Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (40 page)

From off in the distance came an irregular pop . . . pop . . . pop from the Dragunov range. From a droning plane above the airfield small dots could be seen falling. Parachutes opened up over the dots, slowing their descent. From last night's command and staff meeting, Reilly knew that a couple of the translators were being trained to jump.

"No," Stauer said, shaking his head firmly. "No, you can't be relieved and turn command over to your exec. He's a good guy but he's not you and I need you. And, no, especially are you not relieved after you lobbied so hard for the position. No, I can't get another crewman to replace Mendes since a) I don't have one and b) it's unlikely anyone else will be willing to serve with the two gays. We're just not that enlightened a group; sad but true. And I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I am in you. You, of all people, should have known better than to get romantically involved with a subordinate."

And am I the world's greatest hypocrite or what?

Head hanging, Reilly admitted, "I know. It . . . she was on my not-to-do list until much later but . . . well, things sort of got out of control. And now . . . now I don't know what to do. I can't stand the thought of putting her at risk."

Stauer scowled and growled, "Then I strongly suggest you do everything in your power to minimize that risk, company commander. Because we're still going in. She's still going to be commanding an Eland. And you still have a mission.

"On which subject, are you ready to start burying equipment, striking tents, and moving your people to the Merciful?"

"Yes, sir."

Stauer nodded, then asked, "You want a suggestion?"

Reilly just nodded, guiltily.

"When we pack out of here, move her in with you, all open and above board. There'll be less damage that way than if you keep sneaking it."

"I'll think about it, sir."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve

his ship, he would keep it in port forever.

-St. Thomas Aquinas

D-32, MV
Merciful
, Manaus, Brazil

The ship was anchored at the stern, with the bow, guided by the current, pointing downstream, toward the Atlantic. Behind it, the lights of the city shone, their rays bouncing off of the thick clouds overhead and illuminating river and ship, and the jungle framing both. Coming, as it did, from everywhere, the ambient light fairly obliterated any chance at deep shadows.

Not so much fortunately, as by plan, the Merciful was anchored toward the north bank of the river with no ships or boats between it and the bank. Still, when the landing craft put-putted in, passed the ship, then turned to face upstream, perhaps someone on that bank might have seen it maneuver to a position alongside the merchant vessel. Perhaps that person might have seen the lowered boarding ramp or the long line of men, lugging rucksacks and other impedimenta, depart the craft up the ramp before disappearing through an open hatch in the ship's side.

"But," as Kosciusko observed, "anyone looking at this boat at three-thirty in the fucking morning needs to get a life. Besides, the authorities are a lot more interested in people who come in illegally than in people departing for just about any reason."

"This is so, Captain," Chin agreed.

"By the way, we have a new assignment for you and your men," Kosciusko said.

"The Bastard?" Chin asked, his face carefully blank. Be still, O my heart.

"The Bastard."

D-30, MV
Merciful,
five miles past Santarem, Brazil

The ship didn't rock much, here in the waters of the Amazon, except on a turn, sometimes, or when another ship passed it going in the other direction. Down low in the hold, in Stauer's quarters, a twenty-foot container, lit by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, with a narrow folding cot, a small field desk and a pair of folding metal chairs, even the wake of passing ships was barely to be noticed.

He lay on his cot, staring upward, seething inside.

God, we've gotten away with so much, so far. I can hardly believe our luck will hold. But it has to.

Tomorrow, once we're past Brazil's territorial waters, I have to brief the men . . . oh, and the women, too . . . on the mission. They might balk. Be a laugh, which is to say a crying shame, if after all this they decide they don't want any part of it. Will they? I don't know. I'd have told them more from the beginning, if I could have been sure none of them would go running to the authorities. What if they want to run to the authorities now?

Simple, we lock anyone who balks in the containers they don't know about, the ones Chin set up . . . the ones with the bars. We can hold as many as fifty that way.

And no hard feelings. Anybody who doesn't want to stay in needs the excuse of being held against their will. What's the most they could be charged with then? Illegal possession of personal firearms in Brazil? No one's going to extradite for that. Well, I don't think anyone will.

