers are stupid?”

Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela

Stupid fucking generals and admirals
, Chavez thought, sipping a cool fruit juice at a patio table, in the shade of a palm tree growing from the palace’s central courtyard. Though he indulged in occasional tobacco, always in private, Chavez never drank alcohol, hated the stuff, indeed hated the very fact of the existence of the stuff.

He refused to make money available for the import of whiskey. He taxed the hell out of both alcohol and tobacco. He’d forbidden sales directly from beer trucks in neighborhoods. He’d even forbidden the sale of alcoholic beverages during Holy Week.

Of course, he also nagged the nation to avoid hot sauce, to drive within speed limits, to not buy Barbie dolls for their daughters, to avoid breast augmentation, and to not eat high cholesterol foods.

In a different universe and a different time, and provided they didn’t know of his addiction to women, Cotton Mather and any given surgeon general of the United States would have loved the man. For the matter, the current surgeon general did love him, but on ideological rather than health grounds.

“They’re stupid, you know, Martinez,” Chavez said to an aide, standing by with a pack of cigarettes and lighter to hand. The president’s finger pointed at an open folder on the table in front of him.

“Mr. President?”

“The generals, the admirals, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force. They’re all box of rocks
stupid
. You couldn’t find an appreciation for the defense needs of the nation among them. Or any other needs, for that matter. Their thinking on the subject is so wrongheaded, so completely out of tune with the facts, that even chance wouldn’t, couldn’t produce an intelligent opinion if you queried them all. Under torture.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about the military, Mr. President,” the aide answered. “Or torture.”