The Lotus Eaters (45 page)

The FNLS was short on military formality and didn't feel it was much of a failing. The group leader of the guard simply nodded his head in recognition at the
jefe
and said, "One plane, anyway, landed up at the strip. Its engines have never stopped so we can't tell for sure if more followed."

"The guards?" Victorio asked.

"No answer, but the odds aren't bad they're just doped to the gills . . . or drunk."

The
jefe
sighed.
Yes, those are the odds.

Man the perimeter or grab what leaf and paste we have and run? I think . . . it's early to run, and we'd lose too much if we left the huánuco behind.
To the group leader he said, "Send a patrol, half a dozen men, to the airfield. For the rest, hundred percent alert; man the perimeter."

"You think it's serious?"

Victorio shook his head in negation. "No, I think it's probably someone who landed at the wrong strip by mistake. But it could be the police or it could be something else. Hmmm . . . are the mortars still out?"

"
Si, jefe
."

"Tell them to stand by for my call. We may need their support."

* * *

Technically, the Nabakov gunship was an "ANA-23," rather than an "NA-23." The extra A was for "Attack." It carried, besides one high velocity 40mm automatic cannon, a brace of 23mm Volgan guns and, in its latest configuration, four .50 caliber machine guns in a single quad mount. All fired out the port side. They had a limited traverse controlled from the gunner's station. For greater changes in aiming, the plane had to align itself.

The gunner was actually the crewman with the greatest intelligence collection capability, as he had the main screen to the thermal cameras used in target acquisition and aiming.

As the 15th Company began to move off from the mountain carved airstrip, the gunner called Carrera, now known to be on the ground.

"
Duque
, we've got major activity down below. I see . . . call it seventy, give or take a few, people running all over the target area. Might be more; it's hard to keep track. They're lining up in groups before moving. I think you've been heard, over."

"Roger. Figures. We had some unforeseen problems on the strip. Does it look like they're trying to evacuate?"

"Negative,
Duque
," the aerial gunner said.

"Roger. Stand by." Carrera ran forward to Chapayev, Menshikov following close behind. The 14th
Cazador Tercio
bodyguards kept their position surrounding Carrera.

Through Menshikov, Carrera said to Chapayev, "Tribune, I just heard from the gunship. They know we're here. We knew they might hear us coming in. It's your operation, but my suggestion is to drop the sneaky shit and move like hell onto the objective. I can have the gunship start pounding now."

It took Chapayev perhaps all of five seconds to decide. "
Da
. Thank you,
Duque
. We do that."

Chapayev began to shout to his platoons to move out smartly, while his forward observer notified the mortar section to begin working over the villa. Carrera notified the gunship to engage.

"
Si, Señor
.
Solo un' minuto
." It was seconds rather than minutes before the sky lit up with the muzzle flash and tracer burn of four .50 caliber heavy machine guns, water cooled, pouring down a stream of lead onto the villa compound. The eighteen hundred-plus rounds per minute were so close together that each shot blended into the next to create a sound like a zipper being pulled closed dangerously fast. Carrera's party joined 15th Company in sprinting through the widely spaced trees for the villa, the whole party guiding on the gunship's tracers.

* * *

The FNLS were hardly a professional force. The patrol ordered out by Victorio was just leaving the main gate to the compound as the point of Chapayev's company reached the edge of the forest surrounding the villa and nearest the gate. The Volgans tended to be literal and, often enough, excessively obedient to their orders. Rather than set up a hasty ambush to catch the patrol in the open, the point element of the 15th company opened fire immediately. They were rewarded with a couple of hits, but no more than that, before the rest of the patrol scurried back inside the compound, frantically closing the gate behind them. Inside, the survivors hid in the shadow of the surrounding wall, fearful of entering into the open where a storm of fire from something on high was drenching the place with a leaden sleet.

* * *

From the headquarters window
Comandante
Victorio took one look at the stream of tracers coming down from above, then another at the scared-shitless patrol being driven in through the gate, and said to himself, "We're fucked. Those aren't police, less still some flight that got misoriented and landed at the wrong strip. Those are the goddamned gringos."