Least of my problems, anyway. What if the planes break down? What if the helicopters do? We've run the landing craft kind of hard these last couple of months. What if they break down? What if they break down when we've got half the force ashore?

Fuck, fuck, FUCK.

Konstantin and the Russians? How do I know I can trust them? Boxer thinks they're solid, that the old man in the Lubyanka wants that Yemeni punished and no more. Oh . . . I suppose I can trust Boxer's judgment on such things. And we will have Victor Inning, the old man's son in law, as a hostage. That counts for something.

Once ashore? Fuck. There are so many things that can go wrong ashore I don't even want to think about it. Reilly fails? . . . Well . . . no. Reilly won't fail. Neither will Cazz. Unless, of course, the armored force near Rako doesn't fall for the bait. What then? Shit.

Then I tell Reilly "Move to contact and destroy them." He'll get butchered, of course. But I wouldn't bet on his not winning anyway. Though he won't be going after the town with what he'll have left.

Stauer had a sudden image of a headline in the New York Times. "Mercenaries Massacred." And wouldn't the bastards be popping champagne corks over it, too.

And what am I going to say to the men? What if . . .

D-29, MV
Merciful
, 107 miles northeast of Forteleza, Brazil

The open area that was normally used for a mess hall was packed. Only those absolutely essential to running the ship weren't present, and those Kosciusko had briefed separately. The men had listened quietly, as Stauer went through the operations plan. From their faces, he didn't detect any real problem with that side of things. Then he'd turned it over to Bridges for his part of the show.

"And those are the legalities of the thing," Bridges finished, after briefing the company on just that. "Colonel?"

Stauer stood up and walked back to the podium as the lawyer vacated it. "All right," the colonel said, "now you know. And now you've got a decision to make, each of you. It's too late for us to just let you go if you want out. You know too much, as they say.

"So here's the deal. Anyone who wants out, who isn't willing to face the legal consequences or the combat can opt out now. We've got some reinforced containers, with running water and latrines, cots and all that shit. You'll go there and you'll stay there. You'll still be paid the base monthly rate until the operation is over, but you won't get the combat rate.

"Make your decision, now."

"Told you they'd stick, sir," Joshua gloated, as Stauer forked over a hundred dollars. "Gotta know people in our business. At this point, on the one hand, a lot of 'em want their combat pay. On the other, a lot of 'em feel that they were already as guilty as sin and actually going through with the thing won't add six months to anybody's sentence. That's not the big thing, though."

"No?" Stauer asked.

Joshua shook his head. "No, sir. Most of the men didn't really give either a second thought. They'd signed on for action, action was promised, and they, by God, intend to have what they signed on for."

As the sergeant major put the money away, he felt a tap on his shoulder. George was standing there with his hand out. "I believe you owe me fifty bucks, Sergeant Major," he said.

"Why's that, George?" Joshua asked.

"Because she's moved into his quarters," the first sergeant said. "That's a tight fit unless he manages to occupy some of her very personal space, don't you know."

D-28, MV
Merciful,
at sea

The sea lanes were still pretty crowded here, far too much so to break out weapons to test fire, or rehearse the more complex dance of reconfiguring to launch aircraft and land grunts. Indeed, it was extremely important, for the nonce, to look and act as innocent as humanly possible.

This didn't mean there was nothing to do. Below, among the hidden decks and compartments, groups of men clustered around sand tables holding models of men and boats, terrain features, buildings, towns, harbors . . . even a few fake trees made from lichen for those few places that trees were important. Stauer moved from table to table, listening, watching, occasionally offering bits of advice and less frequently giving directives.

Some of the terrain boards and models were incomplete and always would be. Welch's team-himself, Grau and Semmerlin, snipers who would bear large caliber, silenced, subsonic sniper rifles, Graft, a machine gunner, Issaq Abay and Haayo Abdidi, Marehan tribe translators who had made it through jump and weapons training in Brazil, Pigfucker Hammel, Ryan, Little Joe Venegas, Buttle, Dalton, and Mary-Sue Rogers, detached from the SEALs-neither had nor could have had more than the slightest idea of the interior layout of the building that was their objective.