But do we run or do we fight it out?
He tried to envision how the gringos had gotten to him.
Jumping? No, the Cienfuegans said you don't parachute onto mountain ranges, generally. They must have landed. Now how many planes could land on that strip at one time? Not that many. I think we're facing equal odds, give or take. Sure, they've got that fucking airplane overhead but that can't stick around forever. It could maybe follow us, though, if we try to get away through the jungle.
That's
an unsavory prospect. I think we fight it out here, maybe try to get away in the day after the gunship goes away. Or even if it stays, it will have a harder time finding us in the jungle heat. At least that's what the Cienfuegans said. Besides, we have some friends not so very far away.

So if we're going to fight it out . . .

A shell impacting near the headquarters reminded Victorio that he wasn't without some support of his own.

But where to use it. There's a good chance we could take out any planes on the airstrip. That, however, won't do a damned thing to help us here, now.

"Get hold of the mortar platoon on the radio," he said. "Tell them I want fire on the woods nearest the main gate."

* * *

As the Volgan point man reached the edge of the forest that marked the cleared area around the villa, he went to one knee and took cover behind a tree. Chapayev took cover a few meters behind him, using his voice to direct his platoons into assault positions to right and left.

As those men were moving, each heard the odd screech of incoming fire. For many, it was a first. Still, enough of the
praporschiki
had served in Pashtia and on the borders during the breakup of the Volgan Empire to know. Chapayev and his men went to ground automatically as the first of several mortar shells exploded in the trees overhead. A Volgan screamed for a medic. As more shells landed the cry for help spread. The Santanderns' mortars were joined by increasing, and increasingly effective, rifle and machine gun fire, as the defenders fought back from their bunkers. Green tracers skipped among the trees.

The paratroopers returned the Santandern fire without noticeable effect. Volgan medics, oblivious to the incoming mortar rounds, ran from position to position, picking up the badly wounded and carrying or dragging them to the rear, where the company's senior medic had set up an ad hoc aid station. Many wounded men refused to be pulled back, shaking off the medics and continuing to return fire.

Chapayev's Forward Observer, or FO, called the 15th Company mortar section to order a cease fire. When, after about two minutes, the incoming rounds failed to stop he knew it wasn't Volgan mortar fire cutting into the company. He ordered a resumption of firing on the compound, then stuck his head around a tree to adjust it. A bullet, flying low, passed through the FO's head, spattering brains over his radio operator, just behind. The RTO pulled the FO's body back to cover, then took his place and continued observing.

Carrera shouted into his radio for the gunship to find and silence the FNLS mortars. Aerial support fire abruptly ceased, even as a more powerful whine from the sky told that the plane was moving off. With the gunship gone, the defender's fire increased.

* * *

Victorio felt his confidence in his chances surge with the first angry, orange-red blossoming of fire in the tree line. That confidence momentarily soared as the fire from overhead cut out.

"Right on," congratulated the guerrilla leader, into the radio. "Keep it up."

Victorio stepped outside, still sheltering as much as possible from the incoming mortar fire, and began pushing his fighters to their positions.

After he had seen the last of his guerillas to the walls and bunkers, Victorio stepped over the inert form of a girl with a rifle. She lay on her back clothed with only a camouflage shirt, and that unbuttoned and in disarray. Her legs were bent at the knees, feet under her, and legs obscenely spread. Victorio closed her legs with a booted foot, but gently. The girl's body was torn by two huge holes from which blood oozed. By the villa's lights, and the moons', he could see she was his partner of the night before.
I will mourn you later, my little dear one.
He ran to the southeastern bunker, to direct the fighting from there.

* * *

As the gunship flew, the crew for the 40mm, swaying on their feet from the maneuvering, frantically changed their ammunition mix to what the gunnery officer had called for, "shake and bake." This was mixed high explosive and white phosphorous, the former to break apart anything flammable and the latter to set it alight. It was exceptionally good for fuel, and not a bad mix for wood-packed ammunition.

"Gun up!" the chief of the forty announced into his microphone.

"Roger," the gunner answered, while peering at his green screen.

"There they are," he announced finally. "I can see the mortar barrels glow in the thermal sight."

Tracking by the glowing barrels became superfluous as the flash from the mortars' rapid fire gave away their position to the thermal imager. The pilot of the ANA-23 answered his gunnery officer with a, "I'm lining up for a sweep. Take them out. We'll fire as she bears."

"Roger."

The gunner had one screen for target identification, linked to his main thermal sight. There was another, a linked computer touch-sensitive screen, for engagement. He tapped the latter screen for the target, then tapped the button to create a firing solution. The gunnery computer then took note of the target, analyzed its location, the aircraft location, the aircraft speed, altitude, and direction, and a mix of meteorological data, and automatically adjusted the 40mm gun's elevation, training it slightly forward at the same time. A caret appeared on the gunner's screen, as well as on the pilot's. In addition, the pilot's screen received instructions on orienting the aircraft. The target spot remained lit after the gunner had removed his finger. That glowing spot moved inexorably closer to the targeting caret.

* * *

KaWhoomfKaWhoomfKaWhoomfKaWhoomf!
Though mounted at the ANA-23's center of gravity, the high velocity forty packed a massive wallop. The entire airframe shook with the recoil. As quickly as one four round magazine was expended, the gun crew slapped in another. In all, sixteen rounds were fired, twelve high explosive and four white phosphorous, before the aircraft had moved beyond the ability of the gun to train.

Fortunately, sometime between rounds nine and eleven, a fuel tank on the ground had been ruptured. Since round twelve was both right on target and white phosphorous . . .

* * *

The pilot looked out his left side window and grinned with satisfaction. "I
love
my job," he said.

The copilot, on the other hand, said nothing. Instead, he whistled as a very large explosion rent the jungle below. This explosion led to several more, even more spectacular than the first as whatever ammunition the mortar men below had unpacked went up with the fuel.

* * *

The series of explosions, so much louder than the distant
crump, crump, crump
of the mortars firing, told Victorio that his mortar support was no more and that his little command would soon again be under intense fire from above. Almost he gave in to despair. Perhaps, even, he would have, had not a radio call come in from an adjacent unit of the movement.

"We've been training in your area and can come to your aid in about half an hour," the woman on the other end of the radio said.

That was tempting but . . .
maybe there's a better way. I thought it best not to use the mortars on the aircraft. But the enemy to my front couldn't have responded to a mortar attack even if he'd wanted to. He can, on the other hand, respond to a ground attack and he just might.

"How far from our airstrip?" Victorio asked.

"Closer," the woman answered. Victorio thought he recognized the voice as coming from Comandante Ingrid, a fiercely dedicated fighter that he knew slightly from meetings at infrequent conferences. "Maybe fifteen minutes . . . no . . . ten. Ten if we accept some risk."

"If you want to help, go for the airfield," Victorio advised. "The gringos have it. But be warned; there is some kind of aerial platform, a gunship, roaming overhead. It just took out my mortars."

"We saw it," Ingrid spat back, her voice full of fury at the imperialists. "We can spread out to reduce its effectiveness. Unfortunately, we can't retake the airfield if we're spread out too much."

"I don't need you to retake it," Victorio said. "It will be enough if you distract the gunship away from my base and cause them to break off the attack here."

"Done."

If I believed in God
, Victorio thought,
I'd thank Him for putting Ingrid's band near enough to help. Since I don't, despite Father Castaño's sermonizing, I'll just be grateful to fate.

* * *

The gunner was just tapping in a new targeting command for the villa when the ANA-23 received a frantic call from the airfield, the call punctuated by single shots and longer bursts coming through clear across the airwaves.

"We've got a group of guerrillas," the platoon commander below said. "Strength unknown; they're hitting us from below. We think they're working their way around our flanks—"