Stauer watched Terry's team take turns moving the toy soldiers representing themselves across the features of a small scale palace built to a large scale model. Abay and Abdidi seemed fully integrated to the thing, even dropping out and taking on others' jobs as the rehearsal went into variables like people being hit.

"You've got a problem," Stauer said, after calling Welch aside.

"What's that, sir?"

"Anyone can take over for anyone else on your team, correct?"

"Yes, sir; everyone knows everyone else's job and weapons."

"No they don't," Stauer corrected. "Your two translators are a potential point failure source. Yes, you have two to allow for a backup. But your plan has them both exposed to full risk, even after one of them gets hit. That, you can't permit."

Terry thought about that for a second, then another fifty-nine or so. "So if I lose one, I've got to immediately wrap the other in thick bulletproof gauze before continuing."

"I think so," Stauer said, "since there isn't and never was a chance of making your entire team conversant in the local language."

"Right. We'll change the plan then."

"Stout lad," Stauer said. "Be proud of you if you had figured it out for yourself."

Across the deck, Konstantin's boys did much the same as Welch's. They had a related problem in that they really hadn't more than the most general written notes on the internal layout of the much larger palace that was their objective. No more than Welch's could Konstantin's team-himself, Baluyev, Litvinov, Galkin, Musin, and Kravchenko-know the rooms, corridors, and entrances of their target, in Yemen. The Russians had one advantage in this; they had a spy who was expected to guide them once they were on target.

Though the Russian team hadn't changed since long before Myanmar, there'd been a number of minor personnel changes over the months, and more in the last couple of months and weeks. Terry had had to detach Buckwheat to accompany Wahab on strategic recon. A three man supplementary team had been built to send to those two. This consisted of Rattus and Fletcher, reinforced by Sergeant Babcock-Moore on the not impossible chance that some demolitions could be required for their mission. Terry, understrength even for Myanmar and freeing Victor Inning, had picked up two translators, plus a number of others to create one full strength team, droppable, depending on the equipment carried, in four to six of the light airplanes.

The five men remaining to Biggus Dickus Thornton's team were two too many to fit in Namu, the Killer Sub. That's how Mary-Sue had ended up with the "Army." Biggus Dickus himself, redundant and not remotely happy about it, filled his time with drilling the shit out of Simmons, who would drive Namu, and, Morales and Eeyore, who were going to get to risk their lives to some Russian rebreathers.

The mechanized and amphibious infantry companies, under Reilly and Cazz, had stayed fairly solid, as had the air and naval components. They were both too big, however, to get everyone around a sand table all at the same time. Thus, they rehearsed only with platoon leaders and sergeant, and section leaders and their assistants. Those people had scheduled time when they'd be able to bring up their subordinates and go through the entire thing, at least on a small scale.

D-18, St. Helena, South Atlantic

With GPS and radio, it was the easiest thing imaginable for two ships to meet in an otherwise unoccupied stretch of ocean. It was not, however, all that easy for two ships to transfer cargo in an open stretch of ocean. This depended on all kinds of powerful and unpredictable factors. Oh, certainly, warships of most of the major naval powers could conduct UNREP, UNderway REPlenishment, in some fairly heavy seas. They were built for it, had crews trained for it, had a lot of experience in it, and were, broadly speaking, equipped for such transfers.

The Merciful was not a naval vessel; it was a merchant ship. Moreover, while some modifications, even some substantial modifications, had been made, they'd not been made with the intent of transferring cargo on the high seas. Neither had there been any substantial changes to the ship Victor used to bring the two MI-28's donated by his father-in-law, nor the flight and ground crews.

In all, then, the operation was pretty damned early nineteenth century. This is to say, the two ships needed a sheltering bay, both to operate the gantry and to run the small boats that would bring over Victor, the flight crews, and the ground crews.